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The House of Bishops voted to reconsider its endorsement of Resolution A069: Funding the Mission Funding Office. At the close of the business session today during General Convention in Anaheim, the Rt. Rev. Robert C. Johnson, retired Bishop of Western North Carolina, asked the house to reconsider its July 9 vote endorsing the multi-year $5 million program to create a major fund development program for The Episcopal Church.

The Rt. Rev. John W. Howe, Bishop of Central Florida, added that there had been no debate when the resolution was adopted the previous day. Prudence required that a “massive fundraising project needed some discussion.”

Read it all.

Archbishop Williams said two clear things to The Episcopal Church on Thursday morning: Thank you for your engagement with the Anglican Communion, and the Anglican Communion loves you. The warm words included some implicit exhortation, however.

“Of course I am coming here with hopes and anxieties. You know that and I shan’t deny it. Along with many in the communion, I hope and pray that there won’t be decisions in the coming days that could push us further apart,” he said. “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 we, if I, had felt that we could do perfectly well without you, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

The bulk of the archbishop’s meditation focused on Christians being called forth from nothingness.

Read it all.

The primary reason for the impatience, though, was the conversation that was set to ensue, the topic of B033. B033 was a resolution passed at the last minute at the 2006 General Convention implementing a moratorium on the election of non-celibate homosexual persons to the Episcopacy. Two sessions have been set aside for discussion on this matter to determine the “mind of the house”. A vote of some sort in which one of several actions may be taken is likely, at least in the House of Deputies. The Bishops, not known for their bravery, will probably duck the issue (a number of them are worried that if they vote their conscience it will cost them in the offering plate, sad, but true) thereby consigning the church to three more years of hand-wringing and disingenuous behavior.

To begin our conversation we were instructed to find someone we don’t know (bad) and have a 30 minute conversation with them (worse) about these three questions:

1. What is your story with respect to B033?
2. What is our story as a church with respect to B033?
3. What is God calling us to do now?

What’s missing from the framework? How about God’s story? How about God’s self-revelation through Scripture? How about God’s revelation through history to His church?

Read the whole thing.

Read it all.

A majority of bishops, deputies, visitors and others who testified before a World Mission Committee public hearing July 9 indicated they hope the Episcopal Church will move beyond resolution B033.

As many as a thousand people attended the two-hour hearing which began at 8 p.m. in the Pacific Ballroom of the Hilton Hotel. A total of 51 people testified; 41 said they hoped the church could move beyond B033, a moratorium on the consecration of bishops whose manner of life presented a challenge to the wider church. Ten others indicated they wanted to retain B033.

Following the hearing, Bishop Gene Robinson -”” who was among those testifying -”” said his “spirit is buoyed” despite stories of pain. “I was overjoyed at the hope and reconciliation people have found in our church. Someone mentioned being a beacon of light. That is a ministry we can reclaim.”

Read the whole article.

More than 50 people testified on a collection of resolutions requesting marriage equality or rites for same-gender blessings, with a vast majority speaking in favor of the resolutions, in hearings before the joint Prayer Book, Liturgy and Music Committee on July 9.

Four resolutions proposed canonical changes, while seven recommended developing rites for same-gender blessings or marriage. Witnesses supporting the resolutions varied in age, gender, sexual orientation and marital status, including one newly engaged visitor planning a same-gender wedding for 2011 who told the committee, “I am counting on you.” Retired Utah Bishop Otis Charles and his partner Felipe Sanchez Paris each testified, while the Rev. Reid Farrell, Vermont alternate deputy, testified with Dale Willard, his partner of 20 years, at his side.

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The link is here as a reminder. I have had it jam up a bunch on Firefox and Internet Explorer, and found Safari is best.

I ended up posting comments below in real time for those interested–KSH

Some valuable detail here.

The Windsor Report 2004 begot the Ridly Cambridge Covenant Draft Text, which proposes to limit participation in the Anglican Communion if a member refuses to defer controversial action. Martins drafted a resolution that adopts the language while the issue is studied until 2012. A panel is already studying gays and theology. Member identity is secret.

One has to wonder what is preserved for the American church by continued Anglican affiliation, as treasured as that has been. What is valued in unity that trumps the faith of believers excluded from sacramental blessings and church leadership?

Bishop Gregory Rickel, of the Diocese of Olympia covering Western Washington, sees a bigger picture for the church. He wants Anglican ties to survive because, “we do better together.” He is also mindful that “the resolutions and legislative process are not going to change our hearts or change our church.”

Read it all.

From here:

We also had a disturbing private (no one in the gallery) conversation in the House of Bishops that led me to feel discouraged about what lies ahead. That conversation is private, so I can’t detail it, but there seems to be a kind of belligerent attitude toward the House of Deputies by some of our bishops. Their vision of the episcopate is way too “high and mighty” for my taste, or my theology, and I am not happy about it. The last thing we bishops need is a larger measure of arrogance. Didn’t Jesus save his most serious criticism for the religious powers-that-be of his day who lorded their power and position over others

This contrast was even reflected in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s meditation at the midday Eucharist. There will surely be many other posts, blogs, and reports about what he said or didn’t say; I came to General Convention worried that Rowan Williams might be here to twist arms over the Windsor Report, the demands of Primates, dioceses jumping ship, human sexuality, same-sex blessings and marriage, or other points of contention in the greater Anglican Communion. I am pleasantly surprised that he hasn’t done much of that at all. The closest I heard him come to this was as he prefaced his meditation before the whole Convention by reflecting on the importance of The Episcopal Church to the Anglican Communion (Why else would there be controversy around our church’s decisions?). . . and how he hoped, personally, that we would be cognizant of our significance to the Communion in our deliberations. A veiled bit of arm-twisting? Maybe. But he ended his preface by saying something like this: “Now, down to business. . .”

And the “business” he launched into was a beautiful theological reflection on the scripture readings of the liturgy ”“ the foundational story of our faith.

This told me something profound about why we are here at General Convention, and what the real “business” of Convention is, and it’s not sausage-making. It’s sharing story….

Read it all.

I am coming here with hopes and anxieties. I hope and pray that there will not be decisions in the coming days that will push us further apart. If people elsewhere in the Communion are concerned about this it is because of a profound sense of what TEC can give us world wide. If I felt we could do well without your presence there would not be a problem,. But the bonds of relationship are deep. The words of Paul are helpful here. In the middle of his tension tensions and the way of challenges were for Paul sharper than those we face. He writes: “Why? Because we do not love you. God knows we do.”

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The presiding bishop’s condemnation of the culture of individualism was not misplaced, Dr.[Mark] Thompson [Dean of Moore College in Sydney] said, but the theological approach she was taking to address the problem was erroneous. “No one was suggesting that Paul ignored the corporate implications of shared salvation,” he observed, but an “unrelenting dichotomy between the individual and the corporate” was a modern phenomenon.

Augustine, Luther, the Protestant Reformers and the Anglican divines all taught that “God’s purposes are deeply relational and hence the very opposite of fragmented, isolationist individualism. Yet they also extend further than simply corporate identity to call on human persons as persons to repent and believe the gospel,” Dr. Thompson said.

For evangelical’s “more serious still” was the presiding bishop’s “caricature” of a confession of faith that she said made salvation dependent “on reciting a specific verbal formula about Jesus,” Dr. Thompson said.

The confession that “Jesus Christ is Lord” was “certainly a form of words,” but “they are never simply words,” he explained. “They represent a fundamental orientation of life which includes a willingness to have our thinking and behaviour shaped by the One we acknowledge has such a supreme claim upon us,” he noted.

Read it all.

It is a 2 page pdf with four pages of text if you print it out. See what you think.

Watch it all.

The ‘work’ of General Convention -resolution crafting (AKA sausage making) – began this morning in earnest with our opening session of the House of Deputies and more legislative committee hearings. Remember, proposed resolutions are assigned to one of several legislative committees for ‘perfecting’ and perhaps recommendation to either the House of Deputies (Hod) or House of Bishops (HoB).

Yesterday afternoon featured opening remarks by the Presiding Bishop and President of the HoD, an opening session on Public Narrative, and an orientation to the workings of the HoD. In her opening remarks, the Presiding Bishop emphasized the importance of Ubuntu -I am because we are – for the Church.

Unfortunately, I believe this emphasis on our corporate life together came at the expense of our personal relationship with the Lord. She described “the great Western heresy-that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.” This heresy is often expressed by “insisting that salvation depends on reciting a specific formula about Jesus.”

As an Evangelical, I am troubled when professions of faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, either through the Creeds or a prayer of commitment – are discounted or even considered heretical. The Evangelical expression in the Episcopal/ Anglican tradition emphasizes a ‘both/and’ approach in regard to salvation.

There is BOTH an emphasis on the personal or individual commitment to Jesus AND the importance of the Body of Christ – the Ubuntu dimension – to nurture that relationship in a community of Christian faith. John Stott’s book, Basic Christianity, for example, combines those two dimensions well.

I know my updates are not following a neat and tidy schedule. One reason for that is simply because General Convention has developed a predictable schedule or ‘battle rhythm’ yet. I expect that will develop over the next several days.

–The Very Rev. Tony Clark

Dear Friends in Christ,

Another busy day in Anaheim. This is the first legislative day, which means that the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies met in their first sessions to get organized. The Albany deputation decorated their identification pole with a beaver and a cross, and started a competitive trend! The first legislative sessions were otherwise little more than announcements and technical information. They stood in recess at 9:00 am and we attended the Opening Eucharist, a joyful celebration which featured the announcement that the Episcopal Church of the Phillipines, begun by missionary efforts of The Episcopal Church, has reached a financially independent status. PB Schori preached the sermon, emphasizing the importance of mission for the life of the church. Her text was Ezekiel 36:24-26, wherein God promises us “a new heart and a new spirit.” The music was uplifting and the celebration gave the convention an exciting beginning.

Committees continued to meet after lunch, and the more meaty resolutions are coming up on the agenda. Very little of substance was reported out from committees today, but that will change soon.

Archbishop Rowan Williams arrived today, and is scheduled to address the convention on the subject of global poverty. Look for a report on that tomorrow.

The deputation is in good spirits, getting over the jet lag and excited to dig into the legislative details. Haven’t had a chance today to poll them for specific prayer concerns, but please hold us in your prayers generally. More tomorrow.

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Chip Strickland

“Marriage equality is a reality coming soon to a state near you,” Bishop Gene Robinson told an overflow crowd at a July 8 hearing. He was speaking to a proposed resolution that calls for wider-than-usual latitude for bishops to allow blessings of gay and lesbian couples in states in which same-sex marriage or civil unions are legal.

The text of Resolution B012, “Pastoral Generosity in Blessing Civil Marriage,” calls for “generous discretion [to be] extended to clergy in the exercise of their pastoral ministry in order to permit the adaptation of the Pastoral Offices” for marriage. It also provides for the affected dioceses to report annually to the House of Bishops and to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Church Music for help in developing a service of blessing for same-sex marriage if such a rite should be approved by future meetings of General Convention.

Read it all.

Professor Christopher Seitz of the Anglican Communion Institute noted that the presiding bishop needed to define her terms. If by the “Western heresy” she meant the individualism of the Enlightenment, the priority of the individual conscience as articulated by Kant, or the need for individual certainty in science and history suggested by Lessing, “these are bedrock foundations of TEC liberalism.”

As a matter of history, there is no individualist heresy, the Rev. Ephraim Radner, professor of historical theology at Wycliffe College in Toronto told The Living Church. Jesus calls individuals “by name” and saves them “one by one,” he said, and a catholic theology cannot deny this.

“Her remarks would suggest simple ad hominem arguments against conservative evangelicals, masking as theological incoherence,” Fr. Radner said.

Read it all.

At the other end of the age spectrum, Bishop Shaw of Massachusetts said that Episcopal high school students had told him they could not invite their friends to a church which did not welcome everyone. Sam Gough, who attended in 2006 as part of the official youth presence but is present this year as a deputy for Massachusetts, said “in some places the church of tomorrow has come today” and we should welcome it. Another young man who grappled with the Biblical witness concluded “I do not believe that God addressed this issue.”

Janie Donohue from Connecticut told us that most of her friends and family are not Christian but when marriage became a possibility of same-sex couples, they turned to her to celebrate their weddings. She found it difficult to explain the canons and had to emphasize that God is not the Church ”“ a rejection by the Church is not a rejection by God. Janie is a partnered lesbian about to become a mom and her friends cannot understand why she will not get civilly married in order to provide legal protection for her child, but as an Episcopal priest she wants her marriage blessed by the faith community. She reminded us that people who leave because they think we’re too liberal don’t leave the Church but people who leave because they are not accepted, leave the Church completely.

Read the whole thing.

Bishop [Edward] Little [Northern Indiana] replied that there were multiple resolutions on each of these two issues and he did not know if any would survive their legislative committees and actually make it to the floor of either House. Later, he said privately that he believed many bishops were affected by the Lambeth Conference last summer, surprised by the amount of anger and stories they heard from around the Communion. But, was that enough to stop these resolutions? It is not known.

Read it all.

From here:

The Standing Committee on Constitution and Canons reviews proposed amendments to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church and places them in proper form before passing them on to the General Convention for action. In addition they carry out a continual review of current Canons of the Church. At its first meeting of the Convention the Legislative Committee discussed at length the revision to Title IV, which is a major review of the Disciplinary Canons of the Church. The Disciplinary Canons as they now stand were originally set down in 1994. The prevailing attitude to clergy misconduct in those days was to consider it in the same terms as criminal law, in a punitive way. The current revision to go before the house approaches the Disciplinary Canons in a more pastoral and theological manner, moving them towards a reconciliation model for all appropriate circumstances. Later in the day the Committee discussed amendments to the Constitution and Canons that refer to the keeping of archival materials of the church, specifically how these are now garnered from dioceses and provinces of the church in an increasingly electronic age. They also considered amendments to the Canons which refer to the manner in which Diocesan Standing Committees transmit consents for Episcopal Elections.

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.

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No one spoke against the resolution during 75 minutes of testimony….

Those who urged the resolution’s passage spoke from a variety of personal perspectives and local contexts. Some described inequality in the pastoral care they are able to receive or provide….

Massachusetts deputies Sam Gould and the Rev. Gale Davis Morris…[were among those who] testified.

“As a priest in the Diocese of Massachusetts I cannot serve my congregation equally. I find this to be a particularly appalling position to be put into as a priest, that the state would allow me but my church will not,” Morris said. “There is something radically wrong with that picture, and I hope that we will allow this resolution to go forward so that we can change that. It doesn’t force any diocese that is not in our position to go ahead and authorize the blessing of same-sex marriage, but it allows those of us who have that privilege to do it in a very holy and just way.”

Read it all (emphasis mine).

Resolution: B012
Title: Pastoral Generosity in Addressing Civil Marriage
Topic: Liturgy
Committee: 10 – Social and Urban Affairs
House of Initial Action: Bishops
Proposer: The Rt. Rev. Stephen T. Lane

Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That this 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church acknowledge the pastoral concerns facing those dioceses in states where the civil marriage of same gender couples is legal; and be it further

Resolved, That in those dioceses, under the direction of the bishop, generous discretion is extended to clergy in the exercise of their pastoral ministry in order to permit the adaptation of the Pastoral Offices for The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage and The Blessing of a Civil Marriage for use with all couples who seek the church’s support and God’s blessing in their marriages; and be it further

Resolved, That in order to build a body of experience for the benefit of the church, each bishop in those dioceses where this pastoral practice is exercised provide an annual written report on their experience to the House of Bishops each March and to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music for its report to the 77th General Convention.

EXPLANATION

There are now six states (Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont) where the civil marriage of same gender couples is legal, and other states may follow in the coming triennium. This has created unique pastoral challenges for The Episcopal Church because the definition of marriage held by these states and the language used in the Canons and the Book of Common Prayer of The Episcopal Church is not the same. In all six states, faithful Episcopalians are asking that their church provide the pastoral support and blessing of the church for their marriages. Clergy in those same states are caught between the authority given them by the state and the discipline of The Episcopal Church as it’s currently described. The rubrics of the BCP require that “marriage conform both to the laws of the state and the canons of the Church (BCP, 422).”
This situation requires a generous and flexible response that offers clergy the ability to make appropriate pastoral decisions in consultation with the bishop and their members. There may be many clergy and congregations that have no desire to participate in the blessing of a civil marriage. But in those places where there is such a will, the freedom to explore that option is vital.
The Book of Common Prayer makes provision for special devotions that may be used when services in the Prayerbook do not address the needs of the congregation (BCP, 13). Such devotions are subject to the direction of the bishop.
There is also a need for the Church to hear the experience of those dioceses and congregations where good faith efforts are being made to respond to the pastoral needs of faithful same sex couples. This resolution would create annual reporting to the House of Bishops, with a summary report to be made to the 77th General Convention.
While this resolution addresses the special circumstances in states with full marriage equality, there is also a need to support other efforts to provide pastoral care (including blessings) to same sex couples in all dioceses of The Episcopal Church.

Deputies told The Living Church Wednesday that they welcome the chance to discuss the volatile issue without the pressure of a pending vote during the same session.

“Hopefully that will provide a more open discussion,” said the Rev. Stephen Schafroth, a new deputy from the Diocese of Eastern Oregon. “I think that’s a stroke of genius by someone, because this is a church of many different opinions. That’s one of the beauties of this church.”

The Rev. Canon Neal Michel of the Diocese of Dallas also welcomed the discussion’s less pressured setting.

“It’s important to have conversation without trying to convince people,” said Canon Michel, who serves as Bishop James Stanton’s canon to the ordinary. “That’s what I encourage congregations to do all the time.”

Read the whole thing.

Speaking to about 75 deputies and visitors to General Convention at an event sponsored by the Consultation, an association of progressive church-related advocacy groups, Bishop Robinson spoke to the issue of whether “LGBT Equality is a Matter of Justice?”

Answering in the affirmative, Bishop Robinson urged the deputies to follow their consciences and disavow 2006 General Convention Resolution B033 that pledged that the Episcopal Church would refrain from consecrating gay bishops or authorize public rites for the blessing of same-sex unions.

Bishop Robinson predicted that the 2009 Convention “will be one of those conventions, like 1976 and 2003, where history is made.” He urged his audience to watch how their diocesan deputies and bishops voted and see that they “stand up for what is right.”

Read it all. I am going to try to leave comments open on this thread for now but ask people to stay on topic and remain civil and respectful. Thank you.

Update: Well, alas, that didn’t work. So I now will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.