At a recent national meeting, a majority of the bishops called for an apology to gays and lesbians for the church’s insensitivity and hostility, and for changes to 1979 guidelines that forbid the ordination of practising gays and lesbians.

However, a survey carried out at the meeting shows the bishops are still deeply divided on a question they have been pondering at virtually every meeting for the past six years. A four-man task force, chaired by Archbishop Percy O’Driscoll of London, Ont., is preparing a message to the church on homosexuality, to be discussed at the bishops’ fall meeting.

In the survey, which was conducted for the task force, half the bishops agreed that “sexual orientation is seldom a matter of personal choice” and 23 of the 34 present at the April meeting said the church should be “more accepting and affirming of models of family other than the nuclear family.”

Both statements, and the public disclosure of the bishops’ opinions in a news release this week, would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago. The guidelines set by the bishops in 1979 say “the church confines its nuptial blessing to heterosexual marriages” and homosexual relationships “must not be confused with Holy Matrimony.”

There are still limits, however, to changes the bishops are willing to consider. Twenty-two of the bishops opposed the ordination of homosexuals who are in monogamous relationships. Only five bishops approved such ordinations.

Among those who have been calling for change in the Canadian church’s position on homosexuality are its top leader, Archbishop Michael Peers, and Archbishop Michael Ingham of Vancouver.

Rev. David Bewley, a retired Anglican priest in Ottawa, said the church’s decision to publish the survey of the bishops’ opinions reflects “the frustration of some of those who want to see changes. Some are embarrassed and upset there has been so little movement.”

Mr. Bewley is part of a movement in Ottawa to open the doors of Anglican churches to gays and lesbians. He says some local parishes are very accepting of homosexuals, while others “condemn them as sinners.”

Chris Ambidge, a spokesman for Integrity, a national lobby group of gay Anglicans, said the divisions in the church and among its bishops simply “reflect the chaos in society as a whole.”

He said the survey of bishops is just one more evidence of a “sea change” in the attitudes of Canadians towards homosexuality. A 1995 survey by Alberta sociologist Reg Bibby showed 44 per cent of Canadians now favour ordination of homosexuals.

What changes the opinions of bishops and others, Mr. Ambidge said, is not a change in theology, but greater exposure to homosexuals, and to the struggles they have had with their sexuality.

Church historians have called homosexuality the issue of the 1990s for the Christian church in North America.

Historically, Christianity has condemned homosexuality, but over the past 20 years, the majority of Christian churches have taken pains to emphasize to their members that, as the Anglican bishops put it in 1979, “homosexual persons have a full and equal claim, with all other persons, upon the love, acceptance, concern and pastoral care of the church.”

What has divided the Anglican, United, Presbyterian, Lutheran and other Protestant churches is disputes over the ordination of homosexuals and the blessing of same-sex unions.

The United Church of Canada is the only major Christian church in Canada to accept the ordination of practising homosexuals. Reform and Reconstructionist Jews are also among the few religious groups that accept practising homosexuals as clergy.

======================================

Church of England to debate gay priests (970616)

LONDON (Reuter) -The Church of England will confront the controversial issue of gay priests at a General Synod next month.

London archdeacon David Gerrard was quoted on Monday as saying he would introduce a private members motion on homosexuality at the meeting in York, northern England, on July 14.

Gerrard is not gay, left-wing or a crusader for sexual freedom, but he believes the subject of gay priests is important and should be discussed.

“I simply think it is a very important issue which affects the relationship between Church and society,” the balding, bearded father of four told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

“It affects how we treat a group of people who have suffered appallingly prejudicial treatment by society.”

The issue threatens to provoke the fiercest controversy in the Church since its 1992 decision to approve the ordination of women. Up to 300 male priests left in protest.

The Church of England, which has some 80 million members worldwide, does not condemn homosexuality but does not completely condone it.

“Homosexuality is no bar to ordination but, because of their position representing the church, gay priests are asked to refrain from physical relations,” a spokesman for the Church said.

While the Church is much more tolerant of gay priests than the Roman Catholic Church, which completely forbids hetero-or homosexual relations for priests, there is a strong Evangelical movement which still considers it a sin and says it should not be tolerated.

The issue has not been discussed at a synod since a debate in 1981, when it was voted that “homosexual acts fall short of (God’s) ideal.”

The church also issued a discussion document titled “Issues in Sexuality” a decade later but it has shied away from confronting the issue.

Gerrard’s motion has been supported by 170 members, guaranteeing it will be on the agenda of the synod, which acts as the Church of England’s parliament.

The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement welcomed the motion and said it will help to clear the air on a matter that divides many Christians.

“We consider this debate to be long overdue, but nevertheless welcome,” said the Reverend Richard Kirker.

“We firmly believe the only ultimate solution for the Church on questions relating to same-sex loving relationships is for an open acknowledgment that, in reality, these relationships already exist at all levels of Church life, and are to be welcomed for the mutual good they bring to the partners concerned.”

But Jonathan Lockwood, administrator for Reform, a traditionalist movement within the Church of England made up of ministers and lay people, warned against any moves towards allowing practising gay priests.

“If the Church of England ever passed such a motion, many people would just disassociate themselves with the church,” he told Reuters.

======================================

Gay Christians ready for Church of England debate (970714)

YORK, England, July 13 (Reuter) -Gay and lesbian Christians mounted a vigil outside a meeting of the governing body of the Church of England on Sunday to draw attention to what they see as the hypocrisy of a planned debate on homosexuality.

In the debate, to be held on Monday, members of the church’s General Synod will be asked to endorse a report which sanctions committed relationships between homosexuals in the laity, but rules them out of bounds for the clergy.

The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) claims to have evidence that 37 of the church’s 44 diocesan bishops have licensed, employed or ordained clergy they knew to be involved in gay relationships.

It came to this conclusion after a confidential survey of 1,200 clergy, and is now accusing the church of double standards.

Monday’s debate threatens to provoke even fiercer controversy than a 1992 decision by a synod of the church, which is headed by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, to allow the ordination of women.

That led to the resignation of up to 300 male priests, some of whom converted to Roman Catholicism.

The Anglican church, which has some 80 million members worldwide, has long been accused of hypocrisy in its dealings with sexual matters and in particular with respect to homosexuality.

No synod has discussed the issue since 1981, when one declared that “homosexual acts fall short of (God’s) ideal.”

Richard Kirker, general secretary of the LGCM, told Reuters: “There are already thousands of gay priests, but they are tormented into keeping their relationships secret, so this cannot be an open debate.”

“The Church of England is rewarding homosexuals who live in hypocrisy and this dual standard cannot last indefinitely.”

The LGCM says many fear damaging their careers if they speak out in the debate or publicly declare their sexuality.

The church’s senior clergyman, the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, has said he sees marriage or celibacy as the only two acceptable lifestyles within the church.

Adding fuel to the fire was a decision last week at an assembly of the United Reformed Church that men and women in active homosexual relationships could become serving ministers if their local church did not object.

Another survey published on Sunday warned of trouble ahead for the church if Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, succeeds his mother Queen Elizabeth as monarch and head of the Church of England.

Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper said a survey of more than 100 Church of England clergy showed around a third would refuse to swear an oath of allegiance to Charles.

Many clergy say Charles could not set a correct moral lead as he is divorced from Princess Diana and has admitted adultery with his mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles.

This issue is not scheduled for debate at the synod, which runs until July 15.

======================================

Carey to speak out against gay and lesbian clergy (London Times, 970714)

THE Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, is expected to give a strong traditional lead today on the issue of homosexuality among Church of England clergy.

Dr Carey, who is expected to state that all sexual relationships should take place inside marriage, represents a growing body of opinion in the Church angered by pressure groups who have attempted to force the issue of homosexuality to the top of the agenda.

Church leaders want Anglicans to concentrate on issues such as the Christian approach to the millennium, and the remaining few years of the Decade of Evangelism. But the Church’s lesbian and gay activists are determined not to let the matter rest until the Church has sanctioned the ordination of practising homosexuals.

According to a survey published yesterday by the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, about ten serving diocesan bishops, nearly a quarter of the total, have knowingly ordained actively gay priests. The Rev Richard Kirker, of the movement, called on the Church to drop the “damaging and dishonest pretence that it is not ordaining homosexuals in considerable numbers”.

Traditionalists and evangelicals strongly oppose the ordination of practising homosexuals, and the Church’s official line is to oppose same-sex relationships.

Some bishops have done their best to accommodate homosexual clergy within the Church, in spite of the official view, out of recognition that their ministry can be as good if not better than that of their heterosexual colleagues. These bishops are now concerned that their tolerance and willingness to help is being described as hypocrisy.

Synod rejects call to ban ‘evil’ screen sex

THE General Synod rejected a call for new laws on decency yesterday and voted to urge the Government to monitor standards and only consider legislation if self-regulation of the media proved ineffective.

Margaret Brown, a leading traditionalist, had called for the “evil” use of sex and bad language on television and the Internet to be banned.

It was the first time since the synod was formed in 1970 that a member used the f*** word. Tom Sutcliffe, television critic for The Independent, said a clergyman friend had been to see a play at the National Theatre which had contained “sixty uses of the word f*** in the first ten minutes”. His use of the word was met with a brief, but stunned, silence and a few intakes of breath.

======================================

Church inquiry on gay priests (London Times, 970715)

HOMOSEXUALS campaigning for more rights were given a double boost yesterday when the Church of England edged towards accepting the ordination of gay priests and the Government made clear that the age of consent would be lowered to 16.

But ministers insisted that they would not relent on the ban on homosexuals joining the Armed Forces unless compelled to do so by the European Court of Human Rights.

The Archbishop of Canterbury paved the way for the ordination of practising homosexuals as priests by offering to set up an international commission on the issue even though he spoke out fiercely against all sexual relationships outside marriage.

Dr George Carey told the General Synod that the commission, similar to that which opened the door to the ordination of women, would consider “the entire area of human sexuality”. Traditionalists said that was bound to lead eventually to the acceptance of homosexual priests and even the sanctioning of gay and lesbian marriages.

The decision on whether to set up the commission will be taken by the next Lambeth Conference the ten-yearly meeting of the heads of the Anglican communion around the world in July. Jim Rosenthal, the Lambeth communion spokesman, said: “It is the most serious way of dealing with an urgent topic like this. Gay clergy are already being ordained in the churches. The commission will pave the way to an intelligent debate.”

But the Rev Stephen Trott, of the Church’s Catholic group said: “The floodgates have just been opened. The debate will be seen as an amber light here, and as a green light in America, where the Church is discussing the issue next week. The commission will be an interim stage to an inevitable end.”

The Government has meanwhile agreed to reconsider the ban on homosexuals in the Armed Forces within the next five years, although it has made no commitment to changing the stance.

John Reid, the Armed Forces Minister, is understood to share the strong feelings of Service chiefs that it should remain and ministers insisted yesterday that there was no link between the Government’s signal that the age of consent law could be changed and the ban on gays in the Forces. “The situations are entirely different and in September we will make a submission to the [human rights] court explaining why we have taken the position we have,” a senior government source said.

The Government confirmed that defeat was inevitable in two other cases before the human rights court in which Britain is accused of discrimination in having different ages of consent for homosexuals and heterosexuals.

It is seeking an out-of-court settlement, a part of which will be a promise to allow MPs a free vote on changing the law. That seems certain to get a substantial majority.

Ministers accepted the irony of liberalising the law on gay sex at the same time as it was considering toughening the law on buying cigarettes. But Downing Street insisted that trying to cut the number of smoking-related deaths by possibly raising the minimum age for buying cigarettes to 18 and allowing a free vote on lowering the age of consent for homosexuals were “utterly different issues”.

======================================

Church votes for ‘prayerful study’ on homosexuality (London Times, 970715)

THE indication by the Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday that an international commission could be set up to consider “human sexuality” was the first time in a decade that the issue of homosexual priests had been addressed.

The General Synod supported a motion, put by the Ven David Gerrard, Archdeacon of Wandsworth, commending for discussion the bishops’ 1991 report Issues in Human Sexuality and acknowledging that it was not the last word on the subject.

The bishops were accused of double standards when the report was published because it ruled out practising homosexual relationships for clergy but sanctioned them for laity. The motion also called for “prayerful study and reflection” on the issues addressed by the report.

Canon Gerrard, opening the debate, questioned whether all sexual relationships outside marriage were “intrinsically wrong”. He said: “Our prime task as Christians is to pray and not to pry.”

He said the debate was intended to explore diversity, not divisions: “For almost all of Judaeo-Christian history there has been virtual unanimity that all homosexual acts and homosexual orientation have been evil and against the will of God.” But he added: “In the past 50 years or so, a growing majority of Christians have come to believe that there is nothing wrong with homosexual orientation, and a growing minority of Christians from all churches and traditions have come to believe there is nothing intrinsically wrong with homosexual people expressing their deepest feelings through their sexual behaviour within a secure, stable relationship.”

He said homosexuals were no longer prepared to live in “silent, hidden shadows” and blamed some past and present church teaching for giving “some twisted and prejudiced people justification for their violent persecutions of gay people”.

But Dr George Carey, in one of his strongest statements about practising homosexuals, said: “I do not find any justification, from the Bible or the entire Christian tradition, for sexual activity outside marriage.”

He insisted that same-sex relationships could not be equal to marriage, and warned the Church against “mirroring our society’s obsession with sexual matters”. He said he did not think any change was likely in the Church’s position “in the foreseeable future”.

The Archbishop of York, Dr David Hope, said the Church ought to do more to promote celibacy as a worthwhile lifestyle. Dr Hope, who is celibate, said the Church should be more active “in setting celibacy before all single persons as a positive, creative and fulfilling lifestyle a lifestyle where deep and intimate friendships can flourish and where sex is neither the motivating drive nor the determining influence”.

The Bishop of Oxford, the Right Rev Richard Harries, said that there were homosexual Christian people who embraced the self-denial involved in celibacy. At the same time, there were others convinced that this was not best for them.

Afterwards, the Rev Richard Kirker, of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, who sat quietly with supporters in the public gallery, welcomed the debate. He predicted that a commission on human sexuality could realise his hopes for open acknowledgment of gay and lesbian ordinations in the church. “It will lead to what we want in all probability.”

======================================

Anglicans in B.C. back same-sex legislation (970715)

Church leaders in B.C. stand out from a coalition of religious leaders who oppose the changes to family laws.

Tom Barrett and Justine Hunter Vancouver Sun The B.C. Anglican church has come out in favor of the provincial government’s plans to recognize same-sex unions for the purposes of child custody, access and maintenance.

Archbishop David Crawley and the province’s four Anglican bishops wrote an open letter to Premier Glen Clark supporting the government’s proposed changes to the Family Relations Act and the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act.

“It is a matter of fundamental equality and human rights that homosexual people should have the same obligations and protection under the civil law as other citizens of British Columbia,” the letter says.

The legislation has been opposed by other church leaders, including B.C.’s Catholic bishops.

“Religious organizations have a particular responsibility to safeguard the freedom, dignity and responsibility of every person, and to work for an end to discrimination,” the Anglican bishops wrote.

“While we are aware that many people cannot yet accept homosexual relationships as equal in dignity with heterosexual relationships, nevertheless we have an obligation to safeguard the rights of same-sex partners as a matter of justice.

“Equality must be supported in substance, not just by rhetoric.”

The bishops’ letter says the proposed legislation will not weaken the family structure, which it says is central to the well-being of society.

“On the contrary, by ensuring the same benefits and the same responsibilities for homosexual families as for heterosexual families, it will strengthen all families in their diversity and encourage long-term, stable relationships to the benefit of children, spouses and society as a whole.”

Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh welcomed the support from the Anglican church, saying this issue is one where the leadership roles of the government and the churches can complement each other.

“I’m delighted that the Anglican church has come out in support of this. I have always said that at the end of the day the religious leaders have a role to play, we as government and as legislators have a role to play which is much larger than simply a role of governing on a day-to-day basis, it’s a role of leadership,” he said.

“They have their sphere of influence where they play a role of leadership. . .. I think it’s important for the religious leaders to reflect on the issue, reflect on past experiences and really get on with doing what needs to be done, bringing our laws into the 21st century.”

Dosanjh said the strong opposition to the bill from some quarters just reinforces the need to change the law to protect the rights of same-sex couples.

“I have received some pieces of mail that could be characterized as hate mail. The amount and nature of that mail simply reaffirms my commitment and our commitment to proceed with the bill as is.”

That means the amendment put forward by the Liberals is likely to fail.

Last week, Liberal Geoff Plant proposed an amendment to the government bill that would create a compromise definition of “domestic partner” that would include same-sex couples.

Dosanjh said: “I’ve looked at the amendment and I’ve advised the Liberal critic that when you have all of the attributes of a spousal relationship contained in the definition of a ‘domestic partner’ they are putting forth then why not call a spouse a spouse?”

Last week, a number of leaders from the Catholic, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Protestant, and Sikh faiths issued a joint statement against the proposed legislation and asked the government to consult British Columbians before passing the bill.

The bill would include same-sex couples in the definition of spouse contained in the Family Relations Act.

The province has adopted recently enacted federal guidelines that base child-support payments solely on the income of the paying parent. The bill would apply these guidelines not only to people who are divorced or in the process of divorcing, but also to common-law couples, those separated but not divorced, and same-sex couples.

Gerald Vandezande, national public affairs director of the advocacy group Citizens for Public Justice, said Monday the Liberal party’s amendment should be carefully considered by the government.

Vandezande, who was the keynote speaker at a meeting last week between Clark and religious leaders, said the amendment would grant equal status to lesbians and gays while dealing with religious objections.

“I think it specifically deals with the major concerns, particularly in the more traditional communities, where they want to keep the established definition of marriage intact,” Vandezande said.

“This would leave that intact but add an additional category of domestic partner, giving specific recognition to the legal equality rights of gay and lesbian couples.”

He said his group supports such recognition, but feels the government’s legislation is not well understood.

======================================

Anglican bishops repent for treatment of gays (971031)

The Anglican bishops of Canada apologized to gays and lesbians yesterday and softened their stand on homosexual relationships.

Gays and lesbians “are our sons and daughters. They are our friends and relatives,” said the bishops in a pastoral statement on the church’s attitude towards homosexuals.

“The story of the Church’s attitude to gay and lesbian people has too often been one of standing at a distance, even of prejudice, ignorance and oppression.

“All of us need to acknowledge this and to repent for any part we may have had in creating it,” said the bishops.

In a statement released at their national meeting in Mississauga, the bishops said gays and lesbians are entitled to equal protection under the law with all other Canadian citizens. But they said they are not ready to bless homosexual unions or ordain practising homosexuals.

“We recognize that relationships of mutual support, help and comfort between homosexual persons exist and are to be preferred to relationships that are anonymous and transient. We disagree among ourselves whether such relationships can be expressions of God’s will and purpose.”

The pastoral statement also acknowledged the contributions to the church by gays and lesbians.

“Among our clergy there are some who are gay or lesbian. We give thanks for their ministries,” said the bishops. But the bishops said candidates for ordination must promise “to shape their relationships so as to provide a wholesome example to the people of God. Exemplary behaviour for persons who are not married includes a commitment to remain chaste.”

Chris Ambidge, a spokesman for Integrity, a group of gay and lesbian Anglicans, said he was disappointed in the bishops’ pastoral statement but admitted it is an improvement in the church’s stand.

He said “it is patronizing for the bishops to say that committed relationships between gays and lesbians are not as good as holy matrimony.

“We know that humanity as a species is going to continue to produce little gays and little lesbians who will grow up to be adult gays and adult lesbians.

“These people also need wholesome examples. But if the only models you provide are married heterosexual priests or gays who cannot be sexually active, you’re not providing an example of who you can grow up to be. You’re somehow second-rate.”

Mr. Ambidge said many gay and lesbian Anglicans will continue to boycott the church because of its stand.

Ottawa’s Bishop John Baycroft says the church has always taught that both heterosexuals and homosexuals are called to chastity outside marriage. “I do not believe the bishops have the authority to change that foundational teaching,” he said.

Bishop Baycroft said many Anglicans will be disappointed the church has not changed its attitude toward homosexual unions. But he said the new statement is a great improvement on the 1979 guidelines it replaces.

“They add something, which is care and respect and openness to the participation of homosexual persons in the life of the church,” he said.

The bishops’ 1979 guidelines were much shorter and rather cool toward gays and lesbians. The bishops addressed what they called “the problems raised by homosexuality” and said: “We are aware that some homosexuals develop for themselves relationships of mutual support, help and comfort, about which the Church shows an appropriate concern. Such relationships, though, must not be confused with Holy Matrimony.”

The bishops’ attitudes have obviously changed. In a survey at their meeting last April, 22 bishops opposed the ordination of homosexuals who are in monogamous relationships. Five bishops approved such ordinations. Half agreed that “sexual orientation is seldom a matter of personal choice.”

Anglican bishops around the world are also divided.

George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury and nominal head of the worldwide church, adamantly opposes ordination of practising homosexuals. Retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu recently said he favoured ordination of practising homosexuals and recognition of committed homosexual relationships.

“I think there is something wrong when we persecute people and make them hate who God has made them to be,” said Archbishop Tutu.

======================================

Evangelicals will not accept an official appointment (London Times, 971110)

Parish rebels over new pro-gays bishop

THE vicar and congregation of a new bishop’s largest church are refusing to accept his authority because of his support for homosexuals.

Jesmond parish church, an evangelical congregation in the Newcastle diocese, has declared itself “out of communion” with the Right Rev Martin Wharton, who is due to be installed as the Bishop of Newcastle in February. The parochial church council says: “We cannot have a bishop who affirms homosexual sex.”

In a 22-page open letter today, the council demands that the Archbishop of York, Dr David Hope, appoint another bishop to care for them pastorally. Bishop Wharton said on his appointment to Newcastle that “homosexuality within a loving permanent relationship is no sin”. He is area bishop for Kingston-upon-Thames in the Southwark diocese and attended last year’s controversial service of celebration in Southwark Cathedral to mark the 20th anniversary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement.

Bishop Wharton, whose election to Newcastle has yet to be confirmed, comes from the liberal wing of the Church of England. He will replace the Right Rev Alec Graham, an Anglo-Catholic. Bishop Wharton is married with a daughter and two sons. Dr Hope, who is visiting the Middle East, has pledged to consider the issue on his return.

The Rev David Holloway, vicar of Jesmond, said: “I have a legal duty under church ordinals to drive away erroneous and strange doctrines. This is a mess and we have not caused it. How the problem is resolved is not ours.

“We have to be faithful to the Gospel. We are not fighting an individual. We just want the Church to see that we can’t carry on in this way.” Bishop Wharton is “by no means the most extreme” among the Church’s pro-homosexual bishops, Mr Holloway said.

Bishop Wharton declined to comment yesterday but a spokesman said his views were in line with the House of Bishops’ 1991 statement on human sexuality, which sanctioned committed homosexual relationships for laity but ruled them out for clergy. The decision of the parish to declare itself outside the Church’s official leadership brings to a head the simmering feud in the Church of England over the issue of homosexuality.

Jesmond is among dozens of parishes that have allied themselves to the Reform movement, an increasingly influential body seeking to change the Church from within. The hallmarks of Reform parishes are conservative evangelicalism and outspoken hostility to the prevailing liberal mood, in particular on issues of sexuality and personal morality. Jesmond’s statement will be debated by the Reform committee when it meets tomorrow. Other parishes are likely to take a similar stand.

In the statement, the church council says it will not accept Bishop Wharton and is acting “out of fidelity to Jesus Christ, the Bible, the historic teaching of the Christian Church, the doctrine of the Church of England and our own trust deed which requires us to be a church”. It says the church members are no longer willing to put up with compromise or ambiguity. While expecting opposition from clergy and bishops, the council continues: “We know that our views and concerns are shared by many, especially lay people.”

The council accuses church leaders in Britain and America of heresy on the issue, which it says is causing a decline in morale and numbers. British bishops are ignoring biblical teaching on homosexuality and that is “totally unacceptable”, the council says. The parish is “at the very least” in impaired communion with the new bishop.

“This means we cannot accept the oversight of the bishop-elect of Newcastle not on any personal grounds but on doctrinal and moral grounds. We therefore have to seek alternative episcopal oversight.”

The church council has already invited an evangelical bishop to conduct a confirmation service next March. It wants Dr Hope to appoint another bishop to grant the necessary licences to the parish’s lay reader and ordained staff worker. The council considers that any licences to be issued by Bishop Wharton will be defective because of his views on homosexuality. Its appeal to Dr Hope comes under Canon C17, which refers to his duty “to correct and supply the defects of other bishops”.

Jesmond parish has allied itself with the Kuala Lumpur Statement, issued by Anglican bishops from four continents earlier this year, in which they denounced homosexual acts as “dishonouring to God”. The Jesmond statement prefigures a possible split in the Church of England as the campaign to ordain homosexuals gathers strength. An international church commission is to be set up next year to examine all aspects of human sexuality.

The Right Rev John Austin Baker, former Bishop of Salisbury, recently gave a lecture arguing that practising homosexuals should be allowed to “marry” and to be ordained.

======================================

Leading bishop gives support to gay sex at 16 (London Times, 971111)

THE Bishop of Oxford, the Right Rev Richard Harries, plunged the Church of England into a new crisis over homosexuality last night when he called for the age of homosexual consent to be lowered from 18 to 16.

Bishop Harries is chairman of the Church of England bishops’ group on homosexuality. A leading adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, he admitted last night that he had changed his mind on the issue and was now publicly advocating an equal age of consent.

While other bishops support him privately, Bishop Harries is the first of the current diocesan bishops in the Church of England to speak out publicly in support of lowering the age of consent. His intervention comes as Parliament prepares to debate the issue next spring. A free vote will be allowed.

Although the amendment is expected to be passed by the Commons, support from the bench of bishops will be critical in the House of Lords, a more conservative body. On the last occasion the issue came up in Parliament, in 1994, most bishops voted for an age of homosexual consent of 21 or 18.

Three bishops voted that it should be lowered to 16 but only one, David Jenkins of Durham, now retired, was from the Church of England. The others were the Right Rev Richard Holloway, of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and the Right Rev Rowan Williams, Bishop of Monmouth in the Church in Wales.

Bishop Williams is emerging as a favourite to succeed the Right Rev Roy Williamson in Southwark, an appointment which would give added impetus to the church’s pro-homosexual liberal wing.

A spokesman for Bishop Harries said that of the current house of bishops, Bishop Harries was the first to take this line publicly. “The fact that he is in charge of the bishops’ group on homosexuality makes it highly significant,” he said.

Bishop Harries made his comments on Monday night at a private meeting of Berskhire clergy from his diocese at St George’s House, Windsor, a residential study centre at Windsor Castle which has the Duke of Edinburgh as its vice-chairman.

In an interview with The Times yesterday, Bishop Harries enlarged on his views. He said: “I do support the lowering of the age of consent for homosexuals to 16. The last time it came before Parliament, I supported an age of consent of 18. I have changed my mind.

“Before, I took the view that, between the ages of 16 and 18, a person’s sexuality was still fluid and unformed, and that it was important for them to be given the chance to develop heterosexual relationships if that is what they were capable of.

“But recent evidence from the European Court, the British Medical Association and elsewhere suggests that people’s sexuality is well formed by the age of 16. And, even if there is still a doubt about it, the idea of prosecuting people of 17 for having sex really is very unproductive.”

Bishop Harries said he did not support homosexual marriages or blessings. But he considered Clause 28, which prohibits local authorities from promoting homosexuality, to be “disastrous” and wanted to see it abolished.

The bishops are expected to debate the issue at their next meeting in January. That will be shortly before the issue comes before Parliament. It is expected to come up as an amendment to the Crime and Disorder Bill, probably to be introduced by Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, in the next few weeks. An amendment is likely to be tabled during the report stage of the Bill in the spring for the age of consent to be lowered to 16. The Government has said that it will allow a free vote.

Supporters are thought to include William Hague, who voted in favour of lowering the age of consent to 16 in 1994.

Bishop Harries was condemned by evangelicals within the established church, which is facing a split over the issue more serious than that threatened by women priests. Already, one parish, Jesmond in Newcastle upon Tyne, has declared itself out of communion with its new diocesan bishop, the Right Rev Martin Wharton, because of his statement that homosexuality within a loving, permanent relationship “is no sin”.

As the church leadership pursues an increasingly liberal line, other parishes are expected to follow suit. Jesmond was last night given the backing of the Reform organisation, the increasingly influential grouping of conservative evangelical parishes set up to restore “biblical” morality to the Church of England.

======================================

Tatchell is charged over pulpit stunt at cathedral (980413)

THE homosexual rights campaigner Peter Tatchell was arrested and charged with “riotous or violent behaviour in a church” yesterday after disrupting the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Easter sermon.

Mr Tatchell, 46, has been charged under the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act of 1860 and bailed to appear at Canterbury and St Augustine’s Magistrates’ Court on May 15. Accompanied by two other OutRage! campaigners, he climbed into the pulpit at Canterbury Cathedral as Dr George Carey began his sermon, in which he urged peace in Northern Ireland.

Mr Tatchell said: “Dr Carey supports discrimination against lesbian and gay people. He opposes lesbian and gay human rights. This is not Christian teaching.”

During a struggle, stewards and a senior police officer at the service dragged Mr Tatchell from the pulpit after Dr Carey calmly stepped aside. He was led away, his arms held behind his back.

A group of ten protesters was already among the congregation before the service began. Members of OutRage! held up banners while Mr Tatchell criticised Dr Carey from the pulpit. Some of the supporters shouted “shame” while pointing at Dr Carey.

“Archbishop Carey’s opposition to gay civil rights is a perversion of Christ’s Gospel of love and compassion,” said Mr Tatchell, while being wrestled from the pulpit. “By opposing homosexual equality, Dr Carey is proclaiming himself a greater moral authority than Jesus Christ.”

As the congregation shouted: “Shut up,” and “Out, out, out,” Mr Tatchell declared: “Dr Carey opposes an equal age of consent and legal rights for gay couples. He supports discrimination against homosexuals in employment and in the fostering of children.”

David Earlam, a spokesman for the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, said: “He climbed into the pulpit with placards and started shouting. Dr Carey handled it extremely well and calmly.”

A Lambeth Palace spokesman said that, before continuing with his sermon, Dr Carey had told the 2,000 worshippers: “This has happened before and it will doubtless happen again. Let’s go back to the service.” Last year Mr Tatchell invaded the grounds of Lambeth Palace to protest against Dr Carey’s attitude towards homosexuals.

In his sermon, Dr Carey gave warning against allowing bitter memories of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland to thwart the search for peace there. Memories “play a crucial role in determining the way we live our lives either positively or negatively”, Dr Carey said. “Think, for instance, of the destructive potential of memory, whether in Kosovo or Northern Ireland or Rwanda, where the bitterness of past conflict continues to sour relationships and forbid the possibility of healing or transformation.”

People should remember the “richness of warm memories” and the “goodness of people”. He added: “A healthy society needs to be open to change whilst always being firmly rooted in the past, and able to drink deeply from those well-springs of truth embedded in its traditions.”

He also called on the nation not to forget the Christian significance of the millennium. “Talk of the ‘millennium experience’ will be hollow if our society has lost its knowledge of our Christian traditions in which to anchor and reflect on that experience.”

Andy Parkins, 52, who was in the congregation yesterday, said that the OutRage! protest had not affected the service. “Dr Carey’s personality pulled it off,” he said.

Martin Fisher, Deputy Mayor of Canterbury, said: “It was astonishing. It’s appalling they should upset the service like that. I thought the archbishop acted extremely well.”

Susan Roberts, 45, who had travelled from Norwich for the service, said: “I just ignored it and thought of God. I don’t think this was the time for it.”

======================================

Vancouver Anglicans Approve Same-Sex Unions (Christianity Today, 020617)

Conservatives walk out after synod vote to bless gay couples.

In a move that will deepen the divide between conservatives and liberals within the global Anglican church, the Diocese of New Westminster on June 15 voted by a 62 percent majority at its annual synod to permit the blessing of same-sex unions. Bishop Michael Ingham has endorsed the move.

In response, delegates from nine conservative churches in the Vancouver, British Columbia, diocese walked out and declared they were no longer in communion with the synod or with Ingham, an outspoken advocate for a church blessing of same-sex unions.

The delegates who left the synod also called on bishops from outside the diocese to intervene in what they called a “pastoral emergency.” The synod endorsed the bishop’s plan to permit clergy to perform a rite of blessing for “covenanted gay and lesbian relationships,” while providing a “conscience clause” that would allow traditional clergy to refrain from performing such a rite.

Recognizing that conservative churches were increasingly frustrated with his leadership, Bishop Ingham’s proposal also allowed for an “episcopal visitor”—a conservative bishop from outside the diocese who would provide pastoral care to conservative priests and parishes, but who would have no power to appoint or remove clergy within those parishes.

Ingham and others claimed his proposal was balanced and inclusive, but conservatives said it would cut the diocese off from the global Anglican communion, which rejected homosexual activity as incompatible with Scripture at the Lambeth Conference in 1998.

Conservative delegates said the conscience clause would only give the diocese a “false peace,” and they said the proposed “episcopal visitor” was a poor substitute for what they had requested, which was “alternative episcopal oversight”—an alternative bishop who would have all the authority that comes with the position.

“All the visitor could do is come and drink tea with you and console you over the tragedy of the diocese,” said Ed Hird, rector of St. Simon’s parish in North Vancouver. “So we’re talking about a neutered form of oversight.”

Trevor Walters, rector of St. Matthew’s parish in Abbotsford, said the diocese had broken away from the mainstream Anglican Church by endorsing a form of sexual activity that is prohibited by Scripture, and he said conservative parishes like his were obliged to leave the diocese temporarily and to wait for higher authorities—such as the Canadian House of Bishops, the primates and the Archbishop of Canterbury—to tell them what to do next.

“We’ll just wait until all those folks sort out the mess, and we’ll do what they tell us to do,” he said.

In a statement released after the synod, scholars J.I. Packer and George Egerton, both key players in the orthodox Anglican Essentials movement, suggested the current division could lead to an even deeper fracture in the Anglican church, if the global communion did not come to the aid of the more conservative parishes.

“Failing such remedy, we are likely to see our Chinese Parishes and others join a new Anglican Mission in Canada,” they wrote.

Speaking to reporters after the walk-out, Ingham said priests who wished to remain in the diocese would remain under his authority, but he did not say how he intended to deal with dissident clergy.

“I think we have to wait and see what happens next,” he said. “Clearly, there’s a lot of emotion; we’ve got to wait for that to settle down. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail.”

The bishop told the remaining delegates that neither he nor the synod had compromised the Christian faith or its moral teaching. He said the synod was calling gay couples to “fidelity, permanence, and stability in relationships.”

This action was the third time in five years that the diocese voted in favor of blessing same-sex unions. But it was the first time Bishop Ingham gave his official consent to them. In 1998, a motion supporting such blessings passed by a very narrow vote of 179-170. At the time, Ingham withheld his consent and initiated a complex dialogue process, pairing churches in the diocese together to discuss the subject of same-sex unions and appointing special commissions to explore the subject from liturgical, legal, and theological points of view.

Last year, the same motion passed 226-174, but the bishop withheld his consent again, suggesting the blessing of same-sex unions ought to be supported by at least 60 percent of the delegates; he also said conservatives needed time to “come to terms” with the possibility that they may be “a new kind of minority.”

This year’s motion passed 215-129, with 62.5 percent of the vote. Ingham said he had not expected to deal with this issue again so soon after last year’s vote. Ingham said he was forced to address it when conservatives brought a motion to synod that proposed forming a new diocese of their own, distinct from the Diocese of New Westminster but overlapping it geographically.

“I think what has happened in the last year is that a small number of people have forced the issue by seeking to break away from the diocese,” he said. “I think that’s what has changed the conversation and made it impossible really to maintain the status quo.”

The bishop claimed most conservatives in the diocese were moderates and would not leave the church over the synod’s action. “There is a smaller group that feel very strongly that they will have to leave, but the question for them is where they will go to, because there’s only one Anglican Church in Canada,” he said.

Walters said the nine churches that left the synod include some of the larger parishes in the diocese, representing up to one quarter of the diocese’s membership and one fifth of the diocese’s budget, and he said he expected other churches to join them soon. He also noted that three of the churches that walked out were predominantly Chinese, and he said these parishes were especially alienated by the direction the synod had taken.

“If this issue that has come before us is a question of minority rights—we don’t want to discriminate on the basis of creed, culture, sexuality, et cetera—then we’ve just discriminated against culture, because the Chinese culture simply prohibits homosexuality,” said Walters.

Archbishop Michael Peers, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada and head of the 700,000-member denomination, said he supported Bishop Ingham’s proposal because it tried to meet the concerns of conservative parishes while keeping the structure of the diocese intact.

“You don’t build dioceses within dioceses, based on theological positions or something like that,” he said in a phone interview from Ontario. “You can’t be part of the Anglican Church of Canada unless you’re part of the diocese.”

St. Matthew’s Walters said, “We’re really going to be the test case for the Anglican Communion.” The blessing of same-sex unions would not have any effect on Canadian law, nor would it be on par with marriage.

The diocese’s liturgical commission prepared a possible rite for the blessing of same-sex unions last year, but Bishop Ingham turned it down, on the advice of his legal commission, because it was too similar to a wedding ceremony.

==============================

Evangelicals warn that Williams in Canterbury would split the Church (London Times, 020621)

LEADING evangelicals in the Church of England have written an open letter to the Prime Minister warning him of a split in the Church of England if the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Rowan Williams, is appointed the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

Their warnings came after The Times disclosed yesterday that Dr Williams, 52, is the first choice of the Crown Appointments Commission to succeed Dr George Carey when he retires in October.

Conservative evangelicals from Britain, America and the Third World were all quick to register their protests. They are concerned that if Dr Williams is appointed the work done by Dr Carey during his 11 years in office will be irrevocably undermined. Dr Carey reversed the liberal, catholic trends established by his predecessor, the late Lord Runcie.

The evangelicals claimed that Dr Williams’s support for the ordination of homosexuals flew “in the face of Holy Scripture” and would lead to the split in the Anglican Communion only narrowly averted by Dr Carey four years ago.

Signatories to an open letter of protest included Prebendary Richard Bewes, Rector of All Souls, Langham Place, a leading evangelical church in London, the Rev David Holloway, Vicar of Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne, and the Rev William Taylor, Rector of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, in the City of London.

The letter, sent to Tony Blair and Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, the chairwoman of the Crown Appointments Commission, protested that Dr Williams had admitted ordaining a man who he knew had a homosexual partner. They wrote: “Such actions and views fly in the face of the clear teaching of Holy Scripture.”

They continued: “Rowan Williams would not have the confidence of the vast majority of Anglicans in the world, who are now in the Third World and who, as loyal Anglicans, take the Holy Scriptures as their supreme authority. His appointment would lead to a major split in the Anglican Communion.”

In the US, David Virtue, editor of Virtuosity , an online news service for evangelical and traditionalist Christians, said: “This will be like throwing gasoline on the liberal and revisionist fires that already rage unchecked and seemingly unstoppable.” The choice of Dr Williams showed that the pleadings of African and Asian bishops had been ignored.

The choice of Dr Williams was welcomed by the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement as “for the good of the whole Church of England”. Father David Houlding, chairman of the Catholic Group on the synod, also pledged support.

==============================

Ottawa canon: Allow gay marriages (Ottawa Citizen, 020718)

Church leader asks bishop to bless unions; says there’s an ‘urgent pastoral need’

The Anglican diocese of Ottawa is poised to delve into the hotly debated issue of same-sex unions.

In October, Canon Garth Bulmer, rector of St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church in downtown Ottawa, will ask the Bishop of Ottawa to authorize parishes to bless same-sex unions. Canon Bulmer will introduce his motion at the diocesan synod, the annual meeting of churches that make up the Ottawa diocese.

His decision comes as a result of 10 years of discussion at St. John’s, at a time when there is a “fairly urgent pastoral need” for his parish to be able to bless homosexual unions. Many of his parishioners are gay and have asked for a marriage ceremony.

“We have some very vocal, very articulate, very active and very faithful gay people at St. John’s Church, and it matters to them, it matters a lot to me and it matters a lot to the parish in general.” Canon Bulmer said.

He finds the current stand the diocese takes on gay unions — deeming homosexuality a God-given form of sexuality, but stopping short of allowing a marriage ceremony to take place — tenuous.

“We bless everything from horses to battleships, but we can’t bless two people who are committed to one another because they’re of the same sex. I don’t think it makes sense at all,” Canon Bulmer said.

Ottawa will be the second Canadian diocese this year to deal with the issue. The Anglican diocese of New Westminster, B.C., endured a wrenching five-year debate on the issue of blessing same-sex unions after Bishop Michael Ingham introduced the notion. The resolution was passed at last month’s synod in that diocese with the support of 63 per cent of church leaders.

Not only were church leaders within the diocese of New Westminster bitterly divided on the issue, Anglican bishops across the country and around the world stepped into the fray.

Eight Anglican primates, or national church leaders, from Latin America, Africa, Asia and Australia stated their opposition to the resolution, while 13 of Canada’s 30 Anglican bishops were publicly opposed. Only two Canadian bishops publicly state their support for New Westminster’s Bishop Ingham — one in Toronto and the other in Nova Scotia.

Peter Coffin, the Bishop of Ottawa, did not publicly support the blessing of same-sex unions in New Westminster and it is unclear whether he will support Canon Bulmer’s resolution. The bishop will make the final decision on how the diocese will treat same-sex unions, as the synod can only make a recommendation to him.

Although Bishop Coffin was unavailable for comment last night, an Anglican Church newsletter reported he was “a little bit surprised” to receive Canon Bulmer’s resolution earlier this week.

“I don’t really expect him to respond,” said Canon Bulmer. “He may have a personal opinion and he may have an opinion as a bishop, and they may not be the same.”

Canon Bulmer certainly expects to run into difficulty getting his motion passed at the Ottawa synod, which will be held this October, as, he says, many parishes in the diocese are “not as ready” to accept homosexual unions as his parish.

According to Rev. Rick Marples, rector at St. James Anglican Church in Manotick, the issue has never been discussed in his parish and he has yet to make a personal decision as to where he stands.

With his resolution, Canon Bulmer intends to stimulate discussion in Anglican parishes such as St. James in Manotick, where the notion of same-sex unions is still off the map.

“What I really want to do is keep the discussion going, and would like to have some sense of where this diocese is at,” Canon Bulmer says. “I want to know how much work has to be done to move the issue along.”

==============================

Anglican chief and B.C. bishop in open feud over gay marriage (National Post, 020918)

Canadian questions ethics of Archbishop of Canterbury

A public feud has broken out between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the British Columbia bishop he accused of creating a worldwide schism in the Anglican Church by deciding to bless homosexual relationships.

Dr. George Carey, the spiritual head of the Anglican Church, warned this week of a possible split in two over divisions caused by liberal-minded North American bishops. He specifically mentioned Michael Ingham, Bishop of the Diocese of New Westminster, B.C., which includes Vancouver.

Bishop Ingham shot back, questioning the Archbishop’s ethics and accusing him of using his office to meddle in local affairs.

“Is it an appropriate use of the Presidential office to comment on complex matters in individual dioceses in highly selective ways? Is it ethical to name individuals and personal situations in a primatial address of this nature?” Bishop Ingham said.

“The diocese of New Westminster believes that Christ died for all humanity, and that the unity of the Church cannot be built on unjust discrimination against minorities, such as homosexual Christians,” he said.

“I regret that the Archbishop’s remarks will confirm and deepen the impression that he has not heard the cry of these, his own children in the Church. Until all voices are heard, the unity we all seek will remain elusive.”

In June, the diocese of New Westminster sparked an international furor after voting to become the first Anglican diocese in Canada to formally bless same-sex marriage, with 63% in favour. The vote followed years of local debate on the issue, where delegates at diocesan meetings voted in favour of such ceremonies.

The decision was immediately condemned by 10 bishops representing rural communities in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and the Yukon, who said same-sex blessings contravene Church teachings.

The Most Reverend Terence Finlay, Archbishop of Toronto, weighed in, saying he supports the right of parishes to bless homosexual relationships.

The country’s highest-ranking Anglican leader, the Most Reverend Michael Peers, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, has remained neutral on the issue, except to say the B.C. diocese had acted within its legal right.

In the speech, Archbishop Carey attacked Bishop Ingham for permitting the blessing of same-sex unions in his diocese in defiance of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.

“I deeply regret that Michael and his synod, and other bishops and other dioceses in similar situations in North America, seem to be making such decisions without regard to the rest of us,” Archbishop Carey said.

In a statement to his diocese, Bishop Ingham said: “I recognize the Archbishop of Canterbury’s concern for the unity of Communion. Indeed I share it, along with all other bishops. I think he sincerely believes his remarks today will further our unity. My expectation is that they will do the opposite.”

The Lambeth Conference, a gathering of Anglican bishops from around the world each decade, voted overwhelmingly four years ago to back the ban on the ordination of practising homosexuals and on homosexual marriages.

The Archbishop of Canterbury made the remarks yesterday in his final address as president of the Anglican Consultative Council, a body made up of representatives of Anglican churches or “provinces” throughout the world, meeting this week in Hong Kong.

While the council has no formal power, it is influential, said Neale Adams, a spokesman for the diocese of New Westminster who has been corresponding with Bishop Ingham via e-mail.

It is not clear whether Church governance permits the Archbishop to overturn the decision of a local diocese, said Mr. Adams, explaining the Archbishop of Canterbury does not have the same authority as the Pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church.

“I don’t think it’s insignificant that Carey has made this speech.... It has some bearing on what people will do in the future, but it’s not clear-cut,” Mr. Adams said.

Archbishop Carey, who will retire in a few months, was backed up by his successor, Dr. Rowan Williams, who takes over the position early next year.

Bishop Williams, who preaches tolerance of gays and is known to have ordained a man whom he suspected of living in a homosexual relationship, nonetheless said Archbishop Carey had correctly identified the “fault lines that threaten to run through our Anglican structures.”

He said a unified Church would not survive unless the warring factions put their differences aside. “I agree wholeheartedly that our unity must be deeper than just a common style in worship or even a common structure of ordained ministry.”

For many, the Church is still reeling from Archbishop Carey’s support of the ordination of women, and its inevitable consequence — the elevation of women to the episcopacy.

But Bishop Ingham countered that the Archbishop ignored the careful way he made a decision on the issue of same-sex marriage.

“I have twice withheld my consent to same-sex blessings,” Bishop Ingham said. “However, bishops are responsible not only to the Communion but to their own dioceses. Bishops in our province, as in most, are elected by synods and are accountable to them, as well as to each other. Lambeth resolutions are not binding on diocesian synods.”

==============================

New Archbishop fuels row with message of comfort to gays (London Times, 030612)

THE Archbishop of Canterbury called on the Church of England yesterday to show constructive support for gays as the wider Anglican Church slipped closer to schism over the issue of homosexual practice versus biblical teachings.

The news that Dr Rowan Williams has sent a warm message of support to organisers of a national conference for lesbian and gay Christians will further enrage evangelicals already furious over the appoinment of the homosexual theologian Canon Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading.

According to The Church of England newspaper, some leading evangelicals will raise the temperature further by calling on Canon John “to repent or resign”. If he does not, leading evangelical parishes, which represent the fastest growing part of the Church, will threaten to withhold their “quotas” or annual payments to diocesan funds.

The row is exacerbating growing disquiet in the wider Anglican Church: as many as half of the provinces of the worldwide Anglican Church are threatening “rupture” in a protest over the rapid advance of the homosexual cause in England, America and Canada.

In a message of support to the annual conference of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, Dr Williams says: “The Anglican Church has committed itself to listening widely — including listening to the experience of gay and lesbian people.

“I very much hope that conferences and consultations like this one will help that listening and mutual questioning to happen in an honest and constructive way, as the Church reflects on what its lesbian and gay members are saying.”

However, the Church of England Evangelical Council passed a strong motion censuring Canon John. On Friday, it will write to all diocesan bishops urging that his consecration in October should not go ahead.

Another diocesan bishop also spoke out. The Bishop of Winchester, the Right Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, criticised the decision of the Bishop of Oxford, the Right Rev Richard Harries, to promote Canon John. He said: “This appointment causes me very great concern and cut right across the Church. He emphasised that the Church must try to find ways of staying together.”

Dr Williams’s difficulties in reconciling the liberal and evangelical extremes within the Anglican Church are only just beginning, as a fellow primate will inform him in a private meeting next week.

The Most Rev Greg Venables, Primate of the Southern Cone, which includes Bolivia, Peru, Chile and Argentina, is heading a group of up to 20 primates, more than half the 38 primates of the worldwide Anglican Church.

Bishop Venables, who chaired the debate at the recent primates’ meeting in Brazil which resulted in a unanimous statement opposing same-sex blessings, will warn Dr Williams on a visit to England next week that his Church is on the verge of rupture.

Bishop Venables, a long-standing friend of Dr Williams, said: “The great majority of Anglican Christians have a very biblical and historical view of the Christian faith. A small group have adjusted their beliefs to suit local cultural interpretations. It has resulted in this rift. We are waiting to see how the Archbishop of Canterbury responds.”

Referring to the authorisation of same-sex blessings in Canada and the election of an openly gay bishop in America, he said: “What has happened is a scandal. Two days after the primates met in Brazil and issued a unanimous statement opposing same-sex blessings, they were authorised by the New Westminster Diocese in Canada. “It is not that we are homophobic. It is because it is a total contradiction of what we believe God has revealed in Scripture.”

Dr Williams does not want to be seen in history as the Archbishop who allowed the Anglican Communion to split in half — but nor does he want to be untrue to what he believes, which is that the argument over homosexuality was won at the same time as the Church liberalised its teaching on contraception.

But he has made up his mind not to attend the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement’s October conference, believing it would be too hot to handle, and has judged his message as sufficient.

Speakers at the conference, “Halfway to Lambeth”, include Canon Gene Robinson, newly elected Bishop of New Hampshire in America who left his wife and two daughters for his gay lover and is the Anglican Communion’s first bishop openly living with a gay partner.

They also include the Right Rev Michael Ingham, Bishop of New Westminster, who authorised the Church’s first official rite for the blessings of same-sex couples. Bishop Ingham will also preach at Manchester Cathedral. The Rev Richard Kirker, secretary of the gay movement, said: “We are delighted that the conference is receiving the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury. We are thrilled that five provinces of the Anglican Communion are represented by keynote speakers.”

Besides the bishops from Canada and America, the speakers include gay representatives from Brazil, South Africa and Uganda.

Dr Williams will take heart that a motion suggesting the withdrawal of his invitation to speak at the ten-yearly National Evangelical Congress in Blackpool in September was defeated yesterday.

The Mothers’ Union, which comes closest to representing the middle ground in the Church of England, announced at its worldwide council meeting yesterday its own consultation on sexuality.

The union has been taking initial soundings from its 250,000 members, staff and other bodies. A spokeswoman said: “Initial feedback is mixed but they seem to be a bit more tolerant than we expected.”

The middle ground of the Church of England makes up a third or more of its million members. Evangelical clergy make up another third, with a third adhering to the traditionalist or liberal Catholic line. Many evangelicals describe themselves as “open evangelical” and large numbers tacitly accept the ministry of homosexuals. The same is true of a large number of liberal Catholics.If this is an accurate reflection of membership, in England at least, commentators believe that Dr Williams’s hope of the Church absorbing this row, as with women priests, has some foundation.

One possible scenario is that numerous provinces will declare themselves in “broken” or “impaired” communion with Canada, America or England, or with all three, but the real test will not come until 2008, when the full extent of the rupture will be apparent in who turns up — or who is barred from attending — the next Lambeth Conference in Cape Town.

In the Church of England, most members are responding to the disputes with “a weary shrug of the shoulders”, according to one leading member of the General Synod, who said: “Jeffrey John will be ordained bishop in October and everyone will have to put up with it. There will be the usual protests by the usual groups, a kerfuffle at Southwark Cathedral or wherever the consecration takes place. And then all will be well with the world.

“We are in the transition period between the evangelical world of George Carey and the gay new guard of Rowan Williams. It is back to the Runcie years. This is how the Church of England works.”

==============================

Worldwide protest as Canadian diocese blesses gay partners (Church Times, UK, 030606)

THE FIRST USE in a Canadian diocese of an authorised rite for same-sex blessings has drawn heavy protest from conservative provinces around the world.

On the evening of Wednesday 28 May, the Revd Margaret Marquardt officiated at a service of blessing for Michael Kalmuk and Kelly Montfort in an Anglican church in east Vancouver. The two men, both care-workers, have been partners for 21 years.

The rite used had been circulated to six parishes in the diocese of New Westminster on the previous Friday, 23 May, while the Anglican Primates were thrashing out their uneasy agreement. Two days later, in a pastoral letter, the Primates drew the line at public blessings for homosexual relationships, in an attempt to prevent any schism over the issue.

This had little effect. Within 48 hours, the Archbishop of Nigeria, Dr Peter Akinola, had severed communion with the diocese of New Westminster and its Bishop, the Rt Revd Michael Ingham, accusing them of having a “flagrant disregard” for the Anglican Communion.

Speaking from Vancouver on Sunday, Bishop Ingham said: “The rite was issued before the Primates made their statement. It was not meant to be an act of defiance, as it’s being interpreted.”

Williams reacts

This did not spare him a swift rebuke from the Archbishop of Canterbury. In a statement on 29 May, Dr Williams said: “As the recent Primates’ Meeting made clear, the public liturgy of the Church expresses the mind of the Church on doctrinal matters, and there is nothing approaching a consensus in support of same-sex unions.

“In taking this action and ignoring the considerable reservations of the Church, repeatedly expressed and most recently by the Primates, the diocese has gone significantly further than the teaching of the Church or pastoral concern can justify, and I very much regret the inevitable tension and division that will come from this development.”

The Canadian view

As a body, Canada’s House of Bishops has opposed same-sex blessings, and the issue is expected to come before the Canadian General Synod in 2004.

However, the Archbishop of Canada, the Most Revd Michael Peers, said, in a statement on 30 May, that it was not his job to pass judgement on the synod of New Westminster, which voted last year to authorise the rite. Nor would he, he said, pre-empt the deliberations of General Synod.

Archbishop Peers acknowledged that the issue was still a cause of “potentially divisive controversy”, but said he did not see the Primates’ letter as an attempt to exercise jurisdiction in New Westminster. The letter, he said, made clear “the Primates’ commitment, as a body, to recognise in other provinces ‘the sincere desire to be faithful’, and their commitment to ‘respect the integrity of each other’s provinces and dioceses.’”

He defended Bishop Ingham’s provision of the rite as a response to the synod of the diocese, “whose members the bishop serves”.

The Most Revd David Crawley, Metropolitan of British Columbia and Yukon, said in an interview on Canadian radio on Saturday that same-sex blessings had been taking place in the United States for 25 years. He suggested that “wealthy and conservative individuals and dioceses, particularly in the United States,” had realised that the issue was lost, and had been determined to fight it out at Lambeth in 1998.

“A lot of American money was flowing to make this a Communion-wide discussion,” he told the interviewer. “The various bodies who are opposed to this in the Communion have chosen New Westminster as their battleground.”

The Church of England, Archbishop Peers said, was “not prepared to touch the question”. “What happens [there] is that local parishes are making the decision. Many communities live in the gap between what everyone knows and no one acknowledges publicly.”

Third World reactions: cultural imperialism?

The issue has revived the accusations of cultural imperialism made by Nigeria at the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in September 2002. In his statement of 30 May, Dr Akinola reiterated the concerns of the Two-Thirds World about the disproportionate power and influence of the global north.

In severing communion with New Westminster on behalf of 17 million Nigerian Anglicans, he described the diocese’s unilateral move as showing “flagrant disregard” for the Anglican Communion and what the “vast majority” of it stood for.

The Archbishop of the West Indies, Dr Drexel Gomez, who argued in his paper True Union in the Body that moves towards the blessing of same-sex unions were “an innovation beyond scripture that could tear the Church apart”, has spoken of Bishop Ingham as now being “outside the flock”.

Condemnation, and calls for the disciplining and suspension of Bishop Ingham, have come from the Primates of South-East Asia and Rwanda. The Archbishop of Uganda has said that his teaching is heretical; the Kenyan Primate has deemed New Westminster’s action to have it put outside the Anglican Communion; and the Primate of South India has described the action as “a historic fork in the road”.

Schism in New Westminster

After the New Westminster synod voted to approve same-sex blessings last year, eight conservative parishes in the diocese formed the Anglican Communion in New Westminster (ACiNW).

Last week they declared in a statement: “This unilateral action isolates the diocese. Never before has a single diocese so abruptly and brazenly repudiated the Church’s 38 Primates and their desire for Anglican unity.”

Ingham defends the move

But Bishop Ingham received a standing ovation at his diocesan synod on Saturday, where a conservative motion that sought to prevent further blessings taking place was defeated by 181 votes to 85.

The Bishop acknowledged the impact the action would have, and warned of uncomfortable times ahead; but he said he hoped the action would bring “some comfort and hope to those millions of people who look to the Church for safety and support instead of judgement and condemnation”.

In response to Dr Williams’s statement, he said on Sunday: “Of course, I know there’s no consensus. I deeply respect Rowan, and I understand the responsibilities he has. Of course I share with him no desire to add to strains in the Communion.

“At the same time, I feel this is an issue of biblical justice, and that the Church ought to be able to recognise that cultural differences in different parts of the world play a large part in the view that provinces take of this.”

Bishop Ingham supported a view endorsed by Archbishop Peers: that Canada had a particular way of doing things. “It may well be true that in the Church of England same-sex blessings are taking place, authorised by local vicars. In the USA, blessings are taking place authorised by local bishops. In Canada, we have said that blessings will take place only when authorised by bishops and dioceses. That makes the process much more open.”

The Synod had been very positive, he said. “People are clearly upset, but not so much with same-sex blessings as with all the fuss. Our folks have said they don’t want to turn back from the plough, but they’re greatly distressed at what appear to be very extreme and immoderate reactions.”

Episcopal Visitor

The Rt Revd William Hockin, of Fredericton, the conservative Episcopal Visitor appointed by Bishop Ingham to minister to those opposed to same-sex blessings, was due to fly into New Westminster this week, to take a service jointly with Bishop Ingham and to meet informally with clergy and lay people.

“He and I have quite different points of view about homosexuality, but we are both committed to modelling collegiality across theological differences,” Bishop Ingham said.

ACiNW wants episcopal oversight by the Rt Revd Terence Buckle, Bishop of the Yukon, instead, but this has been opposed by the House of Bishops, which has urged the parishes to accept Bishop Hockin’s ministry.

Bishop Ingham suggested that the parishes’ refusal of Bishop Hockin was “about power, not theology”. “I think in many cases the leadership of these parishes is far more extreme than the membership.” He described as “curious” Nigeria’s action in severing communion — “not something I would consider an individual Primate could do without a resolution from his General Synod.”

Extensive pre-consultation is taking place in advance of the 2004 General Synod. It was expected that there would be attempts to stop the New Westminster decision, but Synod would be unlikely to be asked to vote for or against, said the Bishop. “We will be asking ourselves how we can find ways of living together, now this has happened.”

==============================

Vote on Gay Bishop Delayed (Foxnews, 030805)

MINNEAPOLIS — A vote by Episcopal leaders on whether to confirm the church’s first openly gay elected bishop was derailed in the 11th hour as allegations questioning both his name and reputation surfaced.

Just as bishops convened Monday to consider approving the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, allegations that he inappropriately touched a man were lobbed at the candidate and he came under scrutiny for his connection to a Web site that can indirectly link users to pornography.

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold said Robinson, with current New Hampshire Bishop Douglas Theuner and representatives of his diocese, decided together “that a thorough investigation be undertaken before we proceed.”

The decision threw the national church meeting into turmoil, after several days of intense debate over whether Robinson’s election would strengthen or shatter the church.

“There is no precedent for this,” said Jim Solheim, a church spokesman. “The church’s canon lawyers are still sorting out the implications.”

Neither Robinson nor his spokesman, Mike Barwell, commented, but the New Hampshire diocese issued a statement expressing “continued confidence” in the clergyman. Solheim said accusations such as these “trigger an almost automatic” inquiry.

The Episcopal gay advocacy group Integrity said it felt “deep frustration and disappointment over the 11th-hour allegation.”

“It’s character assassination,” said Robyn Cotton, a Concord, N.H., Episcopalian who supports Robinson.

A claim that Robinson inappropriately touched a man was e-mailed Sunday to Bishop Thomas Ely of Vermont, who was asked in the message not to consent to Robinson’s election. Other bishops received the e-mail as well and “some of the bishops have talked to the accuser” about his claims, Solheim said.

In the message, a man who identified himself as David Lewis from Manchester, Vt., said Robinson “does not maintain appropriate boundaries with men.”

Lewis wrote in the e-mail that he met Robinson at a church event “a couple of years ago” and “he put his hands on me inappropriately every time I engaged him in conversation.” Lewis described himself as a “straight man reporting homosexual harassment.”

Seth Bongartz, a lawyer in Manchester, said he knew Lewis “fairly well” and said he is married with two children and apparently training to become an Episcopal priest.

State Rep. Judy Livingston said she also knew Lewis and his wife, and described him as “very intelligent,” adding: “He is not the person who would make wild accusations.”

Theuner said in a statement that the church’s investigation would also include scrutiny of separate concerns raised about Robinson’s “relationship to a Web site of outright.org,” a secular outreach program for gay and bisexual youth that Robinson helped found.

Bishops learned of the porn link claim from David Virtue, a conservative Anglican activist and writer who has been among the harshest critics of Robinson and of Episcopal gay activists. Virtue said a bishop whom he would not identify alerted him to the link.

Mo Baxley, a member of Concord, N.H., Outright’s board of directors, said Robinson hasn’t been involved with the group for several years and had no role in developing its Web page.

The link is on an unaffiliated site that had resources for gay youth, Baxley said. That page provided resources for bisexuals that, a few links away, provided access to porn.

Outright issued a statement Monday saying the organization was not aware of the link and objected to it.

The American Anglican Council, which represents conservative bishops and parishes that had campaigned vigorously against Robinson, said it still hoped he was rejected, but not because of the allegations.

“Gene deserves the right to defend himself,” said Canon David Anderson, the council president.

Solheim said he did not know how long the investigation would take or if a vote on Robinson would take place before the church’s national meeting ends Friday. Bishop Gordon Scruton of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts was named to lead the investigation.

Church lawyers were researching whether bishops could vote by mail after this week’s convention or call a special session later to conduct the balloting, Solheim said.

Robinson, a 56-year-old divorced father of two, has been attending the convention with his daughter and partner of 13 years, Mark Andrew. Robinson was elected by his diocese in June, but the church requires that a majority of convention delegates ratify his election.

The denomination has been deeply divided for decades over homosexuality and the pending vote on Robinson only fueled the tensions.

The American Anglican Council plans a meeting in October to decide whether to break away from the church or take other action if Robinson is seated.

Like-minded bishops in the Anglican Communion, the 77-million-member global association that includes the Episcopal Church, said they, too, will consider severing ties with the denomination if Robinson wins.

==============================

Church to Vote Today on Gay Bishop-Elect (Foxnews, 030805)

MINNEAPOLIS — The investigation into misconduct allegations against a priest seeking to become the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop has concluded, and a vote on his confirmation will take place late in the afternoon, the head of the church said Tuesday.

James Solheim, a national church spokesman, said the vote would not have been rescheduled if the Rev. V. Gene Robinson hadn’t been cleared.

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold said in a brief statement that the bishop leading the inquiry would report later Tuesday on the results of his preliminary investigation and a vote would be taken. Griswold did not comment further.

The results of the vote by the House of Bishops were expected to be announced at around 6 p.m. EDT.

Allegations emerged Monday that Robinson had inappropriately touched a man and that he is connected to a group whose Web site can indirectly link users to pornography.

Bishop Gordon Scruton of Western Massachusetts conducted the preliminary inquiry to determine whether the claims were credible enough to warrant a full investigation.

The claims came to light just as bishops from around the country who had gathered for the church’s national meeting were to start considering whether to confirm Robinson.

The gathering was thrown into turmoil after several days of intense debate over whether Robinson’s election would strengthen or shatter the church. Robinson, a 56-year-old divorced father of two, has been living with his male partner for 13 years.

Robinson’s supporters called the timing of the allegations suspicious. His opponents acknowledged they helped bring forward the Web site claim against him.

The claim of inappropriate touching was e-mailed to Vermont Bishop Thomas Ely by David Lewis of Manchester, Vt. A family friend said Tuesday that Lewis never intended the allegations to go public.

Speaking at a news conference in Manchester, Lou Midura said Lewis sent the e-mail so it could be conveyed privately to other bishops, not debated in the media. Other bishops received the e-mail as well.

Separate concerns were raised about Robinson’s connection to the Web site Outright, a secular outreach program for gay and bisexual youth that Robinson helped found.

Bishops learned of the porn link claim from David Virtue, a conservative Anglican activist and writer who has been among the harshest critics of Robinson and of Episcopal gay activists. Virtue said a bishop, whom he would not identify, had alerted him to the link.

A member of the group’s board of directors said Robinson hasn’t been involved with the group for several years and had no role in developing its Web page.

The link is on an unaffiliated site that had resources for gay youth, the spokesman said. That page provided resources for bisexuals that, a few links away, provided access to porn.

Robinson was elected by his diocese in June, but the church requires that a majority of convention delegates ratify his election.

On Sunday, the House of Deputies, a legislative body comprised of clergy and lay people from dioceses nationwide, approved Robinson by a 2-to-1 margin; a committee endorsed him by secret ballot Friday.

The final vote he needs is in the House of Bishops.

The American Anglican Council, which represents conservative bishops and parishes, plans a meeting in October to decide whether to break away from the church or take some other action if Robinson is seated.

Robinson has rejected calls from conservatives that he withdraw from consideration to prevent a breakup of the church, as a gay clergyman did recently in England.

==============================

Episcopalians Tackle Same-Sex Unions (Foxnews, 030807)

MINNEAPOLIS — As anguished conservatives protested the confirmation of the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, church leaders weary of debating homosexuality are tackling yet another divisive issue: blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples.

The House of Bishops, composed of bishops from around the country, voted Wednesday to reject a proposal to draft an official liturgy for the ceremonies — which are already performed in some parishes.

But by voice vote, they overwhelmingly approved a document saying: “We recognize that local faith communities are operating within the bounds of our common life as they explore and experience liturgies celebrating and blessing same-sex unions.”

There was disagreement over the significance of the statement, which needs final approval from the clergy and laity in the House of Deputies. A vote could come as soon as Thursday.

Bishops already decide whether to permit same-sex blessing ceremonies in their own dioceses.

But the Episcopal gay advocacy groups Claiming the Blessing and Integrity said that, if approved, the measure would be the first time the church acknowledged in a national document that such ceremonies are held.

Bishop Robert Ilhoff of Maryland said the statement had little practical effect: “It continues the policy that is in effect in all our dioceses.”

Ilhoff said he understood why gay advocates would consider it a victory, because it brings the practice “to the surface.”

Bishop Keith Ackerman of Quincy, Ill., called it “recognition without approval” that allows bishops to continue to set local policy.

Three bishops — in Kansas, New Hampshire and Delaware — authorize same-sex blessings, according to the Rev. Michael Hopkins, president of Integrity. Other dioceses bar them, while some bishops have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach, overlooking the ceremonies priests perform.

Gay advocates had hoped that confirmation of the Rev. V. Gene Robinson at this week’s General Convention would build momentum toward approval for an official ceremony.

Robinson, a 56-year-old divorced father of two, has lived with his male partner for 13 years. He was confirmed Tuesday after he was cleared of last-minute misconduct allegations that threatened to delay the vote.

In the bishops’ vote on same-sex ceremonies, Utah Bishop Otis Charles, who revealed he was gay in 1993 after he retired, spoke of how he felt “diminished” during years of church debate over homosexuality.

“You cannot understand the experience that it is for every gay and lesbian member of the Episcopal Church when this house debates whether or not our relationships can be acknowledged, honored and celebrated,” Charles said.

Conservatives angered by Robinson’s election smeared ashes on their foreheads in a sign of mourning and penance Wednesday, boycotted legislative sessions and dropped to their knees in prayer on the floor of the House of Deputies.

A handful of the more than 800 clergy and lay delegates either walked off the floor of the meeting or collectively stayed away, while at least three of the nearly 300 bishops refused to participate or went home, saying their distraught parishioners needed them.

In an interview earlier Wednesday with The Associated Press, Robinson said he hoped his critics would not leave the church, though he disagrees with their view that gay sex violates Scripture.

“I think they’re wrong about this,” he said. “I think they’ll come to know that they are wrong, in this life or the next one.”

Robinson said he values diversity within Anglicanism and hoped his critics will too. The Episcopal Church, with 2.3 million members, is the U.S. branch of the 77 million-member global Anglican Communion.

Anglicans in many parts of the world reacted angrily Wednesday to Robinson’s confirmation, with some threatening to cut ties with the American church.

The Anglicans’ spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, appealed for opponents not to act rashly but acknowledged it would inevitably have a “significant impact” on the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The American Anglican Council, which represents conservative Episcopalians, planned a meeting Oct. 7-9 in Plano, Texas, to decide whether it will break from the church. The council organized a worship service Wednesday for those who reject Robinson’s ratification. About 300 people participated, some weeping openly during prayer.

If conservatives do decide to break away, it was unclear what that would mean for the church. Some parishes could split from their dioceses and refuse to recognize clergy who support homosexuality, but stop short of a complete separation.

A full schism would trigger, among other things, bitter fights over parish assets and undercut the global influence of the U.S. church.

==============================

Conservative Episcopalians Ponder Breaking Away (Foxnews, 031007)

DALLAS — In one of the biggest independent meetings of Episcopalians in years, 2,600 clergy and lay members are gathered to protest the denomination’s liberal steps on homosexuality, with the possibility of a church split in the air.

The meeting, set to begin Tuesday, was originally planned as a strategy session for a few hundred leaders. But it mushroomed in scope as conservatives reacted against two actions by the Episcopal Church’s midsummer convention: confirmation of a gay bishop living with his partner, and a vote to recognize — though not endorse or condemn — that bishops are allowing blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples.

The presence in Dallas of 45 of the church’s 300 bishops underscores the gravity of the situation.

“We have two to three weeks to see the future of the Episcopal Church in America,” says the Rev. David Roseberry, whose 4,000-member Christ Church in suburban Plano organized the event.

He refers not only to the Dallas meeting but, more importantly, an Oct. 15-16 emergency summit in London for leaders of the international Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch.

That session involves the Anglicans’ spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, and the 37 other heads of world Anglican branches. Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold of the Episcopal Church also is a member of that group and defends the decisions reached this summer in Minneapolis.

The American Anglican Council, sponsor of the Dallas meeting, says that U.S. conservatives are loyal to Anglican beliefs and the Christian tradition, so it’s the Episcopal Church majority that has broken away into schism.

Founded in 1996, the AAC has emerged as the most important conservative Episcopal caucus. It reports a mailing list of 50,000 and support from about 500 congregations and 50 bishops. Spokesman Bruce Mason says “we probably represent a minority within the Episcopal Church but are part of the vast majority worldwide.”

Jim Naughton, spokesman for the Diocese of Washington, D.C., and part of that liberal majority, estimates that, at most, 14 percent of the 2.3 million Episcopalians favor traditionalist protests. Naughton is part of a team in Dallas observing the meeting, which concludes Thursday.

Any Episcopal split would presumably be the biggest in the United States since 1976, when 100,000 members quit the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. The Episcopal Church also suffered 1970s walkouts, over women priests and revisions in liturgy, but they were minor by comparison.

The meeting’s major action will be a petition to the London summit that’s likely to ask the world leaders to provide special bishops to minister to conservatives within liberal U.S. dioceses, instead of their regular bishops.

The petition could also repeat an idea approved by recent conventions of the Fort Worth and Pittsburgh Dioceses, asking the London summit to declare the traditionalists to be the authentic U.S. branch of Anglicanism, in effect suspending or expelling the Episcopal Church.

Whatever emerges, “we need a safe place to be, safe from theological and spiritual harassment, harassment to careers, and danger to our property,” says Canon David C. Anderson of Stone Mountain, Ga., AAC president.

He says AAC leaders will be holding a follow-up meeting sometime after the London summit.

A split is implied in such program topics here as “Talking Points for Answering Difficult Questions” and the legalistic “Constitutions, Canons, Pensions, Properties and Jurisdictions.”

Who gets church property in a split could be among the toughest problems discussed in Dallas. The most radical position came from the Pittsburgh diocesan convention: a declaration that buildings now belong to each congregation, denying the national denomination’s claim to control all property under 1979 legislation.

Roseberry says, “we are prepared, and preparing, for what God is going to do next.”

==============================

Anglican defends marrying lesbians (National Post, 031118)

An Anglican priest who defied his church by performing a marriage between two women in a cathedral in Hamilton said yesterday he acted in “a moment of grace” and he does not regret his decision.

“I know that it was probably an error,” said Rev. Peter Wall, dean of the diocese of Niagara and rector of Christ’s Church Cathedral. “But ... while it’s been uncomfortable, I’m content to believe that what I did was the right thing to do.”

The marriage, performed in August, is believed to be the first between same-sex partners in an Anglican church in Canada. While some Anglican dioceses allow priests to bless gay marriages, they are not permitted to perform full marriage ceremonies, such as the one conducted by Dean Wall.

Bishop Ralph Spence announced in early September that a priest in the Niagara diocese had presided over the wedding of a gay couple and that he was suspending the priest’s licence to perform marriages. He did not name the priest or the church.

Dean Wall said he decided to comment publicly after the religious press deduced it was him and approached him for comment. His story was posted to the Anglican Journal Web site on the weekend, and Dean Wall informed his flock on Sunday that he was the minister who performed the ceremony, in their church. He received a prolonged ovation.

“I was surprised at how extensive it was,” said Dr. John Watts, a Hamilton pediatrician and member of the parish council. “I was also surprised that it included some of the older members of the congregation who I thought would have the most difficulty.”

Dr. Watts said while some parishioners expressed difficulty at accepting the idea of a same-sex marriage, they said they supported Dean Wall’s courage in following his convictions. “It’s a very inclusive congregation,” said Dr. Watts. He said Dean Wall also has the support of the parish council. The reverend’s licence to perform marriages was restored on Nov. 1, after he agreed not to perform any more same-sex marriages.

Dean Wall’s brother, who was gay, died of AIDS 13 years ago. He has a sister who is gay, and other people close to him, whom he prefers not to identify, are also gay.

“I think I’m pretty well recovered from whatever homophobia I had as a member of the culture in which we live,” said Dean Wall, a father of two, who has been ordained for 15 years.

He said he agreed to perform a marriage ceremony for the two women — who were not his parishioners — when he realized they had a deep attachment to the Church and to their faith. Partners for 14 years, they had been having trouble finding a location for their wedding. They had been turned away from another church. Dean Wall offered to marry them himself.

“I hope it came from God,” he says of his inspiration to act. “I hope it came from some sense I have that we need to be a place for all people, that we need to honour all people where they are and honour them for who they are.”

He said while he knows the issue has been difficult for the Church, and he knew he was breaking the rules, he felt he could take no other course of action.

He performed a traditional ceremony, changing only the pronouns in the text. About 90 people attended the wedding.

Dean Wall and others said they are not aware of any other same-sex marriage that has been performed in an Anglican church in Canada. The Anglican diocese of New Westminster in the Vancouver area permits priests to bless homosexual unions, but it is not a marriage ceremony and no exchange of rings is supposed to take place.

Garth Bulmer, rector at St. John’s Anglican Church in downtown Ottawa, said it’s the first union he knows of that is a marriage within the Anglican Church. “I have several couples here that have been married, but they’ve had to go elsewhere,” he said.

“I personally believe it’s going to be increasingly difficult for the authorities — the bishops and so on — to stop it from happening. I think it’s going to start happening more and more in Canada. I kind of have the sense that there is this great wall built up [and] the pressure against the wall ... it’s going to break.”

Rev. Bulmer says the issue is dividing the Anglican Church worldwide. Anglican churches in Africa and Asia are opposed to the practice and consider it a North American issue. But he does not think the issue can ultimately split the Church. He remembers there was deep division of opinion over the ordination of women as priests.

“My opinion is, if it comes down to a choice between preserving the institution and doing what is right , we have to do the latter and let the chips fall where they may.”

Gay couples have won court battles allowing them the right to civil marriages in Ontario, Quebec and B.C. The federal Minister of Justice has proposed legislation that would legalize same-sex marriages, and has requested a Supreme Court reference on the matter. A hearing has been scheduled for April to hear submissions on whether the proposed legislation conforms with the Constitution and whether it respects the rights of churches that choose not to perform wedding ceremonies for homosexual couples.

“We know of many priests and celebrants in faith communities who would like the right within their church to celebrate same-sex marriage, but the matter is really up to the Church to decide for itself,” said Gilles Marchildon, executive director of the Ottawa-based rights group EGALE.

==============================

>>Sailing Off into Irrelevance (Christianity Today , 031125)

The Episcopal Church’s rejection of orthodoxy is sobering for evangelicals.

A Christianity Today Editorial | posted 11/25/2003

The American Episcopal Church (ECUSA) has rejected the sober warnings of the worldwide Anglican communion and is continuing its happy drift from orthodox Christianity.

On November 2, Gene Robinson, a non-celibate homosexual, was consecrated as bishop of the diocese of New Hampshire in a service that the denomination’s leaders blessed. Immediately, many leading Anglicans in Africa announced they were in a state of impaired communion with that diocese (and some with the denomination), and many American parishes and dioceses began separating themselves from ECUSA. These are but the first steps in a break that may take years to become permanent.

The Anglican primates (heads of the provinces) met in October to sternly remind the American church that Robinson’s election does not represent the teaching of Anglicanism, and to warn that, if ECUSA moved forward with the consecration, “The future of the Communion itself will be put in jeopardy.” (One Canadian diocese was similarly warned about blessing same-sex unions).

While emphasizing their “deep regret” regarding the actions of ECUSA, the primates essentially blessed a “divorce” from ECUSA by (1) allowing dissenting minorities to seek alternative bishops, and (2) recognizing as a foregone conclusion, maybe even a right, that provinces would declare themselves out of communion with the Episcopal Church.

The document called for a 12-month study to create a new polity that would hold the communion together. But there is likely no structure that would allow conservatives to stay in communion with provinces that openly bless same-sex unions and ordain practicing homosexuals.

This church split is particularly sad. This was Protestantism’s longest cross-cultural effort at institutional unity. It has worked for some 200 years (as Anglican provinces have only slowly become independent since the colonial era). As such it has been a positive witness for Christ, who prayed for unity among his disciples (John 17:11). Such unity—less formal and driven more by common mission—is what evangelicals seek when we gather for the international Lausanne conferences.

What’s also sad is ECUSA’s blindness. Many Episcopal liberals (as well as the secular media) are portraying conservatives as schismatic for separating themselves from the denomination. The reality is that ECUSA has rejected the counsel of 37 other provinces (not to mention the teaching of nearly every other Christian denomination, and that of the church historic for almost 2,000 years). The conservatives are desperately trying to jump from the Episcopal ship onto the landmass called orthodox Anglicanism while the ECUSA sails away all on its own into uncharted waters.

But the split is also a sobering lesson. It was not merely the repeated failure of the Episcopal church to discipline rebellious bishops (such as James Pike and Walter Righter), nor the inability to slow down, let alone stop, the ordination of actively gay priests (which has gone on unchecked for a decade). More than anything, as Philip Turner, dean of Yale’s Berkeley Divinity School, put it, the denomination has been fascinated with proclaiming “an enlightened religion attuned to the latest trends”—which in the end put it at odds with biblical teaching. When push came to shove, trends won out.

This last bit that should give us pause, because one thing we evangelicals have a knack for is discerning cultural trends and shaping ministry to fit them. To be sure, most ministry entrepreneurs are quick to point out that they are careful to distinguish the shape of ministry (culturally tailored) from the message and aims of ministry (anchored to the truth we know in Jesus and from the Bible).

But we should remember that when Episcopalians first came up with the grand idea of becoming more relevant to the world, they made the very same speech.

==============================

Get Ready for the Knock on the Door (Classical Anglican, 040216)

Sean Murphy

Director, CCRL Western Region

Marriage commissioners in British Columbia have been ordered to perform and register so-called ‘marriages’ between persons of the same sex, or resign. M.P. Vic Toews has complained that the demand is inconsistent with an employer’s obligation to accommodate the religious and moral beliefs of employees. He reminds us of the general rule that an employee must not be forced to do something contrary to his conscientious convictions.

However, Mr. Toews has overlooked an exception to the general rule. Employers do not have to accommodate unlawful conduct.

Taking its cue from our ruling elites- especially, it seems, our judges - Vital Statistics has decided that it is unlawful to refuse to perform a marriage ceremony for persons of the same sex. Religious and moral convictions to the contrary are, to put it politely, mistaken. Less politely, they are trash. And employers are entitled to put out the trash. Hence the ultimatum: conform or quit.

The ultimatum may alert more people to the fact that this project is not about tolerance. It never has been. The real goal, all along, has been nothing less than the compulsory public affirmation of the purported goodness of homosexual activity and inclinations.1 The judges who invented the legal fiction that persons of the same sex can marry demand not tolerance, but “society’s approbation”of homosexual relationships.2 If that requires the public degradation and punishment of those who refuse to bend the knee, so be it.

Nothing less than this will do, because guilty consciences will settle for nothing less, even if, as Jay Budziszewski observes, it is at the cost of “marriage, family, innocence, purity, childhood” - “even if it means pulling down the world around their ears.”3

Budziszewski ascribes this frantic effort to silence all opposition to ‘the revenge of conscience’. The law written on the human heart cannot be obliterated. It can be denied, but the reproach of conscience at the deepest levels never, ever stops. That is why tolerance is, finally, intolerable; it is less than acceptance, less than approval. “If you cannot convert your critics by argument,” writes historian John Thomas Noonan, “at least by law you can make them recognize that your course is the course of the country.”4

Thus, to BC marriage commissioners: conform or quit.

Or, coming soon, go to jail.

Courtesy Svend Robinson and a majority of the Liberal, NDP and Bloc Quebecois parties, Bill C250 will make it a ‘hate crime’ to publicly challenge the morality of homosexual conduct if it is likely that such challenges will “lead to a breach of the peace.” A “breach of the peace”is conduct like threats, assault or disturbance that involves some danger to a person or property.5 Bill C250 does not specify that the speaker must intend this result, nor that the breach must follow directly from what is said. Moreover, this part of the bill makes no allowance for statements about religious or public issues, even if they are made in good faith, even if they are true.

So when can it be said that a statement is ‘likely’ to lead to a breach of the peace?

Just about any time, as it turns out. In 2000, the Attorney General of BC, through counsel, argued that if people are allowed to speak publicly against homosexual conduct and lifestyles it will validate “anti-gay and lesbian attitudes” and increase the risk that people involved in homosexual conduct will be assaulted or harassed.6

In other words, if a minister, priest, bishop, imam or rabbi says something that homosexual activists find ‘hateful’- that people can and ought to resist or overcome certain sexual urges, for example - their words might ‘validate’ the notion that homosexual conduct is immoral. In turn, that notion might lead to a breach of the peace some time next week, or next month, or next summer. And that mere possibility, grounded in prejudiced speculation, will open the door for an indictment for ‘hate crime.’

Keep your mouths shut - even in synagogue, church or mosque - or get ready for a visit from the police.

If this seems far-fetched, ask the Rt. Reverend Dr. Peter Forster, Anglican Bishop of Chester, England. Last fall he stated that some people can overcome homosexual inclinations and “reorientate” themselves. He encouraged them to consider that option, qualifying his remarks with the comment that the subject was properly within the field of psychiatric health.7

What the bishop said was true,8 but for this very reason it is doubly galling to a guilty conscience, and conscience must have its revenge. Infuriated homosexual activists condemned Bishop Forster’s assertion as “scandalous”, “irresponsible” and “evil”, and he was denounced to the police for violating England’s Public Order Act.9 The investigation concluded with a reprimand from the local Chief Constable, who warned that such statements are ‘translated’ in ways “totally unacceptable” in a civilized society.10 This precisely reflects the reasoning of the BC Attorney General, the minister whose officers will be responsible for prosecuting people like Bishop Forster if Bill C250 becomes law.

The ultimatum from Vital Statistics demonstrates that the need for coy words like ‘tolerance’ is passing. BC’s marriage commissioners are only the latest to feel the bite of the morality being imposed by judicial decree. They will not be the last. If Bill C250 becomes law, get ready for the knock on the door.

Notes:

1.”There is a difference between tolerating and celebrating family diversity . . . Celebrating lesbian, gay or transgender-headed families means willingly supporting them and openly working on homophobia and transphobia within the schools.” (P. 28, Challenging Homophobia, GALE BC, quoted in review by Ted Hewlett dated March, 2001)

From Tolerance to Affirmation: One School’s Experience with a Gay-Affirmative Program

http://www.narth.com/docs/fromtoler.html (Accessed 5 February, 2004)

“For the second year, the alliance is giving teachers ‘safe zone’ training on how to make the classroom a safe, welcoming and accepting environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other students. ‘Tolerance is not good enough,’ sophomore Erica Tempesta, 15, tells the handful of educators.” Sumanti Reddy, “GSAs Persevere In North Carolina.” Raleigh News and Observer, Apr 05, 2001.

2.See Halpern et al, Court of Appeal for Ontario, 2003-06-10, Docket: C39172 and C39174, para. 5. (http://www.ontariocourts.on.ca/decisions/2003/june/halpernC39172.htm Accessed 5 February, 2004)

3. Budziszewski, J., What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide. Dallas, Texas: Spence Publishing, 2003, p. 153

4. Noonan, J.T., A Private Choice. New York: The Free Press, 1979, p. 82. Quoted in Budziszewski, supra, p. 154

5. Glanville Williams, Arrest for Breach of the Peace. [1954] Crim. L.R. 578. Williams argues that English courts would restrict the meaning of the term to conduct involving some kind of danger to the person, while observing that American authorities would extend it to include threats against land or goods. The leading Canadian case identifies a breach of the peace as conduct that amounts to more than mere annoyance or insult to an individual that stops short of personal violence, or conduct that causes public alarm and excitement, which would presumably involve some danger to property or persons. See Frey vs. Fedoruk, 97 C.C.C. 3 (S.C.C.)

6. In the Matter of the Inquiry between an Applicant and the Ministry of Attorney General (Public Body) and Third Parties. Initial Submissions of the Public Body, 28 April, 2000, para. 4.29

7. Alleyne, Richard, Bishop’s anti-gay comments spark legal investigation.(Filed: 10/11/2003) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/11/10/nbish10.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/11/10/ixportal.html (Accessed 4 February, 2004)

8. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 32, No. 5, October 2003, pp. 403-417. Cited in Roy Waller and Linda A. Nicolosi, Spitzer Study Just Published: Evidence Found for Effectiveness of Reorientation Therapy. (http://www.narth.com/docs/evidencefound.html. Accessed 13 October, 2003)

9. Section 18 of the Public Order Act 1986 makes it an offence to use “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour” in order to stir up racial hatred, or if racial hatred “is likely to be stirred up thereby.” (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/justice/wghc-13.asp. Accessed 5 February, 2004)

10. Alleyne, supra.

Harden, Rachel, “Bishop rapped for urging gays to ‘reorientate’ themselves”. Church Times, http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/templates/NewsTemplate_1.asp?recid=2205&table=news&bimage=news&issue=7341&count=0. Accessed 4 February, 2004)

==============================

>>Episcopal Bishops Apologize for Gay-Bishop Divisions (Christian Post, 050114)

The bishops of the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) on Thursday expressed “sincere regret” for the divisions that arose within the worldwide Anglican Communion through the denomination’s unilateral decision to consecrate an openly homosexual man as bishop last year. While the bishops’ “word to the church,” penned at their closed door meeting regarding the Windsor Report on homosexuality and unity, was the largest step taken on the part of the ECUSA to amend its broken relationships with dozens of international Anglican Communion church bodies, it failed to address the Report’s recommendation to plan a moratoria on the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals as well as the blessing of same sex unions.

“We as the House of Bishops express our sincere regret for the pain, the hurt, and the damage caused to our Anglican bonds of affection by certain actions of our church,” the bishops’ statement read. “Knowing that our actions have contributed to the current strains in our Communion, we express this regret as a sign of our deep desire for and commitment to continuation of our partnership in the Anglican Communion.”

Nearly two-thirds of the church bodies within the 77-million Anglican Communion have severed fellowship ties with the ECUSA for its decision to consecrate Gene Robinson, an actively homosexual man, as bishop, during the 2003 ECUSA General Convention. In light of the divisions, the head of the Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, commissioned a task force to draft a comprehensive document regarding the contentious issue of homosexuality entitled the “Windsor Report.”

The report, release in November 2004, recommended both the ECUSA and those who broke ties with them to “express regret” for their actions. Furthermore, the report recommended the ECUSA place 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.”

In regards to the latter recommendation, the Episcopal bishops said they will consider the issue at its March meeting since they do not want to “act in haste.”

“We have not had sufficient time to give substantive consideration to recommendations in the Report calling for a moratorium on diocesan boundary violations or the call for a moratorium and further discussion of the authorization of liturgical texts blessing same sex unions,” the statement read. [Kwing Hung: note the bias of emphasizing the problem of diocesan boundary.]

The bishops said they hope to have a better understanding of the recommendation after the international heads of the Anglican Communion consider the Windsor Report in February 2005.

“We believe it is extremely important to take the time to allow the Holy Spirit to show us ways we can engage with people throughout our church in a consideration of all of the invitations for further reflection and the recommendations of the Windsor Report,” the bishops wrote.

At a news conference held after the statement’s release, Utah Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish took pains to explain that the bishops’ statement was not an apology for consecrating Robinson, but was rather an expression of regret for the tensions that arose thereafter,

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, moderator of the conservative Anglican Communion Network (ACN) – a group that opposes the ordination of Robinson, said the bishops’ statement is “graceful” in language but not in “behavior.”

“The Episcopal Church USA often uses ‘graceful’ language but our behavior (‘the politics of power’) contradicts the words,” said Duncan.

According to the ACN, a group of 21 bishops have issued a “Statement of Acceptance of and Submission to the Windsor Report 2004,” in light of “the House of Bishops failure to issue a definitive statement on moratoria and to submit to the Windsor Report as asked by the Communion.”

The group of 21 conservative bishops plans to present their statement to the international February meeting of the Primates.

The House of Bishops’ closed-door meeting was held on Jan. 12-13, at Salt Lake City, Utah.

The following is the full text of the Word to the Church by the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church.

——

To the faithful in Christ Jesus, greetings in the season of Epiphany. We rejoice together with you that God has “caused a new light to shine in our hearts” revealing God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord. The sufferings of our brothers and sisters in the aftermath of tsunamis in South Asia and flooding and mud slides in California and here in Utah where we are meeting, make us long all the more for this new light revealed to us in Christ. We are mindful as well of the suffering around the world caused by global poverty, HIV/AIDS, malaria, other diseases, and war. In this suffering world we are called to “serve and signify God’s mission to the world, that mission whereby God brings to men and women, to human societies and to the whole world, real signs and foretastes of that healing love which will one day put all things to rights” (Windsor Report, paragraph 3).

We decided at our September meeting in 2004 to set aside this time so we might together begin to receive the Windsor Report with humility. We have met for a day and a half in Salt Lake City. We welcome with gratitude the work of the Lambeth Commission on Communion. We realize this is a long-term effort which will most likely extend beyond our March meeting. In the meantime, we aim to practice the more intentional consultative processes called for by the Windsor Report. We also anticipate the Executive Council of our church joining in this consultation.

In this spirit of intentional practice, we affirm that all need to repent, as the Archbishop of Canterbury reminded us in his Advent Letter 2004. We repent of the ways we as bishops have sometimes treated each other, failing to honor Christ’s presence in one another. Furthermore, too often we have also failed to recognize Christ’s presence fully manifest in our sister and brother Anglicans around the global communion. We honor their full voice and wisdom. We desire mutuality. We recognize our interdependence in the Body of Christ.

Moreover, we as the House of Bishops express our sincere regret for the pain, the hurt, and the damage caused to our Anglican bonds of affection by certain actions of our church. Knowing that our actions have contributed to the current strains in our Communion, we express this regret as a sign of our deep desire for and commitment to continuation of our partnership in the Anglican Communion.

We note here that our decision-making structures differ from those in many parts of the Anglican Communion and that our actions require conciliar involvement by all the baptized of our church, lay and ordained. Therefore we as bishops, in offering our regrets, do not intend to preempt the canonical authority of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. At the same time, we are keenly aware of our particular responsibility for episcopal leadership.

We long for the fullest expression of the gift of communion that God has given us through Christ. “The communion we enjoy with God in Christ and by the Spirit, and the communion we enjoy with all God’s people living and departed, is the specific practical embodiment and fruit of the gospel itself” (Windsor Report, paragraph 3). We rejoice in our partnership in the worldwide Anglican Communion and affirm anew our commitment to the interdependence of this church as a member of the Anglican Communion.

We agree that one important expression of our communion would be a Communion-wide study and discernment process on matters of human sexuality as recommended by Lambeth Conferences of 1978, 1988 and 1998 and are eager to continue to respond to this challenge. This would be a sign of respect for gay and lesbian persons in our common life and of our ongoing pastoral care for them. We also believe that such a process would strengthen our communion. By doing so, we will be able to share more of the prayerful conversations and studies on the ministries and contributions of homosexual persons in the church that have enriched our experience for many years. The Presiding Bishop has already established a committee to offer a theological explanation of how “a person living in a same gender union may be considered eligible to lead the flock of Christ” (Windsor Report, paragraph 135).

We pray our brothers and sisters throughout the Anglican Communion will forgive us and that together we may remain in steadfast relationship so we might open our lives and our hearts to one another and learn how the Holy Spirit is acting in our different contexts. We are eager to take steps to make this possible, and particularly would welcome invitations to visit other Anglican provinces to learn from them the many ways they are vital witnesses to the healing love of Christ, often in very difficult circumstances.

During this brief meeting we humbly struggled in our deliberations to discern how best to receive the Windsor Report. We had an extensive discussion about 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, paragraph 134). We have only begun a serious and respectful consideration of how we might respond. Further, we have not had sufficient time to give substantive consideration to recommendations in the Report calling for a moratorium on diocesan boundary violations or the call for a moratorium and further discussion of the authorization of liturgical texts blessing same sex unions. (Here we note that there are those among us who do not agree with the statement in paragraph 144 of the Windsor Report that “the Episcopal Church has by action of Convention made provision for the development of public Rites of Blessing of same sex unions.”)

In February 2005 the Primates of the Anglican Communion will consider the Windsor Report. We commit ourselves to a more thorough consideration of the range of concrete actions identified in the Report at our House of Bishops meeting in March 2005. We do not wish to act in haste. We believe it is extremely important to take the time to allow the Holy Spirit to show us ways we can engage with people throughout our church in a consideration of all of the invitations for further reflection and the recommendations of the Windsor Report.

We seek together the epiphany of Christ’s reconciling love for the world, which lies at the heart of the mission we share. It is our prayer that along with Anglican Christians around the world we may be faithful to God’s mission.

The following is the full text of the Statement of Acceptance of and Submission to the Windsor Report 2004:

We the undersigned Bishops:

(1) Accept the Windsor Report’s key idea of “autonomy-in-communion, that is, freedom held within interdependence” [Kwing Hung: see the bias in what is being emphasized first; nothing about complying with God’s Word.]

(2) Pledge in the future to maintain the bonds of affection by only making decisions that are “fully compatible with the interests, standards, unity and good order” of the Anglican Communion

(3) Acknowledge that as a province we have “acted in ways incompatible with the Communion principle of interdependence, and our fellowship together has suffered immensely as a result”

(4) Seek for ECUSA to comply in full with the unanimous recommendations of The Windsor Report by:

a. Expressing its regret for its own role in breaching the proper constraints of the bonds of affection in the events surrounding the election and consecration of a bishop for the See of New Hampshire and for the consequences which followed

b. Calling on the Executive Council, and recommending to the next General Convention, that they express their own regret in these terms

c. Effecting “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”

d. Effecting a moratorium on all public Rites of Blessing of same sex unions and calling on those bishops who have authorized such rites to withdraw their authorization and express their regret that by such authorization they breached the proper constraints of the bonds of affection

e. Endeavoring to ensure commitment of all bishops to the common life of the Communion

(5) Reaffirm our commitment to engage with the Communion in our continuing study of the biblical and theological rationale for recent actions because “these potentially divisive issues…should not be resolved by the Episcopal Church on its own” (General Convention 1991 B020)

==============================

African Anglicans say Episcopalians Must Repent, not Apologize (Christian Post, 050201)

More than three months have passed since the Anglican Communion released its Windsor Report on homosexuality and division, but the international body has yet to begin restoring dialogue and fellowship among its 77-million members. Exemplifying this lingering dissention, the African Anglican Archbishops on Friday rejected an apology by the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) for ordaining an active homosexual bishop without the consent of the larger communion.

“They have only apologized and not repented,” said Dr Reverend Bernard Malango, the Archbishop of Zambia, who was one of the 15 African archbishops attending a weeklong meeting regarding the Windsor Report in Kenya.

“Apology does not make sense to us, the biblical word is repentance,” agreed Kenya’s Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi.

The archbishops, dubbed the “third Trumpet,” was chaired by one of the most vocal opponents of the ordination and “union” blessings of homosexuals, the archbishop of Nigeria Peter Akinola. Throughout the weeklong meeting, the archbishops and representatives from Africa, South East Asia and Latin America and Asia, hoped to take a unified stance on the Windsor Report so as to present a cohesive view on homosexuality with all Anglican Archbishops meet in Ireland next month.

While nearly all archbishops agreed that homosexuality should not be a lifestyle promoted by the church, some archbishops questioned why the communion had to stress over one divisive issue, rather than tackling other urgencies at hand, such as AIDS and poverty.

Responding to such questions, Akinola explained that while poverty and AIDs are important, condoning a lifestyle of homosexuality is a matter of faith, and should therefore be seriously addressed.

“I didn’t create poverty. This church didn’t create poverty. Poverty is not an issue, human suffering is not an issue at all, they were there before the creation of mankind,” said Akinola.

Akinola further explained that the U.S. bishops, who “expressed regret” in a letter last week for consecrating gay bishop Gene Robinson in November 2003, did not go far enough in their apology since they did not repent for their actions.

“That gives us a very big question mark whether we are together or not,” agreed Malawi’s Archbishop Bernard Malango.

The Windsor report, released in October 2004, suggested the “The Episcopal Church (USA) be invited 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.”

The 2.3 million-member ECUSA, meanwhile, refused to place a moratorium on either divisive activity.

There are 77 million adherents in 38 Anglican and Episcopal churches around the world. Archbishops representing 50 of them attended the Kenya meeting.

==============================

Anglican Head Admits Gay Bishop Ordination Hurtful (American Anglican Council, 050218)

The Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA)’s decision to consecrate an openly gay man as bishop critically hurt the unity of the worldwide Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams admitted on Thursday.

“There are no cost-free decisions ... there will be no cost-free outcome from this,” said Williams during a meeting of the bishops on Thursday.

“The effects are serious and they are hurtful,” he said “Part of the cost involved in the repercussions of recent events is that it has weakened, if not destroyed, the sense that we are actually talking the same language.”

Williams, who in the past expressed “grief” over the dissensions that arose in light of the ECUSA’s unilateral decision to consecrate an active homosexual as bishop in 2003, for the first time admitted that the entire 70 million member communion is in danger of falling apart.

“Not having a common language, a common frame of reference, has been one of the casualties of recent events and there is every indication that that is not going to get better in a hurry,” Williams said.

Following the ECUSA’s decision, nearly two-thirds of the communion’s worldwide members severed their relationship and fellowship with the American branch; more conservative voices called for the expulsion of the ECUSA from the communion, lest it repent and turn back to the traditional Anglican ways.

Havoc was prevalent domestically as well: offerings to the denominations shot down more than 12 percent over the last year, dozens of parishes formed their own mini-alliance to protest the consecration of the gay bishop Gene Robinson, several churches rejected the jurisdiction of the Episcopal church and realigned with more conservative African churches, and still other parishes left the denomination completely.

Despite such widespread ruptures via Gene Robinson’s ordination, Canterbury never stood on the side of conservatives by denouncing the ECUSA’s decision. Rather, on Thursday, as other days, he expressed grief over the consequences of the decision.

“There are consequences in hurt, misunderstanding, rupture and damage. It does us no good to pretend that the cost is not real,” said Williams.

William’s view largely reflects that of the Windsor Report, a yearlong report that addresses the affects of homosexuality in the Communion, which ultimately said liberals should stop ordaining homosexual bishops and conservatives should stop threatening to break away.

“The deep sense of lost-ness and confusion that arises from that and the anger that arises from that is something that does not in any sense help ... our search for truth together,” Williams told the Synod.

“We are not talking about an attempt to repress debate or constrain conscience. We are attempting, I think, to identify what sort of actions appear to pre-empt such discussion and by doing so to destroy the sense of common language,” he added.

==============================

Anglicans Begin Closed-Door Meeting on Homosexuality (American Anglican Council, 050221)

The top 38 leaders of the 77-million member Anglican Communion gathered in Newry, Northern Ireland, for the long awaited Primates’ meeting on February, 21, 2005. The five-day meeting, which will focus on the conservative-liberal rift that formed over the ordination of homosexuals and blessings of homosexual unions, may be the most significant gathering for the international church body since it formed some 450 years ago.

Since the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) ordained an active homosexual as bishop in 2003, the worldwide communion has been in an affray; some two thirds of the world’s Anglican church bodies severed fellowship with the ECUSA, denouncing its act as “abhorrent” and unacceptable. The spiritual head of the Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, was also charged as being a “theological prostitute” for refusing to condemn the ECUSA’s actions.

Canterbury meanwhile commissioned a group of the world’s top Anglicans to draft a report homosexuality in the church and its effects on the maintenance of communion and dialogue among the various international bodies. The group penned a 100+ page document entitled the “Windsor Report” to address the controversial topic, but failed to clearly iterate the church’s stance on homosexuality. It essentially chided the ECUSA for its unilateral decision to ordain the gay bishop and mourned the consequent divisions that arose, but at the same time scorned the conservative churches for breaking fellowship with the Episcopal Church and threatening the unity of the communion.

As expected, the report did not fare well with either side of the debate: liberals in America refused to halt the ordination of gay individuals and conservatives loathed the report for faulting them for standing on biblical grounds in arguing against the ECUSA.

Last month, during a nationwide gathering of top ECUSA leaders, the church drafted a statement of apology for the “rifts” that occurred since the ordination of the gay bishop. However, they explicitly stated they neither regret having ordained the gay bishop nor plan to stop further ordinations. Traditionalist Anglicans, particularly in Africa, were enraged by the letter and furthermore called on the American branch to “repent” rather than apologize.

“They have only apologized and not repented,” said Dr Reverend Bernard Malango, the Archbishop of Zambia, during a weeklong meeting on the Windsor Report in Africa last month.

“Apology does not make sense to us, the biblical word is repentance,” agreed Kenya’s Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, during the same gathering.

According to Greg Venables, primate of the 22,000 Anglicans in South America, tensions are still running high, with conservatives standing on their last rung of patience.

“The mood of all the meetings of conservative primates is that fudging a decision is not going to be allowed,” said Venables.

In fact, the primate of Nigeria – home to almost a quarter of the world’s Anglicans – is now considering ways to eject the ECUSA from the Anglican Communion completely, lest it repents and turns from its ways. African church leaders say they must take a hard stance on the issue since doing otherwise would not only prompt its followers to leave to a more conservative church but would also go against the clear word of God.

In light of such crucial variables, Williams also admitted the costs are high and so are the stakes.

“There are no cost-free decisions, there will be no cost-free outcome from this,” said Williams last week. “Part of the cost involved in the repercussions of recent events is that it has weakened, if not destroyed, the sense that we are actually talking the same language.”

The five day meeting is held behind closed doors. The primates will present their findings and agreements in a communiqué that will be presented to the public on Friday.

The Provinces and Primates of the Anglican Communion are listed below. Primates’ biographical information can be found online at: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/primates/biog/index.cfm.

The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand & Polynesia

The Most Rev. Whakahuihui Vercoe

The Anglican Church of Australia

The Most Rev. Dr. Peter Frederick Carnley AO

The Church of Bangladesh

The Rt. Rev. Michael S Baroi

Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil

The Most Rev. Orlando Santos de Oliveira

The Episcopal Church of Burundi

The Most Rev. Samuel Ndayisenga

The Anglican Church of Canada

The Most Rev. Andrew Sandford Hutchison

The Church of the Province of Central Africa

The Most Rev. Bernard Amos Malango

Iglesia Anglicana de la Region Central de America

The Most Rev. Martin de Jesus Barahona

Province de L’Eglise Anglicane Du Congo

The Most Rev. Dr. Dirokpa Balufuga Fidèle

The Church of England

The Most Rev. Rowan Douglas Williams

Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui

The Most Rev. Peter Kwong

The Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean

The Most Rev. Remi Joseph Rabenirina

The Church of Ireland

The Most Rev. Robert Henry Alexander Eames

The Nippon Sei Ko Kai (The Anglican Communion in Japan)

The Most Rev. James Toru Uno

The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & The Middle East

The Most Rev. George Clive Handford

The Anglican Church of Kenya

The Most Rev. Benjamin M P Nzimbi

The Anglican Church of Korea

The Most Rev. Dr. Matthew Chul Bum Chung

The Church of the Province of Melanesia

The Most Rev. Sir Ellison Leslie Pogo KBE

La Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico

The Most Rev. Carlos Touche-Porter

The Church of the Province of Myanmar (Burma)

The Most Rev. Samuel San Si Htay

The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)

The Most Rev. Peter Jasper Akinola DD

The Church of North India (United)

The Most Rev. Zechariah James Terom

The Church of Pakistan (United)

The Rt. Rev. Dr Alexander John Malik

The Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea

The Most Rev. James Simon Ayong

The Episcopal Church in the Philippines

The Most Rev. Ignacio Capuyan Soliba

L’Eglise Episcopal au Rwanda

The Most Rev. Emmanuel Musaba Kolini

The Scottish Episcopal Church

The Most Rev. Andrew Bruce Cameron

Church of the Province of South East Asia

The Most Rev. Datuk Yong Ping Chung

The Church of South India (United)

The Most Rev. Badda Peter Sugandhar

The Church of the Province of Southern Africa

The Most Rev. Njongonkulu Winston Hugh Ndungane

Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur de America

The Most Rev. Gregory James Venables

The Episcopal Church of the Sudan

The Most Rev. Joseph Biringi Hassan Marona

The Anglican Church of Tanzania

The Most Rev. Donald Leo Mtetemela

The Church of the Province of Uganda

The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi

The Episcopal Church in the USA

The Most Rev. Frank Tracy Griswold

The Church in Wales

The Most Rev. Dr. Barry Cennydd Morgan

The Church of the Province of West Africa

The Most Rev. Justice Ofei Akrofi

The Church in the Province of the West Indies

==============================

Pastoral Letter to the Network from Bp. Duncan (American Anglican Council, 050128)

Moderator’s Pastoral Letter for All the Churches

Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul

25th January, A.D. 2005

TO ALL THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE OF THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION NETWORK:

Beloved in the Lord,

It has been one year since the chartering of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, now commonly called the Anglican Communion Network. What a year it has been!

I write as Moderator with a word of encouragement. I know these are exceedingly anxious times. Remember, no matter what the appearances, “[He] has overcome the world,” (Jn 16.33) and his word to us is that we are to “Be of good cheer.” Jesus spoke these words to the first followers, just as He speaks them to us. To be sure…their challenges were no less daunting than ours. That the entire and undiminished Christian Faith has been passed to us has to do with their unflinching stand. We can do no less in our day.

So much has happened in one year. Be encouraged. One layman in the Diocese of Pittsburgh is raising $100,000 to insure the work of the Convocations. His efforts are a challenge to laity of the nine other Network dioceses. We have only just begun to receive word of commitments from parish and diocesan budgets and the news is very good. So far just nine congregations have pledged $155,436 to the Network’s 2005 budget, most of which will be matched by a 1:2 challenge grant from the American Anglican Council. Having said this, another million dollars in commitments is urgently needed from Network parishes and dioceses. Please, vestries and diocesan councils, act now.

This letter brings word that Mr. Wicks Stephens, formerly chief operating officer of Trinity School in Ambridge (and a litigator licensed before the California bar), has accepted full-time appointment as Development Director and Legal Advisor for the Network. (The funding of this position was provided by a special and far-sighted gift of one Virginia parish, dollars additional to the budget figures above.) Alongside of our Network Canon for Operations, Larry Crowell, and new staffing for the Ministry Development Program (the tested ordinations program pioneered by the AAC) the Network’s Pittsburgh office is gaining significance, structure and stability. The AAC (from its new Atlanta office) continues to fund and provide services as Network secretariat, providing for public relations, communications, educational, accounting and secretarial needs.

Anglican Relief and Development has soared beyond our wildest hopes. Announced at Michaelmas (September, 2004), we have thus far funded 13 development projects in 9 nations totaling $460,000. We are targeting an additional $550,000 in grants for the next 6 months, in addition to our best guess of something like $250,000 of tsunami relief enabled by our one-time South Asia appeal in Christmastide. Blessing upon blessing, we have also been notified by the Reformed Episcopal Church that they will consider action to make ARDF their relief and development arm as well.

Extraordinary talent has come forward as the Network’s needs have developed. Six convocational deans – serving the vast areas of our country (including some 200 congregations and 300 clergy) that are in non-Network dioceses – have devoted much of their energies to what has become the creative engine of the Anglican Communion Network. The deans are John Guernsey (Mid-Atlantic & Convenor), Bill Murdoch (New England), Jim McCaslin (Southeastern), Ron McCrary (Mid-Continental), Bill Thompson (Western), and Bill Ilgenfritz (Forward-in-Faith[acting]). A Cabinet system has also emerged – alongside of the faithful weekly efforts of the Steering Committee – whose members are, in addition to the Moderator, Ed Salmon (Bishops), Martyn Minns (International Partnership), Kendall Harmon (Strategic Engagement), John Guernsey (Deans), Larry Crowell (Operations) and David Anderson (Network Secretary). Mary Hays convenes a church-planting task force, with Tom Herrick as church-plant staff. Sharon Stockdale Steinmiller presides over 15 missionary organizations that have come together as Anglican Global Mission Partners.

Committed to “gathering the Anglican diaspora” from our chartering, I am privileged as Moderator to convene and chair a roundtable which brings together orthodox forces inside the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in Canada, as well as significant numbers of those who have moved outside. Included, at this point, in this roundtable are the Network, the AAC, Forward in Faith, the Anglican Mission in America, the Reformed Episcopal Church, the Anglican Province of America, the Network in Canada, the Federation in Canada, and the Anglican Communion in Canada. We are all one river – flowing at this point in different channels – whose source and end are together.

With this letter I am also able to announce “Hope and a Future,” a first-ever national Network conference. On November 10, 11, and 12, 2005, we intend to gather 2000-3000 souls in Pittsburgh to worship, to learn, to hear from our national and global leaders and partners, and to share our resolve to be agents of a renewed Biblical and missionary Anglicanism.

The upcoming Primates meeting in Ireland will have much to say (either in speaking or not speaking) about the future of Biblical, missionary Anglicanism in North America and around the globe. Pray mightily. Consider fasting through much of this season between now and Holy Week. Whatever emerges from Ireland, do not lose hope. God would not – for no purpose — have given all the blessing to the Anglican Communion Network that this letter describes. He does not waste His resources. And He is faithful even when we are not (II Tim 2.13). Besides, Jesus has overcome the world, so we really can be of good cheer.

Humbly and faithfully in Christ,

+Bob Pittsburgh

Moderator, Anglican Communion Network

Bishop of Pittsburgh

==============================

African Anglicans firm on gay bishop (American Anglican Council, 050131)

African Anglican Archbishops yesterday rejected the apology by the American Episcopal Church over the ordination of a homosexual bishop and the wedding of gay couples.

The clerics, representing 50 million faithful, asked their American counterparts to repent instead.

“They have only apologised and not repented,” said Dr Reverend Bernard Malango, the Archbishop of Zambia.

“Apology does not make sense to us, the biblical word is repentance,” said Kenya’s Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi.

They were speaking late yesterday at a news conference in Nairobi at the end of a two days meeting skipped by South Africa’s archbishop Njongokulu Ndungane, the only pro-gay voice in Africa.

The meeting dubbed third Trumpet, was chaired by the Nigerian Primate archbishop Peter Akinola was also attended by representatives from South East Asia, Latin America and Asia.

The Episcopalians last week met in Salt Lake City and issued an apology to the Anglican Churches ‘for the hurt’ caused by the ordination of Dr Gene Robinson, a homosexual cleric and blessing of same sex marriages.

Dr Akinola also took a swipe at the assertion by archbishop Ndugane that Africa’s anti-gay stand was at the expense of poverty, HIV/Aids and conflicts.

“Poverty is not an issue, human suffering are not an issue at all, they were there before the creation of mankind,” he said.

==============================

Anglican schism feared over gays (Washington Times, 050224)

LONDON — Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, showing signs of exasperation, has warned fellow leaders of the Anglican Church that a dispute over homosexual clergy threatens to shatter their 77-million-member communion.

The leaders — senior archbishops and presiding bishops from six continents — were summoned to a weeklong conference in a country mansion in Northern Ireland, but at the midway point, there was little sign of any agreement on the horizon.

“Should the call to halt and find ways of continuing in our present communion not be heeded, then we shall have to begin to learn to walk apart,” Archbishop Williams said.

“There will be no cost-free outcome from this. To put it as bluntly as I can, there are no clean breaks in the Body of Christ,” the archbishop said Tuesday night.

The crisis was triggered when the American branch, the Episcopal Church, in 2003 ordained the Right Rev. V. Gene Robinson as Anglicanism’s first openly homosexual bishop.

Bishop Robinson lives with his male partner in the Diocese of New Hampshire.

The conference near Newry, Northern Ireland, was called to study the Windsor Report, a church document compiled by a commission of senior clergy.

The report called on the U.S. church to express regret for upsetting the Anglican Communion and to declare a moratorium on the appointment of homosexual bishops and on blessing homosexual unions.

The American church did say it was sorry for any upset, but it left it at that.

Bishop Frank T. Griswold, who presides over the Episcopal Church in the United States, indicated the U.S. Episcopalians are unlikely to go much, if any, further.

Bishop Griswold has been described as the “liberal bete noire” of traditionalists in his own church, as well as of conservative archbishops, who were furious that he presided personally at the Robinson consecration.

At 2.4 million members, the U.S. Episcopal Church is relatively small, but it is quite wealthy and subsidizes numerous churches in the developing world — especially in Africa, where Anglicans are adamantly opposed to homosexuality.

About half the primates at Newry are thought to want the U.S. church, as well as a Canadian church that has authorized same-sex-blessing services, to repent or face stiff sanctions.

With the battle lines so clearly drawn, the archbishop of Canterbury himself appeared somewhat dispirited as he sought peace among the church’s primates midway through this week’s meeting.

“We are required first of all to know that it is Christ who has made peace. In other words, we are not to be anxious, a doomed piece of advice it may be for any church — not least of all the Anglican Communion at the moment,” he said.

Anglicanism’s mother church, the Church of England, is known to be sympathetic toward homosexuals, but says it is determined to maintain impartiality.

The Anglican Church’s conservative opposition to homosexuality is led by its provinces in Africa and Asia, which make up more than half of Anglicans worldwide.

They cite the Bible’s Book of Leviticus, which says, “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman. It is an abomination.”

==============================

A Statement by the Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network (American Anglican Council, 050225)

The moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, has issued a statement regarding the Anglican Communion Primates’ February 2005 Communiqué, released on February 24, 2005. The text of the statement is below.

A Statement of the Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh

“The clarity with which the Primates have spoken is breath-taking. Individual provinces do have the freedom to act as they see fit under their various constitutions, but the exercise of that freedom beyond agreed teaching and practice will imperil their standing and participation in the Communion. The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada have been asked to withdraw their representatives from the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) effectively immediately. This suspension of relationship continues until the constitutional assemblies of each church indicate their willingness to conform to what was asked of them in the Windsor Report.”

“The teaching of the Communion is sustained. The authority of Scripture is upheld. ‘Autonomy in Communion’ is defined. Moratoria are called for Communion-wide. The need to turn our global attention to the great social crises of disease and poverty is re-asserted.”

“Provision for the ‘integrity and legitimate needs’ of theological minorities is guaranteed by the creation of an international ‘panel of reference.’ This is an extraordinary and essential development. The Anglican Communion Network, together with the much wider circle of orthodox believers in the United States and Canada (including especially the Common Cause movement) now has an international promise and an Anglican Communion provision that should stem the flow of three decades of believing life-blood.”

“For some months now, I have maintained that the 2005 Primates Meeting would prove a defining moment in Anglican history. So it has proved. As the Synod of Whitby in 664 AD decided for unity with the universal Christian Church in matters of worship and church order, so the 2005 Primates meeting has decided for unity with the universal Christian Church in matters of doctrine and morals. The decisions taken at Newry in Northern Ireland are epochal.”

“For all of this, we should be profoundly grateful to Almighty God and to the godly leaders of the Anglican Communion for a new day dawning for Anglicanism and for us.”

==============================

Flocks in U.S., Canada face split (Washington Times, 050225)

The U.S. Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada must cease ordaining homosexuals and conducting blessings of same-sex unions by 2008 or withdraw from the worldwide Anglican Communion, the denomination’s archbishops ruled yesterday.

In the meantime, the two churches cannot participate in the governing body of the 70-million-member Anglican Communion, according to a five-page communique issued last night from a conference in Northern Ireland.

“There remains a very real question about whether North American churches are willing to accept the same teaching on matters of sexual morality as is generally accepted elsewhere in the Communion,” the document said.

“We request the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw” from the Anglican Consultative Council, which operates the day-to-day functions of the Anglican Communion under Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

The Rev. Jan Nunley, an Episcopal Church spokeswoman, said no decision had been made on whether the U.S. church, represented at the conference in Northern Ireland by Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, would abide by the request.

The three U.S. members of the Anglican Consultative Council “will speak with the presiding bishop when he returns from Ireland next week,” she said.

In the communique, 35 archbishops and presiding bishops representing the national churches on six continents gave their U.S. and Canadian members until the summer 2008 Lambeth Conference to decide whether to split from the worldwide body or adhere to Anglican policy that forbids both actions.

The Americans and Canadians also have been summoned to a meeting in Nottingham, England, in June to explain why they departed from Anglican policies in both matters.

The Canadian church began conducting same-sex blessing ceremonies in May 2003 and the U.S. Episcopal Church in November 2003 consecrated a homosexual bishop, the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, a divorced man living with his male lover.

Bishop Griswold issued a brief statement yesterday admitting that the communique “will not please everyone.”

“It is important to keep in mind that it was written with a view to making room for a wide variety of perspectives,” he said.

Several Episcopal dioceses, including the Diocese of Washington, have been conducting same-sex blessing ceremonies, although Washington Bishop John B. Chane has asked parishes to refrain from doing so while the matter is being debated in worldwide Anglicanism.

However, Anglican bishops during the 1998 Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England, voted in a statement saying sex between homosexuals is “incompatible with Scripture.” That policy still holds, the communique said.

The statement is a victory for Anglican conservatives, who oppose the same-sex ceremonies and Bishop Robinson’s consecration.

The Rev. Martyn Minns, the canon at Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, who is in Ireland monitoring the meeting, was not willing to use the word “victory” yet to describe the bishops’ findings, instead calling them “a very strong rebuke.”

“It’s clear the Americans and Canadians have been suspended for three years while they consider whether to be Anglicans or not,” he said.

Several Anglican provinces already have split with the U.S. Episcopal Church over the Robinson matter, and several archbishops from Africa, Southeast Asia and South America have conducted services and offered Episcopal oversight for conservative Episcopal churches in dioceses with liberal bishops.

Although the U.S. and Canadian churches’ separation isn’t final, the communique is the closest yet to declaring a split within the worldwide body.

In a radio interview with the British Broadcast Corp. (BBC), Australia’s presiding bishop said an outright break in the Anglican Communion could come.

“There do come times when the authority of the Bible is at stake — and this is one of those times — where to stay together becomes a great difficulty,” said Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney, Australia.

“I hope we can stay together [but] ... there are times where strong views are held and where division does occur,” Bishop Jensen said.

Church liberals garnered one victory in the document; a clause from the conservative archbishops saying they would not initiate or encourage such “interventions” in American dioceses for the next three years.

“During this period,” it said, “we commit ourselves neither to encourage nor to initiate cross-boundary interventions.”

However, the archbishop of Canterbury will appoint a panel to supervise pastoral care for conservative parishes under liberal bishops.

==============================

Anglican Communion Ejects U.S., Canada Church in Gay Fray (Christian Post, 050224)

Heeding to the advice of biblically-based Christians around the world, the top leaders of the global Anglican Communion urged the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) and the Anglican Church of Canada to withdraw their membership from the communion’s council – at least temporarily, until they explain their liberal theologies regarding homosexuality that has brought the 77-million member communion to a breaking point.

The statement, which was drafted during the highly anticipated Anglican Primates meeting in Northern Ireland, was presented a day earlier than the expected Friday release.

The ECUSA thrust the Anglican world into chaos 15 months ago when its bishops elected an open and active homosexual man as bishop of New Hampshire. The unilateral decision not only stirred a firestorm of criticism – it prompted a flurry of divisive statements from conservative Anglican church bodies around the world. More than two thirds of the world’s Anglican denominations broke fellowship ties with the ECUSA, and threatened to eject the American church from the worldwide church body.

The conservative Anglican churches were also angered by their Canadian counterpart for “legalizing” the blessing of gay unions in the church walls. Canada’s move squarely opposed the 77-million-member communion’s longtime recommendation to refrain from blessing homosexual “marriages.”

The head of the Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, commissioned a group of Anglicans worldwide to issue a yearlong report on homosexuality and the unity of the Communion. Entitled, “The Windsor Report,” the 100+ page statement essentially asked the ECUSA and the ACC to place a moratorium on gay union blessings and ordinations.

The ECUSA announced last month that while it apologizes for the divisions that arose from its decision to consecrate the gay bishop, it does not plan to halt the ordination of gays. The cordial statement was rejected by the world’s conservatives, who said repentance — not apologies — are needed in the American church.

The Anglican Primates were to further debate the implications of the Windsor Report and the future unity of the Communion in light of such controversies at this week’s meeting.

The primates’ statement urges both the U.S. and Canadian churches to leave the global church body until they explain their actions at a meeting in Nottingham, England in June. Additionally, it reiterates the Windsor Report’s call to halt the celebration of gay unions and consecration of gay individuals.

“In the meantime, we ask our fellow primates to use their best influence to persuade their brothers and sisters to exercise a moratorium on public rites of blessing for same-sex unions and on the consecration of any bishop living in a sexual relationship outside Christian marriage,” the statement read.

Although the North American churches’ suspension from the Anglican Consultative Council was said to be temporary, it’s marks the first time the 450-year-old communion has split formally over the election of a gay bishop in the United States and the blessing of same-sex unions in both counties.

==============================

Conservative Anglicans Urge Us, Canada To Comply With Withdrawal Request (Christian Post, 050225)

Conservative Anglican leaders applauded the recent recommendation to eject the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) and the Canadian Anglican Church (CAA) from an international council for their unorthodox views on homosexuality.

During the much-anticipated Anglican Primates’ meeting in Northern Ireland this week, the top leaders of the Anglican Communion recommended the North American churches voluntarily withdraw their membership until they are willing to conform to the Anglican teachings on sexuality.

The recommendations is the culmination of a series of debates over the ECUSA’s unilateral decision to ordain an openly homosexual man as bishop and the ACC and ECUSA’s decisions to bless of homosexual unions.

While the Anglican Communion has no clear teaching on sexuality, orthodox Anglicans turn toward the scriptural mandates against the sin of homosexuality as truth. Anglican bishops around the world also expressed in a joint statement years earlier that gay unions should not be sanctioned within the walls of the church.

Since the 2-million member ECUSA ordained the homosexual bishop, the entire 77-million member communion has been in a fray of confusion and division. Two thirds of the Anglican Communion’s national church bodies criticized the ECUSA’s broke fellowship with the American branch for its unrepentant actions. The head of the Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, subsequently commissioned a task-force to study the effects of the ECUSA and ACC’s liberal views on homosexuality on the Communion’s future unity.

After a yearlong study, the task force released the “Windsor Report 2004”. The report, which was the main topic of debate at this week’s Primates’ meeting, essentially called for a moratorium on all gay union blessings and ordination of homosexual individuals.

In the months following the release of the report, both the ECUSA and the ACC refused to abide by the recommendations, provoking criticisms from conservative leaders worldwide.

According to reports, many conservative African leaders refused to share communion with Frank Griswold, head of the ECUSA, during the weeklong meeting which ended on Friday, February 25, 2005.

Griswold, upon hearing the recommendation to temporarily withdraw from the international fellowship, released a vague comment without a clear decision on whether to heed to the Primates’ advice and take leave.

“These days have not been easy for any of us and the communiqué reflects a great deal of prayer and the strong desire to find a way forward as a Communion in the midst of deep differences which have been brought into sharp relief around the subject of homosexuality,” Griswold wrote in a statement.

Jan Nunley, media director for the ECUSA, said “no decision has been made on the request for voluntary temporary withdrawal from the Anglican Consultative Council.”

“The Presiding Bishop will be conferring with other leaders in the church about this, probably next week,” she wrote.

Archdeacon Jim Boyles, General Secretary of the Anglican Church of Canada also said the church has yet to decide on the recommendations.

“The primates’ request will be considered by the Anglican Church of Canada by the executive council when it meets in May,” said Boyles.

However, conservative leaders within the two North American church bodies urged the leadership to comply with the request.

“We urgently entreat Archbishop Andrew Hutchison (of Canada) to comply with the request of the Primates in the interest of the future unity of the Anglican Communion,” Anglican Essentials, one of the many pockets of conservative Anglican bodies within the ECUSA and ACC, wrote in a statement.

Philip Giddings, head of the UK-based Anglican Mainstream agreed that the Primates’ requests should be followed.

“We support their request that ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw from the Communion for the three years leading up to Lambeth 2008,” Giddings wrote.

Giddings also said he supported the Primates’ call for a complete halt to gay union blessings.

“We further support their request to their fellow bishops for a moratorium on public Rites of Blessing for same-sex unions and on the consecration of any bishop living in a sexual relationship outside Christian marriage,” Giddings wrote.

“We trust that all members of our Churches, and their leaders, will respond positively to the Primates’ strategy for repairing the tear in the Communion and thus enable us to address with renewed vigour our common mission to share the love of Christ with a needy and hurting world,” he continued.

Bishop Duncan, meanwhile, said he believes the Primates’ recommendations is proof authority of the scripture has been upheld in the Communion.

“The teaching of the Communion is sustained. The authority of Scripture is upheld. ‘Autonomy in Communion’ is defined. Moratoria are called for Communion-wide,” Duncan wrote. “We should be profoundly grateful to Almighty God and to the godly leaders of the Anglican Communion for a new day dawning for Anglicanism and for us.”

The American Anglican Network (AAN) agreed that “Biblical faithfulness has been reaffirmed” through the meeting.

“At last a clear and unequivocal choice has been presented to the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada.,” the AAN wrote. “They must choose between repentance marked by compliance with the Windsor Report or continued theological innovations that separate them from the teaching and life of the Anglican Communion.”

“We will continue to pray for the Communion in this solemn period of transition as the church sorts out the various implications and ramifications of the Primates’ 2005 Communiqué.”

The following is the full text of the Primates’ Meeting, Feb. 2005 Communique:

1. As Primates of the Anglican Communion and Moderators of the United Churches, we gathered at the Dromantine Retreat and Conference Centre, Newry, in Northern Ireland, between 20th and 25th February, 2005, at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. Thirty-five of us were present at this meeting.1 We are extremely grateful for the warmth of the welcome to Dromantine that we have received from members of the Roman Catholic Society of African Missions who run the Retreat Centre, and from the Church of Ireland, and especially the Primate of All Ireland, the Most Revd Robin Eames and Lady Eames, who have been our hosts.

2. Our meeting was held within the context of common prayer and worship, including Evensong at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, when we were formally welcomed to the Church of Ireland. On the Monday and Tuesday mornings, we spent time in Bible Study, prayer and silent retreat, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury on the Lenten theme of the Three Temptations of Christ. He reminded us that it was our duty as Christian leaders to begin by listening to God, before going on to listen to one another. We thank God that our meeting has been characterised by generosity of spirit, and a readiness to respect one another’s integrity, with Christian charity and abundant goodwill.

3. The meeting opened with reports from the Provinces most affected by the recent tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean and the works of relief undertaken by Anglican churches. We offered prayers for the victims, and for the ongoing work of reconstruction and relief being undertaken across the entire rim of the Indian Ocean, particularly in the Province of South East Asia, East Africa, the Indian Ocean, and South India and in the Church of Ceylon.

4. The most pressing business facing the Primates’ Meeting was consideration of the Windsor Report 2004, in which the Lambeth Commission on Communion2 had offered its recommendations on the future life of the Anglican Communion in the light of developments in Anglican life in North America.3

5. We reflected for many hours on the recommendations of the Windsor Report; listening first to Archbishop Robin Eames, who introduced the work of the Lambeth Commission, which he had chaired, and then to Primus Bruce Cameron of the Scottish Episcopal Church, who took up the work that Archbishop Peter Kwong had begun with the Reception Reference Group.4 We considered a careful analysis of the 322 responses which this group had received from around the Anglican Communion, and which offered a high measure of general support for the recommendations of the Windsor Report, despite some expressions of concern in relation to matters of detail.5

6. We then proceeded to our own reflections on these responses. There are a number of things which are quite clear. Many primates have been deeply alarmed that the standard of Christian teaching on matters of human sexuality expressed in the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10, which should command respect as the position overwhelmingly adopted by the bishops of the Anglican Communion, has been seriously undermined by the recent developments in North America. At the same time, it is acknowledged that these developments within the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada have proceeded entirely in accordance with their constitutional processes and requirements.6 We also wish to make it quite clear that in our discussion and assessment of the moral appropriateness of specific human behaviours, we continue unreservedly to be committed to the pastoral support and care of homosexual people. The victimisation or diminishment of human beings whose affections happen to be ordered towards people of the same sex is anathema to us. We assure homosexual people that they are children of God, loved and valued by him, and deserving of the best we can give of pastoral care and friendship.7

7. We welcome the general thrust of the Windsor Report as offering a way forward for the mutual life of our Communion, and commend the following conclusions for dealing with the differences of opinion which have opened up amongst us.

8. We believe that the Windsor Report offers in its Sections A & B an authentic description of the life of the Anglican Communion, and the principles by which its life is governed and sustained. While we believe that many elements of this account offer a picture of what is ideal, rather than what is currently actually experienced, we accept the description offered in Sections A & B of the Windsor Report as the way in which we would like to see the life of the Anglican Communion developed, as we respond in faithful discipleship to Christ. These sections speak of the central place Anglicans accord to the authority of scripture, and of “autonomy-in-communion” as the balanced exercise of the inter-dependence between the thirty-eight Provinces and their legitimate provincial autonomy. We therefore request all provinces to consider whether they are willing to be committed to the inter-dependent life of the Anglican Communion understood in the terms set out in these sections of the report.

9. We welcome the proposals in Section C for the future development of the Instruments of Unity,8 although we recognise that serious questions about the content of the proposal for an Anglican Covenant9 and the practicalities of its implementation mean that this is a longer term process. We were glad to be reminded of the extensive precedents for covenants that many Anglican churches have established with ecumenical partners, and that even within our Communion the Chicago/Lambeth Quadrilateral has already been effectively operating as a form of covenant that secures our basic commitment to scripture, the Nicene Creed, the two Sacraments of the Gospel and the Historic Episcopate. We therefore commend this proposal as a project that should be given further consideration in the Provinces of the Communion between now and the Lambeth Conference 2008. In addition, we ask the Archbishop of Canterbury to explore ways of implementing this.

10. We also have further questions concerning the development of the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and of a Council of Advice.10 While we welcome the ministry of the Archbishop of Canterbury as that of one who can speak to us as primus inter pares about the realities we face as a Communion, we are cautious of any development which would seem to imply the creation of an international jurisdiction which could override our proper provincial autonomy. We ask the Archbishop of Canterbury to explore ways of consulting further on these matters.

11. We accept the principle articulated in Section D of the Windsor Report concerning the universal nature of the ministry of a bishop within Anglican polity.11 Although formidable practical problems would attend any formal process of wider consultation in the election and confirmation of bishops, we request that Provinces should themselves find an appropriate place for the proper consideration of the principle of inter-dependence in any process of election or confirmation.

12. We as a body continue to address the situations which have arisen in North America with the utmost seriousness. Whilst there remains a very real question about whether the North American churches are willing to accept the same teaching on matters of sexual morality as is generally accepted elsewhere in the Communion, the underlying reality of our communion in God the Holy Trinity is obscured, and the effectiveness of our common mission severely hindered.

13. We are persuaded however that in order for the recommendations of the Windsor Report to be properly addressed, time needs to be given to the Episcopal Church (USA) and to the Anglican Church of Canada for consideration of these recommendations according to their constitutional processes.

14. Within the ambit of the issues discussed in the Windsor Report and in order to recognise the integrity of all parties, we request that the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference. During that same period we request that both churches respond through their relevant constitutional bodies to the questions specifically addressed to them in the Windsor Report as they consider their place within the Anglican Communion. (cf. paragraph 8)

15. In order to protect the integrity and legitimate needs of groups in serious theological dispute with their diocesan bishop, or dioceses in dispute with their Provinces, we recommend that the Archbishop of Canterbury appoint, as a matter of urgency, a panel of reference to supervise the adequacy of pastoral provisions made by any churches for such members in line with the recommendation in the Primates’ Statement of October 2003.12 Equally, during this period we commit ourselves neither to encourage nor to initiate cross-boundary interventions.

16. Notwithstanding the request of paragraph 14 of this communiqué, we encourage the Anglican Consultative Council to organise a hearing at its meeting in Nottingham, England, in June 2005 at which representatives of the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada, invited for that specific purpose, may have an opportunity to set out the thinking behind the recent actions of their Provinces, in accordance with paragraph 141 of the Windsor Report.

17. In reaffirming the 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution 1.10 as the present position of the Anglican Communion, we pledge ourselves afresh to that resolution in its entirety, and request the Anglican Consultative Council in June 2005 to take positive steps to initiate the listening and study process which has been the subject of resolutions not only at the Lambeth Conference in 1998, but in earlier Conferences as well.

18. In the meantime, we ask our fellow primates to use their best influence to persuade their brothers and sisters to exercise a moratorium on public Rites of Blessing for Same-sex unions and on the consecration of any bishop living in a sexual relationship outside Christian marriage.

19. These strategies are intended to restore the full trust of our bonds of affection across the Communion.

20. In the second half of our meeting we addressed some issues of practical ministry which have been on our agenda now for the last couple of years. We received a report of the present situation in relation to the ministry of African churches in particular amongst people living with HIV/AIDS; the dying, the bereaved, and orphaned children. We noted that this serious challenge is faced by all of our churches. We now accept, however, that our concerns must be broadened to include those suffering from TB and malaria. We know that this year 3 million people will die of AIDS, 2 million of TB, and 1 million of malaria. We have also been called to support the General Secretary of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, and world leaders in developing effective strategies for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.13 In addition to the commitment to combat HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria, these MDGs include reducing absolute poverty by half and reducing hunger by half by 2015. In the longer term we must eradicate both. Other MDGs include lowering child mortality and improving maternal health, universal primary education, access to clear drinking water, and the building of sustainable development partnerships between rich and poor. Accordingly we call upon the people of God in all the Provinces of our Communion to encourage leaders of government to pursue these goals with vigour, and to pray for the strengthening of their resolve to achieve the MDGs by 2015.

21. Two whole sessions of our meeting were devoted to the important work of the discernment of theological truth and the development and improvement of theological education through the sharing of resources across the Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury has identified this as a priority concern during the period of his leadership. The work of TEAC (Theological Education for the Anglican Communion) which was established at our meeting in Kanuga in 2001 was reviewed, including the four separate Target Groups which are now engaged with the development of specific education and training programmes for bishops; for priests and transitional deacons; for vocational deacons, catechists and licensed lay readers; and for the laity. In all this particular attention is being paid to the distinctively Anglican component in theological education. This mandate is of concern because some theological education across the Communion needs to take more account of Anglican history, formularies or spirituality. The discernment and definition of the “Anglican Way” is being intentionally pursued by a dedicated Target Group. It is planned to hold a Consultation for theological educators later this year in Canterbury, and it is anticipated that this work will be a significant item of consideration at the Lambeth Conference in 2008.

22. Our common commitment to the pursuit of projects such as these, together with our recent very positive experience of close practical co-operation in response to the tsunami disaster, convince us of the enormous importance of our shared work together as Provinces of the Anglican Communion. Indeed, in the course of our meeting, we have become even more mindful of the indissoluble link between Christian unity and Christian mission, as this is expressed in Jesus’ own prayer that his disciples should be one that the world may believe (John 17.21). Accordingly, we pray for the continuing blessing of God’s unity and peace as we recommit ourselves to the mission of the Anglican Communion, which we share with the whole people of God, in the transformation of our troubled world.

“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12.2)

“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5.18)

NOTES

1 Absent from the meeting were the primate of Burundi, following a family bereavement, of Hong Kong, following health problems, and the Moderator of United Church of North India, because of unavoidable business.

2 This Commission was established by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the request of the Primates at their meeting in Lambeth Palace in October 2003.

3 Namely, the authorisation of a Public Rite of Blessing for Same-sex Unions within a diocese of the Anglican Church of Canada in May 2003, and the Consecration of a Bishop in a committed same-sex relationship in the Episcopal Church (USA) in November later that year.

4 This group had been established by the Primates’ Standing Committee on publication of the Windsor Report in October 2004 to receive and review responses and reactions to the Windsor Report from within the Anglican Communion and from our ecumenical partners.

5 The presentations by Archbishop Robin and Primus Bruce, together with the submissions to the Reception Reference Group may be found at www.aco.org/windsor2004/presentation.cfm [for the Eames presentation] and www.aco.org/commission/reception/report.cfm [for the Cameron presentation] and associated documents.

6 In the statement of October 2003, we wrote “The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church (USA) has explained to us the constitutional framework within which the election and confirmation of a new bishop in the Episcopal Church (USA) takes place. As Primates, it is not for us to pass judgement on the constitutional processes of another province. We recognise the sensitive balance between provincial autonomy and the expression of critical opinion by others on the internal actions of a province.”

7 See the Windsor Report, paragraph 146.

8 The Windsor Report, paragraphs 105 – 107.

9 The Windsor Report, paragraphs 113 – 120.

10 The Windsor Report, paragraphs 108 – 112.

11 The Windsor Report, paragraphs 124 – 132.

12 “ … we call on the provinces concerned to make adequate provision for episcopal oversight of dissenting minorities within their own area of pastoral care in consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury on behalf of the Primates.”

13 These Millennium Development Goals may be found at http://www.developmentgoals.org/

==============================

Anglicans not yet Split over Gay Row, but Division Lingers (Christian Post, 050225)

The U.S. Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada have not yet agreed to withdraw from an International council at the request of global leaders who questioned their unorthodox views on homosexuality.

“No, no decision has been made on the request for voluntary temporary withdrawal from the Anglican Consultative Council,” Jan Nunley of the U.S. Episcopal Church center wrote. “The Presiding Bishop will be conferring with other leaders in the church about this, probably next week.”

Archdeacon Jim Boyles, General Secretary of the Anglican Church of Canada told CTV.ca that “The primates’ request will be considered by the Anglican Church of Canada by the executive council when it meets in May.”

The responses came in light of the Anglican Primates’ requests on Thursday, to withdraw the North American churches from the Anglican Consultative Council in the period leading up to an international gathering in July 2008

“Within the ambit of the issues discussed in the Windsor Report and in order to recognise the integrity of all parties, we request that the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference,” Thursday’s communiqué stated.

Whether or not the ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada accepts the request, the head of the 77-million member communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury, admitted the possibility of division still exists.

“We still face the possibility of division, of course we do,” said Archbishop Rowan Williams.

“That’s not going to go away. Any lasting solution will require people somewhere along the line to say, ‘Yes, we were wrong’.”

“The North American Churches have been told very clearly and directly about the potential cost of the actions they have taken,” he said.

“The question now put is, given that cost, where do you want to put yourself? How close do you want to be to the other Churches in this family?”

==============================

Clergy who deny doctrine may face trial for heresy (American Anglican Council, 050215)

By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent

Clergy who deny the existence of God and other key doctrines could soon face heresy trials in the Church of England.

Proposals to set up tribunals to try doctrinal cases were rejected by the Synod last year but the House of Laity overwhelmingly voted yesterday to reintroduce them.

Members of the House, who were meeting before the full Synod began, criticised liberal clergy for diluting traditional teaching, though one said that they did not propose burning heretics at the stake.

The House of Bishops has independently agreed to reintroduce the proposals, which were defeated by a narrow margin last July after clergy expressed fears that they would be victims of a witchhunt.

Margaret Brown, a lay member from the Chichester diocese, said yesterday that the original proposals had been thrown out partly because they had tried to deal with broad issues such as clergy wearing the incorrect vestments.

“It is far, far worse if we have a clergyman or clergywoman in the pulpit and they are preaching heresy and do not believe in the tenets of the faith, the Virgin Birth, the bodily resurrection of Christ and all the other tenets of the faith,” she said.

“What is faith if we do not preach Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ glorified? We will not get very far in winning souls for Christ, which is what we should be doing all the time.

“Let us make sure the liberals really do preach the word of God.”

Peter LeRoy, of the diocese of Bath and Wells, reminded the laity of the usual definition of an Anglican as someone “who can believe anything they want as long as it is not too strongly”.

He said heresy trials were essential to persuade clergy to endorse “sound teaching”.

Quoting from a survey carried out in 2002 of what the Church of England believed in, he said just 76 per cent of clergy believed Jesus Christ died to take away the sins of the world, 68 per cent believed Jesus rose physically from the dead and 53 per cent believed faith in Jesus was the only way they could be saved. Among women clergy, the figures came in at about 10 per cent lower in each category.

“These figures are nothing less than astonishing and underlie the need for this measure,” said Mr LeRoy.

He blamed Britain’s “post-Enlightenment, pluralist, relativist Western culture to which we have succumbed”.

Prudence Dailey, of the Oxford diocese, said: “You do not have to be a fundamentalist to admit that it is unlikely that the Holy Spirit supports guiding the Church into denying His existence.”

She said that she was not suggesting that modern heretics should be “burned at the stake”. But she added that such people should not be allowed to draw a stipend or receive official sanction to lead their flock astray.

Brigadier Ian Dobbie, of the Rochester diocese, said: “We need to raise the profile of doctrine in the Church. Sadly, our image is one of doctrinal indifferentism.

“We need to be reminded that belief is reflected in behaviour. Those who are weak in doctrine are most vulnerable to temptation. These proposals are not a thinly-disguised means for a disgruntled layman to be vindictive.”

Tom Sutcliffe, of the diocese of Southwark, one of the few liberals to speak, said: “We need to take account of the fact that even liberals are performing a missionary function.

“When people say we have to draw the line somewhere it makes me very worried because we are going to draw a line where many people could be outside.”

The proposals are set to be voted on at next year’s Synod. If members approve the measure, it will then go before Parliament, where it will require primary legislation. Assuming it passes at Westminster, heresy trials could begin within five years.

==============================

The US Episcopal Church Should Take a “Time Out” in the Repentance Corner (Christian Post, 050307)

The worldwide Anglican leaders struck a big blow to the US Episcopal Church and the Canadian Anglican church last month when they requested the two bodies voluntarily withdraw from an international committee until 2008. This disciplinary act marked the culmination of a series of emotional and divisive debates surrounding the ECUSA’s ordination of an openly homosexual bishop and the Canadian church’s sanctioning of gay unions.

The two churches have yet to comply with the call to formally split, and North American Anglican leaders have been quick to evade the topic of division by alleging no decision has been finalized; the US and Canadian churches say they will prayerfully decide on whether or not they should leave during their own meetings in coming months.

It seems ludicrous for the two denominations to think they have a say in the decision at this point and time. International leaders pleaded with them for over a year to repent and turn back to biblical orthodoxy by placing moratoria on same-sex union blessings and ordinations, but the North American churches have consistently rejected the requests.

The two church bodies must now realize that being a part of a fellowship or communion is a blessing and privilege – not a right that can be misused. The recent meeting confirmed that after months of reckless abuse, their rights to fellowship have been stripped.

The Archbishop of Canterbury said after the meeting that “any lasting solution will require people somewhere along the line to say, ‘Yes, we were wrong’.”

Hopefully after three years in the “time out” corner, the two churches will realize their destructive nature of their actions, repent, and confess that they surely were wrong. If not, the entire Communion is doomed to forever obsess over a debate on the acceptance of a lifestyle already clarified in the scripture as sinful, and sidetrack the greater commission to save the lost.

==============================

IRD President Diane Knippers’ Initial Response to the Primates’ Communiqué (American Anglican Council, 050226)

Newry, Northern Ireland—The February 2005 communiqué of the Primates moved the Anglican Communion, slowly and inexorably, toward division.

Leaders among the primates of the Global South assert that division has already occurred, but they want to offer the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada ample time to reconsider their abandonment of church teaching.

The Primates affirmed the October 2004 Windsor report and commended its recommendations for strengthening the Communion, including a proposed Anglican Covenant. The Primates went further than the Windsor report in two important respects:

1. While providing a waiting period for the North American church to consider their responses to the Windsor Report, the Primates took steps to remove official North American representation on the Anglican Communion’s executive body, the Anglican Consultative Council. This “voluntary withdrawal” is to last until the 2008 Lambeth Council. But several primates also noted that the 2006 General Convention of the Episcopal Church would no doubt reveal ECUSA’s definitive response to Windsor.

2. The Primates did not affirm the Windsor Report’s commendation of DEPO, a woefully inadequate provision of alternative oversight for U.S. congregations in theological conflict with their bishops. While they agreed to limit further unilateral “cross-boundary interventions,” they recommended that the Archbishop of Canterbury appoint, “as a matter urgency,” a new panel of reference that would “supervise the adequacy of pastoral provisions made by any churches.”

Several of the primates from the Global South attended this Primates’ meeting thinking it was likely to be their last. However, their resolve to remain within the Anglican Communion – and to force out the North American churches if necessary – was strengthened. The leaders of the Global South are learning to work together and, as a block, are effectively proving their new political muscle. Their ability to capture the agenda of this meeting is a primary example of a new day. The refusal of many to share communion with the primates of the United States and Canada illustrates the depth of the division and their resolve.

From the point of view of church history, Global Anglicanism is moving with dispatch toward resolution of the crisis and, indeed, toward global realignment. From the point of view of orthodox Anglicans in North America, held captive in churches that propagate false teaching, the pace is agonizingly slow and inadequate.

What will happen in the Episcopal Church now? I have no doubt that many of the ECUSA laity and even the clergy will simply not feel a call to continued struggle and will leave Anglicanism entirely. This, for many, will be an honorable, honest, and necessary choice.

Others have a vision for a new unified orthodox Anglican witness in North America, one that could reunite mainstream Anglicans outside ECUSA with the remaining orthodox within. Building visible unity among these orthodox elements is a necessary pre-condition for eventual recognition by the Anglican Communion, when ECUSA will no longer claim the exclusive Anglican franchise for the United States. Building this new church – strong, healthy, unified, mission-minded, and growing – and building it, for now, both within and without the dying structures of the Episcopal Church is our most urgent task.

==============================

Statement from the Archbishop of Uganda on the Primates’ Communique (American Anglican Council, 050303)

Members of the Press, I welcome you to the Residence of the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda. The most important information I want to communicate to our people in Church of Uganda, all Christian bodies, citizens of Uganda and the rest of the world concerns our position on homosexuality.

Primates Meeting In Dromantine, Northern Ireland 21–25 February 2005

This meeting of the primates was specifically called to receive the “Windsor Report”. This is a document that came as a result of the threatened breakage of the Anglican Communion following the consecration of Gene Robinson as the Bishop of New Hampshire in November 2003

Church of Uganda did not agree with the line of action taken by the Episcopal Church of America. We have disagreed with the consecration of a practicing homosexual as a leading Church leader in the Church of God. The scriptures require that anybody who takes to this office should be properly married - “A man married to one wife”.

Since September 2003, the House of Bishops took a strong stand to break our fellowship with the Episcopal Church and the Church of Canada. We refused any funding from these churches. The same decision was endorsed by the Provincial assembly in August 2004.

We see homosexual practices as unbiblical and against the teaching of the Church. Only Jesus who makes a difference to people can transform them not debates.

In our Ireland meeting the Primates suspended the Episcopal Church of America and the Canadian Church until they repent. We are committed to other members of the Episcopal Church who are orthodox in their interpretation of the scriptures and adore Jesus Christ as their savior and Lord. We continue to provide support for them because they share with us in the same mission.

I will state again our position in clear terms as follows;

· The Church of Uganda upholds the biblical position on sexuality, namely that sexual intimacy is reserved for a husband and wife in a lifelong, heterosexual, monogamous marriage. For us in Uganda we teach this without fear. For our own good the bible teaches abstinence before marriage and faithfulness in marriage. And marriage is defined as between one man and one woman.

· The Church of Uganda also supports the “1998 Lambeth Resolution” which states that, “Homosexual practice is incompatible with scripture”.

· We continue in a state of broken Communion with EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF AMERICA and CANADA because they have not repented of their actions and decisions in approving and consecrating as Bishop a man actively involved in a same-sex relationship.

· The Church of Uganda is committed to offering the gospel to those struggling with homosexuality. Jesus told the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more”, not “go and sin some more”. For the North Americans Pastoral care means providing services for the blessing of same-sex unions. For us in Uganda pastoral care means leading people into the fully transformed life that Jesus promises to those who call upon his name.

· Contrary to reports coming out of North American that say, “we have more in common that we do than what divides us”, I am not convinced of that. We have a lot that divides us and we are praying that ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada will repent and rejoin Biblical Anglicanism.

We remain committed that Church of Uganda will continue to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ zealously. I am prepared to remain a preacher of this Gospel as the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda until we see Jesus changing the hearts of those who believe his word.

Thank you again for coming and may God bless you in your very important work to inform the nation and the world.

The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi

Archbishop of Church of Uganda

==============================

Anglican Primates Present Clear Choice (American Anglican Council, 050303)

The deans of the Anglican Communion Network (ACN) convocations hosted a meeting in Atlanta, Georgia March 2-3, 2005 for ACN leaders as well as representatives of Anglican Essentials Canada (AEC). The group discussed the Communiqué issued by Anglican Primates at their February 2005 meeting in Northern Ireland and praised the clear choice presented to the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) and the Anglican Church of Canada. Each province must decide to walk together with the world-wide Anglican Communion or walk apart.

“We are delighted that the Primates of the Anglican Communion have decisively affirmed historic Biblical faith and practice,” said the Rev. John Guernsey, dean of the Mid-Atlantic Convocation. “We have been assured that the teaching of orthodox Anglicans in North America is consistent with the teaching of the world-wide Anglican Communion, and we renew our commitment to the Communion. The landscape of the Communion has been changed radically by the Primates.”

The Primates’ Communiqué not only upheld the authority of Scripture but also re-affirmed Lambeth 1.10 as the Communion’s official teaching on human sexuality. Their decision to request the United States and Canada to withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) was unprecedented: never before has a province been instructed to stand down for a specific time frame. The Primates have made it clear that failure to embrace and uphold Biblical teaching and practice will result in permanent consequences.

The group meeting in Atlanta also expressed gratitude to the Primates for addressing the need to protect those in hostile dioceses as well as dioceses which have not yet determined to walk together with the Anglican Communion. The appointment of a “panel of reference” that will “supervise the adequacy of pastoral provisions” for those in “serious theological dispute” with their diocesan bishops or provinces offers fresh hope and a new beginning for those who have struggled with revisionist theology and acts of oppression for decades. Again, such direct intervention by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates in another province is unparalleled.

“We believe this intervention is critical given the inadequate nature and proven failure of the Episcopal Church’s Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight (DEPO) plan and the Shared Episcopal Ministry (SEM) proposal in the Anglican Church of Canada,” said the Rev. Dr. Trevor Walters, Anglican Essentials Canada Council. “We eagerly await formation of the panel of reference and are committed to assisting individual clergy and congregations engage the process offered.”

In the transitional period following February’s meeting, the Anglican Communion Network and Anglican Essentials Canada remain committed to addressing shared fundamental needs of congregations including the jurisdictional oversight provided by godly bishops who have chosen to walk with the Communion; connection with the world-wide Communion; security for clergy to minister without fear of retribution or hindrance; and protection of property.

Participants of the Atlanta meeting also pledged support for Bishop Robert Duncan, ACN Moderator, in his leadership of assembling and moving forward numerous Anglican entities in a Common Cause partnership. In addition, the Network deans and Anglican Essentials leaders expressed commitment to assisting congregations to understand and respond as realignment unfolds.

“We maintain our commitment to be submitted to God, confident, passionate and encouraging,” noted Bishop Duncan who was present for part of the meeting. “We are a biblical missionary movement fully connected with the Anglican Communion, dedicated to changing lives and transforming the world in Christ.”

A series of conferences is being planned to provide a forum to discuss details and future ramifications of the Primates’ Communiqué. The first, “From Surviving to Thriving: Anglicans in the 21st Century,” is scheduled for April 1-2, 2005 in Woodbridge, Virginia, and featured speakers include Archbishop Gregory Venables, Bishop Robert Duncan, Canon David C. Anderson and Dr. Kendall Harmon.

==============================

An Open Letter To The House Of Bishops Of The Episcopal Church U.S.A. (American Anglican Council, 050304)

Within the next week you, our Bishops, will meet for the purpose of responding to The Windsor Report and the recent statement of the Meeting of the Primates. The Primates, among other things, have called for (1) an expression of regret on the part of ECUSA for the harm done to the Anglican Communion by the recent actions of its House of Bishops and its General Convention; (2) a moratorium on the consecration of people in same gender unions and on the blessing of such unions; (3) the voluntary withdrawal of ECUSA’s representatives to the next meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council; and (4) the deliberated decision as to whether ECUSA will “commit” itself to the Windsor Report’s articulation of “inter-dependent life” within the Anglican Communion.

As you consider how to make a Godly response to the Primates’ statement we pray that you will keep certain points at the center of your deliberations. If these considerations are not given due weight, the Episcopal Church will, in all probability, find itself no longer a member of the Anglican Communion, with all the chaos of disordered mission and ministry to which this will give rise. Because of the seriousness of the crisis in which our church now finds itself, we pray that the following points will provide the focus of your discussions and decisions.

1. The Primates request that ECUSA’s representatives to the next meeting of the ACC be withdrawn indicates that ECUSA’s status as a member of the Anglican Communion is already, given actions deemed grave and injurious by the Primates, provisional. The request also indicates that a failure on the part of ECUSA to comply with the Primates’ request will be taken by the Primates as an indication that ECUSA has in fact decided to walk apart from the rest of the Communion.

2. There is a danger that the seriousness of the Primates’ request will be missed because of a failure on the part of ECUSA’s leaders to grasp the fact that the center of gravity of the Anglican Communion has now shifted to the so-called Global South. The largest part of the Anglican Communion now lies around or below the equator; and the Provinces from this part of the world consider ECUSA’s recent actions both as yet another example of American unilateralism and, more important, contrary to the moral requirements of Christian belief. A tectonic shift has occurred within our Communion that means that people from the global north no longer control the shape of the Anglican Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury has clearly recognized this shift and has given his support to it. We fear the deleterious effects both on our church and the Anglican Communion as a whole if our leaders fail to take the meaning of this shift into account.

3. There is good reason to believe that there are some within ECUSA who are content, in the words of the Windsor Report, to “walk apart,” and in so doing claim a degree of autonomy that the Primates consider incompatible with membership in a communion of churches. A decision that either actively or passively takes our church in such a direction will cut the taproot from which our church grows and from which it receives nourishment. Such a decision would also effectively mean that ECUSA has become simply another American denomination with no credible ability to present itself as an expression of Catholic Christianity with a worldwide presence. The Primates themselves have underlined the connection between our shared teaching and discipline as a Communion, with our ability to witness to the very nature of God within the world (par.12 and 22).

4. It is tempting to react in fear to this shift within our Communion. Some of our bishops are deeply committed to the inclusion of gay persons in our church’s leadership and liturgical approbation, and recognize with trepidation the limitations the Primates would place upon this desire. But in fact the shift to a disciplined communion life presents ECUSA with an opportunity to grasp more fully than ever it has what it means to enjoy koinonia within the body of Christ. A decisive commitment by our bishops to the Communion, on Windsor’s terms, does not decide the ultimate fate of gay persons in the church’s life; rather it places the discernment of this matter squarely within the Communion’s common life and discipline. ECUSA bishops have every capacity and ecclesial right to “press the point” with sister churches; but not the authority to preempt the discernment and decisions that common life and discipline demand. Through a considered, charitable, and clear response to the requests of the Primates, ECUSA will in fact be able to provide leadership within the communion as to what the principle of “mutual responsibility and interdependence,” first articulated by our own Bishop Stephen Bayne, actually means.

5. If, however, ECUSA decides to ignore or disparage the requests of the Primates, we may be sure that two results will follow. ECUSA’s status within the communion will become either “asymmetrical” or non-existent, and ECUSA itself will shatter. Some will take the bit between their teeth and move toward complete autonomy. Others will have to find new ways to be related to the See of Canterbury and the Primates. The shameful prospect of bitter public conflict and litigation lies before our church if our response of the Primates is inadequate.

6. As bishops you have the responsibility and authority to take a decisive lead in our church’s collective response. You have been made stewards of a “universal ministry” and of its gifts within the larger church (par. 11), and you represent a primary instrument within ECUSA’s “constitutional bodies” delegated with the duty of leading the people of God in this church (cf. par. 14). You need not, indeed you cannot afford to defer or postpone your leadership at this time to some elongated or future process of discernment. Already an international “panel of reference” is being formed to supervise the character of your own oversight of communion-committed members within your dioceses, and it is clear that from the standpoint of Canterbury and the Primates as a whole ECUSA does not have the luxury of delaying its decision on this matter.

These six points seem to us clearly implied by the Primates’ request of ECUSA. It is our prayer that they will be ever before your minds as you consider the future of our church and the integrity of the episkope you represent. Our church and the Anglican Communion as a whole now stand at a crossroads. Will our church remain a part of this communion or will it decide to walk apart? This is a question that we dare not ignore and a decision we dare not postpone. We have placed these considerations before you with respect for your office and out of love for our church and the Anglican Communion. Please be assured of our prayers and our awareness of the fearful and sacred decisions that lie before you.

Yours in Christ.

The Rev. Donald Armstrong,

The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner

The Rev. Prof. Christopher Seitz

The Very Rev. Dr. Philip Turner

Officers of the Anglican Communion Institute

==============================

Moderator of Anglican Communion Network Offers Recommendations in Response to Primate Communiqué (American Anglican Council, 050304)

Following the recent meeting of the Anglican Communion Primates, the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network (ACN) and Bishop of Pittsburgh, has commented on the end of drift that has come as a result of the gathering in Northern Ireland. Not only was the meeting a significant reaffirmation of historic Biblical faith, Bishop Duncan observed that it may well prove to be one of the most definitive re-affirmations of the church’s teaching since the Reformation. Although the language was diplomatic and gracious, the statement was a fundamental refutation of revisionist theology and innovations. Noting the season of transition in which the church finds itself, Bishop Duncan sought to offer encouragement to those affiliated with the ACN.

“The work of the Primates represents a turning point in a long and often frustrating journey,” Bishop Duncan said. “Let me assure you that the Primates of the Anglican Communion have decisively addressed theological innovations contrary to Anglican teaching and practice and have intervened in our situation in a powerful way. The Primates are clear in upholding the tenets of Lambeth 1.10 as the Communion’s teaching on human sexuality. They also recognize, however, that sexuality is only the presenting symptom. The core disease is a challenge to the authority of Scripture and received Christian teaching.”

Bishop Duncan also outlined five recommendations for those committed to maintaining historic Biblical faith in North America offered by a large number of Anglican Primates. First, the teaching of the faithful in North America is the teaching of the Anglican Communion while the changed doctrine of ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada are contrary to traditional Anglican faith and practice.

Within that context, according to Bishop Duncan, there is a clear choice to be made – each individual, congregation, diocese and the two provinces must choose whether or not they will repent, thereby embracing the teaching and practice of Anglicanism, or continue the current course. Choosing theological and doctrinal innovations will result in ultimate separation from the Communion.

“The choice in many ways is between a church captured by its culture and a worldwide Christian Communion,” Bishop Duncan explained.

In order to walk through this transitional period, Bishop Duncan noted the importance of reorganizing and unifying the diaspora to work actively together as the third recommendation.

“This work has a strong foundation in the Common Cause partnership forged over the last several months,” Bishop Duncan said.

Bishop Duncan noted that a critical component of unity is a determination to “grow up”, to embrace holiness and maturity, and while the transitional period will be difficult, perseverance and strength must characterize the faithful.

The Primates Communiqué addressed the need to provide oversight and protection for those in “serious theological conflict with their bishop or province” by establishing a Panel of Reference appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Communiqué makes it clear that the panel is being established as a matter of urgency. It will insure the adequacy of care that Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight (DEPO) failed to offer because the determination of adequacy must rise from those who receive oversight rather than the opinion of revisionist bishops. While the primates agreed that the panel provides protection so they do not have to “encourage nor initiate … cross boundary interventions,” they have also made it clear that they will not abandon those with whom they have already established relations.

Bishop Duncan’s final recommendation encouraged those in conflict to engage the Panel of Reference as soon as it is operational.

“It is critical that those in vulnerable situations seek protection as soon as possible,” said Bishop Duncan. “The Anglican Communion Network office is committed to serving as a vehicle and champion of those seeking that protection.”

==============================

Brazilian Anglican Bishops Duel for Power (Christian Post, 050307)

The Brazilian Anglican Diocese of Recife is currently experiencing a crisis in leadership as a local Bishop and a Bishop elected by the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB) contend for authority. Presently there are two Bishops and a divided clergy. The struggle is a small, but significant result of the ongoing controversy in the Anglican Church over homosexuality.

In March 2004 Bishop Edward Robinson de Barros Cavalcanti of the Recife Diocese in northeastern Brazil participated in a confirmation rite in Akron, Ohio that had not been authorized by the local diocese and Bishop. The lay persons gathered, including the 110 young people confirmed had opposed the consecration of the openly gay Gene Robinson as the Bishop of New Hampshire. They had requested the service be conducted by retired Anglican Bishops.

The participation of Cavalcanti led to a reprimand by the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB) Chamber of Bishops. The Primate of the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil (IEAB), Orlando Santos de Oliveira expressed “strong disapproval” and ordered Cavalcanti to take no part in acts that opposed the statutes and rules of other Provinces in the Anglican Communion.

Later, in September of 2004, the Brazilian Primate of the IEAB, Bishop Orlando Santos de Oliveira placed the Diocese of Recife under alternative Episcopal supervision due to the Cavalcanti’s “intransigent and disrespectful” attitude.

On February 18 of this year, the Bishop Primate issued a resolution suspending Bishop Cavalcanti for preventive reasons. Then, by resolution, he designated Bishop Filadelfo Oliveira Neto as a Church authority in the Recife diocese.

But Bishop Cavalcanti convened an Extraordinary Diocesan council meeting on February 26 where 23 clerics and 58 lay delegates representing 90% of the Recife diocese membership (2,000) agreed to keep Cavalcanti as Bishop, rejecting the IEAB decision by Primate Oliveira.

They drafted a resolutions which says: “We continue to recognize the Rev. Edward Robinson de Barros Cavalcanti as our Diocesan Bishop, in his full exercise of Office and Ministry”. In a press release criticizing Oliveira, Menezes said that “The Primate of Brazil uses his position to confuse the public opinion with untrue and distorted versions about our reality.”

According to a report in ALC News, IEAB Primate Orlando Santos de Oliveira said in a statement last year regarding the ongoing issue that, “It’s always dangerous, difficult and more than anything, complicated to deal with the labels being placed on us.” He added any affirmation that “we’re living in a liberal hegemony at the IEAB,” was very offensive and simplistic.

==============================

Domestic Divisions Arise Within the U.S. Episcopal Church (Christian Post, 050308)

The dispute over the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA)’s decision to ordain an actively gay man as bishop has not yet formalized into a full-fledged Anglican division at an international scale, but it continues to shred the fragile fabric of the 2-million member denomination in painful ways at the domestic level.

In last year since the gay bishop’s ordination, financial offerings and gifts to the denomination dropped a whopping 12 percent. The four million dollar drop in offering was largely due to the decision of entire dioceses to halt their giving to the national church in protest of its controversial decision to ordain Gene Robinson – a divorced father who is now in a sexually active relationship with a male lover.

In addition to the financial downturn, the ECUSA has continued on a downward spiral in terms of individual and congregational membership numbers.

Last year, three conservative parishes in Southern California rejected the authority of their local bishop as well as the entire ECUSA and opted to be placed under the jurisdiction of a conservative bishop in Africa.

In making its decision, the three churches, St. James Church in Newport Beach and St. David’s Church in North Hollywood, alleged the ECUSA has been “veering away from historic Christianity.”

“We felt that perhaps things couldn’t be reformed,” Rev. William Thompson of All Saints’ Church, explained last year.. “The church had taken a position that was counter to the teachings of the Holy Scripture.”

In a similar move Sunday, the largest parish in the Episcopal Diocese of eastern Kansas agreed in principle to separate from the diocese and the entire denomination.

The proposed separation of the Christ Episcopal Church of Overland Park was announced Sunday by the church and Kansas diocese, but was decided upon on Feb. 28. At last month’s meeting, the church’s governing board “recommended approval of the agreement” to separate; the Council of Trustees of the diocese approved the agreement on Tuesday; parish members will vote on April 3 regarding the issue.

In a letter announcing the move, the bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Kansas, the Right Rev. Dean Wolfe, explained that theological differences remained the core of the division.

Differences center on “theology, the interpretation of Scripture, and the doctrine and the discipline of the Church,” wrote Wolfe. “This decision served effectively to sever Christ Church from their responsibilities for the common ministry of this diocese,” Wolfe said in the letter.

Meanwhile, the Rev. Ronald McCrary, rector of Christ Episcopal Church, told The Associated Press that the church’s vestry — its governing body — unanimously supported the proposed separation.

“The Episcopal Church and the diocese are pulling away from historical Anglican teachings,” he said. “The Robinson case is the tip of the iceberg, but the substance of it is theology.”

==============================

Canterbury Rejects Invitation to Joint US, Canada Church Meeting (Christian Post, 050309)

In a move that reflects the tumultuous divisions within the worldwide Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury rejected an invitation to attend a joint American-Canadian Anglican leaders’ meeting slated for April, on Monday, March 7, 2005.

Rowan Williams, the spiritual head of the 77-million-member communion, rejected the North American churches’ invitation for him to join them in a meeting next month, where the two churches will solemnly consider the recent request for them to “voluntarily withdraw” their membership from an international Anglican committee.

Canterbury’s move prompted several critical comments from the Canadian primate, Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, who linked the rejection to the current turmoil over homosexuality.

“It does send a very, very negative symbol to the Canadian church, no question,” Archbishop Hutchison said to the Anglican Journal. “The message it sends to us is that at the moment he does not want to be associated with the Canadians.”

Williams meanwhile said his reason for declining the April 25 to May 1 meeting of North American bishops was largely due to past engagements he had scheduled for those days.

However, Hutchinson was quick to criticize the explanation, saying, “Our invitation went out to him over a year ago and I’m sure that this (other) meeting is not something that he (had) committed (to) before our invitation.”

Archbishop Hutchison said he was troubled by Archbishop Williams’ decision, mainly because the move contradicted Williams’ personal take on homosexuality; in statements made throughout the last year, Williams implied he personally supported a more liberal stance on homosexuality.

“I’m very upset because it goes against what I believe is his own personal position (on homosexuality) and he has expressed it pretty publicly and in other circumstances,” said Hutchison.

The joint meeting between the North American church bodies has been in the planning stages for more than a year. Some 40 bishops from each country is expected to attend the weeklong event.

==============================

>>Episcopalian plan stays consecrations (Washington Times, 050317)

The nation’s Episcopal leaders, at the urging of the church’s first openly homosexual bishop, have slapped a one-year moratorium on consecrating all bishops, saying such a refusal was preferable to discriminating against “our gay brothers and lesbian sisters.”

The moratorium was proposed by New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson during a semiannual meeting of the Episcopal House of Bishops meeting in Navasota, Texas, which ended yesterday.

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, head of the 2.3-million-member Episcopal Church, told the Associated Press yesterday church leaders approved the moratorium because they did not want “our gay brothers and lesbian sisters demeaned.”

The Rev. Jan Nunley, spokeswoman for the denomination, said she was not aware of any homosexual candidates in the pipeline for the episcopate.

However, the majority of 140 bishops at the meeting “didn’t want to single out any one group and say, ‘We can’t do that,’” she said.

“So we’ll put a hold on it all.”

Six dioceses will be affected by the decision, she added.

The moratorium will last until the next Episcopal General Convention, in June 2006 in Columbus, Ohio, where the church likely will revisit its policies on homosexual clergy and “blessings” of same-sex unions, the issues that threaten the U.S. church with expulsion from the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The moratorium was part of a larger document, “A Covenant Statement of the House of Bishops,” which was passed by a “nearly unanimous” vote of the bishops, according to Episcopal News Service.

The statement also said bishops will not authorize any rites for same-sex “blessings” in churches nor bless such unions until General Convention. However, it left a loophole for priests to conduct such “blessings” on their own authority.

The covenant, which was drawn up by an 18-member group of bishops including Washington’s John B. Chane, put the Episcopal Church’s leadership technically in compliance with an order last month from the world’s Anglican archbishops to stop ordaining homosexual bishops and conducting same-sex blessings.

According to the Living Church, an Episcopal publication, Bishop Griswold told his fellow prelates at the Navasota meeting that the archbishops were “out for blood” at the Northern Ireland meeting and likened six conservative Episcopalians to the devil.

The six, all of whom were in Northern Ireland during the meeting, were Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan; Canon Bill Atwood, general secretary of the Ekklesia Society in Texas; the Rev. Martyn Minns, rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax; the Rev. David Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council in Atlanta; the Rev. Kendall Harmon, canon theologian of the Diocese of South Carolina; and Diane Knippers, president of the Institute for Religion and Democracy in the District and a member of Truro.

When Bishop Duncan protested Bishop Griswold’s characterization of him, the magazine said, Bishop Robinson responded: “I don’t believe a word of what you said. I just can’t believe you.”

Attempts to reach Bishop Robinson for comment were unsuccessful.

In an interview, Bishop Duncan said he was shocked at the exchange.

“As a pastor, when I hear someone say everything I’m doing is evil or ‘I don’t believe anything you say,’ this marriage is probably beyond repair,” he said. “I think our House of Bishops is finally talking about that.”

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, head of the 70-million-member Anglican Communion, called the Episcopal covenant a “constructive” response.

But Mr. Harmon called U.S. bishops’ actions the mere minimal compliance.

“You have apostolic leaders acting as lawyers,” he said. The bishops “were asked to do nothing until a new consensus in the Anglican Communion had emerged. Instead, they made a time-specific commitment and added to it their own conditions. That’s what lawyers do.”

==============================

Canadian Leaders “Unlikely” to Take Backward Step in Blessing Gay Unions (Christian Post, 050321)

Contrary to its U.S. counterpart, the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) may choose to “walk apart” from the larger Anglican Communion by rejecting the international request to stop blessing homosexual unions in the church.

At a service held at the St. James’ Cathedral in Toronto, Canada on March 16, the ACC head Archbishop Andrew Hutchison implied that the church will continue “to bless same-sex unions if it seems fit to do so,” according to the Anglican Network in Canada.

Speaking to a 400-plus crowd at the cathedral, Hutchison said a recent international Anglican meeting in Northern Ireland effectively revealed that the 77-million-member Anglican Communion is broken in fellowship. According to Hutchison, the refusal of 14 international church heads to share a common Eucharist with the ACC during the Ireland meeting was a symbol of the brokenness within the church.

Hutchison reaffirmed his statement during an interview with Reuters by saying: “If that doesn’t signify their breaking from communion, I don’t know what does.”

During the Northern Ireland meeting last month, the worldwide Anglican leaders asked the ACC and the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) to withdraw from a key decision-making body and to place a moratorium on blessing same-sex unions and ordaining gay bishops.

Last week, ECUSA leaders heeded to the advice – though in a slippery manner.

The ECUSA House of Bishops said it will place a moratorium on ordaining gay bishops, but adding that the weight of such decisions must be carried by all members of the church, it also placed a moratorium on the ordination of heterosexual individuals as well. The Bishops’ decision essentially halted all ordinations of bishops, leaving certain dioceses with aged bishops in sticky situations.

The House of Bishops also recommended the church members halt same-sex union blessings, but left the statement open to interpretation since some clergy members could consider same-sex union blessings a means for pastoral care.

However, overall, the ECUSA seemed intent to remain in fellowship with the global church body.

Archbishop Hutchison, however, did not seem so positive in his outlook for a unified global communion.

“There could be some real schism,” Hutchison said, explaining that the conservative and liberal leaders in the international communion seem unwilling to compromise.

“It’s very, very difficult to imagine the North American churches taking a backward step,” said Hutchison, who personally supports blessing same-sex couples.

As for the conservatives, Hutchison said he doesn’t expect them to loosen their grip.

“If there were no change in their position and if there were no change in the North American position, then clearly that does spell schism,” he added.

However, he said unity may still be possible.

Canadian church leaders will meet in April and again in May to examine the global leaders’ request to withdraw from the fellowship.

“I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that the (Canadian) church will withhold its members from that meeting,” he said.

As for now, Hutchison said the diocese of New Westminster, British Columbia, is maintaining its policy of blessing homosexual unions that was adopted in 2002. He added that the ACC bishops’ meeting in coming months can only recommend – not enforce – a moratorium on the gay union blessings; only the general synod, the highest decision making body, can impose such a regulation.

The AAC represents only 680,000 members of the 77-million member communion. The ECUSA only claims 2.3 million members. The largest opponent of same-sex union blessings is the Anglican church of Nigeria, which has some 17 million members.

==============================

Scottish Anglican Bishops Say Gay Clergy will be Accepted (Christian Post, 050323)

Bishops in the Scottish Episcopal Church said they will not halt the ordination of active homosexuals, placing them at odds with the majority of the world’s Anglican community.

In a statement released on its website earlier this month, the Scottish bishops said their church “has never regarded the fact that someone was in a close relationship with a member of the same sex as in itself constituting a bar to the exercise of an ordained ministry.”

“The Scottish Episcopal Church has sought to be welcoming and open to persons of homosexual orientation in our congregations,” the statement further elaborated.

The church’s statement was made at the wake of the formation of the largest rift in recent Anglican history. At an international Anglican meeting last month, the Communion asked the U.S. and Canadian branch of the church to refrain from taking part in a key global gathering until 2008. The request was made in light of the North American churches’ liberal stances on homosexuality.

Scotland’s bishops also expressed regret over the request for the two churches to withdraw.

“We are conscious that as a church we are much indebted in our life both to a significant presence of persons of homosexual orientation, and also those whose theology and stance would be critical of attitudes to sexuality other than abstinence outside marriage,” the statement read.

“We rejoice in both,” the bishops’ response said.

[Kwing Hung: what apostasy!!]

==============================

Traditional Anglicans Grow in Influence (Christian Post, 050407)

Despite unresolved controversies over homosexuality in the church, the head of a traditionalist group within the US Episcopal Church said Anglicanism is heading toward a theologically orthodox and spiritually vibrant future.

In statements made during the Anglican Communion Network’s Mid-Atlantic Convocation conference in Woodbridge, Va., Bishop Robert Duncan explained that traditional Anglicans have gained “lots of triumphs” in the past few months.

In particular, Duncan pointed out he “stunning triumph” gained internationally when Anglican Primates worldwide called on the US and Canadian Anglican churches to halt gay “marriage” blessings and ordinations or face a break in fellowship.

However Duncan cautioned that these developments won’t come without a cost, according to ACN.

“Already, in the wake of the Primates’ historic affirmation of mainstream Anglicanism, many who disagree are targeting orthodox minorities for persecution,” ACN wrote in a statement.

“Unfortunately, in between surviving and thriving is suffering,” Duncan was quoted as saying. “God will use the days ahead as we struggle and suffer.”

The ACN was formed by traditional and orthodox Anglicans last year in response to the Episcopal Church USA’s ordination of an open and active gay bishop and has since gained the support of traditional Anglicans across the nation.

The ACN has two main goals, according to Duncan.

“I think what the Lord wants for us is that we learn to work better with our Common Cause partners,” Bishop Duncan said. I think God is going to break that spirit in us as we go through this very hard time.”

Second, the ACN has to take a greater role in organizing and rallying support from the “sleeping giant” of the church – the laity.

“Turtullian says the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Let’s accept our vocations to be martyrs, witnesses,” the bishop said. “Courage breeds courage. Remember those words from Plano? Brothers and sisters, courage is what is being asked of us just now.

==============================

Connecticut Episcopalians Discuss Gay Fray (Christian Post, 050418)

The Episcopal bishop of Connecticut will meet with six dissident priests tonight to settle disputes over the diocese’s support for gay marriages and the ordination of homosexual bishops.

Last week, Connecticut Bishop Andrew D. Smith threatened to defrock the six priests if they did not reconcile with the diocese. However, Smith gave the priests an opportunity to meet with him today, in the company of mediator.

“I have offered an opportunity for all the priests to meet with me, next Monday, in the company of Bishop Scruton of the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, whom I have asked to help us in our conversation,” Smith wrote in a statement released April 15. “In light of this meeting, I will not take action today concerning the inhibition of these priests. I look forward to this meeting.”

Bishop Smith was one of the dozens of Episcopal bishops who voted in favor of ordaining an active gay priest, Rev. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire. Since Robinson’s elevation, the worldwide Anglican Communion has faced a schism that pit the conservative South against their more liberal North American counterparts.

Tensions escalated in during an international gathering this February when the US Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada were urged to withdraw from a key global gathering.

Domestically, relationships between liberals and traditionalists have been placed on stilts. Financial contributions to the national church body dropped and entire parishes rejected the denomination’s oversight. Hundreds more congregants left the Episcopal Church entirely in search for a more biblically conservative church.

The case of the six Connecticut priests highlights the domestic divide over homosexuality: the priests, frustrated at their bishop for elevating Robinson, halted their regular contribution (12.5 percent of revenue) to the diocese and rejected the authority of Bishop Smith.

A diocesan committee consequently found the priests to have “abandoned the communion” of the church. In a statement released late last month, Bishop Smith notified the priests that they could possibly be suspended or defrocked.

The priests and their supporters have rejected the charge, saying they “do not understand how we have in any way abandoned the communion of this church.”

The priests involved in the conflict are: Allyn Benedict of Christ Church Watertown; Mark Hansen of St. John’s Church and Donald Helmandollar of Trinity Church in Bristol; Ronald Gauss of Bishop Seabury Church in Groton; Gilbert Wilkes of Christ and the Epiphany Church in East Haven; and Christopher Leighton of St. Paul’s Church in Darien.

==============================

A Statement from the American Anglican Council on the Executive Council Letter to the Anglican Consultative Council (AAC, 050414)

The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) met yesterday and has announced they will refrain from “official participation” in the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting scheduled for June 2005 in Nottingham, England. In their letter to the ACC Chair, however, the Executive Council writes they will still send their delegation. We find it very disturbing that the Episcopal Church leadership met in seclusion, continuing a pattern of secrecy. In addition, we note that they seem incapable of acquiescing fully to the requests and clear expectations of the Primates as expressed in their 2005 Communiqué. As with the House of Bishops’ March 2005 Covenant Statement, the Executive Council has professed compliance to the Primates while dictating their own terms:

“In the spirit of the Covenant Statement recently adopted by our House of Bishops, we voluntarily withdraw our members from official participation in the ACC as it meets in Nottingham. As an expression of our desire “to bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2), we are asking our members to be present at the meeting to listen to reports on the life and ministry we share across the Communion and to be available for conversation and consultation.” [Episcopal News Service—Executive Council Letter to Anglican Consultative Council]

The Executive Council’s letter to the Anglican Consultative Council is manipulative and deceptive. The Primates were clear and direct in their call to the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada:

“…we request that the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference. During that same period we request that both churches respond through their relevant constitutional bodies to the questions specifically addressed to them in the Windsor Report as they consider their place within the Anglican Communion.” (cf. paragraph 8)

While the language of the Communiqué is gracious and diplomatic, the intent is crystal clear—the American and Canadian Churches have been told to stand down from the Anglican Consultative Council. In addition, they have been presented with a clear choice to permanently walk together or walk apart. The parameters for “walking together” are also definitive: the Episcopal Church must repent of its heretical actions and embrace once more in word and in practice the faith and order of Anglicanism. We cannot accept that the Executive Council does not understand what the Primates have requested, and therefore we must assume that this is a deliberate plan to circumvent and ignore the full intent of the Communiqué.

The Executive Council is setting up an opportunity to lobby and influence the ACC meeting. Given the fact that ECUSA is insisting on such a presence, it seems a matter of justice and fair play that those who are excluded from ECUSA and isolated because they stand against revisionism should also be present and “available for conversation and consultation”. We call upon the Anglican Consultative Council to deny the Executive Council’s request; however, if the ECUSA delegation attends, we believe it is critical to include voices that offer a very different perspective, one that is consistent with Scripture and the accepted faith and order of the Anglican Communion.

###

ATTACHMENT:

From Executive Council: A letter to Bishop John Paterson

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

>From the Episcopal New Service of the United States of America

A letter to the Rt Revd John C Paterson, Chair of the Anglican Consultative Council, from the Most Revd Frank T Griswold and the Very Revd George L W Werner on behalf of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.

The Executive Council met in special session at the University of St Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois, to consider the request of the Primates to “voluntarily withdraw” our members for a time from participation in the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC). This is a weighty matter for the Episcopal Church since the ACC is the primary instrument of communion in which the fullness of the Body of Christ is represented. Representative consultation is an essential component of our life as a church. We struggled to discern how best to respond to the request.

We are acutely aware that we meet in a time of great distress and need in the wider world. War, famine and disease stalk the earth. We express our passionate commitment to the mission of the church and especially to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals endorsed by our General Convention.

We are unanimous in our desire to do all that we can to preserve and further the bonds of affection in the “new humanity” created by Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:15). This in our view constitutes the very essence of our life together as Anglican Christians. We firmly believe that the only way to address the things that divide us is for “Christians of good will ... to engage honestly and frankly with each other” (Windsor Report, paragraph 146). We are therefore heartened by the decision of the Chair of the ACC, responding to the Primates’ communiqué to include in the program for the upcoming meeting in Nottingham an opportunity for a consultation at which major contributions will come from the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.

We are mindful that Christ has made us members of one body, and that no part can say to any other “I have no need of you.” At the same time we wish to express our openness to the concerns and beliefs of others. In the spirit of the Covenant Statement recently adopted by our House of Bishops, we voluntarily withdraw our members from official participation in the ACC as it meets in Nottingham. As an expression of our desire “to bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2), we are asking our members to be present at the meeting to listen to reports on the life and ministry we share across the Communion and to be available for conversation and consultation.

Please be assured of our prayers and continuing support for the mission we share in the Risen Christ.

==============================

Six Connecticut Priests Grieve Bishop Smith’s Rupture of the Episcopal Church (AAC, 050419)

For months we have sought a joint meeting with Bishop Smith, but he has refused each request. We, therefore, welcomed last night’s meeting with a sense of hope for sincere and open dialogue. We went to the appointment in good faith prepared to listen and to begin a process toward positive resolution. We were hopeful of an atmosphere in which true negotiations might take place. Instead, we walked into a trap, a brutal and long meeting in which Bishop Smith attempted to coerce us individually into an admission that we had abandoned communion. As we have consistently maintained, we and our congregations stand united with the truth as revealed in Scripture as well as the teaching of Anglicanism upheld by the primates, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and some 70 million Anglicans worldwide. It is inconceivable to us that anyone could interpret our position as “abandonment of communion” as we have stated over and over our commitment to the communion.

Despite the good efforts of Bishop Scruton of Massachusetts to mediate discussion, Bishop Smith suspended consideration and conversation regarding oversight and related issues; he was intractable and unyielding; he sought neither reconciliation nor solutions but rather effectively demanded a verbal oath of allegiance. He warned us that in leaving the meeting, we offered “proof” of leaving the communion. The one request we made of Bishop Smith is that he withdraw his threat of inhibition as we seek resolution together. He refused. In his statement following the meeting, he reasserted the threat of inhibition based on his claim that we had not acknowledged his authority as bishop.

We have been clear from the beginning that we seek oversight as called for by the primates of the worldwide Anglican Communion in their statements of October 2003 and February 2005. It would seem by his actions last night that Bishop Smith does not acknowledge or embrace the authority of the primates and is intent upon continuing the rupture of the Episcopal Church. We grieve his intransigence, but rejoice that our hope is not in man but in God. We six priests and congregations stand together in unity of purpose and commitment to Jesus Christ. We feel the power and the comfort of the Holy Spirit, and we are confident that the Lord will lead and sustain us in this difficult time.

The Rev. Allyn Benedict, Christ Church, Watertown

The Rev. Ronald S. Gauss, Bishop Seabury, Groton

The Rev. Mark Hansen, St. John’s, Bristol

The Rev. Donald Helmandollar, Trinity, Bristol

The Rev. Christopher Leighton, St. Paul’s, Darien

The Rev. Gil Wilkes, Christ and the Epiphany, East Haven

###

ATTACHMENT:

Statement by the Rt. Rev. Andrew D. Smith

Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut

April 18, 2005

The fundamental organization for mission and life within the Episcopal Church is a geographical area called a diocese, whose head is its bishop. That principle was established at the first ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D.

The historic ministry of the bishop is to be shepherd of a diocese. The shepherd’s staff that the bishop carries in worship symbolizes the bishop’s care, in the name of Jesus, for everyone in the diocese. The relationship to the whole diocese is fundamental for the Episcopal Church, no matter what the time or situation or issue.

For the past 11 months, six rectors of the Diocese of Connecticut, together with the leadership of the parishes they serve, have refused to accept their relationship with their bishop.

In the past year I have offered to arrange for another bishop to be their pastor and parish visitor. To date they have refused that offer.

Rather, the priests have demanded that the historic traditions we live by as a Church be changed for them and the congregations they serve. Their requirements would break the ties they have to the Diocese of Connecticut. What they expect I cannot grant, because of the responsibilities I have for all of the people and parishes of the diocese.

My hope has been that, gathered by Christ the Good Shepherd, we could meet in prayer and discernment to resolve the impasse before us. That even though we disagreed, we could go forward in the unity and Christian love that Jesus prayed for, for the sake of the Church and our work for God in the world.

I reminded the rectors of the six parishes of their ordination vows in this church, that they would serve “together with [their] bishop.” Communion with the bishop is a precursor to consider other matters that are before us. By leaving the meeting tonight without acknowledging my authority as their bishop they have placed themselves under threat of inhibition by refusing to live within their vows. I regret that we were unable to reach accord this evening. I shall continue to pray for them.

==============================

Episcopalians told to suffer for beliefs (Washington Times, 050403)

Leaders in the Episcopal Church and its parent body, the 70 million-member Anglican Communion, told nearly 1,600 Episcopalians in Woodbridge, Va., yesterday to prepare to suffer for their beliefs and perhaps even be ejected from their denomination.

“If you’re faithful to what Jesus calls us to do, you’ll have a very uncomfortable life,” said Anglican Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, which encompasses 30,000 Anglicans in five South American countries. “If you follow Jesus, an awful lot of people aren’t going to like you.”

Since the November 2003 consecration of a homosexual Episcopal bishop, the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church has split along liberal-conservative lines.

Those attending the two-day “From Surviving to Thriving” conference at the Hylton Memorial Chapel were given a list of recommended books, suggestions on how to elect “orthodox, faithful” Episcopalians to key diocesan positions and suggestions on where to “redirect” their finances to theologically traditional causes.

Pittsburgh Episcopal Bishop Robert Duncan said conservative groups within the Episcopal Church “cannot deliver a blessed thing” in terms of protecting beleaguered conservatives in liberal dioceses. For instance, he said, conservative clergy at six Connecticut parishes are being threatened with defrocking by their bishop.

“Brothers and sisters,” he said, “it will get worse for us.”

He also acknowledged feeling “despair” at a mid-March meeting of the Episcopal House of Bishops in Texas when he and five other conservative Episcopal leaders were singled out by Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold as being “evil.”

The six Americans — five of whom were speakers at the conference in Woodbridge — traveled to Northern Ireland in February to lobby a key meeting of 35 Anglican archbishops at the Dromantine Retreat and Conference Centre.

The lobbying bore fruit. In a rare inside look at international Anglican politics, Archbishop Venables described how about 20 conservative Anglican archbishops outmaneuvered their more liberal counterparts at Dromantine.

About 15 of those archbishops, he said, refused to share Communion with Bishop Griswold and Canadian Anglican Archbishop Andrew Hutchison because they allowed same-sex blessings and for Bishop Griswold’s role in consecrating an openly homosexual bishop, the Right Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, in November 2003.

The conservative archbishops — most of whom were from Africa and Asia — announced that they would not concede any ground to the Americans and Canadians on issues of homosexuality and liberal interpretations of Scripture.

The Dromantine meeting was at an impasse, Archbishop Venables said, until he and Irish Archbishop Robin Eames brokered a compromise: The Americans and Canadians would withdraw from the Anglican Communion until 2008, while they rethought their positions on homosexuality.

The Americans and Canadians appeared to go along with this suggestion, he said yesterday, but since have hinted they might defy it.

Moreover, there is no way in worldwide Anglicanism to enforce the decision. The archbishop of Canterbury does not have papallike powers to enforce obedience, Archbishop Venables added.

“We now face a problem,” he said. “While the [archbishops] are met together, the authority seems to rest on them. But once they disperse, where is the leadership?”

==============================

Archbishop Williams Welcomes Statement of Canada House of Bishops (Christian Post, 050429)

[Kwing Hung: The liberal Archbishop tries to allow the Canadian church to break the law of the church.]

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has warmly welcomed the statement of the Canadian House of Bishops that was issued on 27th April 2005.

“I welcome this considered and courteous response from the Canadian House of Bishops. Their constructive approach provides a positive basis for further engagement with the questions facing our Communion,” Dr Williams stated in a press release.

The statement of the Canadian House of Bishops is the latest reaction to the Windsor Report made by the Lambeth Commission on the Anglican Communion, and the communiqué from the Primates of the Anglican Communion issued in February 2005.

During the meeting in Northern Ireland early this year, the Anglican Church of Canada and the U.S. Episcopal church (ECUSA) were asked to voluntarily withdraw its members from the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), a central decision-making body; meeting in Nottingham in June 2005.

In the statement the Bishops have commented: “We see the value of the opportunity for reflection and response called for in the Windsor Report, but we also see risks inherent in honouring the request.”

But the final decision regarding the request can be made only by the Council of General Synod that will meet over 6-8 May in Mississauga.

The ECUSA has already made the decision; they will send their representatives to the ACC meeting to present their position and to issue statements from the Episcopal Church. However, they will not be able to vote at the gathering.

The issue that has led the Church to brink of schism is the attitude towards the authorisation of same-sex blessing rites, and the consecration of bishops living in same-sex relationships.

The Bishops agreed “neither to encourage nor to initiate the use of such rites until the General Synod has made a decision on the matter.”

The diocese of New Westminster, the one that allowed same-sex blessing rites in 2002, will consider the moratorium during the upcoming meeting of the diocese synod which will take place within the next two weeks reported Bishop Michael Ingham.

As a reaction to the controvesial blessing of same-sex consecrations, the Orthodox Anglicans in Africa and Latin America have demanded the suspension of the “Anglican churches that continue to flout biblical norms on issues such as homosexuality.”

The Canadian Bishops in the statement acknowledged that “synodical decisions in some parts of the Canadian church, and the response to these, have caused distress in some parts of the Communion. We are sorry for the pain that this has caused and we regret that together we have not achieved a level of consultation deemed sufficient to the magnitude of the issues under consideration.”

==============================

No Decision on Canadian Anglican Gay Marriage (Christian Post, 050509)

A governing body in the Anglican Church of Canada pushed-off a decision on same-sex union blessings until 2007 and suggested the issue was “a matter of doctrine” that should be considered by the entire church body.

After a three-day meeting in Mississauga, Ontario, the Council of the General Synod concluded that it is not up to individual diocesan synods and bishops to decide whether gay unions should be blessed in parishes since the matter has become of great theological significance in the church.

“We believe that this issue has become a matter of such theological significance in the Church that it must be addressed as a matter of doctrine,” the report, released Saturday, read.

The report was released amidst heightened tensions between the North American Anglican churches and the international Anglican Communion over the homosexuality debate.

Although the U.S. and Canadian bodies never set doctrines encouraging same-sex union blessings, the two denominations allowed dioceses, priests and bishops to decide on the matter individually. Going further, the U.S. church in 2003 elevated an active homosexual priest as bishop, sparking an international backlash from conservative Anglican leaders in the South.

In recent months, the North American bodies were singled out and asked to “voluntarily withdraw” their memberships from an international gathering because of their unorthodox views on homosexuality and were encouraged to place moratoria on both same-sex union blessings and ordinations.

The bishops from the U.S. church last month agreed to all three suggestions but with several reservations: (1) they halted same-sex union blessings but gave room for “pastoral discernment” by individual priests to possibly continue such celebrations; (2) they placed a moratorium on ordaining gay priests but stopped elevating heterosexual bishops as well; (3) they decided to withdraw from the international gathering but will send representatives to view the meeting.

Similarly, the Canadian Anglican Church leaders voted last week to “attend but not participate” in the international Anglican Consultative Council meeting set for June, and loosely halted the blessing of same-sex marriages.

At last week’s meeting, the Canadian leaders recommended the General Synod – the church’s chief governing and legislative body, which meets every three years – decide on the doctrine of same-sex marriage for the entire church, rather than allowing individual parishes decide on the matter.

According to the Canadian leaders, the “blessing of committed same-sex unions is tied to the question of how all sexuality….participates in our redemption.”

“It seems to us that this issue is fundamentally related to the doctrines of salvation (soteriology), incarnation, the work of the Holy Spirit (pneumatology), our creation in the image of God (theological anthropology), sanctification, and holy matrimony,” the statement read. [Kwing Hung: but nothing about the doctrine of the Word of God!]

Any decisions by the General Synod must be approved by all three levels of the governing body - clergy, bishops and lay people - at two separate meetings, three years apart.

The next meeting is in 2007.

==============================

Anglicans Consider Affirming Catholic Beliefs on Virgin Mary (Christian Post, 050519)

A group of Roman Catholic and Anglican leaders on Monday agreed that Catholic beliefs on the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary into heaven are acceptable in the Anglican tradition

The document, “Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ,” is the first joint Anglican-Roman Catholic statement on the mother of Mary and will now be examined by the Vatican and Anglican Communion before being fully accepted.

“This document represents sustained reflection on an aspect of Christian faith in which many Christians have found spiritual strength,” said the Anglican Rev. Canon Gregory Cameron, a co-writer of the statement. “It is our hope that all Christians will be helped by this statement to understand why Mary has been a figure of such significance.”

Historically, the Anglican Communion – often viewed as the midway between the Protestant and Catholic churches – opposed the teachings on Mary because there is no direct account of them in the Bible.

Catholics believe that Mary was born free of original sin. This belief was codified in 1854 as Catholic dogma and is celebrated each year by followers worldwide. About 100 years later, the Catholic Church also pronounced that Mary’s body and soul was “assumed” into heaven without dying.

These beliefs present some of the most divisive doctrinal divisions between the Protestant and Catholic churches.

The joint commission spent some 5 years to develop the 81-page booklet, which was first released in Seattle. The document was also launched in the UK on Thursday.

==============================

World Anglicans Gather, Brace for Homosexuality Debate (Christian Post, 050620)

The world’s Anglican leaders on Sunday gathered in Nottingham, England, for a critical 10-day meeting on the unity, future and direction of the Anglican Communion.

The Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), held every two or three years, has historically served to develop common policies, ecumenical decisions, and co-operative work within the international communion.

The setting for this year’s ACC, however, is marked with unbridled divisions that stem from the U.S. Episcopal Church’s ordination of an active homosexual bishop and the Canadian church’s blessing of same-sex unions.

“We can’t ignore the seriousness of what divides us,” said Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, during his opening remarks at the ACC. “We can’t guarantee anything at this point.”

Earlier in the year, the representatives from the two North American denominations were asked to “voluntarily withdraw” from the ACC because of the theological divide. They were also given time to “reflect” on their theology and were urged to apologize for taking actions contrary to historic Anglican teaching on sexuality.

While the two churches agreed to temporarily withdraw their membership from the ACC, they decided to send their representatives as “observers” to the conference. These representatives are scheduled to give a theological justification for their views on homosexuality tomorrow.

The head of the US Episcopal Church, Rev. Frank Griswold, will address why his church felt the openly gay Gene Robinson should become Bishop of New Hampshire. The Canadian leader, Rev Andrew Hutchison, will explain why the New Westminster Diocese authorized same-sex blessings.

Williams said he hopes these reflections and explanations on “the immediate problem” could lead the communion “back to the fundamental question” about living biblically in the modern culture.

“Many issues are involved here, not only the presenting question about homosexuality,” said Williams, the head of the 77-million-member communion. “Perhaps the most difficult is how we make a moral assessment of modern culture in the developed world.

“The question is how far the concern for reaching an understanding with the world about sexual ethics is based on uncritical acceptance of the values of a culture like this.”

==============================

Episcopal Church’s “Unofficial” Delegation Defies Primates’ Instructions (AAC, 050620)

Nottingham – The Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA), in complete defiance of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, has sent their delegates to the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting currently underway in Nottingham, England. In their 2005 Communique issued from Dromantine, the Primates called on the American delegation to withdraw voluntarily from the ACC. Subsequently, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church announced that the delegation – the Rt. Rev. Catherine Roskam, the Rev. Robert Sessum and Ms. Josephine Hicks – would not attend in an “official” capacity but would be present as “observers.” It is important to note that this is contrary to the Primates’ expressed expectation and was not sanctioned by the Council as a whole.

A number of ACC members have expressed discomfort at the presence of ECUSA “observers” who have been present for all sessions, meals, social gatherings and even rode on the van transporting the ACC to Sunday’s worship service. Despite his so-called withdrawal, ECUSA’s ACC delegate Robert Sessum has participated in Finance Committee meetings and has been observed engaging in several private conversations with ACC staff and leadership. Both Ms. Hicks and Bishop Roskam are obviously “working the room” during breaks and social gatherings.

One ACC member expressed strong frustration saying that the Americans “have displayed arrogance in assuming that their status within the Council is undiminished.”

“They were included in the welcome and the official roll call. It was as if Dromantine simply hadn’t happened, and I find it very difficult to imagine frank discussions about their presence or even the actions of their provinces while they are in the room.”

Another ACC member was outraged by the unlimited access enjoyed by the US and said the delegation had been “party to the entire program in contradiction to the Dromantine Communique.”

“The Primates requested that US representatives withdraw and attend only when they make their case at the appropriate time. Their presence in the sessions is totally confusing to other ACC delegates from around the world. Can no one stop the ECUSA juggernaut?”

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Canon Kenneth Kearon, Secretary General of the ACC, and ACC Chairman Bishop John Paterson appear unwilling to enforce the Primates’ expectations, and John Rees, legal adviser to the ACC pointedly emphasized the “broad powers of the chair”. A member displeased with the situation pointed to Kearon’s apparent support of ECUSA’s position. “He made this happen – allowing them to be present is his decision.”

The Episcopal Church is sending a second force that will make a 90-minute presentation on Tuesday, June 21, 2005. Although the Anglican Primates called for ECUSA to explain their actions, early reports indicate that Episcopal presenters will focus primarily on the experience of homosexuals with a primary goal of persuading the ACC that God is doing a new thing in North America. So far lobbying efforts of the US and Canada are already well underway, paving the way for Tuesday’s presentations. The integrity of the ACC meeting could well be in jeopardy.

==============================

>>AAC: ECUSA Shameless in Its Defense of a New Gospel (AAC, 050622)

June 22, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Cynthia P. Brust

44 773 314 5879 (UK mobile)

202-412-8721 (US mobile)

The Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) made a presentation yesterday before the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) designed to explain the thinking driving their decisions regarding human sexuality. The American Anglican Council has issued a statement in response to ECUSA’s arguments.

AAC: ECUSA Shameless in Its Defense of a New Gospel

Nottingham – The Episcopal Church’s presentation to the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) asserts a new gospel marked by theology and doctrine contrary to Holy Scripture and inconsistent with the historic faith and practice of Anglicanism. ECUSA’s statements were framed by specific arguments they have espoused for at least 15 years. Their profession that the Holy Spirit led ECUSA to consecrate a non-celibate homosexual and bless same sex unions is deeply disturbing, and we reject the validity of such a claim as contrary to God’s word revealed. Additionally, Lambeth 1.10 has expressed the mind of the Communion on this issue, and this positionstands as authoritative. We note that even the theological arguments of ECUSA are based on experience (unchecked by the experience of the Church Universal), seeking to use Scripture to validate that experience. In addition, the presentation failed to accurately describe the deep divisions within the Episcopal Church and the strong sense of betrayal, anxiety and grief experienced by tens of thousands across the nation.

While each presenter expressed a desire to remain connected to the Anglican Communion, they offered neither repentance nor a desire to reconsider their actions by seeking amendment and holiness of life in order to be reconciled not only to God but to the Communion. Until and unless the Episcopal Church repents and conforms to the teaching of Scripture as well as Lambeth 1.10 (as called for in the Windsor Report 2004 and the 2005 Primates’ Communique), how can ECUSA walk together with the Communion?

Each ECUSA speaker emphasized the need for listening and conversation regarding homosexuality with a clear goal of promoting a new pro-gay consensus on the sexuality issue within the Communion. The Episcopal Church leadership clearly desires to impose a new doctrine of sexuality on the Communion as it did within ECUSA. We urge the Anglican Consultative Council to recognize that in choosing a path of revisionism rather than repentance and reconciliation, ECUSA has indeed chosen to “walk away” from the Communion regardless of their rhetoric.

The Episcopal Church issued their theological arguments in a publication entitled “To Set Our Hope on Christ: A Response to the Invitation of Windsor Report Paragraph 135” (available on the AAC website). In addition, the seven-member team made individual statements to the ACC. We have highlighted some of the presentation components as well as commentary refuting ECUSA assertions:

* Same gender relationships have been experienced as “holy” in the Episcopal Church for over 40 years. (Roskam)

We would assert, however, that Scripture is to shape behavior rather than experience crafting and interpreting Scripture.

* The Spirit led ECUSA to consecrate a non-celibate homosexual and perform blessings of same sex unions. (Roskam and Battle)

We would assert, however, that it is blasphemous to suggest that the Holy Spirit would lead any Christian to accept or embrace doctrine or behavior contradicted throughout the body of Scripture.

* “…the inclusion of the Gentiles (Acts 10-15), has allowed us to interpret our experience in the light of the early Church’s experience.” In the same way God has given the Episcopal Church a vision for the full inclusion of homosexuals in the life of the church and for all orders of ministry. (Roskam, Battle, Russell)

We would assert, however, that Peter’s vision (Acts 10) is a specific call to recognize one people in the new life in Christ (fulfilling God’s plan of salvation revealed throughout Scripture), removing the barriers between Jew and Gentile. In light of the Council declaration of Acts 15 that explicitly included prohibition of sexual immorality, this cannot be interpreted as laying aside the moral boundaries for the Church in this area.

* Inclusion of homosexuals in ordained ministry is a justice issue on a par with slavery and the role of women in society as well as in the Church. (Roskam and Russell)

We would assert, however, that this is not an issue of inclusion but rather an issue of God’s call to holiness and standards for Christian leaders, as Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said in his opening address to the ACC.

* Not only is homosexuality innate and therefore genetic, God designed and created a percentage of the population as gay. (Tully)

We would assert, however, that the origins of same sex attraction are complex and subject to much debate. It is not established that same sex attraction is innate, and it has certainly not been established that it is genetic. God cannot be understood as having created what His revealed Word defines as sinful.

* “God cannot heal us of what is not an illness.” People may be healed of sexual addiction or abuse, but not of homosexuality. (Russell)

We would assert, however, that since same sex attraction is not a part of God’s created intent, He will indeed provide healing and reconciliation following repentance. Current scientific evidence upholds the validity of healing and new life for those who have experienced same sex attraction and describes questionable at best the suggestion that same sex attraction is genetic.

* DEPO is working well in the US. (Jenkins)

We would assert, however, that it is ludicrous to suggest that Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight (DEPO) is viable in the United States. Reports submitted to the English House of Bishops stated that DEPO is widely regarded as inadequate. A number of US parishes have found that even requesting DEPO brings punitive treatment.

* “Conversations are holy, and we [in ECUSA] are better for it. Consensus can be built on an anvil of listening through the Holy Spirit. I believe such consensus will emerge in the Communion in time as long as we will engage in holy conversation with each other.” (Alexander)

We would assert, however, that as exemplified by this statement, the clear intention of the Episcopal Church is to convince the Anglican Communion to embrace a new gospel. The suggestion that conversation between two mutually irreconcilable positions will result in consensus is incoherent.

* Despite the differences within ECUSA, those holding opposing theological views live together in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect and there is no reason why the Communion cannot do the same. The Episcopal Church is energized and thriving. (Jenkins and Alexander)

We would assert, however, that the logical conclusion of this argument is that unity is more important than truth. In addition, the picture of ECUSA painted is inaccurate. The Episcopal Church is fractured and bleeding; punitive actions against the orthodox abound; and trust has been broken over and over. Additionally, data provided by the Episcopal Church itself demonstrates a church is disarray with a significant number of churches and individuals leaving ECUSA and dioceses experiencing serious budgetary shortfalls. It is most unfortunate that many other bishops representing a radically different view were not included in this ECUSA team.

==============================

>>AAC: Anglican Consultative Council Endorses Primates Regarding ECUSA (AAC, 050622)

[Kwing Hung: only 30-28, could easily break on the wrong side]

June 22, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Cynthia P. Brust

44 773 314 5879 (UK mobile)

202-412-8721 (US mobile)

Anglican Consultative Council Endorses Primates Regarding ECUSA

The Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) today passed a resolution that both affirmed the traditional position of the Communion as expressed in Lambeth 1.10 and endorsed the Primates’ request that “in order to recognize the integrity of all parties, the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw their members” from the ACC before the next Lambeth Conference in 2008. The measure passed by a vote of 30 – 28 with four Council members abstaining (secret ballot). This action was consistent with the mind of the Communion that upholds the Scriptural and traditional view of human sexuality and marriage. We are pleased that this decision increases the clarity of these issues in the Communion.

The Anglican Consultative Council

(1) takes note of the decisions taken by the Primates at their recent meeting in Dromantine, Northern Ireland, in connection with the recommendations of the Windsor Report 2004;

(2) notes further that the Primates there reaffirmed “the standard of Christian teaching on matters of human sexuality expressed in the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10, which should command respect as the position overwhelmingly adopted by the bishops of the Anglican Communion”;

(3) endorses and affirms those decisions;

(4) consequently endorses the Primates’ request that “in order to recognise the integrity of all parties, the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference”;

(5) interprets reference to the Anglican Consultative Council to include its Standing Committee and the Inter-Anglican Finance Committee.

==============================

Global South Statement Regarding the Request for Listening

June 22, 2005

A Global South statement regarding the request for listening

The Primates Meeting asked ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada to explain the thinking behind their recent actions.

The presentations that we heard from ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada did not explain that thinking with reference to the teaching of the Anglican Communion as expressed in Lambeth 1.10 and statements from Primates Meetings in Brazil, Lambeth and Newry.

They also failed to explain why they have chosen to

* depart from the received and agreed teaching of this Communion

* ignore all four instruments of unity

* disregard the processes by which we come to a common mind, and

* overlook the specific request described in the Windsor Report

Instead they advocated a position that reinforces our current divisions

The proposal that the Communion “listen to the experience of homosexual persons” is an ongoing concern but must be preceded by an affirmation of Lambeth 1.10 and the Primates Communique at Dromantine.

———

Lambeth 1998 1.10

This conference…

1. In view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage.

2. Recognises that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation. Many of these are members of the Church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the Church, and God’s transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of relationships. We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ;

3. While rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriage and any trivialisation and commercialisation of sex;

4. Cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions;

5. Requests the Primates and the ACC to establish a means of monitoring the work done on the subject of human sexuality in the Communion and to share statements and resources among us;

6. Notes the significance of the Kuala Lumpur Statement on Human Sexuality and the concerns expressed in resolutions IV.26, V.1, V.10, V.23 and V.35 on the authority of Scripture in matters of marriage and sexuality and asks the Primates and the ACC to include them in their monitoring process.

Dromantine Communiqué

[16] Notwithstanding the request of paragraph 14 of this communiqué, we encourage the Anglican Consultative Council to organise a hearing at its meeting in Nottingham, England, in June 2005 at which representatives of the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada, invited for that specific purpose, may have an opportunity to set out the thinking behind the recent actions of their Provinces, in accordance with paragraph 141 of the Windsor Report.

The Windsor Report [141] The clear and repeated statements of the Instruments of Unity have also been to advise against the development and approval of such rites. Whilst proponents of actions in the Diocese of New Westminster and the Episcopal Church (USA) may argue that such advice has only moral authority, we believe that it must be recognised that actions to move towards the authorisation of such rites in the face of opposition from the wider Anglican Communion constitutes a denial of the bonds of Communion. In order for these bonds to be properly acknowledged and addressed, the churches proposing to take action must be able, as a beginning, to demonstrate to the rest of the Communion why their proposal meets the criteria of scripture, tradition and reason. In order to be received as a legitimate development of the tradition, it must be possible to demonstrate how public Rites of Blessing for same sex unions would constitute growth in harmony with the apostolic tradition as it has been received.

==============================

Statement by the Province of South East Asia

June 23, 2005

The recent events in ECUSA and the Anglican Church in Canada which led to the Lambeth Commission on Communion, the Windsor Report and finally the Communique from the Primates in February this year at Dromantine, Ireland, all have had a negative effect on the integrity of the Anglican Church in South East Asia in particular and on the Christian churches of other denominations in that region in general. This is not an overstatement or an exaggeration of the situation there. In a region that is dominated by Muslims and Buddhists, both of whom are exceptionally conservative and parochial on matters of human sexuality and religion, Christianity which is perceived as a religion of the Westerners, has been subjected to embarrassment and ridicule.

In the eyes of the non-religionists who are morally serious because of traditional communal and family values eg Confucianists etc we are degraded. We are discredited even in the eyes of many governments in our region, not only the Islamic government in Malaysia and Indonesia but also the Singapore government, when the Church expresses herself in areas of social and moral ethics and values.

Christian churches of the other denominations feel it unfair that they have been tarred with the same brush as that for the Anglican Church. They are also embarrassed by what is shamelessly practiced by the Church in the North American provinces. Who suffers? The evangelization and mission of all the churches in our region suffer. The Anglican Church which has the responsibility to evangelize 400 million people in the nine nations of the province, are the primary sufferers. Our members are at pains to understand the actions of ECUSA and Canada. We cannot defend the actions because those actions are blatantly in violation of the Holy Scripture. Not to defend the actions or to even rationalize them begs the question why we should remain in communion with the churches in ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada.

The power of the gospel to change and transform lives is the essential part of our faith. This power of the Gospel gives hope and life to the masses in South East Asia who have been disillusioned by the other traditional religions of the land. The innovative teaching prevailing in the West is contradicting the true teachings as revealed in the Bible. Such teachings present a totally different “gospel” and directly undermine the very bases and foundations of our reason to share the Gospel. They are offensive not only to our Bible believing brethren but to all the other faith communities.

The Anglican Communion is on trial. Let there be no pretence about this. The survival of the Communion from this trial depends on the will and courage of the rest of the Communion to deal with the recalcitrance of ECUSA and Canada, correctly and firmly in the quickness of time. The Windsor Report has clearly indicted both ECUSA and the Anglican Church in Canada and we in South East Asia welcome that as a way forward for repentance, healing and restoration. The Communiqué of the Primates at Dromantine in fact used carefully chosen polite and loving language to register the honest outrage of many primates and to effect an immediate withdrawal of ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada from the Anglican Consultative Council. Both provinces were given grace of time and space to go back to their own provinces and to go through their constitutional and canonical processes to express their repentance and to indicate their desire to walk together with the rest of the communion according to the terms of the Windsor Report. The Church in South East Asia welcomes the decision as a minimum measure of admonition and correction, and we would hope that all concerned will give meaning and effect to the directions given by the Primates and now by the Anglican Consultative Council itself.

What is claimed to be acceptable practice to ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada must also be acceptable practice to the other Churches in the rest of the Anglican world if we say we belong to the same God and live under the same holy Scripture. Those who insist on innovations and the inclusion of practices and doctrines rejected by the Bible need to realize that they are helping to drag the Church to a slow death. If they cannot accept the true Biblical teaching as the right teaching of the Church, it will be more honest and respectable for them to walk away from the Church and form a community of their own.

In the words of Paragraph 157, section D of the conclusion to the Windsor Report, “There remains a very real danger that we will not choose to walk together. Should the call to halt and find ways of continuing in our present communion not be heeded, then we shall have to begin to learn to walk apart.”

Having said all these, painful as they may be, we want to say to the members of the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada that we love you in the unfailing love of our Lord Jesus Christ and we long for the time when we can again embrace you without reservation as fellow members of the one same Anglican Communion.

Submitted by and on behalf of the Primate and bishops of the Anglican Church in the Province of South East Asia

June 23, 2005

==============================

Clergy who don’t believe in God (Times Online, 050704)

Clergy and laity show signs of schism over homosexuality, miracles and the Almighty

HUNDREDS of Church of England clergy doubt the existence of God and fewer than two thirds believe in miracles, a study out today says.

The report, published on the eve of the General Synod, refers to “very fragile faultlines along which the Church of England could be torn apart”. Congregations are much more conservative than most of the comparatively liberal clergy preaching to them.

The report says that if committed Anglicans are clear about one thing it is the existence of God: 97 per cent have no hesitation in affirming His existence. Yet, it continues, one in 33 clerics doubts the existence of God. If reflected throughout the Church’s 9,000 clergy the finding would mean that nearly 300 Church of England clergy are uncertain that God exists.

Equal numbers of clergy and laity, eight out of ten, believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ but more laity than clergy believe in the Virgin Birth — 62 per cent compared with 60 per cent — and in the miracle where Jesus turned water into wine — 65 per cent compared with 61 per cent. The biggest division comes over the issue of homosexuality. One third of clergy are in favour of the ordination of practising homosexuals as priests, compared with one quarter of laity. Nearly one third of clergy also support the ordination of gay bishops, but among the laity this falls to fewer than one fifth.

Whereas 56 per cent of the laity believe that it is wrong for people of the same gender to have sex together, the proportion falls to 48 per cent among the clergy. The Anglican Church has been brought to the brink of a schism over homosexuality, and the survey shows it to be at risk of further unrest.

“In many ways ordained Anglicans look out on to a somewhat different world from the world viewed by lay Anglicans,” says the 180-page report, Fragmented Faith?. “Overall, it is the faultline between the clergy and the committed laity on the issue of homosexuality which may take the Church of England most by surprise.”

The report suggests that, had he known how deep the divisions were, the Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Rev Richard Harries, might have thought twice before he conducted his “courageous experiment” in recommending a celibate homosexual, Dr Jeffrey John, to be Bishop of Reading in 2003. The opposition forced Dr John to step aside and he was made Dean of St Albans instead.

The study, by Leslie Francis, Mandy Robbins and Jeff Astley, of Bangor University, grew from a partnership between Bangor’s practical theology department and the Church Times. More than 9,000 people responded, of whom nearly 8,000 were Anglicans in England, nearly 2,000 of them being laity.

Dr Francis says that the divisions “reflect clearly identifiable faultlines in the very structure and composition of the Church of England”.

Vicar who thinks expansively . . . and expensively

A clergyman who lives in a nine-bedroom vicarage has written to his parishioners asking for donations to help him to buy another house to use as an office for the parish.

The Rev Matthew Porter, Vicar of St Chad’s in Woodseats, Sheffield, says there is not enough room for him, his wife, his five children and the office in the vicarage.

He said that only a relative of a church member had complained. So far, £70,000 has been raised towards a £150,000 house.

==============================

The Tragedy of the Anglican Communion (Christian Post, 050627)

The Anglican Communion voted to close its doors to the U.S. Episcopal Church and the Canadian Church for three years at an international meeting last week, but sadly, no lesson seems learned. The two North American churches still affirm their ultra-liberal stance on the nature of homosexuality. And while they seem regretful for the split they caused within the Communion, they are far from understanding or even identifying the crux of the problem.

At the meeting, the Episcopal Church USA justified its decision to ordain an openly active homosexual man as bishop. What’s more, the church representatives misconstrued scripture to explain why sexual orientation should not matter in choosing leaders.

At one point, an Episcopal pastor likened the current-day clash over homosexuality to the struggle early churches faced over gentiles.

“The inclusion of the gentiles in the early church was of great controversy,” he said. “We have learned to appropriate scripture differently from many other Christians. We are still learning that this remains a complex matter as it did in the early church.”

This comparison clearly shows a premature understanding of the core issues at hand. No one, not even ultra-conservative leaders in Africa, denies salvation is for all – homosexual, heterosexual, Jew and gentile alike.

However, when gentiles joined the church, they were expected to throw away their idols and worship God and Him only. Homosexuality is a form of idolatry that goes against the natural will of God. Therefore, while homosexuals should be invited and welcomed to the church, they should also be taught to leave their sinful ways and find life in Christ.

Salvation is not the issue. Sin is the crux of the problem.

Until the Episcopal Church leaders understand the basic teaching on sin, and learn to distinguish it from the basic teaching on salvation, no amount of dialogue will save the Anglican Communion from falling apart.

It has already been 18 months since the Episcopal Church ordained the homosexual bishop. Hopefully, 36 months in isolation will be more effective in teaching the North American churches the fundamentals of Biblical philosophy, and bring the Anglican Communion members closer to God and each other.

==============================

AAC: ECUSA Shameless in Its Defense of a New Gospel (AAC, 050625)

* Same gender relationships have been experienced as “holy” in the Episcopal Church for over 40 years. (Roskam)

We would assert, however, that Scripture is to shape behavior rather than experience crafting and interpreting Scripture.

* The Spirit led ECUSA to consecrate a non-celibate homosexual and perform blessings of same sex unions. (Roskam and Battle)

We would assert, however, that it is blasphemous to suggest that the Holy Spirit would lead any Christian to accept or embrace doctrine or behavior contradicted throughout the body of Scripture.

* Inclusion of homosexuals in ordained ministry is a justice issue on a par with slavery and the role of women in society as well as in the Church. (Roskam and Russell)

* Not only is homosexuality innate and therefore genetic, God designed and created a percentage of the population as gay. (Tully)

* “God cannot heal us of what is not an illness.” People may be healed of sexual addiction or abuse, but not of homosexuality. (Russell)

* DEPO is working well in the US. (Jenkins)

==============================

Anglican Consultative Council Endorses Primates Regarding ECUSA

The Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) today passed a resolution that both affirmed the traditional position of the Communion as expressed in Lambeth 1.10 and endorsed the Primates’ request that “in order to recognize the integrity of all parties, the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw their members” from the ACC before the next Lambeth Conference in 2008. The measure passed by a vote of 30 – 28 with four Council members abstaining. This action was consistent with the mind of the Communion that upholds the Scriptural and traditional view of human sexuality and marriage. We are pleased that this decision increases the clarity of these issues in the Communion.

The Anglican Consultative Council

(1) takes note of the decisions taken by the Primates at their recent meeting in Dromantine, Northern Ireland, in connection with the recommendations of the Windsor Report 2004;

(3) endorses and affirms those decisions;

(5) interprets reference to the Anglican Consultative Council to include its Standing Committee and the Inter-Anglican Finance Committee.

Date: 6/22/2005

==============================

News Summary of Global South Presentations to the Anglican Consultative Council

June 25, 2005

AAC News

At the Anglican Consultative Council in Nottingham, following the presentations by the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) and the Anglican Church of Canada, some of the provinces from the Global South were invited to make their own presentations on human sexuality.

The primate and bishops of South East Asia said that the Anglican Church in the nine nations of their province was subjected to embarrassment and ridicule, and was being degraded and discredited by what is being shamelessly practiced in the North American provinces.

From the Southern Cone of Latin America, a statement read by Bishop William Godfrey of Peru said that, on a popular level, relations with other churches in Peru were the worst he had ever known and the global Anglican Church was in disorder and disarray. “For a missionary diocese like ours, it has been a body blow,” the statement said.

Bishop Samson Mwaluda from the Anglican Church of Kenya said that they had done their homework and had listened to ECUSA and Canada but did not feel that ECUSA had listened to them: “We have repeatedly requested for biblical explanations of their actions” so “we can relate it to our tradition,” he said. “Instead of helping us in this we are crowded with political, sociological and historical reasons.” The debate at hand touches on Christian witness, morals, understanding of marriage, God’s creation of man and woman, the fall of man, and message of transformation.

Bishop Gerard Mpango from Tanzania noted that there was little or no recognition that a significant part of the Episcopal Church rejects the viewpoint presented at the ACC and stands firmly with the rest of the Communion. The only mention of those who have experienced transformation in their sexual lives was offered in a dismissive manner, he noted. “In the province of Tanzania we have seen many men and women undergo profound transformation in every aspect of their lives,” he said. “It is the heart of the message that we preach and it is why we continue to experience God’s blessing on our life and ministry.”

==============================

Church of Uganda Statement on Human Sexuality

Church of Uganda

Position Paper on Scripture, Authority, and Human Sexuality

May 2005

Executive Summary

The occasion of this Position Paper is the current crisis in the Anglican Communion in which the “fabric of our communion” has been torn at its deepest level because of recent actions and decisions in the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) on matters relating to human sexuality. At the same time, we rejoice in the opportunity to reflect more deeply on these matters as they relate in our Ugandan context.

The perspective of the Church of Uganda to the current crisis in the Anglican Communion is that it is fundamentally a crisis of authority, both legislative and biblical. There appears to be no authority within the Communion at all four levels of its Instruments of Unity – The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Lambeth Conference of Bishops, The Primates Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council. If all four Instruments of Unity can advise against a particular innovation or even heresy, and a province still proceeds and no disciplinary action is taken against that province, then there is a crisis of authority in the Communion. This apparent lack of resolve manifests a deeper crisis: on the place of “the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as “containing all things necessary to salvation,” and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith”.

This current crisis of authority, however, is an opportunity for reformation of the Anglican Communion as a whole. We believe that if the term ‘communion’ means the deepest relationship between believers with God in the fellowship of the church, the Communion must base its identity on bonds of truth as well as bonds of affection. The Communion must recognize that false teachers will arise within the church (Acts 20.29-30) and that heresy may divide the church and scandalise her before the world. This truth will include not only the four planks of the Lambeth Quadrilateral, but other essentials of doctrine, discipline, morality and mission.

We in the Church of Uganda are convinced that the Authority of Scripture must be reasserted as the central authority in the Anglican Communion. From our point of view, the basis of our commitment to the Anglican Communion is that it provides a wider forum for holding each other accountable to the Scriptures, which are the seed of faith and the foundation of the Church in Uganda. The Church of Uganda, therefore, upholds Resolution 1.10 of Lambeth 1998 that says, “Homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture,” and calls upon all in the Communion in general and the ACC meeting in Nottingham in particular to likewise affirm it.

The Church of Uganda recognizes that the schismatic and heretical actions of ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada maintains its stand of ‘broken communion’ with them, and challenges those provinces that subscribe to the authority of scripture to do likewise, for the sake of Gospel and God’s Church. The Church of Uganda is committed to maintaining fellowship, support and communion with clergy and parishes in these provinces who seek to uphold biblical orthodoxy and ‘the faith once delivered to the saints’.

We concur with the observation of The Windsor Report 2004 (Section C paragraph 97): “… the views of the Instruments of Unity have been ignored or sidelined by sections of the Communion”.

It is our considered view that The Windsor Report recommendations on the Instruments of Unity (Section C paragraphs 105 –107; with additional suggestions as outlined in Appendix One) be critically examined as a matter of urgency with a view to make the member provinces of the Anglican Communion accountable to the said Instruments of Unity and the entire Communion.

We acknowledge that the Windsor Report has made a start in this direction with its proposal of an Anglican Communion covenant, but the covenant needs to be given more substance, including reference to the 39 Articles of Religion. We strongly recommend that a ACC considers and proposes to the Primates a process for the enacting of a covenant to be ratified at the 2008 Lambeth conference.

The crisis – its nature and character

It is important for us at this point to remind ourselves of significant events, meetings and statements from various Instruments of Unity within the Anglican Communion in the period leading to the current crisis in order to understand the nature and character of the crisis.

• In 1998 the Lambeth Conference of Bishops passed a resolution that rejected “homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture,” and did not advise the “legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions.”

• In June 2002 the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada voted to authorise the blessing of same-sex unions in their diocese and Bishop Michael Ingham gave his permission for such blessings to proceed.

• In August 2003 the General Convention (the equivalent of our Provincial Assembly) of ECUSA – the Episcopal Church USA – voted to confirm the election as bishop of a divorced father of two children who had been living in a same-sex relationship with another man for fourteen years. In many respects, this was the culmination of years of theological and moral innovation on the part of ECUSA.

• In October 2003 the Archbishop of Canterbury convened an emergency meeting of all the Primates to discuss the crisis the New Westminster decision and the ECUSA election had caused in the Anglican Communion. The Primates requested that the Archbishop of Canterbury appoint a commission to report a year later on how best to maintain communion “within and between provinces when grave difficulties arise.” They also stated that if ECUSA proceeded with the consecration of this man, called Gene Robinson, it would “tear the fabric of our communion at its deepest level.” The unanimous consensus of the communiqué was that ECUSA should not proceed with the consecration.

• Yet, two weeks later, ECUSA’s Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold, presided at Gene Robinson’s consecration.

• In June 2004 – after the emergency meeting of the Primates – the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod (their equivalent of our Provincial Assembly) passed a resolution affirming the “integrity and sanctity of committed adult same-sex relationships.” In other words, while not actually approving the blessing of same-sex relationships, they resolved that same-sex relationships are “holy.”

• In February 2005, the Primates met to receive and make recommendations from the Windsor Report of the Lambeth Commission on Communion, commissioned in October 2003. The unanimous request was that the “Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada [would] voluntarily withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference.”

• In April 2005 the Executive Council of ECUSA (equivalent to our Provincial Assembly Standing Committee) resolved to “voluntarily withdraw our members from official participation in the ACC as it meets in Nottingham…. [However,] we are asking our members to be present at the meeting to listen to reports on the life and ministry we share across the Communion and to be available for conversation and consultation.”

• In May 2005 the Council of General Synod (equivalent to our Provincial Assembly Standing Committee) of the Anglican Church of Canada affirmed “the membership of the Anglican Church of Canada in the Anglican Consultative Council with the expectation that the duly elected members attend but not participate in the June 2005 meeting of the Council.”

This simple recital of recent events reveals the depth of the crisis of authority in the Anglican Communion. The inability of the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Primates to exercise discipline on erring provinces demonstrates the crisis of legislative and ecclesiastical authority. And, the lack of respect by ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada for the guidance of the Communion’s leadership reflects a crisis of relational authority. The sum total of all this leaves us inevitably with fundamental questions about the nature and character of communion in the Anglican Communion.

The deeper crisis however in the Communion is the place of scripture in defining the nature and character of communion. The sanctioning, promoting and celebrating of unbiblical sexual practices demonstrates a departure from the ethical norms and standards enunciated in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament.

Human Sexuality in Biblical perspective

The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments teach that God’s design for sexual relationships is male-female. The biblical examples of meaningful same-gender relationships are never depicted in sexualised ways (cf. Ruth and Naomi or married men like David and Jonathan). The creation mandate of Genesis chapters one and two, that establishes the basis of natural law, shows that God’s design and intention is for humanity to be expressed in the male-female relationship. From companionship to procreation, the male-female relationship is the only relationship that is extolled as normative sexually.

In Genesis 3, when sin and rebellion entered God’s good creation, distortion and tension entered the male-female relationship, including the distortion of sexual desire and all their manifestations. These distortions have impacted on all people and the created order. Homosexuality, bestiality, incest, pedophilia, fornication, adultery, polygamy / polygyny and polyandry are all manifestation of perverted sexual desire.

Concerning homosexual behaviour and relationships in particular, from a plain reading of Scripture, from a careful reading of Scripture, and from a critical reading of Scripture, it has no place in God’s design of creation, the continuation of the human race through procreation, or His plan of redemption. Even natural law reveals that the very act of sexual intercourse is an experience of embracing the sexual “other”.

In Christ, however, people and their sexual desires are redeemed, and restored to God’s original intent. Through repentance and faith, relationships are restored to their original creation design. From Genesis to Revelation, in the sphere of human relationships to the redemptive plan of God, Scripture is clear that God’s plan is man and woman becoming united in one flesh, what the church and Scripture has called marriage. Indeed, marriage can even be seen as a divine agent of sanctification. When sin separated man and woman at the fall, God begins to reunite through marriage. Redeemed marriage is an image of the union between Christ and his Church. Ephesians 5.20ff as well as being a teaching on marriage, is also an exposition of the union of Christ and his Bride, the Church, based on an analogy of union that is assumed to take place in marriage.

The heritage of Holy Scriptures in the Church of Uganda

The story of the Church of Uganda is one of obedience to the preaching and teaching of the gospel, according to the Bible. When the early missionaries announced the gospel of Jesus Christ to our fore fathers and mothers, they responded to the word of salvation. They acknowledged that Jesus is Lord and Saviour and for that reason gladly obeyed His word in Scripture. The transforming effect of the Bible on Ugandans generated so much conviction and confidence that even ordinary believers were martyred in the defense of the message of salvation through Jesus Christ that it brought. The adherents of the East African Revival, that broke out in the late 1920s and early 1930s (a movement that has shaped the ethos of our Church), were simple people who learned to take God at His Word. For the Church in Uganda, to compromise God’s call of obedience to the Scriptures would be the undoing of more than 125 years of Christianity through which African customs, belief, life, and society have been transformed for the better. For instance:

1. Most traditional African societies were solely based on oral culture, which limited its ability to share ideas beyond the clan or ethnic group. For many centuries most of the African languages were un-written. The Bible was the first book in African vernacular. Thus African languages have been enriched and recorded.

2. For many of our tribes, revenge was an esteemed virtue. If a family had been violated, the first instinct was to gather the clan or ethnic group, arm them, and seek revenge on the family, clan, or ethnic group of the offender. As the Bible came with the authority of Christ, it revealed a God that is greater than the evil spirits and the kingdom of darkness that controlled so many people’s lives. In this realm of relationships, the Bible has had a profoundly transforming effect with the teaching of Jesus on forgiveness.

3. Traditional Ugandan society was driven by family loyalties with little basis for loving those beyond your blood ties. Strife and mutual exploitation were rampant. The Bible brought the teaching of Jesus to love your neighbour and even your enemy. And, while there are remains of this old culture, the Bible gives a moral and spiritual basis for transforming culture. At the same time, the Bible affirms certain esteemed values of our culture like community life and hospitality – we have found our home in Scripture.

4. Some traditional African societies believed, for example, that if women ate chicken they would grow a beard. So, women were often denied access to nutritious food and other social benefits on the basis of superstitions. When the Bible came alive during the East African Revival, the Holy Spirit convicted men of sins of oppression and began the progressive empowerment of women that is continuing today.

5. Perhaps the most degrading form of gender inequality was the African tradition of polygamy and divorce at will, which left many women neglected or even destitute. The biblical teaching of marriage between one man and one woman in a loving, lifelong relationship liberated not only women, but also the institution of marriage and family.

6. Traditional African objects of worship, which were limited to families and clans, had established a system where no central beliefs could be held or shared beyond the ethnic setting. Ancestral spirits, natural phenomena like earthquakes, lakes, and mountains, could not satisfy the African’s quest for the living God. The Bible’s revelation of Father as Creator of all things, the Son as redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as the life-giving Spirit of God brought hope for deliverance from the fatalism that resulted from worshiping created things rather than the Creator.

7. The Bible has also been a transforming agent in modern / contemporary Africa societies. The growth of the Church in Africa is a contemporary phenomenon. Most African societies are more cosmopolitan in nature and relate a lot more. The churches have been at the forefront of transforming society. The Bible message, through church leaders, has significantly contributed to the ongoing transformation of politics. Even Archbishop Janani Luwum was martyred for calling our political leaders to Biblical accountability.

8. It is the Church’s commitment to the Authority of Scripture and the Biblical values of abstinence before marriage and faithfulness within marriage that enabled the Church in Uganda to provide leadership in formulating a national response to the HIV/AIDS that has finally brought down the infection rates making Uganda the success story it has become in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

9. Contemporary Ugandan society has been transformed through Scripture’s teaching and we no longer live only in our ethnic enclaves and there are inter-marriages. The gospel has caused us to form a new tribe from every language, nation, tribe, and tongue.

For us in the Church of Uganda, the Bible is the cherished source of authority that is central to the faith, practice, and mission of our Christians. It is an absolute treasure that no one can take away. For ministers, the Bible is the basis for ministry: preaching, teaching, Christian nurture pastoral care and counseling. If you take away the Bible from our bishops and clergy, they have nothing to offer the world. For all God’s people, obedience to this Bible is the source of confidence, abundant life, and joy.

As a Church we are committed to the contextual issues relating to our mission which include (without being limited to) widespread dehumanising poverty, HIV / AIDS, malaria, conflicts, Islam and secularism. We strongly believe that the proclamation of the Good News of the gospel of the risen Lord and Saviour (Jesus Christ) is an answer to these issues confronting us as a Church in Mission today.

We also believe the Church of Uganda has a mission to the Anglican Communion to share the treasure of the Scriptures and to call other parts of the Communion to recognize and to submit to the Authority of Scripture as the place of transformation into abundant life.

Accordingly, we believe that the Anglican Communion would then have a gift to offer the world. Repentance and obedience to Scripture is not judgment; rather, it is the gateway to the redemption of marriage and family and the transformation of society.

The Church of Uganda’s position on Homosexuality and a torn Communion

We believe that God is calling the Church of Uganda to seek continual transformation from the Word of God written, in preaching repentance and faith in Christ and develop ministries of pastoral care that don’t ostracize, shun, or reject those tempted by homosexual desire. We acknowledge that God is calling us to come alongside those who give into the temptation of homosexual desire and show them the power of the Word of God to bring joy, peace, and satisfaction to their life through repentance and obedience to God’s Word.

On the matter of equating the ordination of practicing homosexuals and the blessing of same-sex unions with the ordination of women, we are insulted by the comparison. In our African context, there has always been a place for women’s involvement with spiritual activities. It was the patriarchal approach of the Western missionaries that clouded this aspect of our African heritage.

When the East African Revival swept through our communities, it called for the equality of women and men, and began the process of restoring women to traditional roles as spiritual leaders in their communities. The Revival movement was a strong contextualising force. In the 1950’s and 1960’s when African Christians took over leadership, we find a number of women seeking theological training and even aspiring for ordination. And, all of this was happening before women’s ordination was approved in the West.

Women’s ordination in Uganda was a movement of the Holy Spirit independent of the West’s promotion of women into ordained ministry. Therefore, to say that homosexual unions and ordination is an extension of a so-called biblical principle of liberation is insulting to us. It belittles women and their ministry, and equates a perversion with God’s movement toward women’s ordination in Uganda.

As a Church we are determined to uphold and encourage the biblical teaching on marriage and promote the ethical demands thereof while providing the necessary pastoral care and counseling for those with difficulties in this regard. In obedience to Jesus’ teaching, the Church of Uganda frowns on divorce. Divorce is part of a broader context of brokenness. Problems of divorce do come up, but we don’t compromise the high ethical demands on believers. We look upon brokenness with grace and truth. On the one hand, we affirm what scripture affirm; we don’t approve. On the other hand, we find ways to minister in His grace to these people, with pastoral care and counseling in the love of Christ.

The Church of Uganda, therefore, upholds Resolution 1.10 of Lambeth 1998 that says, “Homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture,” and calls upon all in the Communion in general and the ACC meeting in Nottingham in particular to likewise affirm it.

Date: 6/27/2005

==============================

Retired Archbishop Of Canterbury Lord Carey To Join Parish

The retired Archbishop of Canterbury, The Right Reverend and Right Honorable George L. Carey, will join All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Chevy Chase, MD, this November as Archbishop in Residence and Curate through 2006. His service at the church will be concurrent with his stay in Washington while at the Library of Congress as its Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Residence.

Lord Carey had visited All Saints’ as a guest lecturer in 2003. Earlier this year he contacted the parish’s rector, the Rev. Alfred T. K. Zadig, Jr., to ask if he could become part of All Saints’ staff during his stay in Washington. The offer was immediately and most joyously accepted. The Archbishop will teach, preach and mentor the staff.

“When he called to explain the Library’s invitation, he asked, ‘Can I be your curate?”‘ said Rev. Zadig. “This is a really unbelievable opportunity. Our parishioners are delighted.” The Right Reverend John B. Chane, Bishop of Washington, has approved the arrangement.

Lord Carey, 69, is known to All Saints’ for his previous visit and for his having tutored and ordained the Rev. Layne Hansen, All Saints’ associate rector. Rev. Hansen studied under the Archbishop while in England.

Lord Carey and his wife Eileen, Lady Carey, will live in Washington, DC for a year or more at a residence provided to the parish, interspersed with some travel as part of existing worldwide commitments. Besides preaching, teaching, and mentoring the staff at All Saints’, the retired archbishop will be a presence in the greater Washington Christian community.

Lord Carey was the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury, serving between April 1991 and October 2002. In that role he was the titular head of the 77million member Anglican Communion, consisting of 38 autonomous Anglican provinces around the world, including the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. He has written a number of books about the church and religion, and is widely respected among religious leaders and laity in all parts of the globe.

All Saints’ Episcopal Church is part of the Diocese of Washington. It is an orthodox, Bible-centered church with 1,400 members. The church is also a member of the Anglican Communion Network, an organization of parishes and dioceses seeking to affirm traditional Episcopal teachings and faith. Rev. Zadig is on the Network’s national steering committee.

Date: 7/5/2005

==============================

Kenya Anglican Church Cuts Ties with ECUSA (AAC, 050705)

The Anglican Church of Kenya announced its intention to sever all links with the Episcopal Church of America (ECUSA) and called for its expulsion of from the global Anglican Communion.

The announcement came after a three-day meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.

Last week, the ECUSA and the Canadian Anglican Church were banned from two key international Anglican gatherings for three years. The two churches, however, were not completely expelled from the global body.

The Kenyan Church, one of many conservative churches that adamantly opposed the ECUSA’s decision to ordain an openly homosexual bishop, preferred a stronger punishment.

“Unless they repent and recant same-sex marriage, we have nothing to do with them,” said Archbishop of Kenya Benjamin Nzimbi who chaired the meeting at All Saints Cathedral.

According to the Standard Newspaper of Nairobi, the Kenya church also said it would not send its clergy to any church within the Communion that allows same-sex marriage, and would forgo unspecified financial aid from the U.S. branch.

Nzimbi said Kenya’s position was made clear at last week’s meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), one of the top decision-making bodies of the Anglican Communion.

“We have severed links with ECUSA and other churches which believe in same-sex unions,” Nzimbi said at a press conference.

—Francis Helguero

==============================

On Gays, Anglicans Use Bible 4 Ways (acc, 050707)

In their tense debate about homosexuality, the world’s 77 million Anglicans (called Episcopalians in the United States) take four approaches to biblical teaching: dismissal, perplexity, renovation and traditionalism.

Dismissal is the left-fringe attitude personified by Bishop John Shelby Spong, former head of the Newark, N.J., diocese. In “The Sins of Scripture” (HarperSanFrancisco), he says calling the Bible “the Word of God” (a belief he himself affirmed at ordination) is “perhaps the strangest claim ever made” for a document.

Spong finds the Old Testament’s homosexual prohibitions ignorant and “morally incompetent” expressions of “popular prejudices.” With the New Testament, he disdains Paul’s condemnations as “ill-informed” ravings from a zealot who, he hypothesizes, was a “deeply repressed, self-loathing” homosexual.

“The contending positions are mutually exclusive,” he concludes, and “there can be no compromise.” He dismisses conservative views as “frail, fragile and pitiful.”

The other three approaches were displayed at a June hearing before the international Anglican Consultative Council. (By coincidence, on the same day, President Bush told a Southern Baptist Convention session he favors amending the U.S. Constitution to protect traditional marriage.)

Perplexity was the outlook of Anglican Church of Canada representatives. Their denomination affirmed the “integrity and sanctity” of homosexual relationships and tolerated a diocese’s blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples. The Canadians said they are “seeking discernment” but face “deep divisions” and lack consensus.

Renovation was the policy of the U.S. Episcopal Church in its report “To Set Our Hope on Christ,” written by seven theologians. It was the denomination’s first official rationale for recognition of the unhindered same-sex blessings in its ranks and for toleration of openly gay clergy, including a bishop.

Traditionalists answered that argument with “A True Hearing,” a paper by writers from nine nations that the Anglican Mainstream group gave to delegates to explain the stance endorsed in 1998 by 82 percent of the world’s Anglican bishops.

The two papers typified debates within many mainline Protestant groups.

The Episcopal Church’s report compared full inclusiveness for gays with the New Testament church’s opening to Gentiles. It cited Acts 10, where Peter receives a vision allowing nonkosher foods and then commends baptism for Gentile converts; and Acts 15, where a council sets policy toward Gentiles.

The traditionalist paper said that in Acts 15 the church eliminated Jewish strictures on diet and circumcision for Gentiles, “but there was to be continuity in the moral sphere,” since the council upheld Jewish sexual morals by warning Gentiles against “unchastity.”

The Episcopal report said ancient Jewish prohibitions in Leviticus were part of a “holiness code” written to sustain Israel’s distinctiveness and national survival. It said the code “makes no distinction between ritual and moral regulations,” implying the gay ban is as outmoded as, say, rules against blending textiles.

The traditionalists responded that while early Christianity eliminated ritual rules, Jewish teachings against “immoral behavior” remained in force. For instance, the Leviticus passage condemns incest. And New Testament verses endorse Jewish sexual standards.

The key New Testament passage is Romans 1:26-27, where Paul cites both male and female same-sex behavior as departures from God’s design.

On that, the Episcopal report said it’s legitimate to argue with Paul because he was so “steeped in” Jewish tradition, and to speculate that he might hold different views today considering his enlightened views on Gentiles, women and slaves.

The traditionalists said Paul clearly denounced all same-sex activity, even loving and committed relationships of the sort the Episcopal Church now proposes as the ideal.

As much as the Bible, the Episcopal Church’s case relied on psychologists’ acceptance of same-sex behavior, the belief that gay orientation is not chosen and churches’ positive experiences with homosexual members.

==============================

Church of England Opens Doors to Women Bishops (Christian Post, 050712)

The Church of England on Monday voted to “remove legal obstacles” to the ordination of women bishops despite conservatives threatening to become Roman Catholic.

The members of the church’s governing General Synod, meeting in the northern city of York, approved a resolution that would start the process of removing church laws blocking the ordination of women as bishops.

After four hours of impassioned debate, forty-one bishops approved the motion and six voted against it; 167 clergymen and women voted for it and 46 against it.

The motion was brought by Bishop of Southwark Tom Butler, who told the 500 delegates that women already played key roles in the Anglican church.

“In no way can it be claimed that in seeking at this time to test the mind of the Church of England we act hastily or precipitately,” said Butler. “I believe that there are good ecclesiological and theological reasons why women should now be able to be ordained bishop.”

According to the Associated Press, the decision-making process is lengthy, and the issue must be debated and later brought back to the synod for further ruling. It will likely take at least four years before the first woman bishop gets elected.

Nonetheless, the vote marks the first step in opening up the episcopate – the community of bishops – to women. Bishops play a key role in the Anglican Communion since they oversee dioceses and ordain new priests.

Currently, 14 of the world’s 38 Anglican Churches have already decided to allow women bishops. In the Church of England – the mother of the 77-million-member Anglican Communion – women priests have been ordained for 12 years and half those training as Anglican clergy are now women.

Despite these figures, some senior Anglican officials said they would join the Roman Catholic faith if their church ordains women bishops.

Andrew Burnham, the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, told the Sunday Times “A woman bishop wouldn’t be a bishop because a bishop is someone whose ministry is acceptable through the ages to all other bishops.”

Ebbsfleet, who added that he would consider becoming Roman Catholic if the move is approved, is one of many Anglican leaders who defend the all-male clergy status quo. They say Jesus Christ chose only men as his Apostles – the forerunners of modern-day bishops.

“A Church of England with women bishops would no longer have a united episcopate. Bishops would not longer be what they say they are. I would have to leave,” he said, adding that some 800 priests would likely leave the Church in protest.

In the 1990s, about 400 priests and thousands of laity abandoned the Church of England to protest the ordination of women priests. According to Reuters, the Catholic Church accepted about 200 married Anglican priests into its clergy in Britain.

Other bishops stood in favor of the change and said the change will likely be popular.

“My sense is that the vast majority of people in the Church of England do support this,” Stephen Cottrell, the Bishop of Reading, told BBC.

The U.S. Episcopal Church is one of only of three Anglican churches that have already ordained women bishops. Women bishops are allowed in 11 others and 23 of the churches have no provisions for them. Eight member churches refuse to ordain women as priests or deacons.

==============================

Church Evangelical Council Attacks ‘Compromise’ with Civil Partnerships (Christian Post, 050812)

LONDON – The Church of England has once again come under fire for its decision to ease its views on civil partnerships within the Church. The Evangelical Council, which is the umbrella organisation for the evangelical groups within the Church, has demanded that the Church’s attempts to compromise with the government’s civil partnerships legislation should be withdrawn immediately.

The council spoke out yesterday, 10th August 2005, against the decision by the Church of England Council of Bishops that clergy would be allowed to enter civil partnerships, just as long as they informed their supervising bishop that they would abstain from partaking in sexual relations with their partner.

In a clear and formal statement, the Evangelical Council criticised the Church’s leaders of submitting to the secular culture of moral decline. The Guardian newspaper record the council as saying, “We urge the House of Bishops to withdraw this compromised and unworkable statement while continuing to affirm the historic teaching of the church ... It will further exacerbate the division threatening the future of the Anglican Communion.”

Another Anglican evangelical group has also condemned the Church of England’s decision earlier this week. Anglican Mainstream agreed that the action will blur the distinguishment between a civil partnership and traditional marriage. As the Civil Partnership Acts is closely based on marriage laws, “these partnerships will be misunderstood as marriage. . . . The Act is self-contradictory because it prohibits civil partnerships between close relatives, which only makes sense if ‘marriage’ is in view.”

“If the church were to decide to follow the state legislation with its inherent self-contradiction, the result will be press headlines such as ‘gay clergy to be allowed to marry’. The church cannot blame the media and general public for coming to this obvious conclusion.”

In a loud cry, Anglican Mainstream has called on the Church of England to “maintain the Christian position derived from the Bible that marriage is a life-long union between a man and a woman, and that sexual intercourse belongs within marriage exclusively.”

The Civil Partnerships Act, which comes into force in December 2005 will aim to give similar legal rights to same-sex couples as those already enjoyed by married couples. In response to the new legislation, it has been rumoured that hundreds of clergy may use this new law when it comes in; a rumour that has alarmed many Church bodies and leaders.

==============================

Evangelical Anglicans Plan First International Gathering (Christian Post, 050901)

Traditional Anglicans gained strength in the months following the controversial ordination of the first openly-gay Episcopal bishop in the United States. In November, they will tout that newfound strength and unity with their first international conference, slated for Nov. 10-12 in Pittsburgh.

Titled “Hope and a Future,” the conference will be hosted by the Anglican Communion Network and supported by all the major reformed Anglican groups in North America, including the American Anglican Council, Anglican Communion in Canada, Anglican Communion Network, Anglican Mission in America, Anglican Province in America, Essentials Federation in Canada, Forward in Faith North America, Network in Canada, Reformed Episcopal Church, and the Conference of North American Anglican Bishops.

According to organizers, the conference “promises to be a watershed event” for those “ready for the renewal of North American Anglicanism.”

“Mobilizing and empowering everyone — especially the laity — is essential to the rebirth of a biblical, missionary, and united Anglicanism in North America,” says the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network.

“This is the vocation of the Anglican Communion Network and this is what the ‘Hope and a Future’ conference is all about,” Duncan said. “As we move toward the challenges of 2006, I believe this conference will also be a key witness to the strength of our movement.”

Most of the organizations supporting the event were established as a response to the Episcopal Church USA’s decision in November 2003 to ordain a sexually active homosexual bishop and the Anglican Church of Canada’s openness to giving same-sex marriage blessings.

These decisions also sparked an international fury that led to a near schism in the worldwide Anglican Communion; some African churches refused monetary and personnel support from the two North American churches and even called for the “excommunication” of the Episcopal Church U.S.A from the communion.

At home, some North American parishes began aligning themselves with Anglican bodies abroad, and congregants began holding back financial support for the United States and Canadian denominations.

The conference brings together all those who support traditional Anglicanism including some non-Anglican evangelicals, such as Rick Warren, Senior Pastor of Saddleback Church.

==============================

Released August 24, 2005

RECIFE – 32 CLERGIES EXCOMUNICATED [sic] BY THE PROVINCE OF BRAZIL

The Province of Brazil, by a “diocesan decree” 01/2005 (August 23rd, 2005) issued by the Suffragan Bishop Filadelfo Oliveira Neto, so-called “Diocesan Authority” designated by the Primate to the Diocese of Recife has “excluded of Communion… and, consequently, of Holy Orders”, 32 clergies leaders of the largest congregations, representing 90% of the active membership. These clergies did not accepted an ultimatum from Bishop Oliveira Neto to submit to his authority, and, in an open letter said that they are waiting for the Panel of Reference and from the Instruments of Unity of the Anglican Communion for and [sic] adequate answer to their problem, keeping their full communion with Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti, “deposed” by the Primate of Brazil (still with an appeal to the Superior Ecclesiastical Court).

The 32 clergies had no canonical disciplinary process and understand that the Province attitude, “illegal, immoral, illegitimate and authoritarian”, is part of a plot to have a quorum for an irregular “diocesan synod” called by the dissident liberal minority to next September 9-10th, in order to “re-create” a new “Diocese”, destroying the existing orthodox one.

Bishop Cavalcanti and the Revd Mauricio Coelho, Chairman of the Diocesan Standing Committee, already wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Panel of Reference and Primates of the Anglican Communion, demanding, once more, urgent and adequate response.

==============================

Mass Depositions in Recife

08/25/2005

Thirty-two priests and deacons of the diocese of Recife were deposed on Aug. 23, charged with abandoning the Communion [por abandono de Comunhão] of the Episcopal-Anglican Church of Brazil [IEAB] for pledging their continued loyalty to the Bishop of Recife, the Rt. Rev. Robinson Cavalcanti.

In announcing the depositions, the Rt. Rev. Filadelfo Oliveira, Bishop suffragan of Recife, said “dialogue had been exhausted” with the “uncompromising and rebellious” Recife clergy. Acting on behalf of the Primate of Brazil, he deposed without trial the clergy, who minister to approximately 90 percent of the diocese’s communicants, under Article 3.5.4 of the IEAB’s canons on the abandonment of Communion.

The deposed clergy had acted in “disobedience and disrespect” to the Convocation of the IEAB, Bishop Oliveira said, by pledging on July 4 that they were “maintaining full communion with the diocesan bishop, Dom Edward Robinson Cavalcanti”

A “declaration of full communion” with a bishop “deprived of his orders” was prima facie grounds for declaring the 32 had deserted the “doctrine, worship and discipline of the IEAB,” the decree stated.

A statement released by Bishop Cavalcanti and the President of the Recife Standing Committee, Fr. Mauricio Coelho, noted the alleged deposition of Bishop Cavalcanti was under appeal with the Provincial Ecclesiastical Court and had been forwarded to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference for arbitration.

They stated the decision to depose the majority of the Recife clergy was an act of political chicanery to create a rump “diocesan synod called by the dissident liberal minority next Sept. 9-10, in order to re-create a new “diocese, destroying the existing orthodox one.”

The Rev. Miguel Uchoa, rector of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Recife—the largest Anglican parish in South America with a claimed average Sunday attendance of 1,000, told The Living Church “We were deposed without any process...no court, no judgment, only a decree.”

Fr. Uchoa noted that 42 congregations support Bishop Cavalcanti, while only six congregations back the Primate.

Bishop Oliveira did not respond to our query before this report was prepared.

==============================

Formal Charges Lodged Against Connecticut Bishop

08/25/2005

Nineteen Episcopal lay leaders and priests from the Diocese of Connecticut have lodged an official complaint with the office of the Presiding Bishop against the Bishop of Connecticut, accusing the Rt. Rev. Andrew D. Smith of undermining the structure of the Episcopal Church and denying canonical due process for the so-called “Connecticut Six” clergy and their parishes.

The complaint states that Bishop Smith unlawfully threatened the six rectors with inhibition, “arrogated to himself the management” of various properties and assets held in trust by the diocese on behalf of St. John’s, Bristol; Trinity, Bristol; St. Paul’s, Darien; Christ and Epiphany Church, East Haven; Bishop Seabury Church, Groton; and Christ Church, Watertown. The threats against their clergy, his actions to freeze bank accounts, custodial funds and securities owned by the six parishes, as well as his more publicized actions during July at St. John’s, Bristol, the complaint alleges, are violations of numerous Canons of the General Convention and the Diocese of Connecticut.

Under Title 4 of the disciplinary canons of the General Convention, the Presiding Bishop and his chancellor have 90 days in which to investigate and perhaps reach a pastoral resolution before the complaint must be forwarded to the Title IV Review Committee for bishops. The Canons of the General Convention also stipulate that all details of the process must be kept completely confidential prior to a determination by the review committee, “except as may be determined to be pastorally appropriate by the Presiding Bishop.”

“It could be well into the next triennium before any final decision on this complaint is reached,” said the Rt. Rev. Charles L. Keyser, an assisting Bishop in the Diocese of Georgia and chair of the Title IV Review Committee for bishops. “If a complaint is forwarded to us, we will do a thorough, complete investigation, taking testimony from both sides.” The review committee consists of five bishops appointed by the Presiding Bishop as well as two priests and two lay adult communicants appointed by the President of the House of Deputies.

Bishop Keyser said the review committee functions in a manner similar to a grand jury and as a general rule will investigate complaints forwarded to it by asking three questions:

1) Have the canons been violated or broken?

2) If there are violations are they provable?

3) Are the charges serious?

If the charges are provable and serious, the review committee issues a presentment for trial by ecclesiastical court, the church court equivalent of an indictment. If the review committee determines that the above conditions are not met, they must explain why, Bishop Keyser said.

The review committee processes complaints, Bishop Keyser said, “as quickly as we can, but as slowly as we must,” explaining that the committee is cognizant of the fact that it is funded with stewardship money through the office of General Convention. “We don’t want to spend money foolishly, but we also don’t want to get into a mindset in which justice may not prevail out of economic considerations,” he said.

When asked how much investigation of a formal complaint typically costs, Bishop Keyser said “a lot,” later explaining that precisely to avoid economically prejudicing justice, the Canon for the Primate and Presiding Bishop is responsible for keeping track of expenses, but Bishop Keyser estimated it would “certainly run into the six figures.”

==============================

Kairos Journal Award Honors Four Anglican Archbishops

On Thursday, September 8, 2005, the Kairos Journal honored four leading Anglican archbishops with the Kairos Journal Award in recognition of their bold and consistent stand for historic orthodoxy in light of theological decline in the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada. The 2005 award recipients are: The Most Rev. Peter Jasper Akinola, Archbishop of All Nigeria; the Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi, Archbishop of the Province of Uganda; the Most Rev. Gregory James Venables, Archbishop of the Southern Cone of South America; and the Most Rev. Datuk Yong Ping Chung, Archbishop of the Province of South East Asia.

“The Kairos Journal Award is given to individuals who demonstrate exemplary fidelity to the authority of Scripture and exceptional pastoral courage in their efforts to restore the prophetic voice of the Church,” said Journal publisher Emmanuel A. Kampouris. “I am delighted to present these outstanding individuals with the 2005 award.”

Honorees were further chosen based upon their discernment of, and response to, what the Journal calls the “kairos moment”—a moment of cultural crisis demanding timely action from the Church. The awards were presented at an event in New York City on Thursday evening. Theologian and author J. I. Packer and author and social critic Os Guinness introduced recipients to a gathering of interdenominational clergy and Christian leaders. Each archbishop offered a “word to the church” calling pastors to seize the kairos moment.

Archbishops Akinola, Orombi, Venables and Yong, part of the Global South, have been at the forefront of the crisis within the Anglican Communion precipitated by actions of the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) and the Anglican Church of Canada. The American and Canadian provinces have embraced theology and practice that is contrary to Scripture, Anglican teaching and historic Christianity. Archbishops Akinola, Orombi, Venables and Yong and their provinces have declared broken or impaired communion with the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada and urged the two churches to repent. The Global South makes up the vast majority of Anglicans world-wide and is the fastest growing segment of the Anglican Communion.

“What affects one part of the Christian Church affects us all,” said Mr. Kampouris. “We hope this award will offer encouragement and support not only of our four honorees and others within the Anglican Communion fighting for orthodoxy but also for clergy across denominational lines who are striving to transform the moral conscience of our culture.”

The Journal, an on-line resource with subscribers in over eighty countries, seeks to equip and support pastors and church leaders as they strive to transform the moral conscience of the culture and restore the prophetic voice of the Church.

-30-

Date: 9/9/2005

==============================

Holy Apostles’ Church (Elizabethtown, KY) Comes Under Care of the Bishop of Bolivia

Statement on Holy Apostles’ Church, Elizabethtown, KY, by the Bishop of Bolivia

Churches and the faithful throughout the Anglican Communion continue in a state of shock, dismay and confusion on a daily basis about the attitudes and decisions of the American church on behalf of practicing homosexuals. Unfortunately, the Bishop of Kentucky is favorably disposed to and aggressively supports this stance even though they are actions that violate church tradition and law and not least, Scriptural mandate. It cannot be stated in clearer terms (Lambeth, Primates, Windsor and the ACC) that the position of the American church does not represent the Anglican Communion. If only the American church could bring itself to say that “we felt we were doing this for good conscience reasons, but we now realize that this is against the order of the Anglican Communion and we regret our actions,” an opening for fellowship would be created. But it is clear to all that the American church is walking its own path.

In the light of this difficult situation, the Bishop of Bolivia has received the Rev. Kent Litchfield and Holy Apostles’ Church in Elizabethtown, KY, under his care to pastorally assist those who wish to remain faithful members within the Anglican Communion. It is only with sadness of heart that these actions must be taken for a time to provide a home for those marginalized by the present controversy.

The Rt. Rev. Francis R Lyons

Bishop of Bolivia

==============================

Church Of Nigeria Redefines Anglican Communion (American Anglican Council, 050915)

With a careful rewording of her constitution, the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) redefined her relationship with all other Anglican Churches.

All former references to ‘communion with the see of Canterbury’ were deleted and replaced with another provision of communion with all Anglican Churches, Dioceses and Provinces that hold and maintain the ‘Historic Faith, Doctrine, Sacrament and Discipline of the one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church’.

Emphasis was also placed on the 1662 version of the Book of Common Prayer and the historic Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.

The Constitutional change also allowed the Church to create Convocations and Chaplaincies of like-minded faithful outside Nigeria. This effectively gives legal teeth to the Convocation of Anglican Nigerians in Americas (CANA) formed to give a worshiping refuge to thousands in the USA who no longer feel welcomed to worship in the Liberal churches especially with the recent theological innovations encouraging practices which the Nigerians recognize as sin.

Excerpt of the minutes read;

‘At the General Synod of the Church of Nigeria Anglican Communion holding in Onitsha Diocese on the Niger on the 14th day of September, 2005, the Constitution of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) 2002 was amended as follows:

Chapter 1 Section 3

Chapter 1 Section 3 was amended by deleting sub-sections 1, 2, and 3, and replaced with new section 3, thus.

“The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) hereinafter called “The Church of Nigeria” or “This Church” shall be in full communion with all Anglican Churches Dioceses and Provinces that hold and maintain the Historic Faith, Doctrine, Sacrament and Discipline of the one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church as the Lord has commanded in His holy word and as the same are received as taught in the Book of Common Prayer and the ordinal of 1662 and in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.”

Chapter IX Section 39 (a) – (f)

Add a new sub-section (c) and re-number the section thus

“(c) to create convocations, chaplaincies of like-minded faithful outside Nigeria and to appoint persons within or outside Nigeria to administer them and the Primate shall give Episcopal Oversight

Chapter 16 Section 75 add a new sub-section 8 thus

“(8) Convocation shall mean non-geographic collection of Churches and Mission”.

And re-number the rest of the sub-section.

To ensure adequate care for the existing Convocation, the Episcopal Synod which met on Wednesday after the Holy Communion Service set up an Advisory Committee comprising of eight bishops, one Priest, and the Registrar of the Church.

The Members are:

The Most Rev. Maxwell Anikwenwa - Dean and Archbishop Province of the Niger,

The Rt. Rev. Ikechi Nwosu - Bishop of Umuahia

The Rt. Rev. Emmanuel Chukwuma - Bishop of Enugu

The Rt. Rev. Segun Okubadejo - Bishop of Ibadan-North

The Rt. Rev. Benjamin Kwashi - Bishop of Jos

The Rt. Rev. Caleb Maduoma - Bishop of Ideato

The Rt. Rev. Peter Adebiyi - Bishop of Lagos-west

Barrister Abraham Yisa - Registrar

Ven. Sola Igbari - The Director of Global Anglican Relations

They will initiate policy, and monitor implementation of the programmes of CANA under the supervision of the Primate of All Nigeria.

The Rev. Canon AkinTunde Popoola

Director Communication

==============================

Anglican Archbishop of South East Asia Lashes Western Liberals (050914)

Source: Church of Nigeria News

CONN/600905

Onitsha, Sept 14, 2005- ‘I am not going to let my pulpit to be defiled by people who don’t accept the gospel.”

That was the blunt message conveyed on September 12, by the visiting Archbishop of South East Asia, Yong Ping Chung, when he addressed the plenary session of the 8th General Synod of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion).

He was referring to a section of the Anglican Communion particularly the American and Canadian Churches and lately the Church of England, who condones and approves homosexual marriage.

Speaking on the topic ‘The Changing Phase of the Anglican Communion’ Archbishop Yong Ping Chung told Synod delegates that the Anglican Communion was in a mess because “we have lost the direction and we have listened to the lies of the devil.”

“I have no problem relating to your Archbishop, I think he is very orthodox. If you want to preach in my province I will allow you as long as you are from Nigeria. But if it is from America I have to check. Even from England now … I may have to check. I am not going to let my pulpit to be defiled by people who don’t accept the gospel, he said. “

Stating that the Western Church had derailed from the missionary movement of the 7th century, which was the vintage of the Anglican Communion, Yong Ping warned that ‘many churches have lost that vision especially those older Churches and they are persuading others to go the same way.”

Proffering a guide towards correcting the falsehood being perpetuated by pro-gay churches, the cleric identified ‘affirmation, foundation and mission’ as central to the restoration of the holistic gospel.

On affirmation, he said, “This is what God says to everyone who is faithful. It is God saying you are mine. We are all God’s people.”

The foundation is Jesus Christ, said the Archbishop who is also the Bishop of Sabah. He added, “God gave us his Son and it is in his Son we have our salvation and in what his Son taught, what is in the Holy Scriptures is all the truth contained.”

On mission, the Archbishop stated that unless one is drawn into a relationship with God, mission and evangelism is impossible. He therefore challenged Africa, South American and Asian Churches under the aegis of the Global-South of the Anglican Communion to lead the spiritual reawakening of the Church.

Ahead of the third meeting of the Global South meeting billed for Alexandria, Egypt in October, he stated that ‘South-South is not about homosexuals. South -South is about God, it is about mission, it is about what God can do through our people, using our people.”

He said, “The Global South will stand firm and articulate our real voice into that sinking ship of the Anglican Communion.”

(Church of Nigeria News)

Date: 9/15/2005

==============================

Church of England Evangelical Council Statement

Sept. 13, 2005

concerning the Diocese of Recifé:

We are concerned by recent events in the Diocese of Recifé in the Anglican Church of Brazil. We are disturbed that no allowance is made for freedom of conscience for those whose theological position differs from that of both the diocese and province. We view the deposition and excommunication of 37 members of its clergy without due legal process as precipitous, unconstitutional and unchristian.

We consider that this constitutes persecution of those who wish to uphold biblical and traditional Anglican teaching on human sexuality. Furthermore, this appears to be an attempt to purge the Diocese of orthodoxy and to create one which has abandoned traditional Anglican teaching.

We affirm our support for the Rt Rev Robinson Cavilcanti, Bishop of Recife, and those standing with him in faithfulness to the historic biblical teaching of Anglicanism. We note that those involved are faithful pastors and teachers, including members of Anglican mission agencies, all of whom are concerned for the mission of the church. It is ministry such as theirs which, contrary to the rest of the Diocese, is resulting in spiritual growth and practical Christianity as evidenced, for instance, by the work of the Reverend Simea Meldrum on the rubbish tips of Olinda.

This critical situation is the latest development in the crisis affecting the whole of the Anglican Communion and precipitated by the actions of the Episcopal Church USA and the Church of Canada. It further illustrates that, unless clear and decisive action is taken without delay, the unity of the Anglican Communion will inevitably take a further step towards terminal decline. With particular regard to the situation in Brazil, we ask that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference address this issue as a matter of urgency.

We cannot regard those who persistently depart from historic and orthodox Anglican teaching as being in communion with those who seek to remain true to the traditional and biblical foundations of the Anglican Church. Those who long to reach a dying world with the transforming news of God’s love in Christ should not be expected to tolerate being compromised by those whose liberal agenda presents a false message and distracts us from our task of mission.

We urge all those who share our concerns to pray that the Anglican Church may repent of the sin which mars our common life; may reaffirm our commitment to the authority of Scripture in all matters of belief and behaviour and may be renewed in our task of reaching the world with the Gospel of Christ.

The Rt Revd Wallace Benn

The Ven Paul Gardner

The Revd Nick Wynne-Jones

for the Church of England Evangelical Council

13 September 2005

==============================

Ruling awards $81K to church: Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles must pay legal fees to Newport’s St. James, judge says. (050917)

By Lauren Vane, Daily Pilot

An Orange County Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles must pay more than $81,000 in legal fees to St. James Church, the Newport Beach congregation that split from the diocese over a dispute about church doctrine.

The same judge, David Velasquez, ruled Aug. 15 to dismiss a lawsuit against St. James Church’s congregation that claimed the Newport Beach breakaway church’s property and assets belong to the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.

Velasquez ruled that efforts by the national church to retain the property of the seceding St. James congregation was an attempt to tread upon the congregation’s freedom of speech.

Praveen Bunyan, pastor of St. James, said the awarding of legal fees is another affirmation that the St. James Church was right from the beginning.

“This is a reiteration saying that the lawsuit was wrongfully brought against us,” Bunyan said.

Representatives from the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles did not return phone calls Friday.

Financially, Judge Velasquez’s ruling Thursday means that the church can apply funds toward “God’s mission,” Bunyan said.

“We’re glad that we can continue to concentrate on the mission that we believe as a church we are called to do,” Bunyan said.

The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles filed suit against St. James in September 2004 after the Newport Beach church and two other Southern California congregations broke away from the diocese and the Episcopal Church of the United States in protest of the national church’s positions.

After leaving the national church, St. James affiliated with the Diocese of Luwero in the Anglican province of Uganda, Africa. The Los Angeles diocese’s lawsuit alleged St. James’ property belongs to the national church, not to the congregation.

Although St. James Church is pleased with the awarding of legal fees, the church remains skeptical that the diocese will pay the legal fees without first appealing the decision, said St. James attorney Eric Sohlgren, in a statement released Thursday.

“I don’t know whether they will appeal,” Bunyan said. “Of course, we’ll continue to fight for what is ours.”

==============================

September 27, 2005

Civil Suit Alleging Constitutional Violations Filed Against Multiple Defendants Including Episcopal Bishop of Connecticut, Presiding Bishop of Episcopal Church

Six Episcopal Churches, their elected officers [wardens and vestries], a number of parish communicants, and five priests in Connecticut today filed a civil complaint against Andrew Smith, Episcopal Bishop of Connecticut; the Diocese of Connecticut; Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold; and nine other individuals and/or entities. The lawsuit accuses the 12 defendants of working together to infringe upon the rights of the plaintiffs in violation of the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. In addition to these federal issues, the complaint outlines multiple violations of Connecticut statutes.

The civil suit follows months of theological dispute and hostile actions by Bishop Smith, who stands in “opposition to traditional Christianity and Anglican teaching.” Bishop Seabury Church, Groton; Christ Church, Watertown; Christ & The Epiphany Church, East Haven; St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Darien; Trinity Church, Bristol; and St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bristol, have consistently supported traditional Christian belief and teaching regarding human sexuality, also upheld by the Four Instruments of Anglican Unity. In light of the serious conflict, the six churches requested alternative episcopal oversight, a request denied by Bishop Smith. Central to the complaint is the contention that Bishop Smith’s actions are motivated by a desire to impose “his own singular views of canon law, church polity and theology” on the congregations and clergy because they reject his revisionist views on theology, particularly on human sexuality.

“We have been left with no choice but to seek intervention by the civil courts in order to protect our constitutional rights and serve our congregations without interference and harassment,” said the Rev. Christopher Leighton, rector of St. Paul’s, Darien. “We are being punished for upholding Biblical truth as well as Anglican teaching, faith and practice, and our ability to proclaim the Gospel is being dramatically hindered.”

The suit asserts that the State of Connecticut has given special legal status to the constitutions and canons of the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) and to the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut not provided to all religions and charitable entities. Such incorporation of Episcopal constitutional and canonical components into Connecticut statutes effectively codifies them as civil law. The complaint alleges that the state of Connecticut “has entangled itself in every aspect of the temporal and certain aspects of the spiritual, operations of all the Episcopal parishes” such that Bishop Smith and other defendants represent the government in their actions. This blending of state and church violates the First Amendment prohibition against government establishment of a religion and the Fourteen Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law, thereby supporting a claim of “state action” in respect to civil rights.

The comprehensive and multifaceted complaint outlines numerous actions of Bishop Smith and the other defendants which deprived the congregations, clergy, wardens and vestries of their constitutional rights to freedom of speech, association, inquiry and thought, property, privacy, due process of law, and equal protection of the law. The suit asserts that the effect of these various violations resulted in “chilling” their right to freedom of religion.

Specifically, the complaint states that Bishop Smith, and those in concert with him, fraudulently charged the six clergy with “abandonment of communion,” which is not only a misuse of the canon but also denies them the due process of ecclesiastical trials. The suit contends that these charges were made with the intent “to defraud the Plaintiff-Parishes of their assets.” In addition, there are allegations that Bishop Smith and other defendants interfered with the fiduciary relationship between three of the parishes and entities holding investment accounts, unlawfully preventing disbursement of funds as requested by Bishop Seabury Church, Christ Church, and Christ & the Epiphany Church. The complaint outlines numerous counts of fraud, misrepresentation, and breach of fiduciary duty, actions which violate the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA).

The suit also lists unlawful actions against St. John’s Church, Bristol, including: trespass, seizing church property, fraudulently claiming ownership of the church and all its assets, and appointing a parish administrator and priest-in-charge, thereby usurping legal and canonical rights of the wardens and vestry. The charges include seizing private and confidential parish records, actions violating privacy laws; committing assault and battery against the parish secretary; and using tactics of harassment and intimidation against church staff and vestry members. The suit declares that the defendants changed locks in order to deny access to the church staff, wardens, vestry and congregation, preventing them from conducting both business and worship. In addition, defendants are accused of disabling the parish website, redirecting it to the diocese’s website, and then transferring the domain name. The complaint also says that Bishop Smith’s agents falsely represented his authority and that the bishop is preventing the congregation’s access to their bank accounts and post office box.

The complaint asserts that Bishop Griswold “aided and abetted” the Diocese of Connecticut by refusing to intervene when notified of the false “abandonment of communion” charges and the illegal seizure of St. John’s, noting that his failure to respond constitutes an endorsement of Smith’s alleged misconduct. Further, the suit states that the Presiding Bishop “provided support and resources” for Smith.

The plaintiffs seek relief and judgment in a jury trial on all matters cited in the complaint as well as punitive damages.