The 300-member congregation recently bought the former Playtime Drive-In movie theater to develop as their meeting place, and it held a bit of a surprise for staff members when they closed on the sale: cases and cases of pornography from the 1970s and 1980s.
“Obviously, we knew the right thing to do would be to destroy it, and not let it ever be out on the market, so to speak,” senior pastor Mark Eldredge tells NPR’s Melissa Block.
Five years after the consecration of an openly gay bishop, conservatives who have left the Episcopal Church have organized into a cohesive movement, creating a de facto, if small, separate Anglican church in the United States.
This month, the Diocese of Pittsburgh became the second diocese, after San Joaquin, Calif., late last year, to decide to leave the 2.2 million-member national Episcopal church. The dioceses of Quincy, Ill., and Fort Worth will vote next month. Those moves followed 15 Virginia parishes — including the large and well-known Truro Church and The Falls Church — that over the past two years have left their diocese because they view it as too liberal.
The conservatives have been bolstered by the breakaway churches’ legal victories in Virginia. Yesterday, Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Randy Bellows ruled Truro Church could retain ownership of land sought by the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia.
Go here, click “enter site here” and then find podcasts along the top to the right and click on that to find the sermon from September 28, 2008.
“I feel so much more joy and peace coming here,” said Nancy McBride, a resident of Palos Verdes Estates who left St. Francis Episcopal Church about five years ago and now attends Christ Our Savior. “What I know is right, and I no longer have to defend that view.”
John Whitmeyer, also a lifelong Episcopalian, came Sunday at the invitation of McBride, but describes him as “on the fence” when it comes to switching churches.
“It’s hard to leave a church where all your friends are,” said Whitmeyer, who has attended St. Francis since 1960. “I don’t want to leave the Episcopal church, but it is a ship that’s sinking.”
“And, may I just add, that I agree with Archbishop Rowan (and others) when he says that “the overwhelming concern of most Africans is clean water, food, employment, transparent governance.” To that, I would also add quality education, adequate health services, and freedom from the power of sin and oppression by demonic spirits. We do, in fact, spend much more of our time focused on these issues, along with evangelism, than on homosexuality ”“ despite the imbalance portrayed by the press.
“But, what we in the Global South have strongly maintained is this: When you are known to be the “Gay Church” and a church that can’t discipline itself, that severely hinders our ability to engage our communities on such issues as clean water, food, employment, and good governance. That is why we must resolve this conflict. It is not a matter that we can “agree to disagree” about homosexuality (and the underlying theology that leads one to the acceptance of homosexuality) and still pursue together the Millennium Development Goals. Our credibility and integrity as a church are seriously undermined because of the lack of resolution of the current crisis. It is not enough to be able to say that the official position of the Anglican Communion is Lambeth 1.10, because the lack of enforcement of that resolution seems to, in fact, render it null and void.
“The crisis in the Communion is about authority ”“ biblical authority and ecclesiastical authority. Regrettably, all the proposals coming out of the Windsor Continuation Group have been tried in the past five years and failed. However, even before we begin a re-examination of the Instruments of Communion and, in particular, the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury, we do have within our structures the ability to bring order out of the present chaos. Sadly, though, the Archbishop of Canterbury missed his biggest window of opportunity. If, in the end, the only means of discipline is through his power of invitation, he has, through his decision to invite the persistent violators of Lambeth 1.10 to the Lambeth Conference, blessed the deviations of the American and Canadian Churches, which have been consistently condemned by the other three Instruments of Communion.
We in the Global South believed the Primates’ Meeting had this authority – the 1988 Lambeth Conference urged the Primates’ Meeting to “exercise an enhanced responsibility in offering guidance on doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters” and the 1998 Lambeth Conference reaffirmed this.
So, it was appropriate, after the American decision in 2003, that the Archbishop of Canterbury convened an emergency meeting of the primates to address the biblical and ecclesiastical crisis into which the Americans had plunged the Anglican Communion. The primates, including the American primate, unanimously advised that the consecration should not proceed. Nonetheless, two weeks later, the primate in America presided at the consecration as bishop of a man living in a same-sex relationship. This was a deep betrayal.
Since that meeting there have been numerous other “betrayals” to the extent that it is now hard to believe that the leadership in the American Church means what it says. They say that they are not authorising blessings of same-sex unions, yet we read newspaper reports of them. Two American bishops have even presided at such services of blessings. Bishops have written diocesan policies on the blessings of same-sex unions. It is simply untrue to say they have not been authorised.
That such blessings continue and seem to be increasing hardly demonstrates “regret”, let alone repentance, on the part of the American Church. So, when the Archbishop of Canterbury invited these American bishops to participate in the Lambeth Conference, against the recommendations of the Windsor Report and the Primates’ Meeting, and in the face of the unrelenting commitment of the American Church to bless sinful behaviour, we were stunned. Further betrayal.
It was clear to me and to our House of Bishops that the Instruments of Communion had utterly failed us.
The church in Africa has often said that it conceives its mission in terms of service rather than power. It preaches to political leaders and leaders in other fields to use their position in service to humankind, especially the vulnerable. That means, in fact, that the church is concerned about the question of power.
It cannot avoid engaging the critical question of the manifestations of the use or abuse of power, which often lie at the heart of ethnic war and conflict in countries like Uganda where Church growth is phenomenal. And it is not just a matter of the bishops or the church challenging society about the proper use of power and position.
They too need to engage critically with the way they exercise their power over clergy and laity alike. It is inevitable to comment about the absence of the bishops at Canterbury of the Church of Uganda.
Bishop Ssenyonjo was deposed because of his consecration of a Ugandan priest “under discipline,” a Ugandan spokesman said. “One of the co-consecrators was another deposed Uganda Bishop, the former bishop of North Mbale. He had been deposed because he took a second wife. So, Ssenyonjo was not deposed because of his association with Integrity.”
On July 11 the Church of Uganda released a statement saying it had been assured by Lambeth Palace that Bishop Ssenyonjo “will not be seated with Bishops at the Lambeth Conference and will not participate in the deliberations during the Conference.”
The statement was released after a Kampala newspaper New Vision reported on July 7 that Ssenyonjo, the second bishop of West Buganda, would be the sole Ugandan bishop attending the Lambeth Conference.
The church’s provincial secretary, Canon Aaron Mwesigye, said, “We can only conclude that Christopher Ssenyonjo was invited by one of the gay lobby groups to be part of their demonstrations. He would, after all, need a letter of invitation from someone to get a UK visa.”
However, the “Official Programme & Event Guide” for the Lambeth Conference listed the self-select session on the official conference agenda, and Bishop Ssenyonjo was granted access to the bishops-only area of the conference on the tightly policed campus, prompting queries from the Church of Uganda.
[KIM] LAWTON: Many Anglican churches around the world, especially in Africa, Asia and South America, are strongly opposed to gay rights. The last Lambeth Conference in 1998 approved a resolution asserting that homosexual practice is “incompatible with Scripture.” International Anglican leaders had asked the U.S. Episcopal Church to exercise caution in moving ahead with gay issues. But Bacon says as a priest he must minister to the people in his pews.
Rev. [ED] BACON: By the authority of the Holy Spirit, and the state of California I pronounce that you are married.
So we have a responsibility here on the ground, at the grassroots level to move forward with justice, inclusion, love and compassion. And the bishops can talk about it, but we think the bishops will come around and see that we are exercising great pastoral responsibility.
LAWTON: All Saints also actively supports Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. Robinson’s 2003 consecration in the Diocese of New Hampshire set off a firestorm of controversy across the global Communion. Because of the turmoil, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual head of the Communion, asked Robinson not to attend the Lambeth meeting. But Robinson has gone to Canterbury anyway to advocate for gay issues outside the official meeting.
Bishop GENE ROBINSON (Diocese of New Hampshire): I go with a greater sense of focus on gay and lesbian, bisexual and transgender people around the world. In an odd sort of way, not being included in the official meetings gives me that greater opportunity to focus on that.
The Archbishop of Canterbury will be told this week to stop conservative clergy leaving their national churches and becoming bishops in other countries.
Dr Rowan Williams is to be lobbied by liberals who are dominating the ten-yearly Lambeth Conference, because more than 200 traditionalist bishops have boycotted the gathering as a result of divisions on gay clergy and women bishops.
He will be told that the process of conservative American clergy opting out of their national body and becoming bishops in African and South American churches goes against tradition and must be stopped.
Dr Williams will also be urged to prevent orthodox Anglicans, who believe the Bible teaches that homosexuality is wrong, from setting up a new province in North America to rival the Episcopal Church of the USA, which triggered the current crisis by electing the first openly gay bishop in the worldwide Communion.
Read it all. So, let us get this straight. None of these transfers to other Provinces in the Anglican Communion would be occurring if the Episcopal Church had not done in 2003 what the Anglican Communion in many different ways asked the Episcopal Church not to do. And, of course, what they did was against tradition.
Also, during the 2003 debate, any outside urging or attempted persusasion, or, even more strongly, intervention by Anglican authorities was seen to be an inappropriate transgression of provincial “autonomy.”
Now, however, that something is happening that the Episcopal Church leadership does not like, what is said leadership doing? Appealing to tradition, and asking for outside influence and intervention from Anglican Communion authorities. Got it? Pot, please meet kettle–KSH.
What was GAFCON about?
We determined to start a spiritual movement centred on Christ as the head of the Church and the Bible as the basis of our faith while accepting the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We had both the clergy and zealous lay Christians. It is a movement that will yield results similar to the East African Revival of the Balokole movement within the Anglican Church.
When will you implement GAFCON’s resolutions?
We have been practising all these resolutions like opposing sexual pervasions, using the Bible as the basis of our faith, evangelism, accepting the guidance of the Holy Spirit and maintaining the lordship of Jesus.
Besides homosexuality, what other practices set you apart from the Lambeth group?
Homosexuality is one of the symptoms of the disease. The disease is rejecting the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit by doing things on basis of corrupted human wisdom, leading to false doctrines. These people believe Jesus is not the only way to heaven.
How big is the Anglican community that subscribes to the GAFCON resolutions?
We comprise the biggest percentage of the worldwide Anglican community: 40 million out of 77 million Anglicans. One thousand one hundred-forty eight delegates representing 25 countries attended.
(Press Release)
The congregation of Christ Church, An Anglican Community for the Four Corners, has unanimously affirmed its vestry’s decision to come under the spiritual oversight of the Anglican Church of Uganda. Bishop John Guernsey of Dale City, Virginia, will serve as the new bishop for Christ Church.
Christ Church joins the former Bishop of the Diocese of the Rio Grande, The Rt. Rev. Terence Kelshaw, the Church of the Epiphany in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, and St. Peters Anglican Church in Fort Collins, Colorado, in recently coming under the oversight of the Church of Uganda.
Christ Church was established in February 2007 by a significant core of lay leaders, formerly with St. John’s Episcopal Church, Farmington, New Mexico. By March of that year, other lay leaders, vestry members and the pastoral staff from St. John’s Episcopal Church joined this core group. The Rev. Carl Brenner, Rector of St. John’s Church for almost eight years, was called as Sr. Pastor for Christ Church in July of 2007. Deborah Gregory, former Minister of Worship for St. John’s, was also called to serve as the Lay Pastor for Worship and Administration at Christ Church.
While oversight by the Province of Uganda is considered temporary until an orthodox structure for Anglicans is formed in the United States, Christ Church is eager to build an even stronger partnership with the Church of Uganda.
Along with the churches from Fort Collins and Cloudcroft, Christ Church has been teamed with the Karamoja Diocese in Moroto, Uganda. The poverty and strife of the area provide many opportunities for Christ Church to give support to this host diocese. Yet Christ Church members know they will receive far more in the exchange.
Six members of Christ Church traveled to Uganda on a Solar Light Mission’s trip in August of 2005. They were immediately captivated by the joy of Ugandan Christians, who transcend lives of poverty and disease through a vibrant faith that they quickly share with everyone they meet. That faith is based on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and the hope and guidance of Holy Scripture as God’s inspired word for the life and ministry of the Church.
Although the parish leadership is seeking property to establish a physical presence in the community, Christ Church has found a temporary home at Maranatha Fellowship Church, 618 West Arrington, Farmington. Services are being held at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday evenings in the Anglican tradition, with a twist that involves strong lay participation and contemporary praise and worship. For more information regarding the ministry of Christ Church, please contact us by email at christchurch4corners [at] mail [dot] com
As the divisions in the Anglican faith grow wider ahead of the Lambeth conference in the UK over homosexuality, Uganda’s Archbishop was in London last week to drum up support for traditional Anglican teachings.
But Archbishop Henry Orombi denied trying to ”˜poach’ traditional Church of England supporters.
Archbishop Orombi, who is Archbishop of Uganda as well as Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney, Australia and Archbishop Greg Venables, Primate of South America’s Southern Cone, were in London last week to address a meeting of the Church of England supporters on the formation of a new grouping within the church known as the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.
The meeting and the setting up of Foca drew strong criticism from the spiritual head of the Anglican faith, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.
But the three clergymen denied that they were trying to “seize power” within the church. Archbishop Orombi said that he had travelled to Britain to ”˜help restore traditional theology’ to the mother church.
Again, from the BBC blurb:
Is the Anglican Communion facing its biggest ever challenge? Traditionalists are angry, and their meeting in Jerusalem is seen as a challenge to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth conference next month. Henry Orombi, the Archbishop of Uganda, said homosexuality was only one of the dilemmas facing the church.
Who is organizing GAFCON?
GAFCON was conceived by the Anglican Archbishops of Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, the Southern Cone (South America), and Sydney (Australia). Evangelical Anglican Bishops from the UK and the USA were also involved in its organization.
How many people will participate in GAFCON?
More than 1,000 people have registered for GAFCON, including more than 280 Bishops, their wives, clergy and non-ordained church leaders. One hundred and seven (107) people from Uganda will be going, including 34 Bishops.
Why is GAFCON being held in Jerusalem?
GAFCON is essentially a pilgrimage. We are going back to the roots of our faith, to the place where Jesus was born, lived, died, and was raised from the dead.
The family of Mukajjanga Kibuuka Musigula, the chief executioner of the Uganda Martyrs, has apologised to the Church of Uganda, 122 years after he killed the Christians.
Namirembe Bishop the Rev. Samuel Balagadde Ssekkadde told pilgrims at the Namugongo Protestant Martyrs’ shrine yesterday that Mukajjanga’s grandchildren delivered their written apology to the provincial offices.
“We forgave them and welcomed them to the body of Christ and recruited them into the ministry of the Church of Uganda,” Ssekadde said as the crowd cheered.
The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
The Episcopal Church USA
815 Second Avenue
New York, NY
Dear Bishop Katharine,
I received word of your letter through a colleague who had seen it on the internet. Without the internet, I may never have known that you had written such a personal, yet sadly ironic, letter to me.
Unfortunately, you appear to have been misinformed about key matters, which I hope to clear up in this letter.
1. I am not visiting a church in the Diocese of Georgia. I am visiting a congregation that is part of the Church of Uganda. Were I to visit a congregation within TEC, I would certainly observe the courtesy of contacting the local bishop. Since, however, I am visiting a congregation that is part of the Church of Uganda, I feel very free to visit them and encourage them through the Word of God.
2. The reason this congregation separated from TEC and is now part of the Church of Uganda is that the actions of TEC’s General Convention and statements of duly elected TEC leaders and representatives indicate that TEC has abandoned the historic Christian faith. Furthermore, as predicted by the Primates of the Anglican Communion in October 2003, TEC’s actions have, in fact, torn the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level.
3. May I remind you that the initial reason the Lambeth Commission on Communion was appointed was because of unbiblical decisions taken by TEC in defiance of repeated warnings by all of the Anglican Instruments of Communion. The Windsor Report was produced and accepted in amended form by the Primates at our meeting in Dromantine, Northern Ireland, in February 2005. It is, therefore, quite ironic for you to be quoting the Windsor Report to me. Nowhere in the Windsor Report or in subsequent statements of the Instruments of Communion is there a moral equivalence between the unbiblical actions and decisions of TEC that have torn the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level and the pastoral response on our part to provide ecclesiastical oversight to American congregations who wish to continue to uphold the faith once delivered to the saints and remain a part of the Anglican Communion. Your selective quoting of the Windsor Report is stunning in its arrogance and condescension.
4. You and your House of Bishops rejected outright the Pastoral Scheme painstakingly devised in Dar es Salaam, and to which you agreed. You have, therefore, left us no choice but to continue to respond to the cries of God’s faithful people in America for episcopal oversight that upholds and promotes historic, biblical Anglicanism.
5. An important element of the Dar es Salaam agreement was the plea by the Primates that “the representatives of The Episcopal Church and of those congregations in property disputes with it to suspend all actions in law arising in this situation.” This was something to which you gave verbal assent and yet you have initiated more legal actions against congregations and clergy in your short tenure as Presiding Bishop than all of your predecessors combined. I urge you to rethink, suspend litigation and follow a more Christ-like approach to settling your differences.
Finally, I appeal to you to heed the advice of Gamaliel in Acts 5.38ff, “Leave these [churches] alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop [them]; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”
Yours, in Christ,
The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi
ARCHBISHOP OF CHURCH OF UGANDA.
Bishop Robert Duncan requests prayers for the Anglican Province of Uganda. He received word this morning that there was a fire last night at the Buddo Girls’ School in Kampala where 19 girls and two adults died. The fire appears to have been deliberately set. Mama Phoebe (wife of Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi) is presently in Virginia. They will be leaving tonight from D.C. with a 12 hour layover in London. Please pray for the families of the victims, for Mama Phoebe and the Rev. Helen, for Archbishop Henry and for all those involved.
A number of Anglican Communion Network parishes, under the care of Bishop John Guernsey, are members of the Anglican Church in the Province of Uganda.
The clergy and congregation of the Episcopal mission Church of Ascension in Cloudcroft have split from the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande and joined the Anglican Province of Uganda.
The diocese said this week its trustees and standing committee were told of the decision last week.
Last month Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori informed Bishop Kelshaw by letter that she had accepted his renunciation of the ordained ministry and that he was “deprived of the right to exercise the gifts and spiritual authority as a minister of God’s word and sacraments.” The action came after Bishop Kelshaw wrote the Presiding Bishop to inform her that he had left The Episcopal Church.
“It means little to me in that I don’t intent to squabble with her over this,” Bishop Kelshaw said, “but I did not renounce my orders. I wrote to her last February informing her that I felt called to request alternate primatial oversight and that my request had been granted by Uganda. I am still a bishop within the Anglican Communion.”
“I wanted to leave the Episcopal Church five or more years ago but believed then that having a Diocese to care for it would be harmful to them,” Bishop Kelshaw told The Church of England Newspaper.
“Frankly I have not taken Holy Communion in the House of Bishops in about thirteen of the fifteen years I was in there because I did not consider myself in fellowship due to the pronouncements they were making concerning themselves and the church,” he said.
Bishop Kelshaw stated that he will become “Bishop in Resident” at St. James, Newport Beach, California. St. James quit the diocese of Los Angeles in 2004 to join the Church of Uganda and is currently involved in litigation with the diocese. Being an “Episcopal” bishop while serving the Church of Uganda congregation in California “would create difficulties” in the litigation he noted.
“My ministry will be here in the US,” he said, and “hopefully [be] away from the present punitive, tyrannical, oversight” of the Episcopal Church.
After hearing about the five primates’ intentions to boycott Lambeth, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said February 15 that the conference will be diminished by their absence, and I imagine that they themselves will miss a gift they might have otherwise received. After hearing about the five primates’ intentions to boycott Lambeth, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said February 15 that the conference “will be diminished by their absence, and I imagine that they themselves will miss a gift they might have otherwise received.
(Church of Uganda News)
A CORRECTION on the Church of Uganda position regarding the Anglican Communion and the Lambeth Conference
“The Church of Uganda is not seceding from the Anglican Communion,” said Rev. Canon Aaron Mwesigye, church spokesperson. “Some press stories have misrepresented our position.”
“The plain fact is that we are simply not attending the Lambeth Conference in July 2008, but we are still very much a part of the Anglican Communion.”
The Church of Uganda broke communion with the Episcopal Church in the United States of America in 2003 after they elected and consecrated as Bishop Gene Robinson, a divorced man living in a same-sex relationship. But, the Church of Uganda has remained a consistently active member of the Anglican Communion.
“It is the Americans who have seceded from the Anglican Communion because of their decisions and their teaching,” Mwesigye said. “They have departed dramatically from the historic faith, teaching, and practice of the Bible and the Anglican Church.”
“How can they still be Anglican when they don’t believe what Anglicans believe?”
The Church of Uganda, along with many other Provinces in the Anglican Communion, urged the Archbishop of Canterbury to see that this crisis was resolved before convening Bishops of the Anglican Communion at the Lambeth Conference.
Since, however, the crisis has not been resolved, and since those who precipitated the crisis ”“ the Americans ”“ have been invited to the Lambeth Conference, the Church of Uganda has upheld its decision not to attend.
“The crisis in the Anglican Communion is very serious,” Mwesigye concluded. “It is not good stewardship of our limited resources to spend more than US$5,000 (8,500,000/=) per person for our Bishops and their wives to attend a three-week meeting which seems, in practice, to have no authority and is blatantly and persistently ignored by some of its wealthier member churches.”
Herewith the BBC blurb:
The Anglican Church of Uganda has announced that its bishops will not be attending this year’s Lambeth Conference, the meeting of worldwide Anglicanism that takes place once a decade. The Ugandan bishops cited what they called the “crisis” over homosexuality. The most Reverend Henry Orombi, the Archbishop of Uganda, talked to Sunday.
Stefan Stern writes about business and management issues for the Financial Times. In a recent column he turned his attention to the challenges facing the Archbishop of Canterbury. He discussed his take on the Anglican ‘brand’.
In an email to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori, dated February 14, 2008, The Rt. Rev. Dr. Terence Kelshaw stated that he has been received into the Province of Uganda. Bishop Kelshaw wrote, “I have therefore requested and been received into the Province of the Church of Uganda (where I once lived for two years) and I believe I sense a certain security and unity with that decision and with that Province.”
No consent to his resignation is required, since he is not a sitting bishop. The Presiding Bishop will, in due course, send out a notice that renunciation of his ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church has been received and he has been removed from our rolls and released from the obligations of ordained ministry in this Church. (Per David Booth Beers, Chancellor for The Episcopal Church.)
Bishop Kelshaw has been scheduled, for many weeks, to preside at the Confirmation Service at St. James, Clovis. After consulting with David Booth Beers, it would appear that, with the permission of the Standing Committee, Bishop Kelshaw can preside at the service without issue as to the validity of the confirmations. Canon Kelly is giving consent to Bishop Kelshaw for this weekend’s service of Confirmation. Further information will be distributed as events unfold.
(Church of Uganada News)
Church of the Province of Uganda
Statement by the Provincial Assembly Standing Committee on Lambeth Conference 2008
1. The Lambeth Conference is a gathering that brings together the Bishops of the Anglican Communion from all 38 Provinces of the Communion at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The conference is usually held every ten years. It provides Bishops with an opportunity for “worship, study, and conversation,” discussing and making resolutions that affect the Anglican Communion.
2. At the 1998 Lambeth Conference under Resolution 1.10 the Bishops overwhelmingly passed a resolution that rejects “homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture.” The conference also rejected the blessing of same-sex unions.
3. In 2003, in flagrant disregard of this resolution of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (TEC) elected as Bishop Gene Robinson, a divorced man living in an active homosexual relationship. The Primates, who are the Archbishops of all the 38 Provinces of the Anglican Communion, met shortly after that and warned the Episcopal Church not to proceed with the consecration of a practicing homosexual as a Bishop. They warned that, if they proceeded with the consecration, their action would “tear the fabric of the Anglican Communion at its deepest level.” Less than a month later, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church presided over the consecration of Gene Robinson. This action has divided the Anglican Communion in a profound way.
4. The Primates of the Communion have asked the American Church to halt further consecrations of practicing homosexuals and ceremonies for the blessing of same-sex unions. Regretfully, TEC has continued to bless same-sex unions, in ceremonies that were presided over, among others, by two Bishops.
5. The Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA) produced a statement entitled The Road to Lambeth that calls for this crisis to be resolved before the next Lambeth Conference is convened. The House of Bishops of the Church of Uganda endorsed this position at their meeting in December 2006. Since this crisis has not yet been resolved, the Bishops of the Church of Uganda have resolved that they will not be participating in the Lambeth Conference to be held in July 2008 in Canterbury, England, a position that the Provincial Assembly Standing Committee strongly endorses. This decision has been made to protest the invitations extended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. Rowan Williams, to TEC Bishops whose stand and unrepentant actions created the current crisis of identity and authority in the Anglican Communion.
6. The Church of Uganda, by this decision, wishes to reaffirm our commitment to the resolutions of the 2006 Provincial Assembly and Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which, in substance, denounced homosexual practice and called upon the Church to remain faithful to the Holy Scriptures.
7. Consultations are going on at different levels on how to deal with this crisis, which, among others, include planning for a meeting of Biblically orthodox Anglican Bishops, clergy, and laity to be held in Jerusalem in June 2008. We request the Church to continue in prayer as efforts are being made to find a lasting solution to this crisis. Further developments regarding this matter will be communicated to the Christians in due course.
Issued in Kampala this 12th day of February 2008
The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi
ARCHBISHOP OF CHURCH OF UGANDA.