Being Discussed are these three resolutions by The Council of the General Synod :

Resolution Number: A185

Subject: Voting Requirement for Resolutions A186 and A187
Moved by:

Seconded By:

Note: The mover and the seconder must be members of the General Synod and be present in the House when the resolution is before the synod for debate.

BE IT RESOLVED:

That resolutions A186 and A187 be deemed to have been carried only if they receive the affirmative votes of sixty percent of the members of each Order present and voting, and if a vote by dioceses is requested, only if they receive the affirmative votes of sixty percent of the dioceses whose votes are counted.
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Resolution Number: A186

Subject: Blessing of Same Sex Unions – Core Doctrine of ACC
Moved by:

Seconded By:

Note: The mover and the seconder must be members of the General Synod and be present in the House when the resolution is before the synod for debate.

BE IT RESOLVED:

That this General Synod resolves that the blessing of same-sex unions is consistent with the core doctrine of The Anglican Church of Canada.

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Resolution Number: A187

Subject: Blessing of Same Sex Unions
Moved by:

Seconded By:

Note: The mover and the seconder must be members of the General Synod and be present in the House when the resolution is before the synod for debate.

BE IT RESOLVED:

That this General Synod affirm the authority and jurisdiction of any diocesan synod, with the concurrence of its bishop, to authorize the blessing of committed same sex unions.

[Bishop Fred] Hiltz was coy with reporters yesterday – including journalists from overseas who are covering the Synod – about his personal views on same-sex unions.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to simply declare my position and thereby pre-empt the outcome of the (weekend) discussion,” he said.

But Hiltz made no secret of his irritation toward fellow bishops in African countries or “provinces,” who have imposed themselves in the affairs of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church by assuming “oversight” of conservative North American congregations who were unhappy with the liberal views of their own bishops.

Bishops of one country “interfering in the affairs of another,” said Hiltz, “is not on.”

Speaking to delegates soon after his election, Hiltz said whatever pressures he faces during his tenure, he will work hard to keep Anglicans together in “one great company of disciples.

“I love this church. I’ll always love it,” he said. “I will try to the best of my abilities to be a Primate that drives the church together, to keep people at the table and not to isolate them … to ensure that we remain together in Christ.”

Read it all

As gay-supportive Anglicans hold their breath for General Synod decisions in June – allowing local option for the blessing of same-sex unions and taking the first steps toward inclusive marriage – some Anglican clergy are already counting the cost of the Church’s failure to move forward more quickly. They foretell the consequences should Synod decide for the status quo, or worse.

In Saskatoon in January, the Rev Shawn Sanford Beck advised his bishop that he is no longer willing to restrict his pastoral ministry to conform to an “unjust law” and that he would, if asked, bless same-sex unions and officiate at same-sex marriages. “I will no longer discriminate against homosexual people when it comes to the exercise of my priestly duties,” the priest stated in an open letter.

Unlike recent cases in which a priest and archbishop quietly participated in same-sex marriage services and later had their license to marry temporarily suspended, Rev. Sanford Beck faced a more severe penalty for stating his intention publicly.

Saskatoon Bishop Rodney Andrews urged the priest to reconsider or lose his license to minister, not just to marry. Not willing to withdraw, Shawn lost his license and then his job as director of a downtown ministry serving aboriginal people. He cannot perform priestly duties without special permission, including within his role as chaplain to Integrity Saskatoon.

Shawn is undeterred, saying that he and his young family accept the consequences of his statement. “As a priest and leader in the church, my complicity in upholding our current law makes me at least partially responsible for the ongoing suffering of LGBTT Christians, and I can no longer take part in that. If my current action helps render visible that which has been made invisible, then I will be happy to bear the consequences. I too will stand ‘outside the gate’ where so many other queer Christians have been sent.”

Read the whole piece

Read it all. Many of us are watching the debate live here. The matter currently under debate is a slightly amended form of this resolution:

Subject: St. Michael Report
Moved by: The Ven. Dennis Drainville, Diocese of Quebec

Seconded By: Mrs. Barbara Burrows¸ Diocese of Edmonton

Note: The mover and the seconder must be members of the General Synod and be present in the House when the resolution is before the synod for debate.

BE IT RESOLVED:

That this General Synod accept the conclusion of the Primate’s Theological Commission’s St. Michael Report that the blessing of same-sex unions is a matter of doctrine, but is not core doctrine in the sense of being credal.

Update: The motion carries.

Another update: Peter has a description of the debate here.

Yet another update: The final amended language is apparently this:

BE IT RESOLVED:

That this General Synod accept the conclusion of the Primate’s Theological Commission’s St. Michael Report that the blessing of same-sex unions is a matter of doctrine, but is not core doctrine in the sense of being credal, and that it should not be a communion-breaking issue.

Watch it all.

Bonnie Crawford-Bewley points to a photo pinned to a tack board to help explain why she cares deeply about a vote by the Anglican Church of Canada this weekend on blessing gay unions.

Both Crawford-Bewley and her wife Michelle are beaming in the family snapshot, taken after their daughter Tiana, 8, was baptized by Crawford-Bewley’s father, a retired Anglican priest.

The couple had their relationship blessed in a non-Anglican church 17 years ago, but Crawford-Bewley said she is still bothered that her beloved Anglican Church is torn over whether to bless same-sex unions.

“Marriage is an important institution, and the church not being willing to bless our union and not being willing to marry us is very much making us second-class citizens,” said Crawford-Bewley, 45.

“It’s that constantly being told ‘You’re not good enough’ that needs to stop,” she said in an interview on the sidelines of the Canadian church’s general synod, its highest decision-making body.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, Anglican Church of Canada, Anglican Provinces, Canadian General Synod 2007, Same-sex blessings, Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion)

Unlike Bishop Matthews, Bishop Hiltz was not known for his theological conservativism prior to his election. At a time of such obvious doctrinal (and electoral) division, a major challenge for the new Primate could thus be the extent to which he will prove practically willing and able to reach out to all parts of the church, including conservatives, in keeping with Synod’s theme of “drawing the circle wide.”

Read it all.

Secular and church media, both from Canada and overseas, tried to pin the primate-elect down on where he stood on the controversial issue which is scheduled to be debated ”“ and perhaps decided ”“ by General Synod on June 23.

But Bishop Hiltz would only voice his support for the “synodical process,” or the church’s legal procedures, adding that he believed that the church needed to follow its processes and listen to the recommendations both of the Canadian church’s St. Michael Report (which examined the issue of whether same-sex blessings were a matter of doctrine) and the international Windsor Report, which recommended ways of keeping the Anglican Communion together in spite of deep divisions.

“We need, as a church, to look at all the dimensions,” said Bishop Hiltz, naming Scriptural study and matters of pastoral care as examples. “I have personal views, but I am conscious of the office I hold as a bishop and as a primate-elect. I don’t think it’s appropriate to declare my position ”¦ The conversation must go forward in the way that the church has decided it should go forward.”

Read it all.

The first limitation is an inadequate concept of what in the past has been called heresy (a word not used here), that is, a denial of core doctrine that breaks the church’s prior unity in faith. The Report equates core doctrine with what is affirmed in Anglican foundation documents and argues that blessing same-sex unions, whatever else it is, is not a violation of core doctrine, but is an adiaphoron, a secondary matter, which does not warrant any breach of church communion. But the reasoning on which this conclusion is based is not the whole story, though it is indeed part of it. However, a sounder, profounder concept of what in the past has been called heresy is: any belief or practice that negates any part of the New Testament gospel of Jesus Christ, understood as the divinely revealed truth that shows our sinful race the way of salvation from sin and sin’s consequences. This concept covers not only doctrines of the Creeds and Anglican foundation documents, but also the practice of faith in Christ, repentance, obedience, life in the Spirit, and personal holiness, according to the Scriptures.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 lists behavioral habits that, if not repented of and forsaken, keep people out of God’s kingdom, and male homosexuality is explicitly included in the list (vss. 9-11). Paul goes on to celebrate the power of the Holy Spirit sanctifying persons at Corinth who had previously lived in the ways he has mentioned. It seems undeniable that he would have viewed blessing same-sex unions as sanctifying sin, and thus as a denial of an essential ingredient in the gospel, namely repentance of all one’s sins and forsaking of them. And the gospel as such is surely the church’s core doctrine.

The gravity of the homosexual lifestyle as Paul views it warrants the description of it when found in the church as practical heresy; which raises the question, whether the suspending of full communion pro tem is not warranted and indeed needed as a disciplinary measure, aimed at bringing offenders to repentance. The Report fails to face this issue of conscience and wisdom, which arises from straightforward biblical exegesis and for some is very real and pressing.

Read it all.

Read it all and make sure to note the letter to the editor on the same subject as the previous blog post.

Read it all. This was already available in an earlier linked version of Anglican Journal Daily but I wanted to make sure (ahem, ahem) that you saw it. I agree with her 100%–KSH.

The collapse of authority goes further still. The bishops of the ACC, like those of the ECUSA, have utterly deconstructed their own authority. That authority is moral”“that is, it is based upon their fulfilment of a theologically-based mandate, that of the faithful acceptance and transmission of the authentic traditions of the Christian faith. By affirming homosexuality bishops have shown themselves unwilling to accept and assert this moral, i.e. theological, authority. Thus they can now look only to the canons”“I the bishop must be obeyed because that is what the rules, the legal mind, of the church demand. My imagination? Hardly. Look at New Westminster, Arizona, Connecticut, and elsewhere in the ECUSA. The Anglican church has now begun to persecute those folks who have been faithful supporters for decades and who will not follow a post-modern leadership into an abandonment of that which they have hitherto been led to regard as the truth”“and which the vast majority of Christians around the world, including most Anglicans, continue to regard as God’s will for humanity.

So it appears that anglophone, western, Anglicanism, has abandoned its three-legged stool, and has become a new form of Quakerism. By this I mean very simply that the authority of the Bible has now been abrogated by a new revelation which comes to us by way of what we feel. This is a very different church from that one which I thought I had joined, and I fear that another critic is correct when he states that apparently when ”˜radical’ Anglican bishops and their abbetors now speak, they speak of different gods. I am resolved to stay with the old one.

Read the full text of both letters here.

Read it all.

Read it all.

From ACC News:

June 22, 2007 — Results of the fourth ballot for the election of the Primate:

Bishop Fred Hiltz: Clergy:56 Lay:75

Bishop Victoria Matthews: Clergy:62 Lay:60

From ACC News:

June 22, 2007 — Results of the third ballot for the election of the Primate:

Bishop Fred Hiltz: Clergy:53 Lay:73

Bishop Victoria Matthews: Clergy:64 Lay:62

From the Winnipeg Sun:

But the delegates meeting in Winnipeg this weekend would do well to close their ears to those outside voices of dissent. Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, the primate of the ACC, said as much in his opening address earlier this week, when he urged delegates to obey their consciences on the divisive issue.

“The first principle of moral theology is obedience to conscience, and I ask each one of you to embrace that principle, and with it the ethic of respect for the conscience of those who disagree with your own,” Hutchison said.

If the delegates, listening to their consciences, vote to sanction same-sex unions tomorrow, they might not encounter that same “ethic of respect” among their fellow Anglicans in Uganda, Nigeria or other parts of the globe. But they must not let that deter them.

Canadian Anglicans have been at the forefront of social change within the worldwide church, taking the lead in ordaining women priests and bishops over the past 30 years. If they vote to create a group of second-class citizens within their church, they’ll be turning their back on that tradition.

Perhaps the choice isn’t that tough, after all.

Read it all.

From Saanich News:

“At the general synod they will decide whether there is to be no progress or whether we’re to go ahead and have that discussion,” said Rev. Ken Gray of Church of the Advent in Colwood. “Some of us feel that failure to proceed with the blessing of same-sex unions at this time will perpetuate a historical injustice.”

The Anglican church’s crisis of conscience over same-sex marriage began in earnest in 2002, when the Diocese of New Westminster started performing same-sex marriage ceremonies. One of the clergy who pushed for that decision was the Very Rev. Peter Elliott, the openly gay Dean of Vancouver’s Christ Church Cathedral and senior member of the Anglican Church in Canada. More controversy followed in 2003 when gay priest Gene Robinson was ordained Bishop of New Hampshire.

The two actions, in defiance of church policy, sparked controversy among Anglicans world-wide, with North Americans and Europeans split on the issue and African and Southeast Asian nations deeply opposed to gay marriage as contrary to Biblical teaching.

Rev. Ron Corcoran of St. Matthias Church in Oak Bay said leaving the church may be his only option should the Anglican leaders order all priests to bless same-sex unions.

“Nobody can force me to marry anybody,” he said. “It comes down to being obedient to my bishops. When I can’t be obedient to my bishops, then it will be time to leave.”

However for Rev. David Opheim, assistant priest of Victoria’s Christ Church Cathedral, the church’s existing position lost relevance long ago.

“There’s no question what we’re doing is a violation of human rights,” Opheim said, expressing concern that the church will make it optional to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies.

“We’re still dealing with not going far enough. There is still the option of the diocese opting out.”

Read it all.

Preserving unity in a church divided over issues such as same-sex unions will be a major challenge for the next leader of the Canadian Anglican Church, says a local bishop nominated for the top job.

Rev. Bruce Howe, bishop of the Anglican diocese of Huron, will find out today in Winnipeg if he’s been elected primate of the church — a job that would thrust him into leadership of the nation’s 800,000 Anglicans.

More than 300 delegates who have travelled to Winnipeg for the church’s general synod — where they’ll debate the contentious issue of whether to bless same-sex unions — will elect the new primate today.

“If God wants me to take on that piece of work . . . I will be more than happy to do what I can,” said Howe, who’s up against three other nominees.

Read it all.

Most of the world’s Anglicans are theological conservatives who believe [noncelibate] gay relationships violate Scripture. More liberal Anglicans emphasize social justice teachings in the Bible, leading them to support full acceptance of same-sex couples.

“We recognize we’re at a crossroads for the church,” said Rev. Canon Charlie Masters, head of the conservative Canadian group Anglican Essentials. “But the way to help this is to align ourselves with what the bible says, not what society says.”

Chris Ambidge, who leads the Toronto chapter of Integrity Canada, an Anglican gay advocacy group, argued that gays have been allowed to marry in Canada for four years “and the sun has come up bang on time every morning since then.”

“Canadians as a whole are prepared to live with it. Why can’t the Anglican church?” Ambidge said. “We need to progress if we’re going to remain relevant.”

Read the whole article.

Now on to A183 (full text follows below under “read more”–KSH). Report of the Windsor Report Response Group. Talking about the report. Talking about process now”¦.unity is the key”¦how do we deal with questions that are disuniting? Windsor report is about unity and communion in Christ”¦purpose furtherance of Gods mission to the world”¦..response came from committee 2005 to coordinate reponse”¦long process of consultation”¦..this report through CoGS Mar 2007. Three major sections of report”¦.ecclesiaology, listening, diversity”¦identify further work and consultation”¦what does reception mean, how to we understand authority of scriture, what is the meaning of is (sorry, editorial addition). Need to look at pp33-34 conclusion”¦need to look at this (forever?)”¦.part of a process and pilgramage….

Meaning of passed A183 – ACC passes a watered down acceptance of the WR – i.e. we will accept what we want to accept, in the way we want to accept it.

Read it all.

Resolution Number: A183

Subject: Report of the Windsor Report Response Group
Moved by: The Rt. Rev. Colin Johnson, Diocese of Toronto

Seconded By: The Ven. Peter Fenty, Diocese of Toronto

Note: The mover and the seconder must be members of the General Synod and be present in the House when the resolution is before the synod for debate.

BE IT RESOLVED:

That this General Synod endorse the report of the Windsor Report Response Group, as adopted by the Council of General Synod (March 2007), and that the following be forwarded, along with the report, to the Anglican Communion Office and the Provinces of the Anglican Communion.

The Anglican Church of Canada:

1. reaffirms its commitment to full membership and participation in the life, witness and structures of the Anglican Communion;
2. reaffirms its commitment to the Lambeth Quadrilateral, as received by our church in 1893;
3. expresses its desire and readiness to continue our participation in the ongoing life of the Communion through partnerships and visits, theological and biblical study, in order to foster Communion relationships, including the listening process and the development and possible adoption of an Anglican covenant;
4. reaffirms its mutual responsibility and interdependence with our Anglican sisters and brothers in furthering the mission of the church;
5. notes that, in response to the Windsor Report, the Diocese of New Westminster expressed regret, and the House of Bishops effected a moratorium on the blessing of same-sex unions;
6. calls upon those archbishops and other bishops who believe that it is their conscientious duty to intervene in Provinces, dioceses and parishes other than their own to implement paragraph 155 of the Windsor Report and to seek an accommodation with the bishops of the dioceses whose parishes they have taken into their own care; and
7. commits itself to participation in the Listening Process and to share with member churches of the Communion the study of human sexuality which continues to take place, in the light of Scripture, tradition and reason.

Read it all.

Anglicans and Lutherans took a pause on June 21 from their respective annual conventions to flow together for a day of worship that celebrated their six-year-old Full Communion relationship and was centered on the theme and imagery of water.

Since the date was National Aboriginal Day, indigenous peoples’ relationship with the land was acknowledged throughout and leaders of major Canadian denominations re-committed their churches to a covenant of support for natives.

“It is a day to be gentle with one another, to share in the bread broken and the wine poured,” said Rev. Richard Leggett, a member of the joint Anglican-Lutheran commission implementing the Full Communion agreement.

Read it all.

With seven days of meetings running from 6.30 A.M. to 9.00 P.M., the patience and stamina of delegates seemed likely to be tested to the maximum. With a strictly controlled agenda and the rather directive stance taken by the Council of General Synod in presenting its own motions on some of the most contentious issues, it was also questionable how much time and opportunity delegates would ultimately have to work through the implications of very significant decisions.

—John Oakes at Canada’s General Synod

Watch it all. It includes comments from Bishop Tony Burton of Sasketchewan, Archbishop John Sentamu, and Archbishop Andrew Hutchison.

One persepective on some of what is occurring at Canada’s General Synod. I especially liked the pictures.

From the Integrator:

In late May, the first invitations to the 2008 Lambeth Conference were issued. Gene Robinson, the openly gay and partnered bishop of New Hampshire, was pointedly not invited. That snub is shameful. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the person making the invitations, is clearly willing to sacrifice gay and lesbian people to appease the most strident conservative voices. The Lambeth Conference will certainly be talking about gay people in the church, and yet the Archbishop is deliberately excluding the openly gay voice. Once again, leaders in the church talking about gays and lesbians, not with us.

From the other direction, the bishops of Nigeria and Uganda have said that they will not attend if some are not invited too, or if other unacceptable-to-them bishops are at Lambeth.

If there is a silver lining to be found in the cloud, it is that the invitations come before the June meeting of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada at which resolutions about homosexuality will be discussed.

“This certainly takes some of the pressure off the Canadian Church,” said Steve Schuh, president of Integrity Vancouver. “We’ve been threatened for years with the possibility that Canadian bishops might not receive invitations to Lambeth if the Canadian Church failed to uphold the traditional discrimination against gay and lesbian people. The invitation announcement suggests that supporting same-sex unions – as has been done in Vancouver and many dioceses in the USA – is no bar to making the Lambeth Conference guest list.”

General Synod delegates will still need to stand up against other bullying tactics and calls for delay if they want to allow parishes to bless covenanted same-sex unions, but now they can discuss same-sex unions and vote their conscience without the threat of exclusion from Lambeth hanging over their heads.

The Winnipeg Synod will have significant impact – no matter what it decides – on the lives of LGBT Anglicans in their church. Please keep the synod, and the Integrity representatives there, in your prayers.

Read it all.

Bill Cosby tells us that there is a difference between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Mothers, he says are much better organized. They give their children a list of the things they would like. They then ask their children to go and ask their father for the money needed. With money in hand “go buy me something nice from this list and come home and surprise me.”

Fathers on the other hand do not have it so good. Cosby says that before Father’s Day he gives each of his kids $20.00. They then pool the money and spend $10.00 on two, three pair packages of underwear. They each wrap a pair separately and give the sixth pair to the Salvation Army. After Father’s Day, Cosby’s kids have done their duty and are then walking around with $90.00 of his money in their pocket. I think Bill Cosby was short changed by his kids.

I want to show you in this essay how we have shortchanged the Father by the way we have reduced the Gospel and its message. He has given us his resources and we have often used them for our self-serving ends.

I will do three things in this essay:

i) Give a Historical Context that will show us how we have over the past 110 we have been short-changing the Father;

ii) Illustrate how the teaching of Bishop Michael Ingham exemplifies this;

iii) Show how we within Essentials are called to recognize this and return to the Father what is rightfully his due.

Read it all.

“No scenario could emerge” from this week’s Anglican General Synod that would lead to the Archbishop of Canterbury expelling the Canadian church from the 76-million-member global Anglican denomination, says Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion.

The right-hand man to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said in a face-to-face Thursday interview:

“There’s no question the Anglican Church of Canada is a valued member of the Anglican communion. There’s never been a scenario considered that would lead to the exclusion of the Anglican Church of Canada.”

Read it all.

From ACC News:

For his part, Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion urged Canadian Anglicans to “take time to stand back from the Anglican Communion,” where the focus has been on schism over the issue of human sexuality, and look instead at its value.

“We do need to take time, stand back and celebrate our membership of that part of the body of Christ which we call the Anglican Communion; to rejoice in the wonderful family of which we are all part and to celebrate the wonderful ministry that is being done in many parts of the world,” said Canon Kearon.

Archbishop Sentamu urged delegates to re-examine “if we aren’t being challenged in our application of canon (church) law and gracious magnanimity in relation to the question of human sexuality.”

God, said Archbishop Sentamu, is “the supreme example of the one who is graciously magnanimous and who deals with others with gracious magnanimity.” He offered the example of the adulterous woman who was brought before Jesus. “He could have applied the letter of the law according to which she should have been stoned to death; but he went beyond justice,” he said. “As far as justice goes, there isn’t one of us who deserves anything other than the condemnation of God, but God goes far beyond justice.”

For a church to be “graciously magnanimous,” he added, it must have “a responsibility to both affirm moral standards and to ensure that its rules don’t seem rigorous to the point of inhumanity.”

Read it all.