With all Christians who submit to Biblical authority within the historic Church, Forward in Faith North America rejoices in the recent statement by the Primates of the Anglican Communion in support of marriage defined as a covenant between one man and one woman. Our members within The Episcopal Church, often marginalized or treated as a tolerated minority, are encouraged to hear that our position is upheld by the vast majority of our international leaders. Our members within the Anglican Church in North America welcome both the statement itself, as well as the full inclusion at every level at the meeting of Archbishop Foley Beach. All of our members are heartened by the small step taken in Godly discipline towards those who have acted unilaterally in presuming to redefine Biblical marriage.

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The challenge facing the task group, the body ”” not yet appointed ”” whose job it will be to mend the Anglican Communion after last week’s gathering of Primates, was manifest this week as people reacted to the final communiqué from Canterbury.

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It is surprising, then, that the whimper [from the 2016 Primates Gathering] has occasioned such a hue and cry. On Thursday the Labour shadow cabinet minister and former Anglican priest, Chris Bryant, declared he had left the Church of England for good. The Church’s decision will one day ”˜seem [as] wrong as supporting slavery’ he tweeted. On Saturday the Times published a full-blown invective. The Church has no right, the editorial claimed, to maintain its traditional doctrine of marriage.

The outcry is indicative of a profound shift. Institutions founded on certain precepts to which its members are expected to subscribe shouldn’t be allowed to act on them if those precepts don’t square with a prevailing agenda. Back in 2013 advocates for same-sex marriage argued that the church’s beliefs about sexuality shouldn’t be imposed on the rest of society. That makes sense. But now the church is being told it shouldn’t hold those beliefs at all.

It is easy to overlook how ominous this shift really is. The conviction that organisations and communities cannot determine their own distinct ethos, their own rules for membership and their own criteria for leadership imperils the very survival of a pluralistic society. What is the point of institutions if they don’t have the freedom to organise themselves in the way they see fit?

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The positive part of the Primate’s declaration is that they unanimously expressed a desire to continue to walk in partnership, joined in Christ in mission and ministry. In my perspective, however, the Primate’s decision to censure The Episcopal Church compounds the pain of discrimination that LGBTQ people have suffered over the centuries and continue to suffer as a result of Church policy. For that pain I am deeply sorry, and as a Bishop of the Church I apologize to all LGBTQ people, especially those of this Diocese.

Discipleship can be costly and sometimes, although we do not want it to be so, relationships are strained as part of that cost. People who love God can honestly disagree on weighty matters, and it is my desire to respect and remain in relationship with those who disagree with me. It is my belief, however, that as I read Scripture, understand the teaching of Jesus, examine the history of the Church, and apply God’s gift of human reason seeking the Spirit’s direction, that the actions of The Episcopal Church moving toward full inclusion of LGBTQ people are of God. The Spirit is calling us to stand by our carefully and prayerfully made decisions.

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Bishop Curry was asked directly whether he would contest these “consequences” at the next meeting of the ACC in April. On Wednesday, he would say only: “The ACC is the only formal constitutional body of the Anglican Communion and it will decide what it will do. Our representatives from the Episcopal Church look forward to being there.”

Earlier this week, a prominent canon lawyer, Professor Norman Doe, state that the Primates’ ruling was not binding…. He described it as “completely unacceptable interference with the autonomy of each of these bodies as they transact their own business”.

The ACC is due to meet in Zambia in April. Two US members, the Bishop of Connecticut, the Rt Revd Ian Douglas, and the Revd Gay Clark Jennings, have confirmed that they will attend. Bishop Douglas is also a member of the ACC’s standing committee, and would therefore have to stand down if the ACC chooses to comply with the Primates’ wishes.

In the past, members of the ACC have criticised the Primates for overstepping their remit. In 2006, after the Primates asked the US Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to voluntarily withdraw their representatives from the ACC, the organisation’s then chairman, the Rt Revd John Paterson, criticised the move as “at least slightly premature, if not coercive and somewhat punitive”….

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Last week the Primates of the Anglican Communion gathered in Canterbury for a week of prayer and discussion. You might well have been following the events in the media. I want to share some thoughts of my own here about what took place last week ”“ which was without doubt one of the most extraordinary weeks I have ever experienced.

The first thing to say is that the week was completely rooted in prayer. The Community of St Anselm ”“ the international young Christian community based at Lambeth Palace ”“ took up residence in Canterbury Cathedral and prayed all day every day for the Primates as we talked together. As Primates we joined with all who gathered for Morning Prayer, Eucharist and Evensong in the Cathedral each day. And meanwhile thousands ”“ perhaps millions ”“ of Anglicans and others in the Christian family around the world prayed in churches and posted prayers on social media. I want to thank everyone who prayed last week. We felt it and we appreciated it deeply.

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The most significant outcome of that first GAFCON meeting was the invitation extended to conservative Anglicans in North America to form an alternative province: the Anglican Church in North America. The rending of the Communion through the disobedience of Communion liberals had occurred, and the final steps envisioned in To Mend the Net–the suspension of communion and the establishment of a new, alternative province–had become a reality.

In retrospect, the tragedy of this history can more clearly be seen: the painful departure of thousands of North American Anglicans from their church homes, countless millions of dollars spent in litigation. All of this might have been avoided if the three Archbishops of Canterbury under whose watches all this has occurred had provided faithful, godly, unequivocal leadership.

But there is an even greater tragedy: “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? (1 Corinthians 14:8). Of the three great streams of apostolic Christianity–Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism–two stand unequivocally for historic Christian faith and morals. Only Anglicanism has equivocated at the highest level.
The churches of formerly mainline Protestantism have embraced the zeitgeist. Too many Anglican leaders have chosen the path of mainline Protestantism rather than biblical, apostolic, and catholic faithfulness. And damage has been done to countless souls through the ambiguous or downright immoral witness of these Anglican leaders and church bodies.

Many count it a sign of God’s grace that, in this week’s meeting of the primates in Canterbury, the GAFCON and Global South primates have finally taken an effective stand to restore godly order and discipline to the Anglican Communion. This is a first step–a baby step–that, though it goes in the right direction, does not go nearly far enough. Will this first step ultimately lead to the restoration of the Anglican Communion to historic Christian faith and morals? For that to happen a lot of hearts will have to be changed.

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Last week in Canterbury, though many people were amazed that there were finally some consequences for the Episcopal Church, others were disappointed that the consequences were not more stringent. Certainly, after all the years of flouting Scripture, there is ample reason to be disgusted. Certainly, as more than a dozen Provinces recognized, there was ample reason to eject TEC from the Communion. Unable to win the day on the resolution for ejection, they moved to other expressions of discipline, focusing narrowly on last summer’s TEC General Convention decision to change the marriage canon and prayer book to embrace same-sex marriage. The focus turned to what was essentially described as a failure to consult and a decision to move outside institutional norms. There should not be, however, concern about institutional norms and practice. The greatest offense is that the Episcopal Church is engaging in activities that lead people away from Christ eternally. In other words, the Episcopal Church, rather than being the Ark of Salvation, is the instrument bringing spiritual destruction to people it is literally leading away from Christ and into Hell. Although they are more strident than some other Provinces, there are others doing the same thing. Soon, the focus of discipline needs to be on them as well. Canada is a great place to start the next round!

This Primates’ “Gathering” in Canterbury was the first one to gather a majority of the Primates in years. The reason is that since the Primates’ Meeting in Dar es Salaam in 2007, a deadline was put to the Episcopal Church to return to Anglican faith and practice or “walk apart.” Sadly, following the meeting, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, unilaterally decided to overturn the hard-fought decision of the meeting and let the Episcopal Church completely off the hook. There is no way to describe gracefully what ABp Williams did. He simply unilaterally decided to declare that the deadline for conforming that had been given to TEC was “not a deadline.” Even worse, he invited errant TEC bishops to the 2008 Lambeth Bishops’ Conference, completely taking the teeth out of what the Primates had decided. From that point, it has not been possible to gather the majority of Primates because the Dar es Salaam decision had not been honored. Many Primates said that they would not attend until the Dar es Salaam decisions were implemented.
The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, was able to get Primates to come by insuring them that they would have control of the agenda. That is an assurance that several of the Primates I spoke with believe was honored at this gathering. The Archbishops wanted to discuss TEC, and they got to. Sadly, the resolution to completely eject TEC from the Anglican Communion failed, but almost half the Provinces were willing to give them the boot. Though the ejection resolution failed to pass, it was obvious though that the vast majority of Provinces wanted to see TEC disciplined. After lively discussions, the sanctions that were put in place were overwhelmingly approved. I understand that the numbers were 27 voting for sanctions, 3 against, and 6 abstaining. ABp Foley Beach of the Anglican Church in North America refused a ballot on the TEC vote, saying that although he had been completely included in the meeting and all the other votes that took place while he was present, he did not think it was appropriate to vote on TEC, because the ACNA’s status has not yet been formalized.

Now the question is: Were the sanctions enough? The answer is another question: Enough for what? From a spiritual standpoint, both the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church (as well as several others) having pursued unbiblical activity without repentance deserve to be ejected from the Communion””at least until they repent and demonstrate suitable fruits of repentance. Is it enough that they have been denied voice and vote in some areas? I believe that it is extremely significant and sets the stage for more to happen with TEC and other Provinces.

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Many media reports at the time of Archbishop Welby’s announcement suggested that his intention was to replace the communion relationship of the provinces with a much looser federal relationship in which member churches relate to Canterbury, but not necessarily to one another. The various provinces, these reports claimed, would keep the name “Anglican” but without any attempt to maintain common discipline or doctrine. Such a radical reorientation of Anglican ecclesiology would be a considerable blow to Anglican-Catholic ecumenical relations which have been predicated on the basis of a shared communion ecclesiology. However, Lambeth Palace has strongly rebutted such claims, insisting that no such abandonment of its Communion structures is intended, but rather the aim is to strengthen those structures by reappraising them and encouraging those who are currently disenfranchised to find their voice and be unafraid to offer critique.

At time of writing, the Primates’ Meeting has not yet concluded, however it is possible to make a few observations about the meeting. Firstly, Archbishop Welby has always maintained that he wants the Primates as a group to call the next Lambeth Conference, the ten-yearly meeting of all Anglican Bishops from around the world. All the indications are that the next Lambeth Conference will be announced, though mostly likely scheduled for 2020 rather than 2018, and this announcement in itself will be a strong signal of the primates’ continued desire to work for the unity of the Communion.

Secondly, while the Archbishop cannot sanction the North American provinces, he will be working strenuously to deepen the bonds of communion with those provinces which have been most scandalised by their recent decisions. The strongest protest to the North American provinces comes from those affiliated to GAFCon, a grouping that takes its name from the Global Anglican Future Conference held in Jerusalem immediately before the last Lambeth Conference in 2008. A number of the primates who will attend the January 2016 meeting are members of GAFCon, and claim to represent the majority of the world’s Anglicans. One GAFCon primate, Archbishop Stanley Ntagali of Uganda has already warned that he will not continue to participate in the meetings unless “godly order” is restored. GAFCon claims not to be in communion with the Anglican provinces of North America, supporting instead a breakaway group called the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA). In a strong indication of Archbishop Welby’s intention to reach out to GAFCon, he has invited ACNA’s Archbishop, the Rt Rev Foley Beach, to attend some of the Primates’ Meeting as an observer. Moreover, the Archbishop has worked hard at establishing strong personal relationships with many of these primates, which he hopes will help to avoid a rift.

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THE communiqué issued by the Primates in Canterbury last week does not bind anyone, because the Primates’ meeting has no jurisdiction, a canon lawyer said this week. It represented “completely unacceptable interference” with the autonomy of the bodies to whom it had issued requirements.

“I find it utterly extraordinary,” the director of the Centre for Law and Religion at Cardiff University, Professor Norman Doe, said on Tuesday. “No instrument exists conferring upon the Primates’ meeting the jurisdiction to ”˜require’ these things. . . Whatever they require is unenforceable.”

The communiqué states that the Primates are “requiring that, for a period of three years, the Episcopal Church [in the United States] no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies; should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee; and that, while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision-making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity”.

Professor Doe confirmed: “The decision will not bind anyone ”” not the Episcopal Church. There is no question of that.” It was for the bodies referred to in the communiqué to determine what, if any, consequences the Episcopal Church should face, he said.

The communiqué constituted “completely unacceptable interference with the autonomy of each of these bodies as they transact their own business”. It was “absolute nonsense” to suggest that an ecumenical body such as the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), or an Anglican body such as the Anglican Consultative Council, be bound by a decision made by the Primates’ meeting.

The Anglican Consultative Council is the only instrument of the Communion with a written constitution. Professor Doe suggested, however, that, in the light of the communiqué, the Archbishop of Canterbury could feel “bound” not to invite the Episcopal Church to the Lambeth Conference.

The events of the past week highlighted the consequences of the Communion’s failure to adopt the Anglican Covenant, Professor Doe suggested. He spoke as a member of the Lambeth Commission, which had proposed the Covenant and helped to draft it.

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It is unfortunate that a majority of the Primates of the Anglican Communion have told The Episcopal Church to go “sit in the corner.” Regardless, we are still sisters and brothers in Christ with all people in the Anglican Communion, and more importantly sisters and brothers in Jesus. That will never change. Never.

We hope, pray, and trust that the leadership of the Anglican Communion, as well as the leadership of all of God’s people will now devote their resources, energy, and action to combat the true evils of injustice, poverty, suffering, degradation of creation, violence, and discrimination in our broken world.

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In the end, the 80 journalists and 15 TV crews who gathered for the final press conference looked for winners and losers.
In reality, though, we were all losers ”“ because we are still fractured, broken, still inclined to mistrust.
But we are committed to staying with each other.
We are committed to walking together, to trying to see through each other’s eyes, to stepping into each other’s worlds, and to keeping on keeping on until mutual understanding grows.
In simplest terms, I think we learned that we are all of us interdependent, and that we need each other. And when we put the needs of our most marginalised brothers and sisters first we can see this more clearly.

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I have read the communiqué from their weeklong meeting, and I believe it is important to hear what they have to say in its entirety. First of all, the Primates have voted to exclude the Episcopal Church from the councils of international Anglicanism for a three-year period, during which time there will be continued conversation. This results from the fact that the Primates do not perceive the introduction of same-sex marriage in TEC as a legitimate development of the faith. At the same time, it is important to bear in mind that the goal of the meeting was to maintain the unity of the communion to the extent possible in light of strong differences.

The Primates have also made a number of other important points: they all share a desire to ”˜walk together’, as the Windsor Report put it. They have all decried homophobia and laws that discriminate against gay people. They have joined hands on other matters of concern to our world, such as political corruption and ecological degradation. On these matters we strongly applaud their commitments. At the same time, I think it is fair to say that the status of the ACNA was left aside. They were not recognized at this meeting, and their Archbishop wisely did not vote to discipline our church.

Someone called me today and asked ”˜Are we still part of the Anglican Communion?’ Constitutionally, we define this in Dallas as communion with the see of Canterbury, and by this measure the answer is an unequivocal ”˜Yes.’ However the decision of this past week is, while not surprising, saddening and disquieting. The wound in our communion is real.

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An overwhelming majority of the Primates present voted that TEC should be excluded from all meetings which represent the Anglican Communion and that it should be suspended from internal decision-making bodies, initially for three years.

The GAFCON Primates, of whom I am chairman, worked hard with other orthodox Primates to achieve this result despite predictions by many that the meeting would be carefully managed to prevent any firm conclusions emerging.

TEC is not the only province to reject the bible’s teaching and there is still much work to do to heal the wounds that compromise and false teaching have inflicted upon the Anglican Communion, but a start has been made.

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[Bishop Michael Curry]…rebutted charges the Episcopal Church had been captured by secular culture. “Our commitment to be an inclusive church is not based on a social theory or capitulation to the ways of the culture, but on our belief that the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross are a sign of the very love of God reaching out to us all.”

Archbishop Beach told CEN the dispute was a salvation issue. “Millions of souls were affected by false teaching.”

Archbishop Welby asked Archbishop Beach what it would take to reconcile the ACNA and the Episcopal Church. Archbishop Beach said the ACNA asked the Episcopal Church to repent of its ungodly innovations, to end all litigation immediately, to give restitution for the millions of dollars in property and assets taken from departing congregations, to “restore to us our pension” and “rescind” the depositions of the over 700 clergy kicked out of the Episcopal Church.

A resolution was brought forward on Wednesday asking the Episcopal Church to voluntarily withdraw from the instruments of communion as it revisits the issue of same-sex marriage ”” akin to the earlier motion brought by Archbishop Ntagali. Bishop Curry told the meeting the Episcopal Church would not comply with such a request.

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Listen to it all and there is a short video update here

With thanks to Kevin Kallsen at Anglican TV

“It’s a difficult one to call. I would hope that we’ll work at ways in which we might find some form of pastoral accommodation that would be true to the scriptures and to our understanding that every human person is made in the image and likeness of God and is equally loved by him and must be equally loved by us.”

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More than 300 people met Archbishop Stanley Ntagali on his return to Uganda today in a show of solidarity and support for his actions and stand in Canterbury, England, during the recent gathering of Primates of the Anglican Communion…
….
Statement of the Most Rev. Stanley Ntagali, Archbishop of Church of Uganda, on Primates Gathering of the Anglican Communion in Canterbury
16th January 2016
Entebbe Airport
….Unfortunately, neither the Archbishop of Canterbury nor any of the other structures of the Anglican Communion were able to discipline the Episcopal Church USA. That meant that the Anglican Communion had become like the time in the Book of Judges when God’s judgment was upon the people of God because it says, “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” Even the Anglican Church of Canada has allowed the blessing of same-sex unions in their church.

We had hoped that the meeting this past week would restore godly order to the Anglican Communion and re-establish the Bible as the authority for our faith and morals.

On the second day of the meeting, I moved a resolution to ask the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada to voluntarily withdraw from all Anglican Communion groups. It grieves me to say that the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was chairing the meeting, did not take my resolution seriously and simply moved on to another matter without ever allowing any discussion on it.

At that point in the meeting, I realized that the process that had been set up would not allow us to accomplish the purpose for which we had come.

Our commitment as the Church of Uganda is that we would not participate in any meetings of the Anglican Communion until godly order has been restored. Therefore, I felt it necessary to withdraw from the meeting and stand firm for the convictions of the Church of Uganda and the people of Uganda.

My fellow GAFCON and Global South Primates stayed in the meeting and by Thursday lunchtime they had passed a resolution suspending TEC from representing the Anglican Communion in interfaith and ecumenical dialogues and not allowing them to vote in meetings where issues of doctrine and polity were being discussed. This would be for a period of three years.

This is a very important, symbolic vote. The mind of the Primates is to uphold the Bible’s understanding of marriage as between one man and one woman, and to declare that is the position of the Anglican Communion.

From our perspective, however, the vote did not go far enough to re-establish godly order in the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church USA will still attend meetings and continue to influence many others in their unbiblical positions. We need to wait and see if they demonstrate true repentance and whether or not the leadership of the Anglican Communion has the strength of convictions to uphold the decision of the Primates. Only time will tell.

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As it has turned out, however, the Primates decided (“unanimously”) to stay the course of the Communion’s established order, indeed to strengthen that ordering and to maintain the ecclesial commitments that lie behind it. They have affirmed the resumption of their formal meetings, as well as a new Lambeth Conference of all Anglican bishops in 2020. Echoing the scriptural language of the 2004 Windsor Report that first sought to deal with rifts over sexuality, the Primates forcefully affirmed their commitment to “walk together.” They also took up previous decisions they had made in more formal meetings in the past, and laid out (apparently with a two-thirds majority voting in favor) a general way they might deal with one of the major sources of theses rifts, the Episcopal Church of the United States. The Episcopal Church’s advocacy for homosexual affirmation culminated this past summer in a change in its canons to permit same-sex marriage. Without throwing the American Church out of the Communion, the Primates explicitly asked that representatives of the Episcopal Church no longer actively serve in decision-making bodies of the Communion that deal with doctrine and polity, or represent the Communion in ecumenical and interfaith discussions. The language here was also from the past (i.e. Rowan Williams), focusing on the negative effects of “distance” among members, but also on the protective benefits of “distancing” among conflicted members. How this will be sorted out was left to Canterbury and a taskforce that will be put in place.

In one way all this is a grand symbolic gesture, and nothing else. Member churches of the Anglican Communion, mostly organized on national or regional lines, are ecclesiastically autonomous bodies governed by their own internal canons and decision-making processes. A meeting of the Primates has no legislative authority over individual churches, even though, of course, each Primate exercises considerable authority within their own church. What has held the Communion together over the years has been a set of dynamics that have often puzzled observers, and more recently, Anglicans themselves. In the past few decades the image that has often been used to describe this ecclesial glue has been that of “family”: Anglicans are related by blood ties, shared history and formation, rooted commitments, fundamental mutual responsibilities, and sometimes the push and pull of savage passions.

These are elements that terms like “federation” simply cannot engage.

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Let’s be honest. The statement is not everything we had hoped for. I have just finished listening to the Primates Press Conference, where the Archbishop of Canterbury stated multiple times “These are NOT sanctions. Rather, they are consequences for acting autonomously in an interdependent fellowship.” When asked about the Task Group in paragraph 8, and whether at the end of three years it would simply do as previous task forces had done with respect to TEC ”“ to study, report and take no action, the Archbishop said “I don’t know.” The Primate of Hong Kong followed by saying the task force “will inquire and study.” These comments are not hopeful with regards to restoring the doctrine, discipline and order of the Communion.

It is true that the consequences spelled out in paragraph 7 remove TEC from (1) representation on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, (2) election or appointment to internal Standing Committees of the Anglican Communion, and (3) in all other “internal bodies” on which TEC may sit (like the Anglican Consultative Council) they will not take part in decision making on matters of doctrine or polity. These are more than reasonable, extremely measured limits on TEC.

I’m also an attorney, and I can spot a loophole when I see it. I’m not going to repeat the loopholes others have spotted; see the comments on Kendall Harmon’s blog here.

In reality, the Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC) is in the driver’s seat and it will depend on him. He is reported as having given his personal word to the Primates gathered together that he will follow through on paragraphs 7 and 8. But since there is no Biblical call for repentance in either paragraph, it is difficult to imagine what assignment or benchmark TEC will need to demonstrate to restore its relationship to the Communion. With even less clarity and specificity than the Primates gave to TEC at Dar es Salaam (2007), what reason do we have to believe that these “consequences” will have any more effect? What objective benchmark is there for this Archbishop, much less the task force, to measure TEC’s response over the next three years? Is it simply a reversal of the Same-Sex Marriage canon (Res. A054) at General Convention 2018, while everything else remains status quo?

At a deeper level, we must also recognize that the Instruments of Communion, including the ABC, still suffer a hopeless deficit of authority to resolve the doctrinal differences that deepen the wound in our Communion. Apart from the statement upholding traditional marriage in paragraph 4, the Primates statement does nothing to address that doctrinal wound. In fact, it leaves out most of the teaching in Lambeth Resolution I.10 (1998) on holiness of life, celibacy for those outside marriage, and holy orders.

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Leaders of the Anglican Communion are winding up a meeting in Canterbury on Friday after agreeing to temporary restrictions on the Episcopal Church in the United States for its position on same-sex marriage.

Responding to the decision, the head of the Vatican’s Council for ecumenical relations says he is “grateful” the bishops have excluded any more permanent divisions which could hinder the search for reconciliation between the two Churches .

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the difference between punishment sanctions (which could come from capricious action by the esteemed Primates) and simply requiring the Episcopal Church recognize the consequences of our actions is this: Sanctions proceed from power being exercised on the condemned, consequences proceed from the condemned own actions.

The difference is this: To the extent that the Episcopal Church did something wrong, it is their own fault, and we simply have to take the consequences.

Well there it is.

But it reminds me of something – the Anglican Covenant, a document by the way that has not been ratified by the Church of England, nor by the Episcopal Church. Here is what section four of that document says about consequences:

(4.2.7) On the basis of the advice received, the Standing Committee shall make recommendations as to relational consequences which flow from an action incompatible with the Covenant…

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With thanks to Kevin Kallsen at Anglican TV

…I have my eye on the meeting continuing on in Canterbury, with Anglican heterodox and orthodox bishops meeting to try to avert the imminent crisis of a world wide split. It was reported yesterday that Canterbury tried to employ the Delphi Technique, that clever business of getting everyone divided up into small groups and not letting them talk altogether. Each small group is managed by a facilitator who reports up the line what the group has said. “Consensus” and “Agreement” are achieved through a carefully managed and crafted process and nothing frank or honest is ever reported to have been said. Also, they, the primates, had to all turn in their cell phones.

Being the pessimist I am, I muttered, “of course” when I read this. But, then, in the depths of my soul, I discovered a kernel of something I haven’t faced for a long time, grief.

Because, it turns out, though I hadn’t been willing to look at it, and I wouldn’t have been able to face it even if I could, I also had been harboring hope. Not a single person who walked away from the episcopal church, unlike Lot’s wife, did so without much agony and looking back. It’s not that we were unsure, or confused, it’s that we were sorrowful, grieved. Because the episcopal church had been a place of nourishment and beauty. It is a church full of lovely things to look at, beautiful music, and interesting people who are, as I like to say, God Curious.

But, well, the leaders of that church, Michael Curry more brilliantly than anyone, have mixed just enough truth with just enough error to wreck everything. If you really want to know God on his own terms, not shaped and molded by the dubious sensibilities of the age, you won’t be able to stay there. You have to get into a church space where the Word of God is unfolded completely

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