Anglicans United & Latimer Press

1. I am not visiting a church in the Diocese of Georgia. I am visiting a congregation that is part of the Church of Uganda. Were I to visit a congregation within TEC, I would certainly observe the courtesy of contacting the local bishop. Since, however, I am visiting a congregation that is part of the Church of Uganda, I feel very free to visit them and encourage them through the Word of God.

2. The reason this congregation separated from TEC and is now part of the Church of Uganda is that the actions of TEC's General Convention and statements of duly elected TEC leaders and representatives indicate that TEC has abandoned the historic Christian faith. Furthermore, as predicted by the Primates of the Anglican Communion in October 2003, TEC's actions have, in fact, torn the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level.

3. May I remind you that the initial reason the Lambeth Commission on Communion was appointed was because of unbiblical decisions taken by TEC in defiance of repeated warnings by all of the Anglican Instruments of Communion. The Windsor Report was produced and accepted in amended form by the Primates at our meeting in Dromantine, Northern Ireland, in February 2005. It is, therefore, quite ironic for you to be quoting the Windsor Report to me. Nowhere in the Windsor Report or in subsequent statements of the Instruments of Communion is there a moral equivalence between the unbiblical actions and decisions of TEC that have torn the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level and the pastoral response on our part to provide ecclesiastical oversight to American congregations who wish to continue to uphold the faith once delivered to the saints and remain a part of the Anglican Communion. Your selective quoting of the Windsor Report is stunning in its arrogance and condescension.

4. You and your House of Bishops rejected outright the Pastoral Scheme painstakingly devised in Dar es Salaam, and to which you agreed. You have, therefore, left us no choice but to continue to respond to the cries of God's faithful people in America for episcopal oversight that upholds and promotes historic, biblical Anglicanism.

5. An important element of the Dar es Salaam agreement was the plea by the Primates that "the representatives of The Episcopal Church and of those congregations in property disputes with it to suspend all actions in law arising in this situation." This was something to which you gave verbal assent and yet you have initiated more legal actions against congregations and clergy in your short tenure as Presiding Bishop than all of your predecessors combined. I urge you to rethink, suspend litigation and follow a more Christ-like approach to settling your differences.

Finally, I appeal to you to heed the advice of Gamaliel in Acts 5.38ff, "Leave these [churches] alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop [them]; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."

Yours, in Christ,

The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi
ARCHBISHOP OF CHURCH OF UGANDA.

“We need to declare the importance of marriage in our culture and take action to protect that providential institution from judges who would unilaterally impose a radical redefinition.

“Such a radical redefinition of marriage ignores the teachings of all major religions. While they all have somewhat differing understandings of marriage, they all recognize that marriage involves the union of the two complementary sexes in a relationship that ordinarily serves as the locus for childbearing and childrearing.

“Dangerously, this ruling places mainstream followers of all those religions in the legal position of being regarded as bigots who are in opposition to state policy on a matter of fundamental human rights.

“While a small minority is exalted as a specially protected class, the majority of religious people are marginalized from public life. We have already seen this process in places like Massachusetts and Great Britain, where churches have been driven out of adoption and traditional believers have been punished for supposed hate speech because they affirm the traditional definition of marriage.

“Church leaders should condemn this decision and work to overturn it, consistent with their own churches’ understandings of marriage. United Methodists, particularly, have spoken firmly about this on the national level just two weeks ago and their denominational leaders should reflect that church teaching.

“It seems likely that, sooner or later, the same forces that are celebrating this California decision will find similar courts elsewhere that will compel the other states to recognize those marriages.”

www.TheIRD.org

Recently, California voters delivered over 1.1 million signatures to protect marriage with a constitutional amendment. The signatures are being verified by county election officials for the constitutional amendment to be approved for the November 2008 ballot.

“The future of marriage in California should be determined among the 36 million residents of the State of California -- not by the personal, closed-door deliberation of seven judges,” said Rev. Sam Rodriguez, Jr., an Advisory Board Member of the Alliance for Marriage Foundation. “For several decades, America has been wandering in a wilderness of social problems caused by family disintegration. Tragically, as bad as our current situation may be, today’s decision by the Court can only make the situation dramatically worse.”

"Given the continuous attacks upon marriage in courts across the country, AFM's Marriage Protection Amendment is clearly the only hope for the American people to determine the future of marriage under our laws," Daniels added.

"Americans want our laws to send a positive message to children about marriage, family and their future," said Daniels.

The Alliance for Marriage is a non-partisan, multicultural coalition whose Board of Advisors includes Rev. Walter Fauntroy -- the former DC Delegate who organized the March on Washington for Martin Luther King Jr. -- as well as other civil rights and religious leaders, and national legal experts.

www.afmusa.org

The amendment was the idea of 20-year-old Kristi Burton, who says she's had a passion for the pro-life movement since age 13. Roughly 18 months ago she said she felt a burden to start a movement, and upon consultation with an attorney, her family and friends, decided to launch the amendment campaign.

"In a way it's a new approach in the pro-life movement," she said during a teleconference the day the signatures were submitted. "We're saying, before we can have other effective pro-life laws, we need to lay the foundation and first of all answer the question, 'What is the unborn child?' Of course, medically speaking and scientifically speaking, [it is] a person. We just need to put that into our laws.... It's not just what the legislature and the courts say, it's what the people say."

The core of the proposed amendment is only 15 words and states, "The term 'person' or 'persons' shall include any human being from the moment of conception."

The personhood debate is significant: In the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, writing for the majority, stated that if personhood for the unborn is established, then the case for abortion "collapses" because "the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth] Amendment."

Although the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, seven years earlier, in 1967, Colorado decriminalized abortion in cases of rape, incest, the health of the mother or in cases when the unborn baby was disabled.

"It started here. It has to end here," said 27-year-old Keith Mason, the campaign director for Colorado for Equal Rights.

The signature drive had more than 1,100 volunteers and the support of approximately 500 churches, Burton said. It also has the support of Gerald Wilberforce, the great-great grandson of 19th-century British abolitionist William Wilberforce, the subject of the 2007 movie "Amazing Grace." Gerald Wilberforce e-mailed Mason after the signatures were submitted, congratulating him. Pro-lifers in Montana also are trying to get a personhood amendment on the ballot (information is available at www.life2008.org).

Most observers believe that no more than four justices oppose Roe and that the court isn't ready to overturn the infamous ruling. It would take five votes to strike it down. Of course, by the time any case challenging Roe makes it to the court, its composition could have changed.

The amendment, Mason said, has "massive implications" for the pro-life movement nationwide.

"Going after personhood changes the abortion debate in America.... It changes the dynamics," he said. "We are now fighting on ground that we can win."

Burton said the amendment is "laying a foundation" for the pro-life movement and taking a stand on the belief that "every child is precious."

"We're ... trying to bring our country back to where we should be," she said. "We should be a country that sets the example for the world and that realizes every live is precious, every life counts."

The proposed amendment specifically states that the definition of person applies to three sections in the Colorado constitution -- the section declaring that citizens have certain "inalienable rights," the section guaranteeing equality of justice and the section guaranteeing due process of law. If the amendment is adopted, then every unborn person from conception would be guaranteed, among other things, the "right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties."

The proposed amendment will draw organizations nationwide from both sides of the debate and likely will cost millions of dollars. One opposition group, known as "Protect Families, Protect Choice," is asserting that the amendment not only will ban abortion but also fertility treatments and certain types of birth control. Many pro-choice advocates consider the so-called morning-after pill, which can cause chemical abortions, to be a type of "birth control."

But supporters are undeterred. Mason said the proposed amendment will force pro-choicers to answer a fundamental question, "What is the unborn?" -- which, he said, pro-choice groups have not answered sufficiently.

"[I]f it's a blob of tissue, if it's a blob of cells, and it's nothing -- abortion shouldn't be a big deal," he said. "But if it's a unique individual, a unique human being, then it deserves our protection and love."

The fact that the two faces of the campaign are both under 30 bodes well for the pro-live movement, said Mason, who calls the successful signature effort a movement of God.

"No matter if we see victory here or not [in November], we're going to keep going and keep marching forward until we win," he said. "That mindset and that attitude -- it's like a shot of adrenaline in the arm for pro-lifers who've been so faithful and going out and praying and trying to do what they can for life."

The Roman Catholic Church would “work and pray” for clarity from the Anglican Communion on the divisive issues of doctrine and discipline that were dividing the church, he said. He urged this summer’s Lambeth Conference, where he will address the gathered bishops, to settle its disputes over homosexuality as it was “not sustainable to keep pushing decision-making back because it only extends the crisis.”

Cardinal Kasper said the divisions within Anglicanism were theological and structural. “It is a question of the identity of the Anglican Church. Where does it belong?”

“Does it belong more to the churches of the first millennium—Catholic and Orthodox—or does it belong more to the Protestant churches of the 16th century? At the moment it is somewhere in between, but it must clarify its identity now and that will not be possible without certain difficult decisions,” he said.

The Deputy Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council, Canon Gregory Cameron commented that “most Anglicans have come to believe that it is part of the spirit of Anglicanism to be faithful both to the ancient tradition of the undivided Church and to the insights of the Reformation.”

“In every age, there have been those who have challenged us to come down on one side or the other. We need to take those challenges seriously because they point to real tensions arising from the quest for such a balance,” Canon Cameron told The Church of England Newspaper.

Cardinal Kasper’s comments follow up on a speech given on Jan 13, 2006, at Ushaw College in Durham. While the traditional doctrinal divisions between the Christian Churches were rapidly being resolved, Cardinal Kasper said that new approaches to ethical questions were pushing the churches ever farther apart such that “we are not able to speak with one voice on these issues to a world that needs to hear.”

“The dividing lines which have unfortunately become evident on ethical issues since the latter half of the last century are therefore not secondary or irrelevant for an understanding of the nature of the church,” he said, as in “touching on holiness, they touch on the essential nature of the church itself.”

The decision by some Anglican Churches to ordain gay clergy and bless same-sex unions in the belief that they are prophetic actions that demonstrate God’s love and acceptance to all people, was not in conformity with the faith of the Gospel and the early church, he said. “We should not imagine that we possess more of the Holy Spirit today than the church of the early church fathers and the great theologians of the Middle Ages,” he said.

By posing the question of what constitutes Anglicanism’s core, Cardinal Kasper asked the

Communion whether it can be an ecumenical partner with the Roman Catholic Church. The goal of ecumenism, Cardinal Kasper told the Durham Conference was “a spiritually renewed church, in which the church in its concrete form becomes to the fullest degree that which in its undeveloped nature it always has been and always remains: the one, holy church we profess together in the Apostles’ Creed.”

If Anglicanism cannot add to the Catholic Church’s fullness by speaking with a common voice on hitherto universally agreed ethical standards, its value as an ecumenical partner was questionable, he said.

However, Canon Cameron told CEN the quest for balance within Anglicanism was not an impossible one, “since it is about taking both the history of the Church and the primary authority of scripture seriously,” and Anglicans do not wish to relinquish their “faithfulness to either of them.”

Whether or not that conversation would include discussion of the Anglican Church’s upcoming Lambeth Conference, in which there is a possibility the English church could cut its ties with the American branch, remains unknown.

“I wouldn’t assume anything,” Rowe said.

Robinson was ordained bishop of New Hampshire in 2004 setting a precedent for the Episcopal Church — the American branch of the Anglican Church. His consecration caused several conservative churches to break off in protest, including a dozen in New England and seven in Virginia. In a recent twist, 42 parishes in Fresno County, Calif., are now involved in a legal battle with the national church over church property. The national church contends the property belongs to it while the parishes believe otherwise.

The Fresno parishes have aligned with the conservative Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of America, based in Argentina.

The Lambeth Conference is an Anglican Communion of Bishops that gathers every 10 years and is scheduled to do so in August. Robinson was not invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who is the leader of the Church of England. A compromise by three American bishops to allow Robinson to participate in a diminished capacity failed. Robinson said in a March letter printed in the church publication, The Lead, he would not attend but has since changed his position.

He said in recent interviews he would spend the conference at the adjoining Marketplace to explain how gay relationships are compatible with Christianity. In an interview promoting his new book, Robinson said he and his partner of 20 years are planning a June civil union in his home church.

The Delaware Diocese includes 39 Episcopal churches and Rowe said next year’s general convention would be the time they would address any policy issues regarding the ordination of homosexuals if they intend to do so.

I thought I might invest in one of these T-shirts, as a tribute to the idea. He disclosed that he has been holding private meetings with bishops from both sides on how to be 'part of a shared vision.' In a letter to all the Church's 800-plus bishops, of which about a quarter will be boycotting Lambeth and attending instead the 'alternative' Global Anglican Future Conference in the Middle East next month, he made it clear that he did not want the focus at Lambeth to be on the divisive issue of sexuality when there is so much in the areas of poverty, violence and injustice to be addressed in the wider world. Read the full text below. I believe this must at last be the letter that the Bishop of Durham Dr Tom Wright referred to a short while ago. Graham Kings has also been speculating recently on Gafcon, as Pluralist reported the other day.

Archbishop's letter in full:

The Feast of Pentecost is a time when we give thanks that God, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, makes us able to speak to each other and to the whole world of the wonderful things done in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a good moment to look forward prayerfully to the Lambeth Conference, asking God to pour out the Spirit on all of us as we make ready for this time together, so that we shall indeed be given grace to speak boldly in his Name.

I indicated in earlier letters that the shape of the Conference will be different from what many have been used to. We have listened carefully to those who have expressed their difficulties with Western and parliamentary styles of meeting, and the Design Group has tried to find a new style – a style more reflective of that Pentecost moment when all received the gift of speaking freely about Christ.

At the heart of this will be the indaba groups. Indaba is a Zulu word describing a meeting for purposeful discussion among equals. Its aim is not to negotiate a formula that will keep everyone happy but to go to the heart of an issue and find what the true challenges are before seeking God’s way forward. It is a method with parallels in many cultures, and it is close to what Benedictine monks and Quaker Meetings seek to achieve as they listen quietly together to God, in a community where all are committed to a fellowship of love and attention to each other and to the word of God.

Each day’s work in this context will go forward with careful facilitation and preparation, to ensure that all voices are heard (and many languages also!). The hope is that over the two weeks we spend together, these groups will build a level of trust that will help us break down the walls we have so often built against each other in the Communion. And in combination with the intensive prayer and fellowship of the smaller Bible study groups, all this will result, by God’s grace, in clearer vision and discernment of what needs to be done.

As I noted when I wrote to you in Advent, this makes it all the more essential that those who come to Lambeth will arrive genuinely willing to engage fully in that growth towards closer unity that the Windsor Report and the Covenant Process envisage. We hope that people will not come so wedded to their own agenda and their local priorities that they cannot listen to those from other cultural backgrounds. As you may have gathered, in circumstances where there has been divisive or controversial action, I have been discussing privately with some bishops the need to be wholeheartedly part of a shared vision and process in our time together.

Of course, as baptised Christians and pastors of Christ’s flock, we are not just seeking some low-level consensus, or a simple agreement to disagree politely. We are asking for the fire of the Spirit to come upon us and deepen our sense that we are answerable to and for each other and answerable to God for the faithful proclamation of his grace uniquely offered in Jesus. That deepening may be painful in all kinds of ways. The Spirit does not show us a way to by-pass the Cross. But only in this way shall we truly appear in the world as Christ’s Body as a sign of God's Kingdom which challenges a world scarred by poverty, violence and injustice.

The potential of our Conference is great. The focus of all we do is meant to be strengthening our Communion and equipping all bishops to engage more effectively in mission; only God the Holy Spirit can bind us together in lasting and Christ-centred way, and only God the Holy Spirit can give us the words we need to make Christ truly known in our world. So we must go on praying hard with our people that the Spirit will bring these possibilities to fruition as only he can. Those who have planned the Conference have felt truly touched by that Spirit as they have worked together, and I know that their only wish is that what they have outlined for us will enable others to experience the same renewal and delight in our fellowship.

This is an ambitious event – ambitious for God and God’s Kingdom, which is wholly appropriate for a Lambeth Conference. And our ambition is nothing less than renewal and revival for us all in the Name of Jesus and the power of his Spirit.

May that Spirit be with you daily in your preparation for our meeting. As Our Lord says, ‘You know him, for he lives with and will be in you’ (Jn 14.17).

+ Rowan Cantuar

But he chided Americans for getting "very, very upset" with the pastor of Sen. Barack Obama, noting that Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. "may have said more crudely what, actually, almost every African-American would have wanted to say. I mean that is how they feel in your country, that race ... is a very, very real issue."

"And I think on the whole you keep trying to pretend it isn't," he added, noting the issue will haunt Americans until there is a way to talk honestly about race, such as holding a reconciliation forum.

Tutu, who headed South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission probing human-rights abuses under apartheid, was here to receive the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation's Lincoln Leadership Prize, presented by Oprah Winfrey.

Unlike in South Africa's apartheid era, he said, where blacks were treated as "nothing," in America, "You say to them, 'You're equal, and the sky's the limit.' And they keep bumping their heads against this thing that's stopping them from reaching out to the stars."

The crisis erupted in 2003, when a gay priest, Gene Robinson, was elected as Bishop of New Hampshire.

Bishop Robinson, who has not been invited to attend the crucial Lambeth talks, is due in Dublin next week to promote his controversial book, which argues for inclusion of gays and lesbians at all levels of leadership in the church.

Churches in Africa have threatened to secede, if the Anglican Communion gives the go ahead for the further ordination to the episcopacy of gay men, or even gay women.

But Dr Neill set the scene for what he hopes will be a positive outcome to the Lambeth discussions yesterday.

"In the Church of Ireland we have set a great store by the fact that we have been able to remain one in times of deep political division, and in spite of the fact that our ministry, North and South, is in a very different context," the Archbishop said.

"We must ensure that differing theological emphases and differing ethical judgements are not allowed to become matters for division."

Dr Neill acknowledged that the communion of churches to which the Church of Ireland belongs -- the Anglican Communion -- had been going through a very difficult few years.

Crisis

"A crisis such as that which Anglicanism faces in the lead-up to the Lambeth Conference of Bishops this summer can be viewed positively," he said. "It has enabled us to discover more of what it means to wrestle with the recognition of diversity and the call to unity which is of the very nature of the Church."

The archbishop also pointed out that members of other Christian communions had commented that the issues Anglicans were facing were there for all Christians, even if below the surface -- a reference to views within the the Catholic Church which do not agree with the Vatican's hardline.

"It may well be our vocation to pioneer a way forward," added Archbishop Neill.

"Indeed it is only together that Churches today can really make a difference and seize the opportunities for service and mission that are there. "

President Mary McAleese will today become the first head of state to address the Synod.

- John Cooney

In May 2007, the pastor, Don Armstrong, and most voting congregants of Grace Church and St. Stephen's Parish voted to leave the American Episcopal Church and Denver diocese to affiliate instead with the more conservative Convocation of Anglicans in North America.

After the congregation broke away but kept the church, Episcopal Bishop Rob O'Neill sued Grace Church and 18 lay leaders and parish members for possession of the $17 million landmark church building in downtown Colorado Springs.

Parish spokesman Rev. Alan R. Crippen said Tuesday he believes the trial will begin in early 2009.

Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com

It was the first of six megachurch stops in a pro-gay campaign called The American Family Outing – a collaboration between Soulforce, COLAGE, National Black Justice Coalition, and the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. Some 30 LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) persons and supporters took their national campaign to the country's largest church on Mother's Day to create dialogue around LGBT issues with members of the megachurch.

"Families come in all forms," said Kim Beggs, a lesbian mother and also an Osteen fan, according to the Houston Chronicle. "God loves us."

The group of 30 met with Osteen after service as the megapastor was greeting hundreds of visitors. The Osteens – including the pastor's mother, Dodie, and wife, Victoria – welcomed Bakker and the guests from Soulforce, according to Lakewood spokesman Donald Iloff, who added that the church does not turn visitors away.

Joel Osteen, his brother, Paul, and Iloff then met privately with Bakker and there they discussed faith, family and LGBT people.

"It was a very cordial, very nice meeting," Iloff told The Christian Post on Tuesday. "But ultimately through our conversations, we continued to disagree with Soulforce and Jay's position."

Iloff says Bakker, whose mother is somewhat of a legend in the LGBT community, and the groups involved in the pro-gay campaign want the megachurches not to see homosexuality as sin.

Although Osteen and leaders at Lakewood open their doors to all visitors, Iloff says they "believe homosexuality is sin" and that "it is disobedience under God."

He further affirmed that they will maintain that position.

Osteen, who authored bestselling book Your Best Life Now, had remained largely mum about the issue of homosexuality but indicated in public interviews that he doesn't agree with it.

"I will say we don't see homosexuality as the worst sin," Iloff commented. "Sin is sin."

Churches continue to struggle with the issue of homosexuality especially at a time when many view the church as judgmental and anti-gay. More Christians are urging churches to show compassion while not compromising what they hold as truth.

"As biblically orthodox Christians respond to issues surrounding homosexuality, and more importantly to those affected by this difficult struggle, we must always hold these two points in balance and in complement – the inerrant truth of God's word regarding sexual behavior and the compassionate grace of our Lord Jesus toward those living outside of it," said Melissa Fryrear, director of the gender issues department at Focus on the Family, according to CitizenLink.

Before Sunday's meeting, Osteen turned down Bakker's invitation to attend a picnic with LGBT families on Saturday, partly because he was in preparation for his Sunday sermon, according to Iloff.

But Iloff had also expressed reservations about meeting with Bakker and the gay community, saying that Soulforce wants to use Lakewood Church to "further their agenda," he told the Houston Chronicle.

"If we met to talk, would this group be satisfied if we agreed to disagree?" he posed before the private meeting was held.

Participants of the six-week American Family Outing campaign will continue their efforts with five other megachurches. Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, The Potter's House in Dallas and Hope Christian Church in Maryland have already agreed to meet with LGBT families, according to Soulforce. The campaign is also targeting Saddleback Community Church in southern California.

"We are more than willing to receive you for conversation, dialogue, and reconciliation, yet you continue to act without speaking with us," Jefferts Schori wrote in her letter sent by email. "I hope and pray that you might respond to our invitation and meet with representatives of this Church."

But noting that Orombi's planned visit comes without Louttit's invitation, "I must protest this unwarranted incursion into The Episcopal Church," Jefferts Schori wrote in her letter.

According to reports, Orombi plans to meet May 14 with clergy and laity who voted in October 2007 to disaffiliate with the Episcopal Church. The group continues to occupy historic Christ Church, Savannah, while the continuing Episcopal congregation meets at Savannah's Church of St. Michael and All Angels. Christ Church, Savannah, dates from 1733.

The full text of Jefferts Schori's letter follows.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May 12, 2008

The Most Revd Henry Luke Orombi
Archbishop of Uganda and Bishop of Kampala
PO Box 14123
Kampala
UGANDA
EAST AFRICA

My dear brother,

I understand from advertising here that you plan to visit a congregation in the Diocese of Georgia on 14 May of this year. The diocesan, Bishop Henry Louttit, has not given any invitation for you to do so, nor received any information from you about your planned visit. I must protest this unwarranted incursion into The Episcopal Church. I am concerned that you seem to feel it appropriate to visit, preach, and exercise episcopal ministry within the territory of this Church, and I wonder how you would receive similar behavior in Uganda. These actions violate the spirit and letter of the work of the Windsor Report, and only lead to heightened tensions. We are more than willing to receive you for conversation, dialogue, and reconciliation, yet you continue to act without speaking with us. I hope and pray that you might respond to our invitation and meet with representatives of this Church.

I remain

Your servant in Christ,

Katharine Jefferts Schori

cc: Bishop Henry Louttit
Archbishop Rowan Williams

In the event, because of conscientious problems about cooperating with the Archbishop of Canterbury and matters to do with the Windsor Report and Process, many orthodox bishops delayed to say Yes and so little or no common mind and protest were generated.

Fast forward to early December 07 Nairobi

Bishop Duncan and other Bishops of Common Cause went to a meeting in East Africa in December 2007, and there gave approval to what came to be called GAFCON to be held in Jerusalem in June 08, a month ahead of the Lambeth Conference (itself planned for July 08 ever since July 1998!). Although GAFCON was initially clearly stated to be NOT an alternative to Lambeth 08, the dominant participants (Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Sydney) in the East Africa meeting soon announced that they would not be present at Lambeth. Significantly, the reasons given for not going to Lambeth all concerned being faithful to the Lord Jesus and his Gospel and Truth. Although asked to change their minds by voices from many quarters, these Provinces stood firm ---Gafcon certainly Yes, but Lambeth certainly No. And they saw it as being obedient to the will of the Lord Jesus. They did not want to cooperate with and share the Lord’s Table with “heretics” such as those from TEC.

From December 07 most observers and commentators thought for several months that all the bishops from America from Common Cause, who attended the East Africa meeting, had surely committed themselves in general terms to the position of the lead participants. And clearly the missionary Bishops in the USA from Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda were so committed.

However, amazingly, the TEC Bishops in Common Cause (Duncan, Ackerman, Iker et al) have announced in May 08 that they will be go first to GAFCON and then to LAMBETH! They offer the general justification that unless there are “the orthodox” there at Canterbury to make the case, the truth about what is going on in North America may not be understand, let alone heard, by the Anglican Bishops present. So their presence as truth-tellers is necessary, they say (but do they realize that their senior African colleagues have already rejected totally this type of argument!).

In fact by attendance at Lambeth the TEC Bishops accept that the A. of C. (Archbishop of Canterbury) is in fact, and in practice, the President of the Lambeth Conference and also the first Instrument of Unity of the Anglican Communion of Churches. More to the point they undermine the strong critique of the Windsor Report Process and the work of the Archbishop in that process, made on behalf, and in justification of, the GAFCON event!

One is left wondering whether the parting of the ways is beginning (but not yet discerned) between the TEC Bishops in Common Cause and the rest of the Bishops therein (e.g. AMIA & CANA). Further, is the bond between the African Provinces (Nigeria, Rwanda etc.) and the TEC Common Cause Bishops beginning to snap? And, further, is the Southern Cone beginning to change direction? Not going to Lambeth 08 obviously lies near to the heartbeat of the practical religion of the Nigerians, Rwandans, Ugandans, Kenyans and Sydneyites! Do the TEC Common Cause Bishops really appreciate this and have they assessed before the throne of grace what their going to Lambeth may mean?

OH, IF ONLY ALL THE BIBLICALLY ORTHODOX BISHOPS WOULD HAVE DECIDED TO GO TO LAMBETH AND TO MAKE A CONCERTED AND GODLY STAND there FOR FULL BIBLICAL ORTHODOXY IN THE ANGLICAN WAY! That they did not do so will leave a permanent scar on the face of world Anglicanism and may be a major cause to the rupture of the Anglican Way.

END Eve of Pentecost 2008

GAFCON leaders have met in the period leading up to Pentecost with the leaders of Anglican, Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Eastern Catholic churches and Palestinian Christians and Messianic Jews in Jerusalem to brief them on the nature and purpose of GAFCON. GAFCON is concerned to affirm the continuing presence of the Church in the Holy Land.

Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney, the chair of the Programme Committee reports that the programme is almost complete. "Our programme will focus on the transforming love of Christ. We will be drawing from the scriptures of the Old and New Testament in our pilgrimage, and their relevance to the challenges facing the church globally today. These include secularism, other religions, poverty and HIV/Aids as well as moral and theological issues."

Pilgrims will visit traditional sites in Jerusalem during the pilgrimage June 22 – 29, 2008 including Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane and the Ophel Gardens and Temple steps where at the first Pentecost Peter preached and people of all nations responded. The 1000 pilgrims will travel to Bethlehem to the Church of the Nativity and Shepherds' Field, and then to Galilee.

The goals of the GAFCON conference in Jerusalem are to:

1. Provide an opportunity for fellowship as well as to continue to experience and proclaim the transforming love of Christ.
2. Develop a renewed understanding of our identity as Anglican Christians.
3. Prepare for an Anglican future in which the Gospel is uncompromised and Christ-centered mission a top priority.

Pentecost 2008

For further information:
Rev. Dr. Arne H. Fjeldstad, GAFCON Head of Communications: (+47) 97 56 16 96, US phone (SkypeIn): (202) 580 8685, E-mail: fjeldstad@ocrpl.org / arnefjeldstad@yahoo.com

Tutu is scheduled to receive the award from presenter Oprah Winfrey on Tuesday night during a dinner in his honor.

Earlier in the day, he's expected to be in Springfield to see his portrait unveiled at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

As a symbol of the prize, Tutu will be given a copy of an 1860 sculpture called "The Right Hand of Lincoln." It's a casting of Lincoln's hand, swollen from hand-shaking during campaigning.

Scheduled for last week's American Psychiatric Association convention, the forum was to include V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, and conservative Christians who consider homosexuality a sin.

But after infuriated gay activists complained, Scasta called off his own panel.

"If you literally believe in a literal hell where you are going to burn and fry and be in excruciating pain not just for a moment but for eternity because you're a gay person," Scasta asks, "then how do you go to psychotherapy in which somebody like me would be telling you that to have a happy life, in this life, you need to learn to accept who you are?"

Scasta hoped for a discussion that might begin to bridge the gap between sides with very different opinions on a core issue. Personally, I'm just hoping to hear what you have to say, in the comments.

Laura Conaway

7:46 AM ET | 05-12-2008 | permalink

He disclosed that he has been holding private meetings with bishops from both sides on how to be "part of a shared vision."

In a letter to all the Church's 800-plus bishops, of which about a quarter will be boycotting Lambeth and attending instead the "alternative" Global Anglican Future Conference in the Middle East next month, he made it clear that he did not want the focus at Lambeth to be on the divisive issue of sexuality when there is so much in the areas of poverty, violence and injustice to be addressed in the wider world.

"We hope that people will not come so wedded to their own agenda and their local priorities that they cannot listen to those from other cultural backgrounds," he pleaded in the letter, timed to coincide with the Christian festival of Pentecost.

In an attempt to avoid the kind of confrontational parliamentary-style debate that has been a characteristic of previous Lambeth Conferences as well as meetings of the Church of England General Synod, the group responsible for organising the event have adopted a different style.

The two weeks at Kent University in Canterbury in July will instead see bishops split up into "indaba" groups, taken from a Zulu word for discussion among equals.

Dr Williams said: "Its aim is not to negotiate a formula that will keep everyone happy but to go to the heart of an issue and find what the true challenges are before seeking God’s way forward. It is a method with parallels in many cultures, and it is close to what Benedictine monks and Quaker Meetings seek to achieve as they listen quietly together to God, in a community where all are committed to a fellowship of love and attention to each other and to the word of God."

He continued: "The hope is that over the two weeks we spend together, these groups will build a level of trust that will help us break down the walls we have so often built against each other in the Communion."

His hopes of a non-confrontational conference may be in vain, however. The openly-gay Bishop of New Hampshire, the Right Rev Gene Robinson, whose consecration in 2003 was one of the events that triggered the present crisis, has not been invited but plans to attend in any case where he will speak at fringe meetings.

Also, increasing numbers of conservative bishops who are attending the Global Anglican event in Jordan and Israel are also deciding now to come to Lambeth as well.

It threatens to overshadow the Lambeth Conference, a 10-yearly conclave of over 800 bishops designed to shore-up church unity, which will take place six weeks later.

Churchmen from Australia, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda have already threatened to boycott the Lambeth summit.

Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney, chairman of GAFCON's programme committee, said in the statement that the meeting will discuss the challenges facing the Anglican Church, including secularism, other religions, poverty and HIV/AIDS, as well as moral and theological issues.

The Jerusalem summit will also "prepare for an Anglican future in which the Gospel is uncompromised and Christ-centred mission a top priority", said the statement released in Nigeria.

Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, who spearheads the conservative Anglican lobby, has threatened to boycott the Lambeth Conference due to a dispute with liberals over the ordination of gay bishops and blessing of same-sex unions which has pushed the 77-million strong Anglican church toward schism for over a decade.

Conservatives from Africa, Asia and Latin America - known as "The Global South" - had said they would skip Lambeth in protest against what they called "intransigence" by pro-gay US and Canadian churches.

OPENLY GAY BISHOP

American liberals had warned the traditionalists that they would effectively expel themselves from the Anglican Church if they failed to attend the Lambeth Conference which is meant to cement the global communion once a decade.

The "Global South", which represents at least a third of global Anglicans, had said hopes for a unified faith were as dim as ever.

With 17.5 million members, Nigeria is the second-largest Anglican province after the Church of England, which has 26 million, but its number of regular church-goers is far higher and growing.

The worldwide Anglican Communion has been sharply divided since 2003 when the 2.4-million-strong US Episcopal Church consecrated Gene Robinson as the first openly-gay bishop.

About a year ago, Akinola consecrated dissident Episcopal priest Martyn Minns as bishop of a breakaway Nigerian church in the United States.

The Archbishops of Kenya and Uganda followed suit and consecrated some priests as bishops of orthodox congregations in the United States, creating more conservative outposts opposed to the liberal American mainstream.

African bishops say they want to rescue the US churches and individuals who might otherwise abandon Anglicanism. Liberals say Africans are violating church rules by setting up fiefdoms in the United States.

Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, is struggling to stem a full-blown schism and has appealed to African primates to stop the consecrations.

Archbishop Tutu spoke to a crowd of more than 800 at the University of the South, which had gathered to celebrate the school of seminary’s graduation. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who holds the Anglican [sic. Episcopal] church’s top post, was also present at the event.

Before giving his speech Archbishop Tutu thanked Bishop Jefferts Schori for her graciousness in carrying the church through the “things happening in our communion.”

After making several jokes followed by roars of laughter, Archbishop Tutu asked the crowd to remember that God wants help to accomplish his work on earth.

“It is all God’s work, but God wants us to provide him with the means,” he said. “He waits for us to become God’s collaborators. It is quite astounding. God is willing to jeopardize the success of the God project for our collaboration.”

Archbishop Tutu said during the apartheid era, when blacks and whites in South Africa were legally segregated, he said nothing changed until a movement against apartheid began abroad and in his home country.

“Today that awesome desert has become a gorgeous garden of a new South Africa,” he said.

All right, forget the divorce for a minute. Doesn't the whole three-way sex thing kind of interfere with the preparing to be an Episcopal priest, you know? [ laughter ]

And three-way sex with your driver. What's that all about? See, personally, I just prefer to tip the driver. That's so much easier. [ laughter ]

You know, you have to get undressed, find another person.

You know, just give the guy 20 bucks. [applause] Thank you. It’s so much easier than just having to go through that whole -- well, you know.

However, Gafcon will play host to bishops, clergy and lay leaders, and will also seek to formulate a common approach to the divisions of doctrine and discipline within the Anglican Communion.

Approximately 150 bishops and conferees from Muslim majority countries unable to travel freely to Israel along with the Gafcon leadership team will meet at a resort on the Dead Sea in Jordan from June 18-22, while a further 600 are expected to join the self-styled “pilgrimage” in Jerusalem from June 22-29.

Organizers note that many of the bishops attending Gafcon will also be among the 625 bishops attending the Lambeth Conference. While the Archbishops of Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda and their bishops have said that as it is currently organized, they will not attend Lambeth, the Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone Gregory Venables announced last week that he will go to Lambeth.

Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh announced on May 6 that he would attend Lambeth and Gafcon, joining Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker and the other conservative American bishops in attending both meetings.

“After consulting with the people of Pittsburgh and our friends around the globe, we have come to the conclusion that it is necessary for us to be present at both gatherings,” said Bishop Robert Duncan. The American conservative leader said that he would attend the first half of Lambeth, from July 16-25, and that his suffragan, Bishop Henry Scriven will attend from July 26-Aug 3.

At Gafcon, “we will be among friends, focused squarely on the Gospel, and dealing openly with how we build the missionary relationships, covenantal boundaries and responsible structures for the future of Anglicanism,” he said.

At Lambeth, “those who accuse us of abandoning the Anglican Communion will certainly be present and vocal,” he noted. “It is important for us to be able to respond directly to their claims about the situation in the Episcopal Church and our place in the Communion,” he said.

This "Spahr Decision" is deeply troubling to Presbyterians who are committed to the traditional view of marriage and to biblical faithfulness in the Church. But beyond our initial emotional response, we must be precise in our reaction:
-This complex decision is not about Jane Spahr
-The decision includes at least one discernable step forward in the effort to uphold biblical faithfulness through the PC(USA) Constitution
-The decision also includes unnecessary and self contradictory statements
-The decision requires careful analysis and prayerful interpretation.
-The Spahr Decision is complex, in part because the case is complex. In this response, PFR will:

Highlight aspects of the case that impacted the GAPJC's decision
-Identify one potentially positive impact of the decision
-Challenge several significant and seemingly gratuitous statements that are theologically inaccurate, and
-Offer reflection on the role of "the prophet" in the life of the church.

The Facts
-The GAPJC lifted the lower court’s censure of Jane Spahr for performing what she called same-sex “marriages.”
-The GAPJC ruling states that the charge brought against Spahr by the Presbytery of the Redwoods was not technically constitutional. The charge said, in part, “Spahr conducted two same gender marriages…” and “By performing these wedding services, [she] violated Authoritative Interpretations of the General Assembly…” (emphasis added)

The GAPJC ruling holds that Spahr cannot be found guilty of the disciplinary charge that she performed “same gender marriages” or “wedding services,” because according to the PC(USA)’s Constitution, no such thing exists. The ruling states:

By the definition in W-4.9001 , a same sex ceremony can never be a marriage. The SPJC found Spahr guilty of doing that which by definition cannot be done. One cannot characterize same sex ceremonies as marriages for the purpose of disciplining a minister of the Word and Sacrament and at the same time declare that such ceremonies are not marriages for legal or ecclesiastical purposes. (emphasis added)

We believe this aspect of the GAPJC’s decision is technically accurate, even if the desired outcome is unfortunate.

The problem rests with the wording of the original charge, not with the logic of the GAPJC. Simply stated, the original charge did not describe the offense in constitutional terms. The charge could have read, for instance, that Spahr violated the Constitution by “performing ceremonies she represented as same-sex ‘marriages,’ ceremonies that were specifically designed to be understood as ‘marriage ceremonies.’” Instead, the charge used Spahr’s own “marriage” terminology.

The GAPJC did not say Spahr did nothing wrong. It said she is not guilty as charged. This ruling is more a rebuke of the Presbytery of the Redwoods and the SPJC than an exoneration of Jane Spahr.

While this is, admittedly, a technicality, constitutional language must be respected. An important lesson to learn from this disappointing ruling is that future disciplinary charges must be precisely worded with careful attention to the language of the Constitution.

One Potentially Positive Impact: A New “AI” on W-4.9001
The status of “same-sex ceremonies” and whether or not ministers of the PC(USA) are allowed to perform them and call them “marriages” has been a matter of debate for two decades.

The PC(USA) Constitution clearly states (W-4.9001) that in a service of Christian marriage, “a lifelong commitment is made by a woman and a man to each other.”
But can ministers perform “ceremonies” for which the Constitution has no category, such as so-called “same-sex marriages”?

If there is no such thing as a “same-sex marriage” according to our Constitution, is a minister violating the Constitution by performing such a ceremony?

Is the prohibition of such ceremonies implied by the positive definition of marriage? The biblically faithful answer is, “yes!” But the long history of debate over this issue in the PC(USA) has presented different perspectives requiring further clarification.

In 1991 the General Assembly provided guidance in the form of an “Authoritative Interpretation ” (AI) stating “it would not be proper for a minister of the Word and Sacrament to perform a same sex union ceremony that the minister determines to be the same as a marriage ceremony.” Certainly the self-avowed activities of Spahr fall within the activity described in this “AI.” However, the AI said “it would not be proper” to conduct such ceremonies. It did not say the minister “shall not perform such ceremonies,” which is the language typically required in order for such guidance to amount to a definitive prohibition.

It is at this point that the GAPJC’s ruling adds the definitive guidance we have been needing. The ruling states unequivocally:

…officers of the PC(USA) authorized to perform marriages shall not state, imply, or represent that a same sex ceremony is a marriage. Under W-4.9001, a same sex ceremony is not and cannot be a marriage.

With this language, the GAPJC adds a new “Authoritative Interpretation” of W-4.9001, closing a potential “loophole” those desiring to ignore constitutional clarity might have found useful.1 All ministers and all lower governing bodies, including their PJCs, are bound by this ruling. The only future decisions not bound by this new “AI” are actions of the General Assembly or future decisions of the GAPJC.

Jane Spahr is not the issue. The issue is our God-given mandate to uphold a biblical doctrine of the covenant of marriage as a holy and lifelong union of a man and a woman. The Spahr Decision strengthens Presbyterian polity built on this doctrine. That is a very good thing.

Unnecessary, Contradictory, and Theologically Impoverished Statements

But the GAPJC ruling also includes several comments that seem to have no connection to legal findings in this case. Some of these comments, apart from being gratuitous, reflect a distorted understanding of the PC(USA) Constitution and of Reformed theology. We will mention two examples.

The First

The GAPJC faults the denomination for creating the tension at issue in this case, saying, “The tension the church has created between sexual orientation and sexual practice has led to turmoil and dissension that will likely continue for some time.” (emphasis added)
While this comment is superfluous to the GAPJC’s findings in this case, it is far more disturbing that this statement reflects such an impoverished understanding of basic Christian theology as it is clearly expressed in our Book of Confessions, the foundational interpretation of Scripture on which our Book of Order is founded.

The difference between “sexual orientation” and “sexual practice” is the difference between inclination and action: the fundamental difference between being inclined to sin and actually engaging in that sin. No human being is free from the inclination to disobey God: sin. No one can or should be barred from serving in ordained ministry because they are inclined to any form of sin.

The Westminster Confession describes our condition in clear terms when it says that after the fall of humanity into sin, we are “utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil” (Book of Confessions 6.034 —emphasis added). This destructive inclination to sin remains in those who are in Christ (BC 6.035 , 9.23 , etc.). Our sinful hearts and disordered desires can “give birth to sin” (James 1:15 ), but the calling of any Christian who is being renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit is to put such temptations to death in order to live as one with Christ (Romans 8:5-17, BC 6.053 , 6.075-7 , 6.081ff , 9:21ff ., etc.). In our own lives, we find “a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh” (BC 6.076 ).

Indeed, the central message of Jesus’ prophetic ministry is the call to repentance, to engage this war by His Spirit (e.g. Mt. 4:17 ). The Good News of Jesus Christ brings us “double grace,” as John Calvin put it: forgiveness of sin and renewal of life. This is the very message God has given us to believe, the Holy Spirit has empowered us to embody, and Jesus Christ has commissioned us to share with a sin-encumbered world (Matt. 28 ). The church therefore embraces as members and officers those who are continually inclined to sin but are striving by the power of the Spirit to live out the righteousness of Christ.

The tension between our sinful “orientation” and the calling to “practice” obedience to God is not a tension “created by the church.” It is the tension created by the conflict between human sin and God’s claim on our lives in Jesus Christ by the power of His Spirit.

Both heterosexual and homosexual people who struggle with sexual inclinations that do not honor God face a “continual war” that is deeply painful. This war is constantly being intensified by our culture’s deepening obsession with lust, promiscuity and the flagrant abuse of God’s gift of sexuality. We denounce any effort to “single out” a special class of persons deserving derision. We call the whole denomination, beginning with ourselves, to have compassion for and extend grace to anyone struggling with sexual sin. To do this is to honor God and to embody the transformative love of our Lord Jesus Christ. Together as the redeemed Body of Christ, we can struggle against the powers of darkness in our fallen world and proclaim the renewal and hope that comes only through Jesus Christ.

The Second
The second comment offered unnecessarily by the GAPJC uses language of “justice” and “compassion” in a manner that is irreconcilable with a basic Christian understanding of these virtues and is in contradiction to the Constitution of the PC(USA). The GAPJC states:

Christians are called to do justice. The language of W-7.3000 and W-7.4000 is replete with admonitions that are inconsistent with imposing censure on a minister of the Word and Sacrament for reaching out to a marginalized and oppressed segment of the body.

Moving well beyond the Constitution and the mandated work of the GAPJC, this language assumes that the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and queer (GLBTQ) community in the PC(USA) is a “marginalized and oppressed segment of the body.” While we will always have much work to do to consistently demonstrate grace to all persons in the PC(USA), our theology and polity are indeed gracious and accepting of sinners of all sorts.

Only if the words “oppressed” and “marginalized” are defined according to activists in secular society could such terms be justifiably applied to the life of the GLBTQ community in the PC(USA). But the church is called to be an alternative community, a witness to that society (e.g. 1 Peter 1:13-2:12 ). Understood as a community guided by the Word of God, in which God sets limits on our individual choices, the PC(USA), while by no means perfect, provides gracious and loving boundaries for the GLBTQ community within our denomination.

Our Constitution describes our calling when it says: “God sends the church in the power of the Holy Spirit to share with Christ in establishing God’s just, peaceable, and loving rule in the world” (W-7.4001). It also defines marriage as “a covenant through which a man and a woman are called to live out together before God their lives of discipleship” (W-4.9001). These constitutional statements are not in conflict with one another.

Further, within the context of a decision that hangs on technical precision (see above), the GAPJC’s citation of W-7.300 and W-7.400 is woefully imprecise. These sections of the Directory for Worship call the whole church to compassion and justice, and they have nothing at all to do with permitting ordained officers of the church to disregard other parts of the same Constitution in which these very admonitions are found.

It is our own Constitution, the Book of Confessions and Book of Order, which shape our understanding of what is “just” and “compassionate” on the basis of the Word of God. The Directory for Worship says “God sends the church in the power of the Holy Spirit to exercise compassion in the world” (W-7.0301); it does not say that God sends individuals within the church to unilaterally set aside the church’s understanding of justice and compassion.2 As the GAPJC itself states later, “Submission to the current standards of the church may not always be comfortable, but [such submission] is not optional.”

The Role of “The Prophet”
Activist movements can have leaders, such as Jane Spahr, who are heralded by their followers as “prophets.” As observers of this recent GAPJC decision take a deep and reflective breath, a general word about “prophets” seems in order.

We learn from Scripture that God called prophets to be messengers to his people, often calling them to repent of their sin and turn back to the ways of God’s justice, and obedience to God’s Law (BC 3.05 . 5.013 , 5.023 , 9.18 , etc.). Biblical prophets were also reluctant messengers, in part because they recognized their own inadequacies, and also because their lives were often filled with turmoil caused by their prophetic ministry. (Think of Moses and Jeremiah, to name just two.)

The biblical role of the prophet was to apply the Law of God to the present reality of God’s people. In the Old Testament, this meant admonishing the people for their failure to obey God’s law and pointing forward to God’s deliverance through the future Messiah. For the prophetic ministry of Jesus Christ, this meant recovering a right understanding of the Law of God, its perfect fulfillment in his own life on our behalf, and the gift of his Spirit to enable us to become more and more like him in our own lives.

Christians in the Reformed Tradition lift up Jesus Christ as the Prophet of God, the One to whom all previous prophets point (BC 4.031 , 6.043 ). Because Jesus was the fulfillment of the great line of prophets, we have always been reluctant to identify anyone since Christ as a “prophet.”3 Instead, we believe the church is called to continue the prophetic ministry of Jesus Christ, in the power of his Spirit, on the basis of the revealed Word of God in Holy Scripture. The church engages in a prophetic ministry that is not its own ministry, and certainly not the ministry of any one individual. Prophetic ministry is the calling of the whole church following “Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture” (BC 8.11-12 , 9.27 , etc.).

This brief description of biblical prophets goes a long way toward helping us recognize false prophets in our own day. It is not enough to say that they cause division in the church, for the prophets of old did that, and for good reason. But when divisive individuals today are heralded by a small group of followers as “prophets,” we must ask: is the division they cause for the sake of encouraging God’s people to follow in God’s way or are they misdirecting God’s people to follow the personal vision of this “prophet”? Are they reluctant messengers of God for all God’s people or celebratory activists for a certain select few? Do their lives exhibit suffering for the sake of the Gospel or exuberance in the gentle martyrdom of an ideology?

In this era of democratized spirituality, many individuals are proclaiming unique versions of the “Gospel” that conflict with God’s Word and our confessions. We must keep ourselves grounded in biblical faithfulness, renewing our resolve to conform our personal faith and life, and the faith and practice of the PC(USA), to the teaching and example of Jesus Christ, who is our only Prophet.

We must always allow ourselves to be molded by His Spirit, becoming more like him who is the perfect embodiment of God’s love and the perfect fulfillment of God’s Law. May his gracious forgiveness of our sin “give birth” not to further sin but to lives that demonstrate his righteousness, for the sake of all to whom we witness as ambassadors of Jesus Christ.

“Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1 Peter 2:13)

Footnotes

One “opinion” appended to the GAPJC decision laments the fact that this Authoritative Interpretation was included in the decision. Because this separate opinion has caused some confusion about the binding character of the AI, we should note that the additional opinion’s lament is based on the fact that the AI is in fact now an Authoritative Interpretation of the Constitution. The minority’s disagreement with the inclusion of the AI is just that. See the “Concurring Opinion and Dissenting Opinion in Part of Judy L. Woods, Patrick W. Notley, Mary Eleanor Johns, Fane Downs, and Susan J. Cornman for Specifications of Error 1 and 2.” The fact that not everyone who joined the “majority” opinion agreed with the inclusion of this AI does signal that the GAPJC is not of one mind on this issue. Future GAPJC decisions could rule in a different manner. Unless and until the GAPJC (or the GA) rules differently, however, all lower courts and ministers are bound by this new AI.

The “Concurring Opinion of Mary Eleanor Johns, Catherine G. Borchert, and Susan J. Cornman” makes matters worse, by selectively quoting a litany of sections of the Directory for Worship out of context.

A rare exception is found in the Second Helvetic Confession XVIII (BOC 5.147), which is likely a reference to the progenitors of the Protestant Reformation such as Martin Luther.

In 2003, Robinson became the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church when he was elected by the congregations of New Hampshire. Dubbed “the most controversial Christian in the world,” he faced death threats then and wore a bulletproof vest during his consecration. Now, he has announced that he will “marry” Mark Andrew, his partner of some 20 years, a move sure to outrage conservatives in his religion.

He said he is entering the civil union because he wants his partner as well as his two daughters from a previous marriage to have the same legal protections afforded heterosexual couples.

“I am simply not going to put my life in jeopardy without putting into place the protections for my beloved partner and my children and my grandchildren that are offered to me in a civil union,” Robinson said. “I think any husband or wife would want to do that.”

Banned from conference
The Episcopal Church is the American branch of the Church of England, or Anglican Church. Once every 10 years, Anglican bishops from around the world gather in England to pray and discuss church policy and doctrine at what is known as the Lambeth Conference. Robinson has been told he cannot attend the conference this July as a full participant because of protests from conservative congregations, mainly in Africa and Latin America. But he is going anyway, to stand outside the meetings and testify for others like him.

“The table that God invites us to includes everyone, and the church is going to get it wrong sometimes,” Robinson said. “I think the Archbishop of Canterbury has gotten this wrong by not inviting everyone. I’m going to go and offer myself and talk with anyone who wants to talk to someone who is unashamedly gay and unashamedly Christian.”

He knows that some people will not accept that.

“My life is under threat again for my attending the Lambeth Conference this summer, but we’re told in Scripture that it will always be costly to follow in God’s way,” Robinson said, his tone full of calm conviction. “When you try to love the world the way God loves the world, you’re going to get in trouble. The prophets of Judaism got in trouble. Jesus got in trouble.”

Conflict within the church
When he became a bishop in June 2003, he had appeared on TODAY and told Lauer that he would consider stepping down if his presence created a rift in the church. Since then, about 100 of the 8,000 Episcopal parishes in the United States have split with the American church and aligned themselves with the conservative Anglicans in Africa. Robinson pointed out that it is a very small number as a percentage of all congregations.

“It’s important to keep that in proportion,” he said. “But conflict is no surprise to the church; it’s been there from the very beginning.”

In any event, he no longer sees that he has a choice in whether to remain as bishop or not. “I’ve come to understand that this is a particular historic role that God is calling me to play at this moment,” Robinson told Lauer. “God has seemed so palpably close in this, there’s no way I could regret this. My job as a bishop of the church is to exhibit God’s love for all of God’s people, especially my enemies.”

He has written a book, “In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God,” published Thursday. In it, he writes, “It's time that progressive Christians rescue the Bible from the Religious Right, which has held it hostage and claimed it as its own private territory for too long.”

Robinson feels that people who use the Bible to condemn homosexuals fail to understand Scripture. It is called an abomination for a man to lie with another man as with a woman, but, he writes, the Bible also says it is an abomination to eat pork or shellfish, to wear clothing made of two different fibers, or to sow two different types of seed in the same field.

“We’ve often misinterpreted Scripture,” Robinson told Lauer. “We’ve used Scripture to justify slavery; the subjugation of women. And now we’re realizing that what the Bible initially seems to say about same-sex relationships is not actually what we’re talking about today — faithful, monogamous, lifelong-intentioned relationships between people of the same sex.”

Under terms of the agreement, those members who wish to remain with The Episcopal Church, referred to in the mediation settlement agreement as “Stayers,” will retain the historic church property and pay the “Leavers” $700,000, with $200,000 paid in cash upon departure set for July 1 and the rest in $50,000 monthly installments guaranteed by the diocese.

The two sides have agreed not to lobby undecided members and to issue no media releases “concerning the disaffiliation except what counsel for the Leavers and Stayers agree upon.”

The leavers, who include most of the ordained clergy including the Rev. Canon Lorne Coyle, rector, retain sole operational authority of the plant until the date of separation. If the continuing Episcopal congregation later decides that it cannot afford to maintain the church plant, the Leavers have the first right to purchase the property.

An addendum to the six-page agreement notes that Bishop John W. Howe of Central Florida has agreed to transfer the canonical license of departing clergy to another Anglican province if they so desire. The Very Rev. G. Richard Lobs, retired dean of the Cathedral of St. Luke in Orlando, has agreed to serve as the interim of the Episcopal parish.

"I've found feelings could change," David added.

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) observed that "David's" desire for anonymity reflects the wide-scale persecution individuals like him face from those supportive of homosexuality.

"Many ex-gays are afraid to come out of the closet because of the harassment they will receive - their names, phone numbers and personal information posted on gay websites, attacked at ex-gay exhibit booths, press releases issued against them, etc," stated PFOX.

"The tactics of gay activists are to go after anyone who comes out publicly as ex-gay, force them back into the closet, and then claim that ex-gays don't exist because there aren't any out in public."

The ABC report was sparked by the American Psychological Association's decision to cancel an important forum scheduled for Monday on the relationship between religion and homosexuality. The forum was to have included discussion of reparative therapy used to help individuals overcome unwanted homosexual tendencies.

Gay activists feared that the panel would challenge the APA's official 2000 opposition to reparative therapy, itself rooted in the organization's 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from the list of mental disorders.

The ABC report also featured footage of lesbian protestors who banged pots and pans, chanted, and danced in front of conservative author Ryan Sorba, forcing him to cut short his April 29 "The Born Gay Hoax" lecture at Smith College.

Observers observed that the Sorba incident is characteristic of the "gay rights" movement's intolerance towards any discus