[Rowan] Williams, who is attending General Convention for the first time, said that the “task before us as people of faith is to name this as a crisis of truthfulness and to challenge ourselves about the truth and above all to live in the truth.”

He underscored the importance of transparency and the building of relationships. “Trust doesn’t happen simply because someone says ‘trust me,'” he said. “Trust happens almost when you’re not noticing it — when the relationship is such that you know the quality of the person you’re dealing with, and that takes time.”

Williams concluded his address by underscoring the need for human beings to grow together “in liberty and communion [which] is at the heart of what we want to say to world that is indeed in crisis.”

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Silly me, I thought that a committee entitled “world missions” might actually talk about the proclamation of the Gospel message to the ends of the earth. And, maybe they will. But not just yet. Instead, here is a sampling of the resolutions set to appear before this committee: equal access to discernment process for transgendered persons; several resolutions seeking to overturn or supersede resolution B033 (a moratorium on same-sex blessings/ordinations passed in 2006); affirmation of full participation in the Anglican Communion for all Lesbian/Gay/Bi-sexual and Transgendered persons. And, that’s just the appetizer. I’ll keep you appraised on these as they move through committee and onto the floor. The only connection I can make between these topics and world missions is that passage will effectively END any credible efforts at world mission.

One side note: Interestingly, when the Archbishop of Canterbury walked into this legislative session the topic under consideration immediately shifted to Resolution D057: “Five Marks of Mission”. When members of committee objected as to the reordering the agenda and questioned the chair as to the rationale for the out-of-order consideration of the this particular resolution, the chair responded by saying, “I thought the ABC might rather hear us discuss the mission commitment of the Episcopal Church”. I’d like to hear someone around hear discuss, and affirm, that Jesus it THE way, THE truth and THE life.

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Nothing caused St. Augustine of Canterbury to cease from consecrating bishops among the Celts where Celtic bishops already were in place; and nothing stopped Samuel Seabury from receiving consecration from non-juring Scottish bishops in Scotland in defiance of the English Church. One might be tempted to cry foul at offences to courtesy in the incursion of African bishops in the United States, but that is not nearly the moral equivalent of the defiance of some in the leadership of The Episcopal Church regarding what has been believed always, everywhere, and by all; not only in some of the General Convention Resolutions of 2009, but more importantly in the clear, continual disavowal of the authority and teaching of Scripture and two thousand years of Christian tradition and history.

The revisionists in the Episcopal Church have been told quite clearly that they are in defiance of Scripture and tradition. I don’t think stupidity is the issue, but rather willfulness. They know what the large majority of the Anglican Communion thinks about these things, but they really don’t care.
Theirs is the deliberate twisting of truth in favour of their own self-satisfaction; they suffer the disintegrity of the intellect, the justification to oneself of error and evil. As St. Paul says, “Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” They willingly and gladly believe the lie that they have made because it is their lie and precious to them….

What complicates things is not the incursion of African bishops in an increasingly apostate church, nor even the flight of the faithful from dioceses where they are clearly not welcome unless they apostatize. But while that extreme circumstance does exist in some dioceses, it is not reflected everywhere in The Episcopal Church. What we do see, even in a basically conservative and orthodox diocese is the flight of some, but not all Evangelicals, Charismatics, and Anglo Catholics, from the faithful Body of Christ of which they were previously a part. This new but by nature shallow coalition signals the rising of an old, but perhaps lesser heresy in a new garb. It is the failure to understand the nature of the Church, the Body of Christ; and this failure and flight may well be a departure from the Head Who will not Himself be separated from His Body. On the surface this new conservative coalition confesses the words of a common faith, but a serious question must be raised as to whether or not they all understand those wonderful words in the same way; certainly they don’t when they confess that they “believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church,” and at the same time in practice take an essentially congregationalist stance on a practical level. That is to say they confess one holy catholic and apostolic church and immediately break it up into pieces that agree, or don’t agree with their views. Even conservatives need to hear Jeremiah, “Thus says the LORD: ”˜Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.’ But they said, ”˜We will not walk in it.’”

Read it carefully (yes, and the footnotes) and read it all.

This was the highlight for me:

We opened with Holy, Holy, Holy! Wow! It was Rite II by the book with the Bishop of Springfield as celebrant. Fr. Terry Sweeny preached a fine homily. By the end of the service I was in heaven and away from every care and concern. It was a blessed event. These worship opportunities will feed the soul and gird me for all else. I thank God for them.

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Rowan Williams has now come to the podium to talk about the current economic crisis. “As providence would have it,” Rowan says, referring to the publication of Pope Benedict’s own publication on the same topic, Love in Truth, and quotes the Pope. “Truth needs to be sought, found, and express in … charity … and charity needs to be practiced in the light of truth.”

What we’ve seen in our world in the last six to nine months is a crisis of truthfulness. We have suddenly discovered that we’ve been lying to ourselves, says Rowan Williams.

In three different ways.

1. Crisis in Ordinary Truthfulness and Trustworthiness – breakdown in truth telling in our financial world. Now will say openly, a steady and drastic erosion of the mutual values of trust. Our word has not been our bond, we have learned to tolerate high levels of evasion and anti-relational practices….

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Last evening the Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations Committee held a hearing on three resolutions, concerning relations with the Methodist and Presbyterian churches and the Church of Sweden. According to Massachusetts deputy Rebecca Alden, who is marking her third General Convention on the committee, things “got quite involved.” The upshot is that she and two fellow deputies will be filing a new resolution today to replace the proposed A072, “Interim Eucharistic Sharing with the United Methodist Church.”

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The theme of the 76th General Convention is “Ubuntu” derived from the African Bantu meaning, “I am because we are. We share in order to prompt others to hear the call to action”. General Convention really is more than elections, adopting budgets and passing resolutions. We hope and pray that the leadership of our church will receive a new inspiration for mission and ministry. Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to his times as “the fierce urgency of now.” We are faced with a similiar challenge in our world.

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It is a 16 page pdf found here.

I find this very strange.

Check it out.

But the Church must change if it is to survive, adapting its understanding and message so that it remains compelling in changed circumstances to modern people. I actually believe that lack of central authority in the Anglican Communion is one of its strengths, as the autonomy of individual churches provides the freedom to experiment with doctrine and liturgy without the entire Communion’s having to endorse it. (A loose Communion structure also gives churches unsympathetic to innovation credible deniability when confronted with complaints about innovations elsewhere in the communion.) As I said in “Saving Anglicanism,”

Is it not as likely that catastrophic conflict can be avoided””as it has been avoided for the past three centuries””not by getting more engaged in one another’s business, but by becoming more tolerant and less engaged? To interpret the current conflict in psychological terms, the Episcopal Church did not make traditionalists unhappy, they chose to be unhappy. They could have made a different choice. Perhaps the salvation of the Anglican Communion lies in less communication, less consultation, and less caring for one another.

This is really the only way forward that I can see if both the Anglican Communion and the integrity of the churches of the Communion are to be preserved.

I hope, then, that the General Convention will adopt a strategy that preserves the ability of The Episcopal Church to live out the Gospel as we understand God’s call to us in 21st-century America. This is a higher goal than preserving peace within the Anglican Communion or even than preserving the Anglican Communion itself.

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In terms of the mood of Convention – I have no idea. Things are spinning up so fast I’ve not really had time to have more than briefest of conversations with folks about anything other than the weather. The one thing I’m hearing from folks is that they are recognizing the crisis moment facing the Episcopal Church. (In terms of membership and money.) What I’ve not heard is any coherent response. Hopefully that will emerge.

But I’m not particularly worried. If it doesn’t emerge from General Convention (and I’m not optimisitic), I think is emerging now from the grassroots of the Church.

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I think the most interesting dynamic heading in to this General Convention is the distance between the two Houses. In the House of Deputies, there is little question of the majority’s desire to overturn B033 (the restraint resolution) and pass a resolution placing the blessing of same sex unions in the Book of Occasional Services. I say this based on the tragic departures of numerous reasserters as well as the shifts in deputations like those from the TEC remnant dioceses of Fort Worth and San Joaquin. I also base it on my overall feel of the deputations.

The Bishops is another matter altogether. Many of them got an earful at Lambeth 2008 about the damage they have caused around the communion. Even more important in my view, the bishops are presiding over many dioceses in which there is much conflict, financial struggle, membership loss, morale depletion, and on and on. The Bishops as a whole do not want to provide a further explicit means for even more controversy. I think they want to bypass B033 and pass a resolution with some kind of circuitous wording trying to state where TEC is now. They also seem to wish to pass a resolution on the same sex blessing matter which allows the current situation of the increasing embrace of the practice to continue, without explicitly adding more fuel to the divisive fires.

That’s a pretty big gap between the two Houses. We’ll see how and if it can be bridged. Right now, based on where things are, I think the institutional reappraisers among the bishops have the upper hand in the very short term. Therefore a more probable outcome is for the overall desire of the bishops to prevail.

But this is the General Convention of the Episcopal Church we are speaking about. Anything can happen. You can only speak in terms of probabilities.

If I were there, I would definitely want B033 on the floor of the House of deputies so it can be overturned. B033 is one of the sadder chapters in the recent history of the Episcopal Church. The way it was handled was shameful in both Houses, in Deputies where at a minimum the spirit of the House was trampled upon, and in the House of bishops where both the spirit and the letter of the law of that House were sacrificed on the altar of expediency. B033 never was even an accurate view of where the Episcopal Church stood, and it misled many in the Anglican Communion to think the situation was other than it was (in other words it was a lie). Many of us””both reasserters and reappraisers by the way””were maligned for voting against B033 at the time, but in retrospect I believe our concerns have been more than vindicated–KSH.

He didn’t like the Presiding Bishop’s address–find out why.

Check out which ones they are tracking.

A great picture from Sean McConnell of the Secretary of General Convention .

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Some conservatives who stayed with the Episcopal Church even though they disagreed on gay bishops and blessing same-sex marriage are concerned that sexuality issues interfere with the church’s missions and development in Third World countries. Since 2003, some African and South American Anglican archbishops have refused to take communion with Episcopal Church leaders or partner with the church on projects.

“There is a whole swath of the Episcopal Church struggling to make their way forward to do missions and the work of the church,” says Kendall Harmon, canon theologian for the Diocese of South Carolina.

He opposes gay bishops and gay blessings, but Harmon calls the current moratoriums a “fig leaf” that should be lifted so the church can be “honest” about its theological direction.

Still, both efforts may stall, says supporter Jim Naughton, canon for communications for the Diocese of Washington, D.C

Read the whole article.

The Right Rev. Thomas C. Ely, the bishop of the Episcopal Church in Vermont, is one of six bishops from states recognizing same-sex marriage to offer a resolution urging the church to allow them to extend a key marriage ritual to gay and lesbian couples.

The resolution will be introduced and debated at the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, which begins today in Anaheim, Calif., an event held every three years that features hundreds of church leaders and members debating the future of their faith.

Ely, who testified in favor of Vermont’s same-sex marriage law during legislative hearings this year, said he and the other supportive bishops hope the church will allow them to adapt a marriage prayer book to include same-sex married couples.

“Starting in September, how Vermont defines marriage will be a lot different than how the church defines marriage,” Ely said during a telephone interview from California on Tuesday. “What we are seeking is some flexibility so that same-gender married couples can have their unions blessed.”

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Read it all.

Check it out.

Resolution: D020
Title: Provincial Acceptance of Anglican Covenant
Topic: Covenant
Committee: 08 – World Mission
House of Initial Action: Deputies
Proposer: Father Daniel H. Martins

Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That the 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church make a provisional commitment to abide by the terms of the Anglican Covenant proposed in the most recent text of the Covenant Design Group (the “Cambridge-Ridley” draft); and be it further

Resolved, That the text of the proposed covenant be commended to the various dioceses of this church for study and comment during the coming triennium; and be it further

Resolved, That the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies appoint a Special Task Force to determine what constitutional and/or canonical measures may be necessary in order to make a permanent commitment to the Covenant; and be it further

Resolved, That this Special Task Force prepare a report to the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church that includes draft legislation that could be considered should the convention decide to make a permanent commitment to the Covenant.

EXPLANATION

The 75th General Convention passed resolution A166, which supports the participation of the Episcopal Church in the development of an Anglican Covenant. Since then, the Covenant Design Group has produced several drafts, culminating in what the members of the CDG believe is the final product of their work, the Cambridge-Ridley Draft.

The 75th General Convention also passed resolution A159, which affirms not only our commitment to interdependence in the Anglican Communion, but a desire to live in “the highest degree of communion possible.” The same convention also passed resolution A160, which offers an apology that “our failure to accord sufficient importance to the impact of our actions on our
church and other parts of the Communion” has “strained the bonds of affection” between the provinces of the Communion.

Since 2006, these strains have only grown more severe. Given our share in their creation, and in keeping with our long-held ecumenical position that for the greater good of the larger Church’s unity, “this Church is ready in the spirit of love and humility to forego all preferences of her own,” and as a sign of good faith toward our sisters and brothers across the Communion, it seems appropriate that we voluntarily and temporarily agree to order our life according to the terms of the Cambridge-Ridley Draft until such time as we can ascertain the level of its acceptance by other churches, and consider more fully the nature of our identity as a constituent member of the Anglican Communion of churches.

Resolution: C009
Title: Develop Rites for Same Gender Unions
Topic: Liturgy
Committee: 13 – Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music
House of Initial Action: Bishops
Proposer: Diocese of Atlanta

Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That the 76th General Convention of The Episcopal Church authorize the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to develop appropriate rites for the celebration and blessing of the sacred unions of gay and lesbian persons, taking into account the variety of civil arrangements for such unions available in the regions served by the church; and be it further

Resolved, That such rite or rites shall be presented at the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church.

EXPLANATION

In light of events following the Lambeth Conference of 2008, it is clear that our charitable restraint and response to the Windsor Report in the matter of our declining to develop a rite or rites to allow the celebration and blessing of sacred unions for people of the same gender has not had the effect of preserving unity and civility between those who believe such unions may be good and moral and those who cannot conceive as such a possibility being within the bounds of Christian faith and the Anglican Tradition. It is also clear that while a great many Episcopalians remain undecided about their own beliefs in these matters, they recognize both the desirability of allowing those who seek to make such commitments in the midst of their community of faith to do so; and that the reality that the cost of our charity has been at the expense of one clear minority within our church; and further that there is no compelling reason that these brothers and sisters should have to continue to bear the burden of that charity.
The development of such a rite or rites by and for the whole church will allow a restoration of decency and order from diocese to diocese under the guidance of each bishop, the ensuring of theological integrity to such rites and the capacity of the church to ‘sanction’ and declare such committed relationships among people of the same gender to be both moral and fully within the bounds of our common life.

Resolution C067 (From the Diocese of West Texas and assigned to the Committee on Stewardship and Development–KSH)

Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That the 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church direct the office of the Presiding Bishop and the Executive Council to provide the following information to each Diocese of the Church:

(a) The dollar amount spent by TEC on litigation against dioceses, parishes, groups of churches and individuals since General Convention, 2006;

(b) A list of the church accounts and/or budget items from which these funds were taken;

(c) An explanation of the line item described in the Domestic & Foreign Missionary Society Budgetary Summary as: Additional Draw from short-term reserve for legal support to dioceses exceeding budget for 2008-$1,520.000.00;

(d) The amount of money budgeted for litigation for the next Triennium;

(e) An estimate of the amount of property value retained and expected to be retained by the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA) because of pending and completed litigation as of General Convention 2009.

EXPLANATION

The Episcopal Church has engaged in litigation in numerous dioceses across the country in cases involving property disputes with local parishes which have elected to depart TEC. This litigation has been initiated by either the local diocese or the parish against the other party. TEC intervened as a party in interest aligned with the local diocese. Substantial legal fees and related expenses have been incurred on behalf of TEC. Beginning in 2007, requests have been made by various parties to the Executive Council which is responsible for the governance of TEC between General Conventions for financial disclosure of the source of funds and the amounts expended. However no response has been made to date.

Saw Steve Wood and Roades Hollowell (he introduced himself when he saw I was from SC – very friendly — was expecting a different sort of reaction to “SC”, but I guess that’ll come with time. His parents and my mom grew up in Mt. Pleasant together). Haven’t touched base with John Burwell yet this morning but we texted last night — it was great to have a welcome as I rode in from the airport.

I am blogging because I thought my voice might be a bit different from the other voices you will no doubt want to hear (Burwell, Wood, Kendall Harmon – from SC, Lydia Evans, etc.) as I am a lay person who’s never been to GC. I hope to write about things from a personal as well as as a leadership perspective — we shall see.

Read it all.

Jacksonville’s Carole Adams said she and her lesbian partner of 40 years will not return to the Episcopal Church even if its bishops and deputies approve liturgies for same-sex unions during their triennial convention beginning today in California.

Adams, 65, said she was heartened by the 2003 election of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire but left in disgust in 2005 during the resulting protest and exodus of conservatives from the denomination, including her former Southside parish.

“Why would you ever want to turn back to that controversy?” Adams said.

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The list includes:

Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of Brisbane, Bishop Suheil Dawani of Jeruselem, Bishop Jonathan Hart of Liberia, Archbishop Frederick Hiltz of Canada, Archbishop Henri Isingoma of the Congo, Kenneth Kearon of the Anglican Communion Office, Archbishop Paul Kwong of Hong Kong, Presiding Bishop Solomon Jongmo Yoon of Korea, Bishop Nathaniel Makoto Uematsu of Japan, Bishop Jonathan Hart of Liberia, Bishop Mauricio J.A. de Andrade of Brazil, and Canon Grace Kaiso of CAPA, and of course, Rowan Williams of Canterbury – along with some international clergy and provincial secretaries. Archbishop Daniel Deng Bull of the Sudan is also listed, but with lots of question marks.

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It is working very well for me so far.

During the July 6 gathering PB&F members said that Episcopalians have told them they expect the General Convention, the church’s triennial policy-making gathering, to pass a three-year budget that reflects the realities of the economy they live with each day. The members also said they sense a commitment to mission and openness to creative responses to the crisis.

“What I am hearing is that we’d better be realistic about our income projections,” said Diocese of New Jersey Bishop and PB&F member George Councell, who predicted his diocese’s income will be 25 percent less in 2010.

“To continue to go on as if nothing’s changed will send a completely wrong message to everyone,” agreed Diocese of West Virginia Bishop Mike Klusmeyer.

The Rev. Canon John Floberg (North Dakota) said Episcopalians in his diocese are “wondering how we make it through these tougher economic times as a whole church without losing the least and the marginalized.”

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