Archbishop of Canterbury in appeal to Episcopal Church: CEN 7.10.09 July 10, 2009
Posted by geoconger in 76th General Convention, Church of England Newspaper.trackback
The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams has urged forbearance upon the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, asking it refrain from ending the ban on gay bishops and blessings.
Speaking at a noonday Eucharist at the 76th General Convention on July 9 in Anaheim, California, Dr. Williams said a move away from the commonly received teachings and discipline would be met with deep sadness by the Anglican Communion. However, he remained silent on what, if any, sanctions might be imposed.
The sermon marked the close of Dr. Williams’ sojourn in Anaheim, with the tentative, non-confrontational tone of his address exemplifying his two days at General Convention.
The Archbishop of Canterbury was kept to a tight schedule of private meetings, photo opportunities, and two public addresses—a twenty minute lecture on the world economic crisis on July 8, and his sermon the following day. Dr. Williams took no questions from the press, nor mixed with the deputies, cocooned throughout his American stay.
The controlled and distant environment in Anaheim was far different from his last visit to the Episcopal Church. At the 2007 meeting of the House of Bishops Dr. Williams was upbraided for his pusillanimity by the Bishop of New Hampshire and other supporters of the progress wing of the church, for having banned Bishop V. Gene Robinson from Lambeth 2008, and for not having the courage of his convictions to act upon his published beliefs on sexual ethics.
The Anaheim trip however provided no opportunity for public expressions of censure, with the agenda confined to private meetings with Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori, the President of the House of Deputies Bonnie Anderson and her Council of Advice, a youth delegation, and eight “gay” deputies to General Convention.
In a television interview with Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, an American public television religion news programme, Mrs. Anderson stated the substance of her conversation with Dr. Williams focused on the mixed polity of the Episcopal Church.
Save for the Windsor Report, “most of the requests that have been directed to us” from the Anglican Communion “have gone to the bishops. We are a church of more than one order of voices,” Mrs. Anderson said, where bishops exercise authority in conjunction with “laity and clergy who have equal voices.”
The American system of church governance was an “anomaly” she conceded, but “Our great deep hope is that we would be included in requests, directions and communications,” from the Communion.
There was no discussion of the presenting issues before the Convention, Mrs. Anderson said, with the talks focused “only in the context of how we do business, our governance.”
The eight clergy and lay gay deputies’ time with Dr. Williams was also pastorally focused with the eight giving voice to their experiences, hopes and aspirations for the church.
Speaking from notes, Dr. Williams sounded several familiar themes in his address on the world economic crisis, castigating the culture of greed that had led to a “crisis of truthfulness” that led to the market collapse.
For the past ten years there had been a “steady erosion of trust in our financial life. Our word has not been our bond,” he said, adding that we have “lied to ourselves about the possibility of profit without risk.”
The way forward began with rebuilding trust in the financial system, but also in living a “life style of recognizing limits.” He urged a “reordering of society” that looked to small scale enterprises, microcredit and cooperative societies to foster economic growth. We “shouldn’t look to the government to provide the answers, but to the church” and other civil society institutions.
In his sermon to General Convention, Dr. Williams thanked the American church for its invitation to Anaheim, and “to share something of my mind with you; and so thank you too for your continuing willingness to engage with the wider life of our Communion.”
“I do realise that this engagement has been and still is costly for different people in different ways: some feel impatient, some feel compromised, some feel harassed or undervalued, or that their good faith has been ungraciously received. I’m sorry; this has been hard and will not get much easier, I suspect. But it is something for which many of us genuinely are grateful to you and to God,” Dr. Williams said.
He had come to California with “hopes and anxieties,” stating “I hope and pray that there won’t be decisions in the coming days that could push us further apart. But if people elsewhere in the Communion are concerned about this, it’s because of a profound sense of what the Episcopal Church has given and can give to our fellowship worldwide.”
If the communion could “do perfectly well without you, there wouldn’t be a problem,” Dr. Williams said. Nonetheless, “the bonds of relationship are deep, for me personally as for many others,” he said, as the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church needed each other.
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