Discussions will continue this week at the general convention in Anaheim, Calif., about the possibility of joining together the dioceses of Eau Claire and Fond du Lac.

Fond du Lac Bishop Russell Jacobus said although the local membership may have concerns about the future of St. Paul’s Cathedral if a new diocese is formed, the cathedral would remain a center of local religious activity.

“Both St. Paul’s and Christ Church in Eau Claire are seats for the bishop’s throne. I would not want to give up either,” Jacobus said.

Eau Claire’s diocese has been without a bishop since April 2008. Jacobus has performed some Episcopal functions in the diocese, including an ordination and confirmations.

“They could elect another bishop, which they can’t afford, or junction with another diocese. They are in the process of discerning what to do,” he said.

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Walking around the lobby I saw several old friends. The Rev’d Mark Goodman, former rector of Trinity Myrtle Beach, is here with his family. The Rev’d Kevin Martin and his wife, Sharon, are here. Kevin was one the key staff members at Episcopal Renewal Ministries (”ERM”) back when Chuck Irish was the director (mid 80’s ”“ mid 90’s). A little while later I ran into The Rev’d Tony Clark. Tony, the current Dean of the Cathedral in Orlando, was a year behind me at seminary. I’ll be curious to see how many old friends I’ll see since most of them have left the Episcopal Church over the past few years.

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We will have a lot of coverage on this, so the schedule will be something to keep bookmarked.

Consideration of the first two issues will take place against the backdrop of recent news that the House of Bishops has commissioned its second theological study in nine years on homosexuality.

In addition, House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson wrote to the deputies June 29 that it would be asked to consider convening in two rare “committee of the whole” sessions the afternoon of July 8 and the morning of July 9 “to exchange information and viewpoints among the deputies” and to inform the legislative committee that will consider all B033 resolutions.

Concern over the reaction from the wider Anglican Communion about eventual decisions made about Resolution B033 and same-gender blessings likely also will hover over the Anaheim meeting.

The Episcopal Church began studying issues of human sexuality in 1964, when General Convention said that “changing patterns in human action have raised inquiries concerning the church’s position on sexual behavior” and called for data gathering and studies that would result in recommendations to the next convention. Since then, the church has published 10 officially sanctioned studies and reports on human sexuality, including the 2005 “To Set Our Hope in Christ,” which summarizes the history of the debate and the changes in perspective the church has experienced.

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Blessings of same-sex marriage and removal of an informal ban on gay bishops are expected to be the top items at the upcoming 10-day meeting of the Episcopal General Convention, which starts Wednesday in Anaheim, Calif.

Since the 2006 General Convention in Columbus, Ohio, the number of states that have legalized same-sex marriage has increased to six.

Bishops from those six states – Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Iowa and Connecticut – have put forth a resolution asking a “generous and flexible response” to same-sex couples seeking to be wed in these states, according to Religion News Service.

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Check it out here and you can find more links with pictures there.

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…I felt I needed to at least say something about the Church, Anglicanism, and that failing institution, TEC. Frankly, at this point TEC is ecclesiologically analogous to a failed state in political terms. The Presiding Bishop has taken on authority never granted to her under the Constitution or Canons, the General Convention is at a point where folks within the church obey or disobey its edicts at a whim (whether on the left or the right), TEC can no longer interact normally with other churches in Christendom or in Anglicanism, and it is failing economically.

—Brad Drell of Western Louisiana who will not be present at the 2009 Episcopal Church’s General Convention

Some basic information is here–I got a lot of questions about this this week

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.

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Eight members of the Episcopal Church’s House of Deputies are scheduled meet privately with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams at General Convention in a session that is intended in part to address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues in the church.

General Convention meets July 8-17 in Anaheim, California, and Williams will be present July 7-9.

The session is not an official convention meeting and thus there has been no announcement of the plans. However, when contacted by Episcopal News Service, the Rev. Canon Michael Barlowe of the Diocese of California confirmed the details.

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The House of Deputies will be asked to consider meeting in two unusual sessions early in the 76th meeting of the General Convention to discuss Resolution B033 passed by the last convention.

“The purpose of this discussion will be to exchange information and viewpoints among the deputies, and to inform Legislative Committee #8 World Mission, to which committee all the resolutions relative to B033 have been assigned,” House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson wrote in a June 29 letter to deputies and first alternate deputies.

Anderson wrote that she believes the House of Deputies “will benefit by having an opportunity to discuss B033 apart from the context of legislative procedure” and noted that “many deputies have indicated their longing to discuss B033 together as a house.”

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The sense of the Committee is that our work is not yet complete and that we have not had sufficient time to discuss all of these matters as fully as we would like. We offer this document to the House of Bishops and the larger General Convention as an initial reflection. In this document we try to reflect some of the issues around which our discussions have coalesced, though often without resolution. We also raise several issues and questions regarding the practice of “open communion.” These are issues that have either come up in our face to face discussions or from our examination of essays written on this topic or from conversations at various levels in our own dioceses. There may be need in the future to produce a more substantial document after further discussion and consultation with the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music and after receiving responses to this paper.

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In January 2008 representatives of the Dioceses of Eau Claire and Fond du Lac met to discuss common mission opportunities because of similar ministry challenges, comparable demographics and shared heritage of the dioceses. The idea of possible juncture came up during this meeting, with an understanding that such a possibility should only be pursued if there were clear mission benefits.

In the fall of 2008, each diocese’s convention passed resolutions seeking consent to begin the juncture process from General Convention. Passage of these resolutions was made with an understanding that consent of General Convention was the necessary first step in the process of discernment.

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Unlike the previous General Convention, next month’s gathering faces a “vague anxiety level” over multiple issues as opposed to just one, said the Rev. Canon Charles K. Robertson, canon to the Presiding Bishop. He made the remarks during a June 24 lecture at Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS).

The comment came in response to a question as to whether a final decision on issues such as same-sex blessings would come out of the General Convention. Canon Robertson said that Resolution B033 from the 75th General Convention, consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester as Bishop of the Northern Michigan, and the budget are all flash points causing anxiety for different Episcopalians.

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(ENS) Income during the 2010-2012 triennium could be $9 million less than forecast last January, when a draft churchwide budget was approved, according to the chair of the Episcopal Church’s budgetary committee.

Pan Adams-McCaslin, chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget and Finance (PB&F), said in a June 24 interview that diocesan commitments during the next three years could be an estimated $7.7 million less and interest on the church’s endowment funds is projected to be $1.3 million less.

The diocesan figure is an estimate based on an on-going survey of bishops and diocesan financial officers, she said. They have been asked how realistic it is to assume that they could fulfill the Executive Council’s predicted one percent increase in diocesan income in 2010 and two percent increases in both 2011 and 2012.

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As I stated in my Bishop’s Address at our Diocesan Convention in March, I see little reward or benefit in expending our resources and energies in unfruitful expeditions trying to stem the tide of revisionism in The Episcopal Church. Certainly I ask those who are intercessors to pray that God would “stay the hand of the revisionists” at General Convention. And we who attend will, under God, carry out our roles in faithful witness to the truth as we have received it in Holy Scripture and in the traditions of the Church. But the creative thrust of the diocese””beyond the gospel imperative to preach the gospel, make disciples, and plant churches as missionary outposts of the Kingdom of God””needs to be elsewhere than in political machinations of the General Convention. As I’ve stated before, God has called us to help shape the future of Anglicanism through mutually enriching missional relationships and through inter-diocesan, inter-provincial accountability. Certainly, Kendall as our Canon Theologian will monitor the developments at General Convention 2009, but I believe it is in keeping with our declared vision as a diocese to focus on what we believe God is calling us to do, not on the strategies and battles he called us to engage in yesterday.

Before I conclude, let me address an issue that I find is sometimes confusing to many within the diocese, as well as those who are watching us in the reappraiser wing of North American Anglicanism, specifically in what is called “The Inside Strategy.” Among the writers and bloggers of North American Anglicanism there has emerged what some call the inside and the outside strategy in battling with heterodox teaching and practice in the Church. Some who were once Episcopalians have left because they were convinced that anything resembling orthodox belief and practice was lost. Many of these are now gathering at the ACNA convention. They are sometimes referred to as engaging in the outside strategy. That is, in the cause of orthodoxy in North American Anglicanism they have left previously official churches, such as the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church in the United States. According to this understanding it is believed the best way to revive or reform Anglicanism in North America is to work outside the established churches of the Anglican Communion. In distinction from those outside there are those who remain within TEC and the Anglican Church in Canada. Since they are staying, but still hold to the same understanding of the faith as those who have left, it is assumed by some that they must be carrying out an inside strategy of reformation. We in South Carolina are then said to be carrying out such an agenda””battling for orthodoxy, seeking to win back the day in The Episcopal Church in some maneuvering of ecclesiastical politics. While some within the Church may indeed be doing this, it is certainly not my intent. The stakes at present are much higher than what is happening in Episcopalianism or the continuing Anglican bodies in North America.

If we could be said to be carrying out an “Inside Strategy” it is not towards TEC: it is toward the Anglican Communion. Put simply, we remain inside the structures of the Communion to help shape the emerging Anglicanism of the 21st Century so long as we are able. It is ironic that as one of the few dioceses of The Episcopal Church with documented growth in every significant metric of measurement””membership, average Sunday attendance (ASA), spiritual vitality, finances, missional relationships through the last decade””we can influence the developments within global Anglicanism more effectively than we can influence our own Church! When conferences are held for bishops and leaders in TEC about growth and reaching new generations, why are experts brought in from non-Anglican sources and the prior architect of growth in the one diocese in TEC that has documented growth, Bishop Salmon, is not invited to speak? Why are the rectors in this diocese who have so clearly effectively reached their communities with the gospel never once referenced or consulted? Even the Presiding Bishop had to revise her statement that no diocese in TEC had seen growth, when documentation was cited that South Carolina had seen significant decadal growth. But, irony aside, getting back to my main point, our “Inside Strategy” is not to tilt at windmills in Quixotic fashion thinking we can turn back the clock to some prior age; it is to help shape the future that is emerging in global Anglicanism from within the Communion.

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Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will make a presentation addressing the world’s economic crisis during a panel discussion webcast live July 8 from the Episcopal Church’s 76th General Convention, scheduled to take place July 8-17 in Anaheim, California.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson will host the event, to be called “Christian Faithfulness in the Global Economic Crisis” at the Anaheim Hilton from 6:15 to 7:30 p.m. PDT (10:30 p.m. EDT).

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An amended 2009 budget was approved by the diocesan Executive Board on Thursday, May 7 that reflected an adjustment for the $335,000 shortfall from the anticipated budged presented during the 2009 Annual Council. The significant decrease in pledges from congregations to the diocese made it necessary to adjust the programs and services provided, reorganize and reduce staff and decrease support of the national church, Chanco on the James, communications and other programs. Only the financial support from the diocesan budget for youth ministry services was not considered for adjustment.

Based on the needs of the congregations in the diocese for services and support programs, and after factoring in income from investments, the Executive Board in the Fall of 2008 requested that each parish contribute nine percent of its previous year’s pledge and plate income to support the programs, outreach, education and parish services provided through the diocese. The 2009 budget approved at Annual Council reflected the move to a permanent bishop, a youth missioner, an increase in the contribution toward the ministry of the national church, chaplains, outreach, and other programs.

Read it all from the front page of the diocesan newspaper (and note the article continues over on page 8).

Check it out (8 page pdf)

Six years ago, Georgette Forney, head of an Episcopal Church pro-life group, asked the church to create a healing service for people like herself and others she encountered who had had abortions.

She terminated a pregnancy when she was 16. “For 19 years I was fine. I never thought about it,” she told a committee that was considering liturgy legislation at the 2003 General Convention. Then, one day, without warning, she opened an old yearbook and “felt the presence of my child.

“I did not expect this, I did not plan for it, and I was overwhelmed when it happened. I didn’t know how to cope,” said Forney, president of Anglicans for Life (formerly the National Organization of Episcopalians for Life or NOEL).

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Thirty-seven bishops, including five Canadians, one from Scotland, and one from Ireland, recently joined six episcopal faculty members and 10 guest instructors in North Carolina for a College for Bishops’ residency program.

The three-year Living Our Vows program is designed to support the spiritual health and personal development of new bishops. A series of three residential retreats is complemented by peer coaching with an experienced bishop, according to a news release.

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The [Episcopal Church General] convention’s host, the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, has tried to send a message by approving a policy at its December convention that gives local priests permission to officiate at rites of blessing for same-sex couples.

“I think it’s about time we get about the business of having marriage equality in the church,” said the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, bishop of the Los Angeles Diocese. “I am waiting with bated breath to see what happens” at the Anaheim meeting.

Conservative Episcopalians argue that liberalized policies will not only alienate U.S. parishes but will also add further strain to the church’s troubled relationship with church leaders in Africa and elsewhere in the global Anglican Communion.

This month, one of the communion’s worldwide leadership bodies affirmed its support for moratoriums on consecrating non-celibate gay bishops and on blessings for same-sex couples. The group was led by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the communion’s spiritual leader, who is scheduled to attend the Anaheim convention.

Resisting those mandates will “turn up the flame,” said the Rt. Rev. Edward S. Little II, bishop of the Diocese of Northern Indiana and a leader in a group of clergy trying to strengthen Episcopal ties to the Anglican Communion. “If we take a step at General Convention that takes us down the road, we will lose more people,” he said.

Still, the Episcopal Church’s presiding bishop, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, said she believes the U.S. church and its global partners can co-exist even if they disagree on the rights of gay men and lesbians in the church. She also said she did not expect this year’s convention, at which bishops, clergy and lay leaders are allowed to vote, to reach a decision on the issue of same-sex blessing rites.

“We’re not afraid of people watching over our shoulders,” Jefferts Schori said. “We live with diversity on issues that get people charged up.”

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The 76th General Convention this July will be asked in various ways to continue the Episcopal Church’s mission of living out the baptismal covenant vow to “strive for justice and peace.”

Already-filed resolutions, most contained in the triennial reports of the church’s commissions, committees, agencies and boards, address social justice issues and echo the baptismal promise to “respect the dignity of every human being.”

Leading the list of new domestic initiatives to be considered at the convention in Anaheim, California, is one from the Executive Council’s Jubilee Advisory Committee to establish a program to alleviate domestic poverty.

Arising from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s May 2008 summit on domestic poverty, the resolution focuses on the poorest counties in the United States that encompass federal reservations for Native Americans.

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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.”

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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.

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Call me naive, but I see another opportunity in Anaheim for our church to be a positive witness to the world–a model of how passionate believers can champion their causes and still remain committed to the foundational beliefs that unite them.

That’s another way of saying that the Episcopal Church, and other religious bodies, need to be able to discuss divisive issues in ways that go beyond the ol’ winners-and-losers model.

There’s little chance that a bolt of lightning will convince liberals and conservatives that their differences have evaporated. But with patience and humility, we as a church can still learn a lot from each other–if we stay at the common table.

There are some who say we’ve been listening too long, that’s it’s time for up-or-down votes on whether the Episcopal Church should allow more gay bishops or should officially bless same-sex relationships.

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Viewed as a political prize, however, the Church ceases to be a Church. Its mission is being determined by politics rather than under the governance of the Holy Spirit. So long as the battle rages for the prize, the fiction that it is a Church has to be maintained at all costs, because no one who could affect the outcome must realize what is at stake. And with the publicizing of views like those expressed in the Bishops’ Statement, the risk is now great that the momentum so carefully accumulated over the years will be seen for what it is: nothing more (or less) than a political attempt to take over a money machine.

And that is why the Bishops, the ACI and its lawyer have received the treatment they did. Only those who are plotting already can regard the publication of such a power-renouncing statement of subsidiarity as “an unprecedented power grab by anti-gay bishops who will assert they are not bound by the Episcopal Church’s governing body: General Convention.”

The spectacle of taking over a church politically, of even speaking in terms of a church “power-grab”, is so antithetical to the essence of a church that in the end it must be self-defeating.

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