jump to navigation

Bishops canvas support for action against the USA: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 4, 2003. October 17, 2011

Posted by geoconger in 74th General Convention, Church of England Newspaper, Primates Meeting 2003.
Tags: ,
comments closed

The American Episcopal Church could find itself reduced to observer status, without voice or vote, when Anglican Primates meet in October to decide their response to the unprecedented decision to ratify the election of a practising gay bishop.

An estimated 22 to 25 Primates of the Anglican Communion, representing the vast majority of the world’s Anglicans, are likely to oppose the American decision in the strongest possible terms. Last Friday, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, recognising the gravity of the situation, called an emergency meeting of the Primates in October. It is the first time that an extraordinary meeting has been called to deal with just one issue, and points to the growing strength of the Primates as a body to deal with discipline in the Anglican Communion.

According to sources close to Primates of the global south, there are already plans to hold a number of meetings in the run-up to the extraordinary Primates’ Meeting to discuss a strategy.

The strategy is likely to be based on proposals in a document entitled, ‘To Mend the Net’, commissioned by the former Primate of the Southern Cone, Maurice Sinclair, and the Archbishop of the West Indies, Drexel Gomez.

Although early reports suggested that a parallel province in north America could result from Dr Rowan Williams’s meeting of the Primates, which would enable conservative Episcopalians to disassociate themselves from the General Convention, this is likely to be rejected by conservative primates.

Instead they are increasingly setting their minds against creating the ghetto of a third province for mainstream Anglicans in America and want to press for discipline.

The first step would be stripping ECUSA of its right to vote and voice at Lambeth Conferences, Primates’ Meetings and the Anglican Consultative Council. Secondly, the Primates’ Meeting could recommend to the Archbishop of Canterbury that he “authorises and supports appropriate means of evangelisation, pastoral care and Episcopal oversight” in ECUSA. Finally, if the American Church persisted in its defiance of the views of the majority it could be expelled from the Anglican Communion and a new jurisdiction would then be recognised as a representative part of the Anglican Communion.

The ‘To Mend the Net’ proposals are currently in the hands of the Anglican doctrinal body set up in 2001 to look at the limits of diversity in the Communion. But this body has not reported and was recently criticised by one of its members, Dr Paul Zahl, for failing in its purpose of responding to crises such as those created by the election of Canon Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire.

The Anglican Church of Kenya has already broken communion with the Diocese of New Hampshire. Condemnations of the General Convention decision came from as far a field as New Zealand, Nigeria, South America and the West Indies.

The Bishop of Egypt, Mouneer Anis, stated: “We cannot comprehend a decision to elect as bishop a man who has forsaken his wife and the vows he made to her in order to live in a sexual relationship with another man outside the bonds of his marriage.”

He added, “We had not expected this to be done to us by brothers and sisters who are in communion with us. We had expected that they would think of us before taking such a grave step. It showed great disrespect to the majority of the members of the Anglican Communion and the church worldwide. In fact, the decision shows disregard for the value of being in communion and part of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. It also places in doubt the future of the Lambeth Conference. When its resolutions are no longer respected by members of the conference what purpose does it have?”

The day after the election, the American Anglican Council, the coalition of evangelical and traditionalist organisations in the Episcopal Church announced a meeting to be held in Texas in early October to coordinate strategies among dioceses and parishes. A number of conservative dioceses have scheduled special conventions in September and October to discuss the actions taken at Convention and to debate what steps to take in response.

In addition to the formal meeting of Primates called by Rowan Williams, small groups of Primates will be gathering in a number of meetings around the world in the coming weeks to coordinate strategy and develop a common front in response to the election of Gene Robinson.

The varieties of responses proposed by individual Primates range from suspension of ECUSA from the Communion to the creation of an alternate “orthodox” province for North America. What is certain in all of this is that the status quo of Anglicanism, before Gene Robinson and Minneapolis, cannot be regained.

Bishops Guernsey and Atwood: TLC 6.22.07 June 22, 2007

Posted by geoconger in 74th General Convention, Anglican Album (Photos), Anglican Church of Kenya, Church of the Province of Uganda, Living Church.
comments closed

imgp0054.jpg

The caption to this photo as printed by The Living Church on 6.22.07 read:

The Rev. John Guernsey, rector of All Saints Anglican Church, Dale City, Va., and the Rev. Canon Bill Atwood, visited together at General Convention 2006. The Church of Uganda has announced it will consecrate Fr. Guernsey as a missionary bishop to the U.S.; the Anglican Church of Kenya announced last week that it will consecrate Canon Atwood as a suffragan bishop to oversee the U.S.-based congregations of that church.

The Living Church

GC Columbus: Bishops Jack Iker and Bob Duncan 6.21.06 June 7, 2007

Posted by geoconger in 74th General Convention, Anglican Album (Photos), Church Times, Fort Worth, Living Church, Pittsburgh.
comments closed

The Rt. Rev. Jack Iker, Bishop of Forth Worth, and the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, speaking to the press outside the Columbus Convention Center on June 21, 2006 at the 74th General Convention.

This photo was first published on line by The Living Church.

It was republished by the Church Times on 11.23.07.

Four U.S. Bishops Endorse Call for Repentance: TLC 9.21.04 September 2, 2004

Posted by geoconger in 74th General Convention, Central Florida, Dallas, Living Church, South Carolina, Southwest Florida.
Tags: ,
comments closed

First printed in The Living Church magazine.

The bishops of Dallas, South Carolina, Central Florida and Southwest Florida have endorsed an international proposal calling for the expulsion of the Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion unless it repents within two years of the decisions taken by the 74th General Convention.

The Rt. Rev James M. Stanton, Bishop of Dallas; the Rt. Rev. Edward Salmon, Bishop of South Carolina; the Rt. Rev. John W. Howe, Bishop of Central Florida; and the Rt. Rev. John Lipscomb, Bishop of Southwest Florida, were joined by overseas and U.S. bishops and other church leaders in endorsing a submission prepared by the Anglican Communion Institute (ACI) to the Lambeth Commission on Communion (LCC) titled “Drawing the Line.”

“Drawing the Line” calls for a “clear and publicly recognized distinction between the continuing Anglican Communion and those provinces whose witness diverges from the Communion.”

The Episcopal Church “must therefore be seen and known to be a quite separate church or denomination” from Anglicanism. The consequences of the August votes by the 74th General Convention affirming the election of a partnered homosexual priest as Bishop of New Hampshire and recognizing rites for the blessing of same-sex unions have become “too literally, a ‘life and death’ issue” for Churches in the developing world and in Muslim majority countries, the paper averred.

The document states that neither the Episcopal Church nor the Anglican Church of Canada should be permitted to “use the label ‘Anglican’ in a way that identifies them as part of the Anglican Communion.” The paper argues that should the two churches desire a continuing relationship with Canterbury, it “must be of a qualitatively different kind from that which Canterbury will maintain with (what will become) the continuing Communion.”

The signatories ask that a démarche be given by the primates to General Convention that declares the Episcopal Church has “entered a period of restorative discipline, the purpose of which is to provide time for your reconciliation to the larger Communion and its teaching.” This discipline “will come into force with immediate effect” for “up to 2 years” and failure to recant would be “taken as a clear and conscious signal that you yourselves are unwilling to continue as constituent members of the Anglican Communion.”

US church fractures over vote: The Church of England Newspaper, Sept 4, 2003 September 4, 2003

Posted by geoconger in 74th General Convention, Church of England Newspaper.
Tags: , ,
comments closed

The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America fractured last week when its House of Bishops affirmed the election of a practising homosexual as Bishop of New Hampshire. Whether called “schism” or “impaired communion”, the American Church also formally altered its relationship to the wider Anglican Communion when its House of Bishops affirmed the election of a non-celibate homosexual as Bishop of New Hampshire.

Immediately following the vote of 63 to 45 in favour of the affirmation of Gene Robinson as Bishop, Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh and 22 other bishops rose and stood before the House announcing their disassociation with the vote.

Bishop Duncan stated: “You cannot imagine my grief, or the grief of many, many people. … Those who rejoice at this moment will, I pray, at least understand what has been stolen from us: unity with the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church ecumenically; unity with our brothers and sisters in the Anglican Communion across the globe; unity with the faith once delivered to the Saints.”

Bishop Duncan stated that he and his colleagues were appealing to the Primates of the Anglican Communion to intervene in the affairs of the American Church and rescue it from apostasy and heresy.

Following Bishop Duncan’s statement, Bishop Griswold dismissed the House. Bishop Duncan that evening told The Church of England Newspaper that the Robinson vote rendered all actions of the Minneapolis Convention were “null and void” as “the ancient rule of the Church” was that one error of doctrine made by a Synod rendered all its actions void.

When asked whether he was concerned about the reaction of the rest of the Anglican Communion, Bishop Griswold dismissed concerns of schism or ruptured communion. He conceded he valued his relationship with the other Primates, but his relationship was with Canterbury, and then only through Canterbury to the other Primates. Calls for a Primates’ Meeting to discuss this issue could not be called by anyone but the Archbishop of Canterbury, he observed.

During the Bishop Griswold’s news conference Lambeth Palace announced a special meeting of the Primates to be held on October 15-16 “in London to discuss recent developments in ECUSA.”

Archbishop Williams’s letter asked for calm in the wake of the Convention, stating: “I hope also we will take quite seriously the intervening period to reflect carefully on our life together as a Communion and to consider how we might best bring our faith, experience and wisdom to bear constructively on these discussions.”

The calm that followed the next day in the House of Bishops was not one fostered by spiritual reflection but by physical absence. At 11am as the House of Bishops was gaveled into session, 47 chairs were empty. Approximately one-third of the bishops were absent. Of the 23 bishops who stood to voice their opposition to the election the previous evening, 20 had left the House. The reaction from the wider Anglican Communion and the Church’s ecumenical partners was quick. Questioned by The Church of England Newspaper whether the election of Robinson would damage Anglican relations with the Roman Catholic Church, Griswold stated that “there would be some ramifications” but he declined to speculate what they might be.

Archbishop Stephen Blaire, Chairman of the US Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs, stated on August 11 the election of Robinson would “have serious implications in the search for Christian unity and for the work of our bilateral Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue in the United States.”

“These decisions” noted Mgr Blair, “reflect a departure from the common understanding of the meaning and purpose of human sexuality, and the morality of homosexual activity as found in Sacred Scripture and the Christian tradition. As such they have serious implications in the search for Christian unity and for the work of our bilateral Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue in the United States.

The day after the election, the American Anglican Council, the coalition of evangelical and traditionalist organisations in the Episcopal Church announced a meeting to be held in Texas in early October to coordinate strategies among dioceses and parishes. A number of conservative dioceses have scheduled special conventions in September and October to discuss the actions taken at Convention and to debate what steps to take in response.