During the plenary session, [Katharine] Jefferts Schori and [Bonnie] Anderson reported on their activities since the March Council meeting.

Later in the afternoon, Nigerian Anglican Davis Mac-Iyalla, founder of his country’s only gay-rights organization, Changing Attitude Nigeria, met with Council’s International Concerns (INC) and National Concerns (NAC) committees.

During her remarks to the plenary session, Jefferts Schori told Council that recently she has been contemplating how language can be used to allow for “true conversation” — what she called “non-violent language” — or how “violent language” is used instead for “leaping to judgment.”

The church, Jefferts Schori said, must consider how it interacts with the world. “How do we keep the space open so that we can truly learn from each other?” she asked.

Jefferts Schori also outlined her travel schedule and the various groups and people with whom she has met. Most recently she spent time with Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams while she was in Washington D.C. last week to testify on global warming before a U.S. Senate committee hearing. Williams is spending much of a three-month sabbatical at Georgetown University.

Anderson concentrated her report to Council on her experience of the Towards Effective Anglican Mission (TEAM) conference in South Africa in March and her subsequent travel to Livingstone, Zambia to participate in the rollout of an Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) anti-malaria project.

The Episcopal Church’s Chief Operating Officer Linda Watt also gave Council an overview of what she called “the richness of the work” done at the Episcopal Church Center in New York City. She urged Council members to visit the church’s website to access the websites of individual mission and ministry website “where you can really feel the pulse of the work we are doing directly.”

Read it all.

When the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church convenes June 11-14 in Parsippany, New Jersey, its members will spend time reflecting on the past, present and future shape of the Church and of the Anglican Communion, as well as considering issues of ministry and governance.

The Church’s governing body between General Conventions will, as part of its agenda, look to the past to hear a report about the effort to gather information about how the Episcopal Church may have benefited from slavery.

The Council will look to the present and the future as it discusses how the Church might reach out to Episcopalians in a small number of dioceses and parishes where the leadership is disaffected with the wider Church.

Council will consider a report and resolutions in response to portions of the communiqué issued by the Anglican Primates at the end of their February meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; get a summary of responses to its invitation for Episcopalians to discuss the proposed Anglican Covenant; and will hear about the experience of one gay Anglican in Nigeria.

“I am sure that a number of international concerns will be the subject of our conversation and deliberation,” said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. “Among them, Anglican Communion issues, of mission including the Towards Effective Anglican Mission meeting and matters of peace and justice such as our Millennium Development Goal efforts. We’ll talk about how we can grow our partnerships around the Communion; as well as relationships with our covenant partners such as Brazil, Mexico and Philippines.

“The current conflict around the draft Anglican Covenant and the process for its consideration, as well as the Lambeth Conference and the House of Bishops’ response to the Primates’ Communiqué, will be discussed. We will also include in that discussion the conflict caused by incursion into the Episcopal Church from other members of the Anglican Communion.”

“We will consider domestic issues including the federal Farm Bill and our concern about domestic poverty, as well as matters of internal governance,” she continued.

Read it all.

Given this situation, we would make the following points and raise the following questions:

1. ACI has defended not only a collaborative understanding of the Instruments of Unity, but their integrity as well. The failure of the ABC publicly to state that the Dar es Salaam Communiqué is alive and well has been injurious to our common life. It has also been intimated in certain quarters that the adjudication of the Communiqué will be undertaken by a Joint Steering Committee of the Primates and the ACC. We trust that this rumor is mistaken. The Primates have worked hard and declared their intention, and their recommendations and requests are fully within their remit as an Instrument with enhanced responsibility, whose present character was requested by other Instruments of Communion. Lacking any clear understanding of the precise fate of the Communiqué has left the field open for manipulation and the multiplication of other initiatives, borne of fear, concern, power balancing and so on.

2. ACI has sought to work with the Windsor Report, the Covenant, and within the US, the Windsor Bishops. One can watch with curiosity and concern the proliferating of various groups within the conservative ranks, most recently, a Common Cause College of Bishops (as proposed), CANA, and others. The Anglican Communion Network would appear to have split into those bishops now headed toward the Common Cause College, and those who wish to continue on the Windsor path. But to the degree that the Windsor Bishops have no clarity about the future of the Primates’ Tanzanian Communiqué, and hence a comprehensive, ordered response to their Communion life in troubled times, they will collapse altogether. Indeed, one wonders what role they might be expected to exercise in the light of such unclarity.

3. It is our understanding that the recent issuing of Lambeth invitations was done in the light of organizational concerns and the timing of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s leave. The ways in which the Archbishop has reserved to himself all manner of options, discernment, and counsel regarding the ultimate character of invitations–which is his right to do–means that speculation about the character of the conference is bound to be only that. Still, it is speculation capable of generating unease and reaction that is not always constructive.

Read it all.

A palpable sense of apprehension was in the air as the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church gathered at Camp Allen in Texas on 16 March 2007, for their five-day spring meeting. Everyone was in a dither about the recently issued Communique from the Dar es Salaam meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, calling for an ‘unequivocal’ response from the American bishops to the Windsor Report requests for a moratorium on the blessing of same-sex unions and the consecration of any bishop living in a same-sex partnership. The bishops have to give an answer by 30 September 2007.

Gracious conversation

In the days leading up to the meeting, all the bishops had been peppered by emails and letters from the lesbi-gay lobby group to ‘just say no!’ to this interference in our internal affairs. The Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, preparing to preside at her first meeting of the HOB, wrote to all the bishops to assure them that no decisions were to be made on the Communique at this meeting and to publicize that fact to others. This was to be a time for gracious conversation and careful listening to one another. Decisions were to be put off until the September meeting of the House in order to comply with the Primates’ deadline.

However, the liberals were not buying that approach and were determined to take a stand now, perhaps not on the issue of the requested moratoria, which could wait until September, but certainly on the proposed Pastoral Scheme that would undermine the canonical integrity of TEC. A small group of bishops had been discussing a paper that they would spring on the meeting near its end and had arrived at Camp Allen with draft copies in hand. Their urgency was driven by a fear that the Archbishop of Canterbury was moving too quickly in the formation of the Pastoral Council and the selection by Windsor Bishops of a Primatial Vicar who would minister to those congregations and dioceses who were alienated from their church by recent actions of the General Convention.

So after much talk and prayer, as the final day approached, a business session was called and the bishops moved into the legislative mode, adopting two ‘Mind of the House’ resolutions, ‘A Communication to The Episcopal Church,’ and a pastoral letter entitled ‘A Message to God’s People.’

Two resolutions

The first resolution, while affirming the desire for TEC to remain a full member of the Anglican Communion, called the proposed Pastoral Scheme ‘injurious to The Episcopal Church’ and urged the Executive Council to ‘decline to participate in it.’ Never mind that the Communique never asked the Executive Council to do anything about the Pastoral Scheme and that the Presiding Bishop had declared her support of such an arrangement at the Primates’ Meeting; the majority of the bishops felt the need to act quickly and decisively to protect ‘our own polity and canons.’

The second resolution, proposed by Central Florida Bishop John Howe, a member of the Anglican Communion Network, again affirmed a ‘passionate desire to remain in full constituent membership’ in the Anglican Communion, underscored that ‘we are unable to accept the proposed Pastoral Scheme,’ and went on to cite ‘an urgent need’ for the HOB ‘to meet face to face’ with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates’ Standing Committee ‘at the earliest possible opportunity’ The resolution even went on to give the assurance that such a meeting would be ‘at our expense for three days of prayer and conversation regarding these important matters’ But, one might ask, why the need for such an additional meeting? Do they expect the ABC and Standing Committee to repudiate the requests for moratoria made by the Windsor Report and reaffirmed by the Primates? Is it an opportunity to explain once again the unique polity of TEC that all orders – bishops, priests and laity – have to be involved in making policy decisions for this church? Is it just an effort to delay the inevitable decision to walk apart? The resolution was adopted without dissent.

Then it was time to perfect the ‘Message to God’s People,’ which some bishops had been working on for days in advance of arriving at Camp Allen ‘for conversation.’ After carefully pointing out the international make up of TEC – ‘we represent fifteen sovereign nations, the fifty United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, The Virgin Islands, and Micronesia’ – the statement trumpets the ‘ health and vitality of our Church.’ Mention is made of the Millennium Development Goals (but of course!), the work of the Covenant Drafting Committee, the war in Iraq, and the progress of the Bishop’s Task Force on Property Disputes. Then comes the heart of the matter: the Communique from the Primates.

Millennium development goals

In a rather self-serving and defensive fashion, the statement goes on to say (once again!) that though we really want to remain in the Anglican Communion, we must do so on our own terms. Down with the Pastoral Scheme, down with the appointment of a Primatial Vicar and Pastoral Council, down with foreign interference in the life of TEC! The Primates are chastised for the Communique’s failure to draw attention to ‘the pressing issues of violence against gay and lesbian people around the world, and the criminalization of homosexual behavior in many nations of the world.’ The statement concludes with the promise of ‘a teaching guide’ that will be provided for the study of the Communique and the proposed Covenant. We can hardly wait!

As for the last document, the pastoral letter – it contains more of the same. You really must read it to believe it! It is the most robust defence of our rights and privileges as American Episcopalians that I have seen to this date! The Windsor Bishops and the Anglican Communion Network have yet to make a specific response to the Camp Allen decisions and declarations. And as for the HOB of TEC, they shall meet again in the fall for more graceful conversation and careful listening.’ As we say in Texas: ‘Well, bless their hearts!’

–(The Rt. Rev.) Jack Iker is Bishop of Fort Worth; this article appears in the May 2007 issue of New Directions Magazine

Readers are encouraged to read through much related material to the House of Bishops study document at this (relatively new) website–KSH.

(ENS)

Mary Frances Schjonberg

The Theology Committee of the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops on June 1 released a study document aimed at helping the bishops respond to the requests made to them by the Primates of the Anglican Communion.

The 15-page “Communion Matters: A Study Document for the Episcopal Church” is available online. A color PDF version of the document is available here. A black-and-white PDF version is here.

Theology Committee chair and Alabama Bishop Henry Parsley told Episcopal News Service that the report is meant for bishops to use in conversation with the people of their dioceses in the three and a half months between now and the mid-September meeting of the House of Bishops in New Orleans. Rather than call for responses from individual Episcopalians, Parsley said the committee will in late August and early September gather input from bishops on the result of their conversations in their dioceses.

He said the committee hopes that Episcopalians will “read, mark, inwardly digest and then come talk” about the document with their bishop.

“Every diocese will have to do that in their own way,” he said. “We didn’t want it to be an individual thing. We wanted it to be a diocesan, corporate process overseen by the bishop.”

Parsley said the corporate nature of the conversations is important, given the nature of the requests made by the Primates at the end of their February gathering in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania via a communiqué.

“The Anglican tradition is always that bishops are in the midst of the people of God and, when thinking about important matters, need to take counsel with the deacons, priests and laypersons in order to be well-informed and to listen to the Church,” he said. “We felt that since the communiqué addresses the request to the House of Bishops in response to resolutions of General Convention, we couldn’t just act unilaterally. We needed to take counsel with the people of the Church in responding to the communiqué.”

He added that bishops need to exercise their “unique role as chief pastors and teachers … but we exercise it best when we are in conversation with — in counsel with — the Church in our dioceses.”

“Communion Matters” begins with a preface in which the committee writes that it offers the document “as a contribution to the discernment of this church as we seek the mind of Christ and endeavor to be faithful to our calling as members of the Anglican family in the world.”

It includes three chapters of information, a set of questions for reflection and resources for more background.

The preface says that the guide aims to be a summary, not an exhaustive history.

“Constraints of space and concerns about maintaining easy readability prevent us from recounting all the important details of the conversation taking place in our church and Communion,” the committee writes. “We hope that we have faithfully described the essentials.”

Parsley reiterated the preface’s hope. “We wanted this to be readable, brief and accessible to all of our people,” he said. “In that way, it’s a little simpler than some people might want, but we want it to be read and stimulate conversation.”

The chapter on “Relationships within the Anglican Communion” says that the Communion matters because “in this fellowship all give and receive many gifts,” “it enables us to be disciples in a global context,” “we have sought it for many years,” and “the maintenance of mutuality and trust with the Communion effects future mission opportunities.”

The next chapter, titled “Our Special Charism as Anglican Christians,” says that Anglicans have always valued the via media — “the middle way between polarities” — as a “faithful theological method.”

The chapter describes the via media as an approach that “acknowledges paradox and believes even apparent opposites may be reconciled or transcended.”

“Moreover, many within our church believe this is a good thing and a major charism (gift),” the chapter says. “In our own day, we especially need to preserve this special Anglican charism, not only for our own Communion but for all Christians.”

The third chapter sets the Dar es Salaam communiqué in the context of the Communion’s on-going debate about human sexuality, noting that “because the Communion has no central constitution and no form of synod or council beyond that of each province, issues of authority and conciliarity can present acute challenges for the maintenance of communion.”

The chapter references the 1998 Lambeth Conference debate and the previous objections by the Primates Meeting, traces the Windsor Report process, outlines the Episcopal Church’s response to the Report, summarizes how the Primates Meeting came to be and summarizes the pertinent parts of the communiqué and the House of Bishops’ statements about it to date.

The House of Bishops has already responded to a portion of the communiqué. In three “Mind of the House” resolutions passed during their March meeting, the bishops said, in part, that the Primates’ proposed “pastoral scheme” for dealing with disaffected Episcopal Church dioceses “would be injurious to The Episcopal Church.” The bishops urged that the Executive Council “decline to participate in it.”

The communiqué gave the bishops of the Episcopal Church until September 30 to “make an unequivocal common covenant that the bishops will not authorize any Rite of Blessing for same-sex unions in their dioceses or through General Convention” and “confirm that the passing of Resolution B033 of the 75th General Convention means that a candidate for episcopal orders living in a same-sex union shall not receive the necessary consent; unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the Communion.”

The third chapter states that these two requests “raise significant issues about the role of the primates in the Anglican Communion, Anglican ecclesiology, and the role of the House of Bishops in the Episcopal Church,” including:

“Are such requests appropriately addressed by the bishops as chief pastors and teachers, or more representatively by the General Convention?”
“How best may theological and mission development take place in churches which are ”˜autonomous in communion’?” and
“How can the Communion appropriately consult about important matters such as these without a centralization of authority that is unknown to Anglicanism?”
The three chapters are followed by a series of eight questions for reflection with some background on each question, and then a page of online resources for more background. When viewed on a computer in its PDF form, the clickable links on the resources page send readers to electronic versions of the documents.

“As bishops we are charged in ordination to guard the faith and unity of the Church. Being charged with this task does not mean it falls to us alone,” the document concludes. “This study document is written to allow us to hear and receive the response of the whole of this province so that together we might respond faithfully as a constituent member of this great Communion.”

In addition to Parsley, the members of the Theology Committee are David Alvarez of Puerto Rico; Joe Burnett of Nebraska; Robert W. Ihloff, recently retired of Maryland; Carolyn T. Irish of Utah; Paul V. Marshall of Bethlehem; Steven A. Miller of Milwaukee and Jeffrey Steenson of Rio Grande.

The Rev. Dr. Ian Douglas, an Executive Council member and professor at Episcopal Divinity School, is the committee’s consulting theologian. Douglas also worked as a liaison between the Theology Committee and a subcommittee of the Executive Council’s International Concerns Committee (INC), which released a six-page study guide to the draft version of the proposed Anglican Covenant.

The covenant guide calls for congregations and individuals to submit responses by June 4. Responses will be used in the creation of a response by the Executive Council at its October meeting in Detroit, Michigan.

Prior to that, at the Council’s June meeting in Parsippany, New Jersey, INC will propose that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson appoint a Covenant Review Group to follow the covenant-development process, enable comments from the wider Episcopal Church and provide comments on behalf of the church to the Communion’s Covenant Design Group.