Anglicans United & Latimer Press

And the Rev. Martyn Minns, rector of Truro Church, was elected a bishop yesterday by the Anglican province of Nigeria with the mandate to oversee a cluster of U.S. parishes that minister to expatriate Nigerians.

Mr. Minns was driving north on Interstate 95 from Richmond when he got the news on his cell phone from Anglican Archbishop Peter J. Akinola. The archbishop then put him on a speaker phone to address a gathering of Anglicans in Abuja, the country's capital.

"I said I was honored by their willingness to place their trust in me," said Mr. Minns, 63, who earlier this year had announced plans to retire.

Instead he will oversee the Convocation for Anglicans in North America, which includes more than 20 Anglican churches that cater to Nigerian immigrants in the U.S. but could be enlarged to include Episcopal congregations fleeing the 2.2-million-member denomination.

"We have deliberately held back from this action," Archbishop Akinola said in a statement, in the hope that the Episcopal Church would turn back from its 2003 consecration of Canon V. Gene Robinson as the world's first openly homosexual bishop. But the actions of last week's Episcopal General Convention "make it clear that far from turning back, they are even more committed to pursuing their unbiblical revisionist agenda."

Diocese of Virginia officials were surprised by the news. "The fact of Martyn's election raises a host of issues that will be addressed in due course," spokesman Patrick Getlein said.

Truro and the Falls Church have a combined $27 million in assets. Situated on some of Northern Virginia's most valuable real estate, both churches are having 40-day "discernment" periods of prayer, fasting and debate, starting in September and ending just before Thanksgiving, before announcing a final decision.

Officially, the 40-day period has "no predetermined outcome," said the Rev. John W. Yates, rector of the Falls Church, but it's clear that "the growing crisis and dysfunction in the Episcopal Church" is pushing the orthodox toward the exit doors.

"It's certainly a step no church -- especially one with a history we've had -- takes without the greatest humility," he said in an interview at the parish where George Washington once worshipped. "But so many Episcopalians in the pews are so irate over what's happened, and it's harder and harder to call on people to wait."

The Falls Church and Truro Church presented their plan in Fairfax on Saturday to a meeting of officials representing 20 to 30 Episcopal churches around Virginia. Thirteen to 14 churches already have agreed to have their own 40-day period, he said.

Rectors of two other large Northern Virginia parishes also told The Washington Times yesterday, on condition of anonymity, that they, too, may be leaving.

One is involved in secret negotiations with the diocese over property issues; another says his vestry, or governing board, approved the 40-day idea Tuesday night, but his parish needs to vote on it Sunday.

Before he received the phone call from Nigeria, Mr. Minns met Bishop Lee early yesterday to inform him of the 40-day plan.

"He's still saddened by the whole development," Mr. Minns said. "But he understood what we're doing."

In two previous interviews with The Times, Bishop Lee has said he will sue any church that tries to leave the 90,000-member diocese, the country's largest. However, two mission congregations who left the diocese several months ago have not landed in court.

Episcopal canon law mandates that departing churches turn over all their assets to the diocese, and Mr. Yates is part of a six-person team of negotiators trying to figure out how conservatives can depart without bankrupting themselves or the diocese through lawsuits.

"We've been trying to find a way through this crisis peacefully and keep our property," he said.

Although the negotiators -- who include three conservatives and three church liberals -- have come to trust each other, "it's been acknowledged that just as two churches have left the diocese, others may also leave."

Although the General Convention last week agreed on an indefinite moratorium on homosexual prelates, the Episcopal Diocese of Newark announced yesterday a homosexual man -- Canon Michael Barlowe, the development officer for the Diocese of California -- as being among the four candidates for its Sept. 23 election for a new bishop.

Also yesterday, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh standing committee voted to join the Diocese of Fort Worth in rejecting the leadership of Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori.

They will ask Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to provide them with a more conservative leader to oversee a new province that will be separate from the Episcopal Church.

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20060628-082643-2405r.htm

“That is why the process currently going forward of assessing our situation in the wake of the General Convention is a shared one. But it is nonetheless possible for the Churches of the Communion to decide that this is indeed the identity, the living tradition – and by God’s grace, the gift - we want to share with the rest of the Christian world in the coming generation; more importantly still, that this is a valid and vital way of presenting the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world. My hope is that the period ahead - of detailed response to the work of General Convention, exploration of new structures, and further refinement of the covenant model - will renew our positive appreciation of the possibilities of our heritage so that we can pursue our mission with deeper confidence and harmony.”The Primates of the Anglican Communion will meet early next year to consider the matter. In the meantime, a group appointed by the Joint Standing Committee of the ACC and the Primates will be assisting Dr Williams in considering the resolutions of the 75th General Convention of The Episcopal Church (USA) in response to the questions posed by the Windsor Report.

The remainder of his reflection follows. Cherie Wetzel for Anglicans United 6-30-06

'Challenge and hope' for the Anglican Communion
27th June 2006

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has set out his thinking on the future of the Anglican Communion in the wake of the deliberations in the United States on the Windsor Report and the Anglican Communion at the 75th General Convention of The Episcopal Church (USA). ‘The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today, A Reflection for the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion’, has been sent to Primates with a covering letter, published more widely and made available as audio on the internet. In it, Dr Williams says that the strength of the Anglican tradition has been in maintaining a balance between the absolute priority of the Bible, a catholic loyalty to the sacraments and a habit of cultural sensitivity and intellectual flexibility:“To accept that each of these has a place in the church’s life and that they need each other means that the enthusiasts for each aspect have to be prepared to live with certain tensions or even sacrifices. The only reason for being an Anglican is that this balance seems to you to be healthy for the Church Catholic”
Dr Williams acknowledges that the debate following the consecration of a practising gay bishop has posed challenges for the unity of the church. He stresses that the key issue now for the church is not about the human rights of homosexual people, but about how the church makes decisions in a responsible way.
“It is imperative to give the strongest support to the defence of homosexual people against violence, bigotry and legal disadvantage, to appreciate the role played in the life of the church by people of homosexual orientation…”
The debate in the Anglican Communion had for many, he says, become much harder after the consecration in 2003 which could be seen to have pre-empted the outcome. The structures of the Communion had struggled to cope with the resulting effects: “… whatever the presenting issue, no member Church can make significant decisions unilaterally and still expect this to make no difference to how it is regarded in the fellowship; this would be uncomfortably like saying that every member could redefine the terms of belonging as and when it suited them.
Some actions – and sacramental actions in particular - just do have the effect of putting a Church outside or even across the central stream of the life they have shared with other Churches.”Dr Williams says that the divisions run through as well as between the different Provinces of the Anglican Communion and this would make a solution difficult. He favours the exploration of a formal Covenant agreement between the Provinces of the Anglican Communion as providing a possible way forward. Under such a scheme, member provinces that chose to would make a formal but voluntary commitment to each other. “Those churches that were prepared to take this on as an expression of their responsibility to each other would limit their local freedoms for the sake of a wider witness: some might not be willing to do this. We could arrive at a situation where there were ‘constituent’ Churches in the Anglican Communion and other ‘churches in association’, which were bound by historic and perhaps personal links, fed from many of the same sources but not bound in a single and unrestricted sacramental communion and not sharing the same constitutional structures”.
Different views within a province might mean that local churches had to consider what kind of relationship they wanted with each other. This, though, might lead to a more positive understanding of unity: “It could mean the need for local Churches to work at ordered and mutually respectful separation between constituent and associated elements; but it could also mean a positive challenge for churches to work out what they believed to be involved in belonging in a global sacramental fellowship, a chance to rediscover a positive common obedience to the mystery of God’s gift that was not a matter of coercion from above but that of ‘waiting for each other’ that St Paul commends to the Corinthians.”

Text of reflectionThe Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today: A Reflection for the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion
The Anglican Communion: a Church in Crisis?What is the current tension in the Anglican Communion actually about?
Plenty of people are confident that they know the answer. It’s about gay bishops, or possibly women bishops. The American Church is in favour and others are against – and the Church of England is not sure (as usual).
It’s true that the election of a practising gay person as a bishop in the US in 2003 was the trigger for much of the present conflict. It is doubtless also true that a lot of extra heat is generated in the conflict by ingrained and ignorant prejudice in some quarters; and that for many others, in and out of the Church, the issue seems to be a clear one about human rights and dignity. But the debate in the Anglican Communion is not essentially a debate about the human rights of homosexual people.
It is possible – indeed, it is imperative – to give the strongest support to the defence of homosexual people against violence, bigotry and legal disadvantage, to appreciate the role played in the life of the church by people of homosexual orientation, and still to believe that this doesn’t settle the question of whether the Christian Church has the freedom, on the basis of the Bible, and its historic teachings, to bless homosexual partnerships as a clear expression of God’s will.
That is disputed among Christians, and, as a bare matter of fact, only a small minority would answer yes to the question.
Unless you think that social and legal considerations should be allowed to resolve religious disputes – which is a highly risky assumption if you also believe in real freedom of opinion in a diverse society – there has to be a recognition that religious bodies have to deal with the question in their own terms. Arguments have to be drawn up on the common basis of Bible and historic teaching. And, to make clear something that can get very much obscured in the rhetoric about ‘inclusion’, this is not and should never be a question about the contribution of gay and lesbian people as such to the Church of God and its ministry, about the dignity and value of gay and lesbian people.
Instead it is a question, agonisingly difficult for many, as to what kinds of behaviour a Church that seeks to be loyal to the Bible can bless, and what kinds of behaviour it must warn against – and so it is a question about how we make decisions corporately with other Christians, looking together for the mind of Christ as we share the study of the Scriptures.
Anglican Decision-MakingAnd this is where the real issue for Anglicans arises. How do we as Anglicans deal with this issue ‘in our own terms’?
And what most Anglicans worldwide have said is that it doesn’t help to behave as if the matter had been resolved when in fact it hasn’t. It is true that, in spite of resolutions and declarations of intent, the process of ‘listening to the experience’ of homosexual people hasn’t advanced very far in most of our churches, and that discussion remains at a very basic level for many.
But the decision of the Episcopal Church to elect a practising gay man as a bishop was taken without even the American church itself (which has had quite a bit of discussion of the matter) having formally decided as a local Church what it thinks about blessing same-sex partnerships.There are other fault lines of division, of course, including the legitimacy of ordaining women as priests and bishops.
But (as has often been forgotten) the Lambeth Conference did resolve that for the time being those churches that did ordain women as priests and bishops and those that did not had an equal place within the Anglican spectrum. Women bishops attended the last Lambeth Conference. There is a fairly general (though not universal) recognition that differences about this can still be understood within the spectrum of manageable diversity about what the Bible and the tradition make possible.
On the issue of practising gay bishops, there has been no such agreement, and it is not unreasonable to seek for a very much wider and deeper consensus before any change is in view, let alone foreclosing the debate by ordaining someone, whatever his personal merits, who was in a practising gay partnership. The recent resolutions of the General Convention have not produced a complete response to the challenges of the Windsor Report, but on this specific question there is at the very least an acknowledgement of the gravity of the situation in the extremely hard work that went into shaping the wording of the final formula. Very many in the Anglican Communion would want the debate on the substantive ethical question to go on as part of a general process of theological discernment; but they believe that the pre-emptive action taken in 2003 in the US has made such a debate harder not easier, that it has reinforced the lines of division and led to enormous amounts of energy going into ‘political’ struggle with and between churches in different parts of the world.
However, institutionally speaking, the Communion is an association of local churches, not a single organisation with a controlling bureaucracy and a universal system of law. So everything depends on what have generally been unspoken conventions of mutual respect. Where these are felt to have been ignored, it is not surprising that deep division results, with the politicisation of a theological dispute taking the place of reasoned reflection. Thus if other churches have said, in the wake of the events of 2003 that they cannot remain fully in communion with the American Church, this should not be automatically seen as some kind of blind bigotry against gay people.
Where such bigotry does show itself it needs to be made clear that it is unacceptable; and if this is not clear, it is not at all surprising if the whole question is reduced in the eyes of many to a struggle between justice and violent prejudice. It is saying that, whatever the presenting issue, no member Church can make significant decisions unilaterally and still expect this to make no difference to how it is regarded in the fellowship; this would be uncomfortably like saying that every member could redefine the terms of belonging as and when it suited them.
Some actions – and sacramental actions in particular - just do have the effect of putting a Church outside or even across the central stream of the life they have shared with other Churches. It isn’t a question of throwing people into outer darkness, but of recognising that actions have consequences – and that actions believed in good faith to be ‘prophetic’ in their radicalism are likely to have costly consequences.

Truth and Unity
It is true that witness to what is passionately believed to be the truth sometimes appears a higher value than unity, and there are moving and inspiring examples in the twentieth century. If someone genuinely thinks that a move like the ordination of a practising gay bishop is that sort of thing, it is understandable that they are prepared to risk the breakage of a unity they can only see as false or corrupt. But the risk is a real one; and it is never easy to recognise when the moment of inevitable separation has arrived - to recognise that this is the issue on which you stand or fall and that this is the great issue of faithfulness to the gospel.
The nature of prophetic action is that you do not have a cast-iron guarantee that you’re right.But let’s suppose that there isn’t that level of clarity about the significance of some divisive issue. If we do still believe that unity is generally a way of coming closer to revealed truth (‘only the whole Church knows the whole Truth’ as someone put it), we now face some choices about what kind of Church we as Anglicans are or want to be. Some speak as if it would be perfectly simple – and indeed desirable – to dissolve the international relationships, so that every local Church could do what it thought right.
This may be tempting, but it ignores two things at least.First, it fails to see that the same problems and the same principles apply within local Churches as between Churches. The divisions don’t run just between national bodies at a distance, they are at work in each locality, and pose the same question: are we prepared to work at a common life which doesn’t just reflect the interests and beliefs of one group but tries to find something that could be in everyone’s interest – recognising that this involves different sorts of costs for everyone involved?
It may be tempting to say, ‘let each local church go its own way’; but once you’ve lost the idea that you need to try to remain together in order to find the fullest possible truth, what do you appeal to in the local situation when serious division threatens? Second, it ignores the degree to which we are already bound in with each other’s life through a vast network of informal contacts and exchanges. These are not the same as the formal relations of ecclesiastical communion, but they are real and deep, and they would be a lot weaker and a lot more casual without those more formal structures. They mean that no local Church and no group within a local Church can just settle down complacently with what it or its surrounding society finds comfortable.
The Church worldwide is not simply the sum total of local communities. It has a cross-cultural dimension that is vital to its health and it is naïve to think that this can survive without some structures to make it possible. An isolated local Church is less than a complete Church. Both of these points are really grounded in the belief that our unity is something given to us prior to our choices - let alone our votes. ‘You have not chosen me but I have chosen you’, says Jesus to his disciples; and when we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, we are saying that we are all there as invited guests, not because of what we have done.
The basic challenge that practically all the churches worldwide, of whatever denomination, so often have to struggle with is, ‘Are we joining together in one act of Holy Communion, one Eucharist, throughout the world, or are we just celebrating our local identities and our personal preferences?’The Anglican IdentityThe reason Anglicanism is worth bothering with is because it has tried to find a way of being a Church that is neither tightly centralised nor just a loose federation of essentially independent bodies – a Church that is seeking to be a coherent family of communities meeting to hear the Bible read, to break bread and share wine as guests of Jesus Christ, and to celebrate a unity in worldwide mission and ministry.
That is what the word ‘Communion’ means for Anglicans, and it is a vision that has taken clearer shape in many of our ecumenical dialogues. Of course it is possible to produce a self-deceiving, self-important account of our worldwide identity, to pretend that we were a completely international and universal institution like the Roman Catholic Church. We’re not. But we have tried to be a family of Churches willing to learn from each other across cultural divides, not assuming that European (or American or African) wisdom is what settles everything, opening up the lives of Christians here to the realities of Christian experience elsewhere. And we have seen these links not primarily in a bureaucratic way but in relation to the common patterns of ministry and worship – the community gathered around Scripture and sacraments; a ministry of bishops, priests and deacons, a biblically-centred form of common prayer, a focus on the Holy Communion.
These are the signs that we are not just a human organisation but a community trying to respond to the action and the invitation of God that is made real for us in ministry and Bible and sacraments. We believe we have useful and necessary questions to explore with Roman Catholicism because of its centralised understanding of jurisdiction and some of its historic attitudes to the Bible. We believe we have some equally necessary questions to propose to classical European Protestantism, to fundamentalism, and to liberal Protestant pluralism. There is an identity here, however fragile and however provisional.But what our Communion lacks is a set of adequately developed structures which is able to cope with the diversity of views that will inevitably arise in a world of rapid global communication and huge cultural variety. The tacit conventions between us need spelling out – not for the sake of some central mechanism of control but so that we have ways of being sure we’re still talking the same language, aware of belonging to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ. It is becoming urgent to work at what adequate structures for decision-making might look like.
We need ways of translating this underlying sacramental communion into a more effective institutional reality, so that we don’t compromise or embarrass each other in ways that get in the way of our local and our universal mission, but learn how to share responsibility.

Future Directions
The idea of a ‘covenant’ between local Churches (developing alongside the existing work being done on harmonising the church law of different local Churches) is one method that has been suggested, and it seems to me the best way forward. It is necessarily an ‘opt-in’ matter. Those Churches that were prepared to take this on as an expression of their responsibility to each other would limit their local freedoms for the sake of a wider witness; and some might not be willing to do this. We could arrive at a situation where there were ‘constituent’ Churches in covenant in the Anglican Communion and other ‘churches in association’, which were still bound by historic and perhaps personal links, fed from many of the same sources, but not bound in a single and unrestricted sacramental communion, and not sharing the same constitutional structures. The relation would not be unlike that between the Church of England and the Methodist Church, for example.
The ‘associated’ Churches would have no direct part in the decision making of the ‘constituent’ Churches, though they might well be observers whose views were sought or whose expertise was shared from time to time, and with whom significant areas of co-operation might be possible.This leaves many unanswered questions, I know, given that lines of division run within local Churches as well as between them - and not only on one issue (we might note the continuing debates on the legitimacy of lay presidency at the Eucharist). It could mean the need for local Churches to work at ordered and mutually respectful separation between ‘constituent’ and ‘associated’ elements; but it could also mean a positive challenge for Churches to work out what they believed to be involved in belonging in a global sacramental fellowship, a chance to rediscover a positive common obedience to the mystery of God’s gift that was not a matter of coercion from above but of that ‘waiting for each other’ that St Paul commends to the Corinthians.
There is no way in which the Anglican Communion can remain unchanged by what is happening at the moment. Neither the liberal nor the conservative can simply appeal to a historic identity that doesn’t correspond with where we now are. We do have a distinctive historic tradition – a reformed commitment to the absolute priority of the Bible for deciding doctrine, a catholic loyalty to the sacraments and the threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons, and a habit of cultural sensitivity and intellectual flexibility that does not seek to close down unexpected questions too quickly. But for this to survive with all its aspects intact, we need closer and more visible formal commitments to each other. And it is not going to look exactly like anything we have known so far.
Some may find this unfamiliar future conscientiously unacceptable, and that view deserves respect. But if we are to continue to be any sort of ‘Catholic’ church, if we believe that we are answerable to something more than our immediate environment and its priorities and are held in unity by something more than just the consensus of the moment, we have some very hard work to do to embody this more clearly.
The next Lambeth Conference ought to address this matter directly and fully as part of its agenda. The different components in our heritage can, up to a point, flourish in isolation from each other. But any one of them pursued on its own would lead in a direction ultimately outside historic Anglicanism The reformed concern may lead towards a looser form of ministerial order and a stronger emphasis on the sole, unmediated authority of the Bible. The catholic concern may lead to a high doctrine of visible and structural unification of the ordained ministry around a focal point. The cultural and intellectual concern may lead to a style of Christian life aimed at giving spiritual depth to the general shape of the culture around and de-emphasising revelation and history.
Pursued far enough in isolation, each of these would lead to a different place – to strict evangelical Protestantism, to Roman Catholicism, to religious liberalism. To accept that each of these has a place in the church’s life and that they need each other means that the enthusiasts for each aspect have to be prepared to live with certain tensions or even sacrifices – with a tradition of being positive about a responsible critical approach to Scripture, with the anomalies of a historic ministry not universally recognised in the Catholic world, with limits on the degree of adjustment to the culture and its habits that is thought possible or acceptable.

Conclusion
The only reason for being an Anglican is that this balance seems to you to be healthy for the Church Catholic overall, and that it helps people grow in discernment and holiness. Being an Anglican in the way I have sketched involves certain concessions and unclarities but provides at least for ways of sharing responsibility and making decisions that will hold and that will be mutually intelligible. No-one can impose the canonical and structural changes that will be necessary. All that I have said above should make it clear that the idea of an Archbishop of Canterbury resolving any of this by decree is misplaced, however tempting for many. The Archbishop of Canterbury presides and convenes in the Communion, and may do what this document attempts to do, which is to outline the theological framework in which a problem should be addressed; but he must always act collegially, with the bishops of his own local Church and with the primates and the other instruments of communion. That is why the process currently going forward of assessing our situation in the wake of the General Convention is a shared one. But it is nonetheless possible for the Churches of the Communion to decide that this is indeed the identity, the living tradition – and by God’s grace, the gift - we want to share with the rest of the Christian world in the coming generation; more importantly still, that this is a valid and vital way of presenting the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world. My hope is that the period ahead - of detailed response to the work of General Convention, exploration of new structures, and further refinement of the covenant model - will renew our positive appreciation of the possibilities of our heritage so that we can pursue our mission with deeper confidence and harmony.
© Rowan Williams 2006

We welcome the statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, issued June 27, 2006, in which he concurs with our assessment that the Episcopal Church fell short of the Windsor Report’s requests and suggests the possibility that the Episcopal Church may risk losing its status as a constituent member of the Communion, which is an a priori requirement of the Preamble of the Constitution of the Episcopal Church.

We are deeply saddened at the election of a presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church who consented to the consecration of Gene Robinson in 2003, who supported the blessing of same sex unions in the Diocese of Nevada, and who, in her first sermon following the election, spoke of “Jesus, our mother.” We believe her actions as a diocesan bishop call into question her ability to lead The Episcopal Church in the process of healing and restoration clearly outlined in The Windsor Report.

We renounce the unwillingness of the 75th General Convention fully to embrace the requests made of The Episcopal Church in The Windsor Report, most notably its failure to agree to a moratorium on the blessing of same-sex unions.

We disassociate this diocese from Resolution A-095 which opposes “any state or federal constitutional amendment that prohibits same-sex civil marriage or civil unions.” This resolution gives, in effect, the endorsement of the Church on same-sex civil marriage.

We solemnly remind the clergy of this diocese of our diocesan canons which prohibit the blessing of same-sex relationships and require the clergy of this diocese to model the received teachings of the church with respect to sexuality. We stand ready to enforce them.

The serious consequences of the actions, inactions and errors of the 74th and 75th General Convention have resulted in a constitutional crisis within The Episcopal Church with respect to its stated status as “Constituent Member of the Anglican Communion”. The Episcopal Church has signaled to the faithful within the Episcopal Church a desire to “walk apart” from not only the Anglican Communion but also the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ to which this Diocese has acknowledged its allegiance to be due. We declare that we are a diocese in protest over these errors and the leaders who support them.

It is our firm intent to remain a diocese with constituent member status in the Anglican Communion. Our membership in the Anglican Communion Network has offered us much solace, knowing that we are in communion with the entire Anglican Communion. Now, in the past week, at least four of these dioceses have done what we believe we must also do. We hereby appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the panel of reference, and the Primates of the Anglican Communion for immediate alternative primatial oversight. We understand that none of our actions violate the canons of the Episcopal Church.

The Constitution of our diocese makes it clear that our ultimate loyalty is to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of Christ. In preparation for our Convention on January 27 2007, we will study the constitutional crisis in which we find ourselves and consider the various constitutional, canonical, financial, and spiritual options available.

We realize that this letter will not be met with joy by all of the members of this diocese. To those who dissent, we pledge to you the ongoing faithful and loving ministry of this diocese. Jesus Christ is Lord of His Church. He holds us each in his loving arms. He is the Alpha and the Omega, and therefore knows the end of the story. To Him be the glory.
PASSED UNANIMOUSLY (with one abstention)

"To accept that each of these has a place in the church's life and that they need each other means that
the enthusiasts for each aspect have to be prepared to live with certain tensions or even sacrifices. The
only reason for being an Anglican is that this balance seems to you to be healthy for the Church Catholic"

Dr Williams acknowledges that the debate following the consecration of a practising gay bishop has posed
challenges for the unity of the church. He stresses that the key issue now for the church is not about the
human rights of homosexual people, but about how the church makes decisions in a responsible way.

"It is imperative to give the strongest support to the defence of homosexual people against violence, bigotry
and legal disadvantage, to appreciate the role played in the life of the church by people of homosexual
orientation..."

The debate in the Anglican Communion had for many, he says, become much harder after the consecration in 2003 which could be seen to have pre-empted the outcome. The structures of the Communion had struggled to cope with the resulting effects:

"… whatever the presenting issue, no member Church can make significant decisions unilaterally and still
expect this to make no difference to how it is regarded in the fellowship; this would be uncomfortably like saying that every member could redefine the terms of belonging as and when it suited them. Some actions and sacramental actions in particular - just do have the effect of putting a Church outside or even across the central stream of the life they have shared with other Churches."

Dr. Williams says that the divisions run through as well as between the different Provinces of the
Anglican Communion and this would make a solution difficult. He favours the exploration of a formal
Covenant agreement between the Provinces of the Anglican Communion as providing a possible way
forward. Under such a scheme, member provinces that chose to would make a formal but voluntary commitment to each other.

"Those churches that were prepared to take this on as an expression of their responsibility to each other
would limit their local freedoms for the sake of a wider witness: some might not be willing to do this.
We could arrive at a situation where there were 'constituent' Churches in the Anglican Communion and
other 'churches in association', which were bound by historic and perhaps personal links, fed from many of
the same sources but not bound in a single and unrestricted sacramental communion and not sharing the
same constitutional structures".

Different views within a province might mean that local churches had to consider what kind of
relationship they wanted with each other. This, though, might lead to a more positive understanding of
unity: "It could mean the need for local Churches to work at ordered and mutually respectful separation between constituent and associated elements; but it could also mean a positive challenge for churches to work out what they believed to be involved in belonging in a global sacramental fellowship, a chance to rediscover a positive common obedience to the mystery of God's gift that was not a matter of coercion from above but that of 'waiting for each other' that St Paul commends to the Corinthians."

Dr. Williams stresses that the matter cannot be resolved by his decree:

"...the idea of an Archbishop of Canterbury resolving any of this by decree is misplaced, however tempting
for many. The Archbishop of Canterbury presides and convenes in the Communion, and may … outline the
theological framework in which a problem should be addressed; but he must always act collegially, with
the bishops of his own local Church and with the primates and the other instruments of communion."

"That is why the process currently going forward of assessing our situation in the wake of the General
Convention is a shared one. But it is nonetheless possible for the Churches of the Communion to decide
that this is indeed the identity, the living tradition and by God's grace, the gift - we want to share with
the rest of the Christian world in the coming generation; more importantly still, that this is a valid and vital way of presenting the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world. My hope is that the period ahead - of detailed response to the work of General Convention, exploration of new structures, and further
refinement of the covenant model - will renew our positive appreciation of the possibilities of our
heritage so that we can pursue our mission with deeper confidence and harmony."

The Primates of the Anglican Communion will meet early next year to consider the matter. In the meantime, a group appointed by the Joint Standing Committee of the ACC and the Primates will be assisting Dr Williams in considering the resolutions of the 75th General Convention of The Episcopal Church (USA) in response to the questions posed by the Windsor Report.

The audio version can be found here at:
http://db.astream.com/cofe/060627%20Archbishop's%20reflection%20on%20communion.mp3

- - -

Archbishop's letter to Primates:

"Following last week's General Convention of the Episcopal Church (USA), I have been preparing some
personal reflections on the challenges that lie ahead for us within the Anglican Communion. I have addressed these reflections to a wide readership in the Anglican Communion and they are being made public today on my website. I wanted to bring them to your attention accordingly, for you to draw to the attention of members of your Province in whatever way you see fit.

These reflections are in no way intended to pre-empt the necessary process of careful assessment of the
Episcopal Church's response to the Windsor Report. Rather they are intended to focus the question of what
kind of Anglican Communion we wish to be and to explore how this vision might become more of a
reality.

I am also sending you a copy of the press statement I issued at the close of General Convention, which you
will see mentions the Joint Standing Committee working party that will be assisting in evaluating the outcome of the 75th General Convention.

I shall be writing to you again later this week, to invite your own response to me to various questions as
the Communion's discernment process moves ahead.

Rowan CANTUAR

JOINT SESSION HOB AND HOD 10:45 AM
Frank Griswold took the Chair and read the following resolution to the combined houses. Neither had a copy of the text prior to this moment.

B033:
Resolved: The 75th General Convention receive and embrace the Windsor Report’s invitation to engage in a process of healing and reconciliation; and be it further
Resolved: The this Convention calls upon standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains of communion.

"Joint session has now ended." With that, The bishops left the House of Deputies and went to their own chamber.

It is pouring here. After days of threatened rain, it is pouring. Through the roof of the convention Center, we can hear the rain as a background sound to the proceedings. It’s the Angels. They are weeping over the death of a once great body: The Episcopal Church.

The glacial pace of the HOD returned. Today’s announcements. Essential nominations and elections. Approval of yesterday’s minutes. IT has now been 40 minutes since the bishops left and dispatch hasn’t made it to the dais yet.
--Motion to suspend the rules of the House.
--Not at this time.
--When will B033 come to the floor?
--Dispatch: Let me give the House some sense of what is coming up so we can get through the day’s agenda. There is a list of resolutions: over 40: and if we can deal with these expeditiously, we can get to the next list.
[The young man at the mike who asked when B033 will come up, wanted to ask a follow-up question and those in the House yelled angrily, “sit down.”]

Ah, now they are considering X016: saying that any business the HOD does not get to address, that has already been passed by the HOB, goes to the Secretary for presentation to the Executive Committee. They are responsible for “mopping up” after the Convention and are the legal body representing the General Convention after adjournment. The Exec committee can deal with everything except changes to the Constitution and Canon Law. That has to be voted on during the General Convention. So, all of those resolutions will come first.
It passes with voice vote and one dissent.

Canon IV revision: Did not come out of committee. For those concerned about including laity in discipline, this is an important section and we will continue to work on it. They just voted more money for that committee to continue meeting and “perfect their resolutions.” It feels as if everything here is moving in slow motion.

Julia Duin from the Washington Times came to get me. HOB is working on B033 right now. We ran the block to HOB, found the only empty seats in Press and started taking notes:

--Griswold: “If we do not have something substantial by noon, we might as well forget it. It will be very difficult for the Archbishop of Canterbury to invite us to Lambeth 2008. I know the stress he is under.”
--Two amendments to the resolution came and were voted down.
--PB-Elect Schori rose and said, “We are one church with 2 minds, just as the bishop of Louisiana said yesterday. It is a challenging image. Ethically, one cannot separate two conjoined twins until you are certain that both can live. We are not certain that both of these offspring will live.
“The Original resolution is the best of the day. It has to leave the door open for reconsideration in the very near future. “ And she sat down.
--Griswold called for vote by show of hands on the original resolution. The Bishop of Springfield Peter Beckwith, tried desperately to get the chair’s attention. He was ignored. Vote passed by show of Aye hands. Then the chair recognized Springfield and denied his motion to roll call vote – which would put everyone on record for their vote.
We ran back to the HOD. Just about 35 minutes later, the HOD received the news from the Secretary that the HOB had voted to adopt B033 WITHOUT AMENDMENT and that under Rule 45, they could bring the resolution to the floor for immediate action. They suspended Rule 28, which governs reconsideration of a previously failed resolution. This
was denied by the chair, since the resolution had different wording than the two previous resolutions.

Debate started on B033. Many parliamentary maneuvers were quoted, hoping to get the chair to abandon vote on this motion. Each failed. Many tried to affirm, stating they were tired of being manipulated by the radical ends of the convention. It was time for the center – however mooshy that may be – to arise and claim their right to go home with a Windsor-compliant resolution on gay bishops. Two of the most passionate remarks follow:
--PB coming with the bishops to a joint session means they really feel strongly about this. It would be a slap in the face if we refuse to reconsider.
--you’ve talked about reconciliation for the whole week. I have been manipulated into a corner by parliamentary procedure. Quit messing with the rules to forward your own agendas. Do reconciliation don’t just talk about it.
Bullied by the ends of this church who are not representative of the church we serve. Leave here saying that the church to which I made my ordination vows is willing to do this for a time. Anything less than midwife set before us is a choice of this House to enact Schism. I refute it and ask you to refuse it with me.
--call question. Terminate debate. Ayes unan. Suspend rule 28: aye with some dissent.
--Move special order for debate for B033: 30 minutes of debate. Each speaker 2 min no speaker more than twice; alternating views; approved as stated by voice vote

Bishop Schori has asked to join us. No discussion. Will this House Issue an invitation? Yes. By voice vote.

PB-elect Schori, “Thank you for invitation. Bishop of Louisiana said we are a church with 2 minds. As he said that, an image rose in my mind that is a challenging image. We have read many stories about conjoined twins. Two bodies united in one piece. Parents and medical officials wrestle with the decision about separation. They operate out of an understanding that is wrong to separate the twins unless both can live full lives. Church is much like that. The body of Christ is not wholly one and not wholly two. Resolution that stands before you is far from adequate. I find the language difficult. Exceedingly challenging. By sense it is best we can do today and at this convention. We are fully committed to gay and lesbian Christians in this church and are not slamming the door. If you do pass it, you nave to keep working with all of your might to find a common mind. Not easy to say but the best we are going to manage at this point in our history. Thank you.

Left the dais. No response from crowd.
--clark, Newark. Amend the resolution with the following: until general convention 2009.
Moved and seconded. This is frustrating for the many gay ladies who have given their excellent voices to this church. –Clark, Newark, continued: Can’t imagine what my diocese and parish would look like without those voices. Can’t imagine Lambeth without voice of TEC, the voice of our new PB and the voice of our gay brothers and sisters. Stilling these voices in nominating committees unthinkable.
--3.5 minutes left in debate.
--Chair: Terminate debate. Aye. wins. debate terminated on amend. Amendment say aye. No’s carry.
--Before vote on B033. Chaplain came forward and said some amorphous prayer to all that is good in man and the earth.
--1:30 PM Vote by Orders has just finished. Return at 3:00 from lunch for the rest of the afternoon session. Vote will be announced then.
--Challenge to chair: can’t we wait for 10 more minutes and get the results of the vote and then go to lunch. Motion before house is stay or go. Show of hands: Stay has it.

Secretary: I have electronic results. Official results can be announced after lunch.
VOTE ON B033: LAY ORDER: 104 dioceses. Yes 72 no 21 ; no + divided 32 carried in lay order
CLERGY ORDER: 109 dioceses voted. Yes 75, No 24 divided 10 No+ divided 34 carried in clerical order.
B033 becomes the voice of the General Convention on the election of gay bishops.

So, as you know, the refusal yesterday to comply was reported on evening and morning newscasts, both on local channels and CNN. It was also reported on British TV this morning and at noon. The Brits here say that this won’t hold. It may hold for the next two months, but Newark is scheduled to elect their new bishop in October and their Director of Communications refused to comment on my question about duplicity, as he instructed the deputation from his diocese that they could go ahead and elect a gay. That is their intent. This peace is a fragile one.

Holding a press conference directly after the vote in HOD, Gene Robinson said, “Before the vote, the extremists in our church [he meant the biblically orthodox - and considers himself to be ‘mainstream’.] said they were going to leave. We love this church. We have never threatened to leave if we didn’t get our way. [It is true. Since the fist rejection of the gay agenda in 1988, Integrity has grown stronger with each Convention and elected more of their members to deputations. The Orthodox have retreated. Many have left this church. This leaves the spots they vacated on deputations to gay and lesbian supporters. We have cut our own throats.]Now we have to see if they will work for reconciliation. The standing committees and bishops know that no one can bind them from denying election to gays….”

The Network bishops held a new conference at 3:30, with the Rt. Rev. Bob Duncan saying, “today’s vote in the HOB and HOD suggests a false sense of communion. The Mind of this Convention is known to the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is our job now to guard the unity of the faith and stay within the Windsor Report. The choice of the HOB of the most radical candidate for Presiding Bishop and the HOD rejection yesterday of A161 gives the true picture of The Episcopal Church….”

This afternoon in the HOB, Jon Chane led a group of bishops in a minority report to B033.

So, this story is not over. The convention may be, but the story is not. As developments continue to unfold, we will keep you informed. The next issue of The Anglican Voice will be in your mailbox by the end of June. There will be a final post to the Email group and website tomorrow morning, as the statements issued today come in. Thank you for your kind comments on these efforts. It has been a privilege to work and speak at this General Convention on your behalf. Cherie Wetzel for Anglicans United & Latimer Press

The Rev. Canon George Werner, President of the House of Deputies, proudly pointed to the sixteen flags as representative of the sovereign nations represented in this “august” House. In opening session, someone pointed out that we are no longer to be referred to as The Episcopal Church in the United States of America(ECUSA) rather we are The Episcopal Church (TEC). Get it? We are a Church of sixteen national Episcopal Churches functioning interdependently and “autonomously.” Once a proud member of the Anglican Communion we have now become our own “Communion.” It won’t be long before other “progressive” and enlightened Episcopal churches in Canada, or New Zealand (for example) might join us.

The American Church, once the knee jerk sentiment attached to membership in the Anglican communion wanes a bit more, and weak protests die, will happily own up to the string of decisions which have deliberately defined a progressive and revisionist brand of Christianity which no one, past or present, would define as traditional, Biblical or orthodox.

The Episcopal Church became bifurcated as early as the 1950’s with the weakening of marriage canons. The traditional three-legged stool of Scripture, Tradition and Reason informed by the Holy Spirit as the basis for authority has been gradually replaced by experience and legislation as the new means for defining truth.

This rapidly developing post Enlightenment and post modern church formed energetically and boldly first within and then beside a traditional church caught up in Renewal and preoccupied with the parochial while the emerging church took over diocesan and national church structures. While the older “church” clearly maintained a majority in the pews across the country, the emerging church began winning votes in the legislative conventions of the Church. Along came the Pike affair, a new Book of Common Prayer, women’s ordination, the ordination of practicing homosexuals the blessing of same sex unions.

There developed two separate and distinct churches of very different minds The one viewing Truth as the result of Revelation, the other seeing truth as personal and relational. The one views Truth in Creeds and Catechism, the other finds truths in pictures usually abstract. Neither understands the other. Both cannot be “right.” One must prevail

The emerging Church now decisively exercises control. They have the votes! Those who look to Scripture, Tradition and Reason have acquiesced their place on “the Floor”. There is no room for them. The emerging church is now firmly in charge and conformity to truth as their experience defines it and the political process refines it is required.

Examples of this newly defined Episcopal Communion witnessed at this Convention which advance the distinction from an older more Anglican Communion:

1. Through a string of liturgical (worship service) decisions the Book of
Common Prayer is becoming less a “Book” and more a loose leaf
three ring binder;

2. The Rev. Canon Barry Beisner, twice divorced, now in a third marriage was
approved for consecration to the Episcopate. Many dioceses in the Church would
not approve him for ordination to the priesthood due to his multiple divorces.
But he is a capable, nice and intelligent man and that trumps principle every time
in the emerging church;

3. The Rt. Rev. Katherine Jefferts Schori was elected on the fifth ballot in the House of Bishops and overwhelmingly approved by the House of Deputies. The overwhelming number of churches in the Anglican Communion do not ordain women and are clearly not about to consecrate them to the Episcopacy. Further she clearly supports the ordination of practicing homosexuals, their consecration to episcopacy and the blessing of same sex unions. No clearer signal could be sent the Anglican Communion that the American Church cares little for their Faith let alone their sensibilities. But, she is a very talented, capable and intelligent woman and that trumps concern for overseas partners or long time relationships with “traditionalists in the pews.”

4. This Convention was charged with responding to the Windsor Report, a clear delineation of Anglican beliefs and historic sensibilities written in response to the crisis precipitated by the American church’s approval of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson despite strong advice to the contrary by most of leadership in the Anglican Communion. The American response at best is obfuscating, disingenuous, and ambiguous confessing a love and respect for “our Anglican brothers and sisters,” stating a desire to keep talking but not backing down from any decisions while advancing their agenda. The American church is convinced of its own righteousness and is determined to export it.

The Episcopal Church has left the Anglican Communion de facto if not yet de jure.
A new Communion is in the process of being formed. An emerging church is now fully apparent and it has clearly eclipsed the once proud Episcopal Church in the United States of America a one time constituent member of the Anglican Communion.

The American Church is active and independent. It remains to be seen what the Anglican Communion’s response will be. It remains to be seen whether there is enough energy left in the beleaguered and now eclipsed traditional elements of the Episcopal Church to generate a life giving response and establish a new residence apart from the ecclesial home they once owned but have now lost.
Oh, yes , there is the Joint Meeting this morning of Deputies and Bishops. There will be regrets. There will be other meetings in which regret and remorse are expressed. But the divorce has been effected. And, sadly, my friends. It is over.

The Rev. Todd H. Wetzel, Executive Director
Anglicans United & Latimer Press

I saw a man from convention center and we said a quiet good morning. Then I found a quiet green park in the middle of this city. There was a man standing there, in an orange reflective vest standing by orange cones. I said good morning; he responded in kind. Then there was the bleary-eyed fellow with several bags. Said good morning to him, too but when past him on street, not the sidewalk.
A rabbit was hopping along the sidewalk. It looked at me and we shared a moment of greeting. A woman delivering Sunday papers, getting out of the car and delivering the paper to doorsteps. She didn’t get out of the car until I was well past her.
On the other side of the freeway, I found two guys, just going to work. They, too, looked weary.
There was some degree of weariness in all of them. Trying to greet each other, but the sense of relationship, whether out of fear, or caution, meant that we had a long way to go.
Can we dream of a world where all creatures, human and not, can greet each other without fear?
Christ said his kingdom was “not of this world.” His willingness to go to the cross is so radical that fear has no import. The love that he invites us to imitate has no possibility of reactive or violent response. His followers didn’t fight back.
He calls us friends not agents of fear.
If we are going to grow to full statute of Christ, our growing will need to be rooted in a soil of internal peace, confidant and planted in the overwhelming love of God. Given so abundant, so profligate, that we are caught in similar abandonment. The full measure of God, cast down and overflowing, drives out our , self-interest. That is what fear is. A reaction; an unconscious response. As if we are saying, “that’s mine and I can’t go on living without it.”
Whether its my bank account or my sense of control. Unless we can make sense of the blood of the cross, we will live in fear. That bloody cross brings new life into the world. That sweaty, bloody, tear-stained cross bears life. Our mother Jesus [yes, folks. That is what she said.] gives new birth to a new creation and we are his children.
We have to give up fear. What did the godly messengers say when they turned up to the shepherds: fear not. You are God’s beloved and he is well pleased with you. When we know ourselves beloved of God, we can respond in less fearful ways. When we realize this, we can response to the homeless man; seek and reach beyond the defenses of others.
Our job as we go out from this convention is to go out without fear and lay down our sword and shield; fill the hungry and set the prisoners free. Lay down our self-control and serve God’s image of the beloved in the weakest, poorest and least included. Not to squabble over our heritage.
But to share that name of the beloved with the whole world. AMEN

We are at a constitutional crisis because in the final analysis, no body in the Episcopal Church has the authority to approve a moratorium. No one body, or the General Convention can legally effect a moratorium. In order for this to take effect, it must pass two General Conventions as a Constitutional Amendment and there was no stomach for anything in the constitution that denies the rights of gay and lesbians in this church.

The vote was Lay 109 cast yes 38 no 53 divided 18 total no=+ divided = 61
Clergy : 111 votes cast; 44 yes 67 no + divided
Then the House of Deputies consented to the consecration of Barry Beisner as bishop of N. California. It was argued that he had learned so much from his two divorces and now third marriage that he would be a great counselor; that his marital status did not affect his ability to be a bishop; that the Lambeth Conferences last spoke to the issue of divorce in 1958, saying that it was happening (chiefly in the United States) and each Province had to come up with a way to deal with it. Although it was mentioned that Beisner would not be eligible for ordination in 90% of dioceses, that made no difference. Northern California wanted him and knew of his limitations prior to his election. He has been punished enough by not being approved until today. It is time to get this off the calendar. Let’s vote.

And so, there are more things shattering here today than just glass ceilings, as one deputy stated after the announcement of Katherine Jefferts Schori on Sunday. We will express regret to the Communion for straining the bonds of affection; we will not refuse to consecrate more gays into the episcopate. And, we will not agree to stop the production of national rites or stop the blessing of gay marriages.

And, to add salt to the wound, the House voted no to reconsider A161, using the original language for the resolution printed in the Blue Book prior to Convention. That vote failed soundly. So Resolution 161 on the Election of Bishops – agreeing not to consecrate bishops in same-gender relationships until such a time as a new opinion emerges in the Communion is dead.

In the Hob, the Beisner confirmation came within an hour after it passed the HOD. The bishops engaged in no discussion on the confirmation, and then took a 15-minute break to sign their consents and have them counted. The Talley is: 168 yes. 21 no.
After the announcement of vote, he was brought into the chamber and given a standing ovation. Then seated at his table. And the HOB, either for reasons of cowardice or by intention, did not even discuss the unusual circumstances that Beisner brings with him.
His wife, Ann, is also a priest. At his reception, Beisner said, “I am aware that my confirmation is a matter of controversy and thank you for your gracious reception. I pledge to you as starting point that I will do everything in my power to work for the benefit of the Church that we all love so passionately. I hope to work with you all for God’s good purposes among us. Thank You.”

Now, there is one other option on this topic that is available to this Convention. Resolution A162: Public Rites of Blessing for Same-Sex Unions originates in the HOB. Since it was “blended” into A161 for the HOD, but they did not discharge A162, the HOB now has the ball in its court. I spoke briefly with the Rt. Rev. Ed Little, Bishop of Northern Indiana. He was on the Special Committee and the Legislative Committee. He said that the bishops involved in this process are working together to try and craft some type of response so that the Convention will address all of the parameters of the Windsor Report.

Pray! Pray without ceasing! Time is short and the news of the defeat has already traveled to London and Lagos. I am including in this evening’s post the picture of the Dallas pole, HOD: the only cross in the House of Deputies. Even the dais is a cross-free zone. Pray for this Church. Cherie Wetzel for Anglicans United and Latimer Press.

CURRENT TEXT

Resolution A160
Title: Expression of Regret
Topic: Anglican Communion
Committee: Special Legislative Committee
House of Initial Action: Deputies
Proposer: Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion

Resolved, the House of _____ concurring, That the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church join the House of Bishops’ March 2005 “Covenant Statement” in expressing “our own deep regret for the pain that others have experienced with respect to our actions at the General Convention of 2003 and we offer our sincerest apology and repentance for having breached the bonds of affection in the Anglican Communion by any failure to consult adequately with our Anglican partners before taking these actions.”

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, that the 75th General Convention of The Episcopal Church, mindful of “the repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation enjoined on us by Christ” (Windsor Report, paragraph 134), express its regret for [breaching] STRAINING the proper constraints of the bonds of affection in the events surrounding the General Convention of 2003 and the consequences which followed; offer its sincerest apology to those within our Anglican Communion who are offended by our failure to accord sufficient importance to the impact of our actions on our church and other parts of the Communion; and ask forgiveness as we seek to live into deeper levels of communion one with another.

Although the resolution was modified from its original form by substituting “ strained” for “breached” in reference to the bonds of affection, the resolution did pass.
The majority of discussion focused on two points:
1) We did this; actions have repercussions; we must express regret;
2) we did what any autonomous, sovereign church would do with its own polity and no one has the right to criticize us or object to what we have done

There was a great deal of wrangling with Robert’s Rules of Order. And, the electronic signaling devices at the microphones, showing which deputy arrived at which mike in which order – determining order of speaking, proved to be faulty. The time for discussion was lengthened once and refused a second time. The House voted to say in session until they finished preliminary discussion on A161: an omnibus resolution on election of gays to the episcopate and authorizing same-sex blessings.

Title: Election of Bishops
Topic: Anglican Communion
Committee: Special Legislative Committee
House of Initial Action: Deputies
Proposer: Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, that the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church regrets the extent to which we have, by action and inaction, contributed to strains on communion and caused deep offense to many faithful Anglican Christians as we consented to the consecration of a bishop living openly in a same-gender union. Accordingly, we are obliged to urge nominating committees, electing conventions, Standing Committees, and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise very considerable caution refrain from the nomination, election, consent to, and consecration of bishops whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.; and be it further

Resolved that this General Convention not proceed to develop or authorize Rites for the Blessing of same-sex unions at this time, thereby concurring with the Windsor Report in its exhortation to bishops of the Anglican Communion to honor the Primates’ Pastoral Letter of May 2003; and be it further

Resolved that this General Convention affirm the need to maintain a breadth of responses to situations of pastoral care for gay and lesbian Christians in this Church.

Resolved that this General Convention apologize to those gay and lesbian Episcopalians and their supporters hurt by these decisions.

EXPLANATION
The Windsor Report has invited the Episcopal Church to "effect a moratorium on the election and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same gender union until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges" (Windsor Report 134). Within the parameters set by our Constitution and Canons, this resolution frames a response encouraging caution regarding "nomination, election, consent to, and consecration of bishops whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion." The resolution does not specify what constitutes a "manner of life" that "presents a challenge to the wider church;" we leave this to the prayerful discernment of those involved in nominating, electing, and consecrating bishops. Concerns we discussed were by no means limited to the nature of the family life; for example, the potential of bishops to serve effectively as pastors for all within their diocese, and their level of commitment to respect the dignity of and strive for justice for all people are also relevant. Finally, the Special Commission was not of one mind on the use of the words "exercise very considerable caution in," with some instead recommending the words "refrain from." As a group and in a spirit of cooperation and generosity, however, we decided to offer the resolution as it stands for debate at the 75th General Convention.

So, on Tuesday morning, after being in session until 8:00PM last night, the HOD met again at 10:45 and voted on three significant things: they will only consider resolutions today (no introductions and speeches from special guests and visitors; they will be in session until 9:00 tonight and ; parliamentary rules will be used only when necessary. This is an attempt to now get to the almost 200 pieces of resolutions that the HOB has passed and are now at the HOD for action.
The Special Piece of Legislation scheduled for 11:00 this morning was the consideration of the Canon Barry Beisner, bishop coadjutor elect of Northern California. All of the other bishops-elect were certified last Thursday. Beisner was held over because he has been divorced twice and is in his third marriage. It is clear that he would not be a candidate for ordination in 90% of the dioceses, and the suggestion that he should be made a bishop has made the HOB very nervous and the HOD the scapegoat.
The Chair tried to get the HOD to consider the Beisner election at the top of business. But, it was moved and seconded that this situation presents –in Windsor wording – the election of someone who would be considered unacceptable in other parts of the Communion. So, the HOD will vote on A161 first and then consider his election.
At the very close of business last night, a female lesbian priest[yes, this is how they identify themselves here. Sometimes they say this before they say their name.] from Newark approached a mike and called into question the constitutionality of the General Convention’s ability to express or enact moratoria, as suggested by Windsor. She suggested that this resolution was a violation of the Constitution and requested the Chair talk with Constitution and Canon people over night and make certain that we can vote to effect a moratoria.
The Chair ruled that the vote was in order because the resolution urges all dioceses to enact a moratoria. It is clear that the General Convention cannot force its will/rulings on any diocese. It can only suggest.
A substitute amendment to A161 was introduced at 11:30 AM. It mimics Windsor language and calls on the GC to “effect a moratoria on consents to same-sex persons in the episcopacy; and refuses to authorize rites for same-sex blessings; and asks those bishops and priests still doing same-sex blessings to express regret for “breaching the bonds of affection.”
Shortly before noon, a vote by orders was called. Twice, time to extend debate on either the substitute or the original was voted down.
Stand for Noon Day prayers. Everyone did but it became tense, especially when the chaplain couldn’t find the page to start the responsorial readings.
Everyone just wants to get on with this. The female clergy are becoming more shrill in their objections; one lesbian from Newark said that they gay and lesbian community thought they had a place in this church and now we are voting to limit their job potential and future happiness; this was not fair. Who are these people demanding this apology? Why didn’t they have the courage to come and face us with their accusations? She was near hysteria when she finished.
And then the bombshell: Chancellor from the diocese of Georgia addressed the chair, saying that in his considered opinion, the HOD did not have the authority in canon law or the Constitution to “effect” a moratoria, which is what Windsor requested. He cited chapter and verse, gave his interpretation and called for a meeting of the Constitution and Canons committee over lunch to ascertain if the debate should even proceed.
George Werner, President of the House of Deputies, put the House is recess so this can be resolved. If it is true, then no one in the Episcopal Church has the authority to issue/”effect” a moratoria. The Presiding Bishop declared in Nov, 2004 that he had no authority over any issues such as these. The House of Bishops said in Jan, 2005 that they did not have the authority; the Executive Council said in April, 2005 that they did not have the authority. And now the House of Deputies and, by inference, the whole General Convention is about to find out if THEY should even bother to continue discussion.
I am sending you this post now and I ask that you stop and pray for the future of this church. We already know that nothing is binding and dioceses do not have to obey GC rulings; but to find out that no one can legally “effect” a moratorium means that we have gone way over the edge in our government. We have truly become a body that refuses to be governed by any one for any reason. Please pray that this is not so.
Cherie Wetzel for Anglicans United & Latimer Press

This afternoon, the House of Deputies will take up the Windsor Report Resolutions as a package. I will have a late post on the results tonight. I believe it will be highly contentious. Cherie Wetzel for Anglicans United & Latimer Press

COLUMBUS, OH: Anglican crisis as woman leads US Church

By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent,
The [UK] Daily Telegraph, in Columbus, Ohio
6/19/2006

A woman was last night elected as the first female leader of the American branch of Anglicanism in a historic but divisive development that could hasten the break-up of the worldwide Church.

The Bishop of Nevada, the Rt Rev Katharine Jefferts Schori, who is a leading liberal on homosexuality, is the first women primate in the history of Anglicanism. Her role as Presiding Bishop is the equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Her surprise election was greeted with whoops of joy by pro-women campaigners at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, where she was chosen by her fellow bishops in four hours of voting.

But conservatives predicted that she would lead the Episcopal Church further along its liberal path on issues such as homosexuality, and her election will dismay traditionalists opposed to women priests.

One leading traditionalist, the Bishop of Fort Worth, the Rt Rev Jack Iker, said: "She will be the only woman among 38 primates and the majority of them do not even recognise women bishops. This is going to be very difficult for the Archbishop of Canterbury."

Her election followed a warning by one of the Church of England's senior bishops yesterday that efforts to prevent a schism in worldwide Anglicanism were now futile as it had become "two religions".

In an outspoken interview with The Daily Telegraph, the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, said that divisions between liberals and conservatives were so profound that a compromise was no longer possible.

He increased the pressure on the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to take firm action against the liberal American leadership.

"Anglicans are used to fudging things sometimes, but I think this is a matter of such seriousness that fudge won't do," said Bishop Nazir-Ali.

"Sometimes you have to recognise that there are two irreconcilable positions and you have to choose between them.

"The right choice is in line with the Bible and the Church's teaching down the ages, not some new-fangled religion we have invented to respond to the 21st century.

"My fear is that the Church of England has made a number of moves in the liberal, Protestant direction. That gives me concerns that the Bible will become less important and that the Church is moving away from its traditional Catholic order.

"If you move in that direction you become a kind of options Church, where you live by preferences."

The Pakistan-born evangelical bishop has the ear of powerful conservative leaders in Africa and Asia and his comments at the convention, in Columbus, Ohio, will be a blow to Dr Williams, who has expended much energy holding the warring factions together. But they will be welcomed by those who fear that Dr Williams will do everything he can to avoid expelling the liberal Americans from the worldwide Communion. Bishop Nazir-Ali suggested that the US Church was already beyond the pale, irrespective of how it voted on resolutions designed to test whether it was prepared to dilute its liberal agenda.

He said an unconnected decision by its House of Bishops on Friday to back civil if not religious marriages for gay couples was so significant it made issues such as gay bishops "an interesting footnote".

The Church has been given until the end of the convention on Wednesday to toe the conservative line on homosexuality or face expulsion.

It has been asked to express regret for defying the official policy of the 75-million strong Communion by consecrating Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in 2003. It has also been asked to impose a moratorium on public blessings of same-sex "marriages".

But Bishop Nazir-Ali said that, whatever the outcome, the Americans had already become detached from the roots of Anglicanism.

"Nobody wants a split, but if you think you have virtually two religions in a single Church something has got to give sometime," he said.

He suggested the point of no return had been passed, and effectively challenged Dr Williams to recognise the fact

There was no acknowledgement that more than 2/3 of the bishops and archbishops cannot or will not receive communion from our new PB or allow her to celebrate.
While we assume that women’s ordination is a fete accompli, this is not so. We smugly assume that what happens here, is thereby TRUTH throughout the rest of the world. This is not so.
What so many on the floor of the Convention greet with loud Huzzahs, most in the Anglican Communion will receive with shock and dismay. Once again, we have forced their hand.
The cutting edge of the Episcopal Church just keeps cutting. Deeper and Deeper and Deeper.
The Rev. Todd H. Wetzel June 19-2006

The Presiding Bishop-Elect Addresses the Press:
“Thank you, Dean Werner. It is a great honor and privilege to be with you. I am awed and honored and deeply privileged to be elected. [Then she repeated this phrase in Spanish – very good Spanish.] I give thanks for all of my brother bishops who walked this journey with me. I hope their dioceses have been blessed as they walked this journey with me.
“I have deep and abiding thanks for the wide and prayerful example of Presiding Bishop Griswold and I pray that he stay healthy until November. [Muffled laughter; no applause.]
“I need to publicly express my thanks for the love and support of my husband Dick Schori. He already had to leave his home once to follow into the surprising ministry his wife has been called to and will have to do that again. Daughter Kate and her husband Aaron are here with us. [polite applause]
“And finally I need to thank the people of Nevada, who called a stranger to dream with them in the dessert. We have pushed and prodded and made a good way there even better. The hardest part of the day will be to say adios. God will continue with them but it will not be easy to go.
“May the will of God prevail in building the church of our day. Glory to God for doing more than we can imagine. Glory to God in Christ Jesus, forever and ever. Amen.”

Canon Williams took the lectern and questions began.
-What are the implications of your election on International relationships?
“Face to face. People build relationships face to face. 30 years ago I was chief scientist on oceanographic cruise. Captain wouldn’t talk to me simply because I was a woman. That lasted about 15 minutes and then he got over it. That incident has shaped my thinking about building relationships.”

--Would you talk to us about how you see the “Reign of God?”
“The Reign of God is the grand vision in Isaiah: one in which Jesus reads from the Torah in his first public ministry in Nazareth. In this passage, the poor are fed; have good news preached to them and the blind have their sight restored and the sick are healed. Justice and Peace will reign in this season.”
--What message does your election send to the Anglican Communion?
“God welcomes all to His table. TEC [The new acronym for The Episcopal Church. No, we are not ECUSA any longer.] has always been a strong voice, insisting that all marginalized are especially welcome at the table.”
--The new Secretary General will take his/her seat at UN in January. How will you relate Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) that you have adopted to him?
“I look forward to meeting and working with this person. The MDG’s are about feeding the poor, clothing the naked and feeding the hungry. All great religions have these concepts at their core.”
--Those alienated by the consecration of V. Gene Robinson and your election. What do you say to them?
“Alienation is about not knowing another person. I will bend over backwards to build relationships with those who disagree with my election.”
--Your election looks like just another step in the radical progressivism the Episcopal Church is caught up in. Last week, a resolution passed the House of Deputies stating that the Bible is Anti-Jewish. George Gallup says Episcopalians come to church less than any other denomination. How would you respond?
“The Bible is not an anti-Jewish document; it is founded in the Jewish religion. All need to learn from where we have risen.”
--You served on a Commission on Anglican Communion. How does that inform your ministry?
“Sitting down, face to face with a broad spectrum of people with many ideas and different points of view, gives us the opportunity to build relationships with those who we might not have sought to build relationships with.”
--Your election appears to be one more point in very isolating trend that only further marginalizes the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion. Do you have a comment?
“I have gotten to know some from Anglican Communion. I know David Moxen one of the newly elected Co-Primates of New Zealand. This job will be a grand adventure that I look forward to.”
--Please tell us about your training in science and how you came to be a pilot.
“The first part of my adult life was spent as an Oceanographer, investigating things that live in the mud at the edge of the ocean. My doctoral research area was systematics, describing species and their living in a vertical sense in the mud. I dealt with fisheries problems and squid.
“My training as scientist gives me gift of looking at the world carefully, not knowing how it works but willing to investigate. I found an incredible diversity of creations and marvel at the wonder of the way we are all made.
“In college, my dad said If I passed my written exams, he would pay for flying lessons. Did so in 1972. It is an expensive hobby. I rediscovered those skills in Nevada. Especially the view one has from several thousand feet above the earth. It gives you a whole new perspective on your problems.”
--The average Anglican is black, 42 and has children and may have Aids. What can you say to her?
“The average Anglican deals with hunger, inadequate housing, unclean water and inadequate education for their children. Dealing with one’s sexuality is much higher on the list of needs after those issues are solved.”
--I am in training to be a Deacon. What can deacons do?
“Deacons take the word of God into the world and bring concerns of world into the church. They are great tools for evangelism.”
--Will you support our work on develop a rite for blessing same sex unions?
“Pastorally it is happening in many congregations and I support that but I am not the Presiding Bishop, am not on that committee. It will have to work its way through the General Conventions.”
--You will become the chief Consecrator of all new bishops. There will be those that won’t be consecrated by a woman how will you deal with that?
“The Act is not dependant on the holiness of the consecrator, but on the act of God.” [This is referent to the Thrity-Nine Articles and is an appropriate response to this question.]
--Do you agree with moratoria?
“Haven’t seen it (the resolutions); don’t know what is coming. Can’t comment
--You didn’t grow up in the Episcopal Church and so may be more willing than many to revitalize the church and get it back to evangelism. Are you a late-comer to TEC?
“My parents brought me to the Episcopal Church when I was 9. Prior to that I attended a convent school in Seattle. The nuns taught me to rejoice in God’s creation and value the life of the mind. Coming to TEC at 9 gave me a sense of community. I am a Deeply rooted Episcopalian. Second question is about structure and evangelism. Ch always needs to be nimble and agile. Executive Committee needs to ask those hard questions: What functions well and what doesn’t and then act on those things that do no work.”
--Do you support repentance for consecration of V. Gene Robinson?
“I do not sense any willingness to repent of that action. We are willing to repent for hurt and lack of consultation. Don’t know what that committee will bring to us and can not comment.”
--As a new person in leading Spanish ministry what is your thought? Would you consider moving the Church Center out of New York City?
“I want to include all language groups and all tribes, all nations, all kinds of people. We are all immigrants. None would be here without the human urge to move. I was in Mexico during the big demonstrations last month and it was import to hear from the people in Mexico why people have to come to the United States to earn a decent living.
--Would you comment on the peace process in Israel and Palestine.
“No one would deny that there needs to be reconciliation. They come from the same tribes and same people-group roots, if you go back far enough. This church may still have an opportunity to be a vehicle for reconciliation there. And I hope so. “
--Will the Executive Council divest from Israel?
“Don’t know. Ask me in November.”

AT this time, her family joined her on the dais and the press was invited to take pictures. Someone joked with Dick Schori, ”Hey are you used to this yet?” His reply, “I don’t think I will ever get used to this.”

They have just left the room. And taken the envelope with them.
And now the House is debating A040, a resolution that allows 18 year olds to be on Vestries. This house has amended it such that 16 year olds can be on Vestries on states that have corporate law structures that allow this. The resolution passes and will go back to the HOB, as they approved this status for 18 year olds. Most of the amendment was carried by youth delegates. Two youth were selected from each Province and they are sitting immediately to my right on the floor. 8 boys and 10 girls.
Behind me, the crowds are gathering. Many photographers with huge cameras and videographers are in place for the announcement. The entire area behind the Visitor section is filled with people standing against the walls.
Bob Williams, Head of Episcopal News Service, has come to the Press to say that the nominating committee has gone with the deputation from the House of Bishops and is in executive session. No one here knows who has been elected, or why the committee is in executive session. Eventually, they will come back to this House and make the announcement.
The committee is back. They are filing into the front of the floor now and going back to their deputations.
Bob Williams has come to the press section again to say that he was to receive a phone call at the election. And has not.
The Chair is addressing the gallery: we do not do business as the world does. There will be no applause and no public demonstrations. The Chaplain will come forward, pray and then we will hear the results. Then the matter will be before this House.
Dena Harrison is the Chaplain today. She is newly elected bishop Suffragan of Texas and used a prayer from the Prayer Book for election of a bishop.
Chair steps to the mike: Special report: election of 26th presiding bishop: committee certifies election by a vote of 16 for and one against. The Rt. Rev. Katherine Jefferts-Schori was elected Presiding Bishop on the 5th ballot today.
Ballot one: #1 #2 #3 #4 #5
Alexander 26 22 22 12 2
Duque 18 10 4 2 6
Gulick 6 3 1 0 0
Jefferts schori 44 66 72 88 95
Jenkins 29 28 24 5 3
Parsley 36 45 63 79 82
Sauls 20 17 6 2 0

Needed to elect 95

Several women priests have gone to microphones to praise the nominee and urge concurrence with the House of Bishops. A black male priest from Maryland has just spoken against concurrence, reminding this house that only two other provinces even ordain women: Canada and Great Britain. Neither of those countries has any women bishops. And, one diocese in New Zealand ordains women, and is the only other country to have a woman bishop I only see 3 other men at the microphones. Many of the women priests are weeping openly.
I must say to you that this is a total surprise.
The diocese of Central Florida has requested a vote by orders under a special Rule 98 that does not require 4 dioceses to agree to request a vote by orders.
I don’t know what this will mean to the Dioceses of Quincy, Fort Worth, and San Joachim, who do not ordain women.
I don’t know what this will do with all the faithful who disagree with women’s ordination. This seems to be just another good reason to leave the Episcopal Church. The Rt. Rev. Henry Parsley was gaining on Jefferts-Schori, but the liberals got there first and elected their candidate.

-Comment: “You have just heard another glass ceiling shatter.”
-Comment: “Men who love women have given us this gift; you ordained women before it was legal and fought to have it sanctified. At the General Convention in 1976, exactly 30 years ago, women were given the right to be ordained. And now look at where we are!”
-Comment: “Please consider the concurrence with this election. I am the priest (male) that followed her at her parish in Oregon when she was elected to Utah. She is still loved and missed there. An extraordinary woman.”
-Comment: “Obviously, the Holy Spirit has a long range plan for this church.”
-Comment: from Venezuela :Please concur with this election. The Spirit has spoken.”
-Comment: “our efforts to entice young people into our church will be enhanced by having a PB that is a scientist.”
Chair: may I remind the members of this house that our brother and sister bishops are sequestered at Trinity church until you confirm or deny this election.”
-Comment: “Katherine knows the Latin American countries and the agenda of this church. I am the wife of Duque-Gomez and want to encourage the house to confirm Katherine.”

Motion before the house is to end debate. Seconded. Moved and seconded. 2/3 required. Ayes have it.
Motion before the house is to confirm Katherine Jefferts-Schori as the next Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church.
E017: Confirmation of the election of Katharine Jefferts=Schori as the next Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church.
The paper ballots are being signed at each deputation. That paper is then handed to the head of the deputation for the electronic vote.

Many people are walking around somewhat in shock. Women, especially women priests have huge smiles on their faces. Few others do. The initial shouts of exhultation from the women in the gallery.
Electronic results:
Now this is the official result:
lay order: 109 dioceses voted clerical 111 dioceses
Yes: 94 yes 98
No: 8 no: 9
Divided: 7 divided: 4
No + divided: 15 No + divided: 13
Motion Passes Motion passes

Chair announced a 20-minute break, while the committee goes to get Mrs. Jefferts-Schori and bring here back to the House of Deputies to sign proclamation and declaration of election.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a new presiding bishop.
I’ve just gone to the ladies’ room and found it to be like the locker room after the Rose Bowl. Women jumping up and down and screaming and hugging everyone. Floods of tears, as they declare that they have lived in fear that women’s ordination would be reversed and now it never will be. A sense of a major victory for women in America and all over the planet.
The gay members of the press were also very excited by this election. She is completely in agreement with full inclusion of gays and lesbians and has worked diligently for this on committees and within the House of Bishops the past 5 years.
Pockets of women screaming and shouts of exhultation abound as the crowd files back into the room, awaiting her arrival. The youth are high-five-ing each other, thinking that they have just participated in history. They are clearly in favor of full inclusion of gays and see this issue as a boomer problem; not their problem.
Chair: calls the House to order.
She hasn’t arrived yet so they are trying to tie up Resolution A134: HIV/AIDS Training.
Someone is standing the door yelling: “Get rid of homosexuals.” And a second time. He was grabbed by security and is probably out of the building by now.
A134 passes without amendment. The National Church will develop materials for Sunday School teachers on AIDS/HIV.
Katharine Schori and her husband have entered the House, along with Frank Griswold. People are screaming and shouting like they do for rock stars. Especially the women. The applause is thunderous.

The Presiding Bishop Elect Addresses the House:
“Thank you, Dean Werner. It is a great honor and privilege to be with you. I am awed and honored and deeply privileged to be elected. Then she repeated this phrase Spanish – very good Spanish. I give thanks for all of my brother bishops who walked this journey with me. I hope their dioceses have been blessed as they walked this journey with me. I would ask you to give thanks for their ministry. Standing applause.
“I have deep and abiding thanks for the wide and prayerful example of Presiding Bishop Griswold and I pray that he stay healthy until November. He has very much to give us all and I pray we will find other ways to use his gifts.
"I need to publicly express my thanks for the love and support of my husband Dick Schori. He had already has to leave his home once to follow into the surprising ministry his wife has been called to and will have to do that again. Daughter Kate and her husband Aaron are here with us.
“And finally I need to thank the people of Nevada, who called a stranger to dream with them in the dessert. We have pushed and prodded and made a good way there even better. The hardest part of the day will be to say adios. God will continue with them but it will not be easy to go.
“May the will of God prevail in building the church of our day. Glory to God for doing more than we can imagine. Glory to God in Christ Jesus, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Followed by a thunderous AMEN.
Then more applause and they tried to snake their way out of the room. Finally The Red Aprons that I have mentioned before came and surrounded the party and walked them out of the room and over to the Hyatt to meet with the press. That story will be posted tomorrow. Happy Fathers Day to All. Cherie Wetzel for Anglicans United & Latimer Press

The Rt. Rev. Peter Lee submitted a new resolution on the election of bishops that actually included the words/phrases: within the bounds of heterosexual marriage, mutual submission and moratorium. This was well received and the original resolution was discarded. Then work began on this resolution, “fine tuning” it for release to Dispatch of Business. At the end of their 2 hour time frame, the resolution was not perfected and had not been modified beyond recognition; but it was taken from very specific and strong for orthodox/traditional standards for sexual morality to much more ambiguous, less specific standards. And, added for the benefit of those on the committee who represent the gay and lesbian rights – yes, every second of every day there is SOMEONE advocating for gay and lesbian rights – the obligatory resolution was added that apologizes to gay and lesbian persons who will not be considered for any Episcopal offi