The house will begin debate of Resolution D025 on Sunday afternoon. The resolution by the Committee on World Mission is a compilation of more than a dozen resolutions seeking to overturn, amend or repeal Resolution B033, the controversial resolution approved three years ago which calls on “standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on the communion.”

Read it all.

Watch it all.

But what does it mean to argue that the polity of TEC is unique? If the emphasis is on significant discontinuity with the character of that polity otherwise seen to be representative of Anglicanism, is the danger not in cutting TEC off from the Communion at large? Surely the continuity of the Anglican Communion””whatever the special features of this or that polity””is to be grasped in the Episcopal Office. No specialness can alter that feature without at the same time creating a truly national denomination. If this is what the President of the House of Deputies is calling for, let her indicate that she realizes that and wishes it to be so and means to make it so.

At the founding of the Episcopal Church in this country efforts were made to create a polity that constrained the office of Bishop, and held it accountable to a second House. Does the President of the House of Deputies mean that uniqueness lies in this sort of understanding? If so, it bears recalling that at precisely this point the new church had to defer to the spirit of recommendations of the Church of England, and the pleadings of Seabury, if she was to remain a branch of the catholic expression of Anglicanism. So the General Convention that then emerged did not in the least preempt or constrain the special responsibility of Bishops, and it is exactly that reality that serves to give proportion to any idea of special features.

It is important as well to keep comments like this in perspective given other recent trends. In the legal submissions made by the national church, we have seen a different argument for the ”˜special polity’ of this church. The fact that there are similarities but also differences suggests that these arguments serve the purpose chiefly of aiding in a cause, and less in the accuracy of their historical claims, or the consistency of their logic and presentation.

Read it all.

Watch it all.

I especially like the picture of Bonnie Anderson.

[Bonnie] Anderson said that the group told the archbishop that, while most of the requests from the wider Anglican Communion for the Episcopal Church to do certain things to resolve the current tensions in the worldwide body have been addressed only to the church’s bishops, “we are a church of more than one order of voices.”

“Our great, deep hope is that we would be included in [future] quests, communications and directions” from Anglican Communion leaders, she said.

Williams expressed “frustration” with the Episcopal Church’s three-year legislative cycle, the Rev. James Simons (Pittsburgh) said. “It’s difficult in some cases for decisions to be held for three years for the General Convention to meet, so we discussed some possible scenarios that would allow for a more timely response, at least in the interim, until a permanent response could be made.”

“There was a lot of give and take in terms of trying to think through how we could work more collaboratively in a way that honors each other’s polity,” he added.

Read it all.

Lay People at the General Con­vention of the Episcopal Church in the United States will have some hard questions for the Archbishop of Canterbury when he visits, says the president of the House of Depu­ties, Bonnie Anderson.

The triennial convention meets next week in Anaheim, California. Eyes from all around the Anglican Communion will be on its business, notably whether it will vote to re­peal Resolution BO33, which in 2006 urged a halt to ordaining any more gay bishops for the time being.

To repeal it would require the consent of both the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies. Bishops have no collective authority to exercise power in the Church, where laity and clergy have an equal voice, and the former have historically exercised strong influ­ence. They elect bishops in a demo­cratic operation ”” something that is out of the experience of many pro­v-inces in the Anglican Communion, Mrs Anderson says.

Read it all.

Several questioners asked about possible repeal or other action on Resolution B033, the controversial measure passed on the last day of the 2006 General Convention that called for restraint on the part of the church in electing or consenting to the election as bishops of persons whose manner of life may present a challenge to the wider Church””a measure widely seen to apply only to gay or lesbian candidates.

“I’ve been very clear in my public communications for the last few months that my hope is that we not attempt to repeal past legislation at General Convention””it’s a bad legislative practice,” said Jefferts Schori. “I would far more prefer us to say where we are today, in 2009, to make a positive statement about our desire to include all people fully in this church and that we be clear about who we are as the Episcopal Church.

Twelve resolutions concerning B033 have been submitted, said Anderson, and all have been assigned to legislative committees, as is the practice for all resolutions. “We can’t really predict what will happen in regards to B033, which is the beauty of General Convention,” she said. “It is up to the participants at General Convention to take those resolutions under consideration, to hold open hearings with regards to the resolutions, gather the voices of everyone present that wishes to speak ”¦ and we also pray for the intervention of the Holy Spirit as we debate in the House of Deputies.”

Read it all.

A number of viewers wanted to know how results from the recently concluded meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council might affect convention. Bishop Jefferts Schori said the need to debate the proposed Anglican Covenant obviously was a moot point since it failed to pass during the ACC meeting in Jamaica last week.

In response to a question regarding the repeal of B033, the resolution approved at General Convention in 2006 that recommends caution in consecrating bishops whose manner of life might cause distress to other members of the Anglican Communion, Bishop Jefferts Schori said B033 would be debated, but that she opposes its repeal.

“I would far more prefer that we say here is where we are today,” she said, adding that it was a more positive way to express the mind of the church.

Read it all.

I really do not know anymore what is coming next. How things are done and not done are as haphazard as people’s ideas; or so it seems.

Now I read that the “New” Diocese of Fort Worth passed a $632,466 dollar budget for a part-time bishop, a little over 19 priests and 62 delegates who represent way less than a thousand people, and $200,000 is from the General Convention budget!

First, I did not see that in the GC budget that was passed in 2006. Where did it come from?

Read it all.

In stark contrast to the increasingly relational tone reflected in the Primates Communiqué, the Windsor Continuation Group has taken a step backward, issuing a report that yearns for greater ecclesial centralization achieved by concentrating power in the hands of bishops and archbishops, further marginalizing the laity and diminishing the influence of member churches in the common life of our Communion. The authors of the report””two retired primates, a primate, two bishops and a retired Cathedral dean””believe an “ecclesial deficit” exists within Anglicanism and propose to remedy it by strengthening three of the four “Instruments of Communion”, namely the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference and the Primates Meeting. The instrument they have overlooked is the Anglican Consultative Council; the only instrument that includes lay people, priests and deacons and that has a constitution that codifies its membership, procedures and authority. The ACC’s meetings have proven much less susceptible to outside manipulation than those of the Primates Meetings, as the machinations at Dromantine and Dar es Salaam made painfully clear.

Yet the Windsor Continuation Group argues that the Communion must receive statements from the Primates: “with a readiness to undertake reflection and accommodation,” while questioning whether the Anglican Consultative Council can “adequately” exercise the purely consultative function it currently serves. This illustrates a triumph of ecclesial ideology over common sense.

Read it all.