Canon Nerissa Jones, MBE Chair of Trustees for Affirming Catholicism, said:

Lambeth Conferences should reflect the diversity and range of theological opinions contained across the Anglican Communion and provide an opportunity for bishops to grow in their appreciation of others’ points of view through prayer, worship and study. Although Bishop Robinson is only one bishop, his being excluded because of his openness about his sexuality sends a damaging signal to faithful and honest lesbian and gay Christians world-wide, and undermines the integrity of the conference. The wholeness Affirming Catholics strive for requires every voice to be expressed and included, but yet again it looks as though Lambeth bishops will be talking about homosexuality without honestly acknowledging the presence of the gay people already in their midst. We call on the Archbishop of Canterbury to find ways for Bishop Gene Robinson to be included in the Conference so that his experience can be heard.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Listen to it all and make sure to note the comment of Chris Seitz below the audio link.

By George Conger

BISHOP Gene Robinson is not coming to Lambeth. The New Hampshire bishop, CANA Bishop Martyn Minns and Bishop Chuck Murphy of the AMiA and his suffragans will not receive invitations to the July 16 to Aug 4 gathering in Canterbury of the bishops of the Anglican Communion, Canon Kenneth Kearon, the secretary of the 2008 Lambeth Conference said this week.

Invitations to the 2008 conference have been mailed to over 800 bishops by the Conference’s host, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams. Invitations to two other diocesan bishops, including the controversial Bishop of Harare, Dr Nolbert Kunonga, have been held pending further “consultation,” said Canon Kearon, the ACC secretary general. Dr Williams is “seeking further advice” on inviting Dr Kunonga, Canon Kearon told The Church of England Newspaper but noted his case and that of “one or two others” had “nothing to do with the Windsor process.” In 2002 the EU banned Dr Kunonga from travel to Europe in response to his complicity with the crimes of the regime of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe.

A spokesman for the ACC noted Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti of Recife would not be invited either.

In 2005 Bishop Cavalcanti and 32 of his clergy were deposed by the Primate of Brazil for contumacy.

They and over 90 per cent of the communicants in the diocese transferred to the jurisdiction of the Province of the Southern Cone under the jurisdiction of Archbishop Gregory Venables.

In a letter accompanying the invitation, Dr Williams stated he hoped the meeting would be “a place where we can try and get more clarity about the limits of our diversity and the means of deepening our Communion, so we can speak together with conviction and clarity to the world.”

He noted that Lambeth would not be “a formal Synod or Council of the bishops of the Communion” nor does attending the Conference commit a bishop to accept “the position of others as necessarily a legitimate expression of Anglican doctrine and discipline, or to any action that would compromise your conscience or the integrity of your local church.” Dr Williams said he had reserved the right “to withhold or withdraw invitations from bishops whose appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the Communion.”

Canon Kearon stated there was “no question that Gene Robinson had been duly elected and consecrated” Bishop of New Hampshire in 2005. However, paragraph133 of the Windsor Report recommends the Archbishop “exercise very considerable caution in inviting or admitting him to the councils of the Communion,” he said.

The “archbishop recognises the widespread objections in many parts of the communion to [Bishop Robinson’s] consecration and to his ministry,” said Canon Kearon. However, the “Archbishop intends to explore the possibility of inviting [Bishop Robinson] to Lambeth as a guest or observer,” he added.

The Bishops of the Anglican Mission in America would not be invited to Lambeth because of the decision taken by Archbishop George Carey in 2000. Archbishop Carey “wrote to them saying he could not recognise their ministry” and that their “consecrations were irregular,” Canon Kearon explained. This decision was “confirmed at Oporto” by the Primates in 2000 and the “decision was already fixed” by Dr Williams’ predecessor.

The case of CANA Bishop Martyn Minns exhibits “no difference” from the AMiA and he falls into the same category, Canon Kearon said.

Dr Williams has been under intense pressure to act upon the Lambeth invitations. While the Conference has no juridical powers, it is seen as the symbolic centre of Anglican identity ”” and the arbiter of who is and is not an Anglican. The Primate of Canada, Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, urged Dr Williams to postpone Lambeth to forestall the political confrontation
expected.

A number of American and British bishops had suggested they may boycott Lambeth should Bishop Robinson not be invited.

However, on May 15 the Primate of the West Indies, Archbishop Drexel Gomez told The Church of England Newspaper the Global South Primates had written to Dr. Williams saying that if Bishop Robinson were invited to Lambeth, the Global South bishops would not attend.

–This article appears in the May 25, 2007 edition of the Church of England Newspaper

The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane
Bishop of Washington

May 23, 2007

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I am saddened by the news released by The Most Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, regarding the decision not to include The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, in the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops in 2008.

Archbishop Rowan will be meeting with the bishops of the Episcopal Church in September to discuss issues of concern raised by the recent Primates meeting. The issue of Lambeth and his failure to invite Bishop Gene will be a high priority in our time together.

I am deeply troubled by the decision reached by the Archbishop and believe that the real issue is not about Bishop Gene; instead this is about leadership within the Anglican Communion. Until we are able to separate ourselves from our fixation on human sexuality as the root of our divisions and address the dynamics of power and leadership in the Communion, we are doomed to fail in Christ’s call to engage the world in the act of inclusive love and a mission-driven theology that claims justice, the rule of law and the respect for human rights as the core of our work as a Communion.

In Christ’s Peace, Power and Love,

The Rt. Rev. John Bryson Chane, D.D.
Bishop of Washington

Seventh Week of Easter
May 23, 2007

Dear Friends:

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank you for the amazing outpouring of love and encouragement that so many of you gave by your presence at the Service of Investiture on Saturday, May 5. It was a glorious celebration and I know that the Lord was honored and thousands of people were blessed through it. It is, as the primate reminded us, a first step in this amazing adventure called CANA. We are producing a DVD with highlights of the service and will be making it available to you but until then there are a number of websites with short video clips of the service.

As a wonderful sequel to the service Bishop David Bena and Richard Crocker met this past weekend with twenty prospective candidates for ordination. All of them were eager to step forward and present themselves for service in Christ’s church. The future for CANA is very bright.

Earlier this week there was a lengthy news release from the Anglican Communion Office concerning invitations to the Lambeth conference scheduled for Canterbury in July 2008. As you well know this conference has been the subject of considerable speculation for several months. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the host and usually invites all Anglican bishops and their wives to this once every ten years event. In his statement he acknowledged that because of the current tensions in the Communion “there are a small number of bishops to whom invitations are not at this stage being extended whilst Dr Williams takes further advice.” His stated reason being “I believe that we need to know as we meet that each participant recognises and honours the task set before us and that there is an adequate level of mutual trust between us about this. Such trust is a great deal harder to sustain if there are some involved who are generally seen as fundamentally compromising the efforts towards a credible and cohesive resolution.”

At a subsequent press briefing by Canon Kenneth Kearon, the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion Office, he suggested that there would be three separate categories of bishops for whom invitations were being presently withheld: Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, CANA and AMiA bishops and also the Right Rev’d Nolbert Kunonga, Anglican Bishop of Harare. This news produced a flurry of media headlines mostly having to do with the exclusion of the Bishop of New Hampshire. It should be noted that this methodology of a carefully nuanced statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury together with supposed specifics from a spokesman gives maximum flexibility for future developments.

In response to various media inquiries I issued a brief statement as follows: “I have read the statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office regarding next year’s Lambeth Conference. While the immediate attention is focused on the invitation list, it should be remembered that this crisis in the Anglican Communion is not about a few individual bishops but about a worldwide Communion that is torn at its deepest level. This point was made repeatedly at the Primates’ meeting in Dar es Salaam. Depending on the response of The Episcopal Church to the Primates’ communiqué by September 30, the situation may become even more complex. One thing is clear, a great deal can and will happen before next July.”

I was encouraged by an almost immediate response from Archbishop Akinola, “In response to requests for comments on the Lambeth Conference invitations, Archbishop Peter Akinola reaffirms that the Church of Nigeria is committed to the CAPA commissioned report “The Road to Lambeth”

Since only the first set of invitations has been sent, it is premature to conclude who will be present or absent at the conference. However, the withholding of [an] invitation to a Nigerian bishop, elected and consecrated by other Nigerian bishops, will be viewed as withholding invitation to the entire House of Bishops of the Church of Nigeria.” Archbishop Akinola is clear that CANA is as much a constituent part of the Communion as any diocese and so this unprecedented action to exclude one part of the church will be firmly resisted.

What does all this mean? First of all it is clear that the Archbishop of Canterbury faces an impossible task ”“ he is confronted by two irreconcilable truth claims. This has been the presenting problem from the beginning ”“ that is the key issue with which the Windsor report wrestles. What Archbishop Rowan has chosen to do now, however, is to ignore the underlying issue and elevate process over principle.

Second, all of the various efforts at discipline resulting from several meetings and communiqués have been ignored. The Lambeth Conference has been reduced to a meeting where bishops and their spouses simply gather for group bible study, prayer and shared reflection. These are significant activities but hardly justify the enormous expense of such an extended and world-wide gathering. They also presume a shared understanding of what the Bible is, who Jesus is and what he has done for us. Without any such agreement how can there be a coherent gospel to present to a hurting world?

Third, the Windsor Report and the Dar es Salaam Communiqu̩ clearly recognized that the various pastoral provisions for orthodox Anglicans within the U.S. Рespecially CANA Рare in response to the defiant and unrepentant actions of the Episcopal Church since 2003. There is no moral equivalence between immoral living and a creative pastoral provision. To ignore this reality and to pretend that by simply excluding one or two individuals we can have business as usual is decidedly shortsighted.

Finally, we need to remember that all this confusion is simply one more phase of a global conflict for the soul of the Anglican Communion. I have no doubt that there will be many more media moments and decision points in the coming months. It is a profoundly important battle that has eternal significance. We would do well to reread Ephesians chapter 6 and remember that in the heat of the battle our call is to pray and stand firm!

One final observation: Nowhere in the announcement was any mention made of the unprecedented court battle that commenced in January and continues for eleven CANA congregations in Northern Virginia. This action, initiated by the Diocese of Virginia and the Presiding Bishop of TEC, continues in direct defiance of the Primates’ recommendations in Dar es Salaam; it is shameful behavior by those who declare themselves to be Christian leaders committed to reconciliation.

We are hopeful that the lawsuits will eventually be settled in our favor but this may take a very long time. It is a costly process that diverts needed energy and funds from vital ministry initiatives. One thing is clear, because of all the publicity we have almost unlimited opportunities to witness to the transforming love of God. We can all take heart in remembering that CANA was the place where Jesus transformed a disaster into a celebration ”“ I believe that it still is, the miracle continues, and we will see a similar transformation in the coming days.

Pray for CANA. Pray for the church. Pray for our beloved Communion.

In Christ,

The Rt. Rev’d Martyn Minns
Missionary Bishop

Asked whether the Archbishop of Canterbury ever considered not inviting Bishop Ingham, Mr. Kearon said, “no, it was never considered.”

Bishop Ingham, in a telephone interview, said Bishop Robinson should be invited. “If the archbishop wants to keep everyone at the table, then everyone should be invited. The unfortunate message this sends is that schismatic bishops and primates are welcome but openly gay bishops aren’t.”

Bishop Ingham also said he was surprised that the Lambeth invitations came out before the Canadian church’s General Synod in June, which will consider the issue of same-sex blessings, and before Archbishop Williams’ scheduled meeting with American bishops in September. “He’ll get a very warm welcome there,” he said, wryly.

Mr. Kearon also clarified that the Archbishop of Canterbury did not consider inviting Martyn Minns, the breakaway priest from the Episcopal Church who was recently consecrated bishop and head of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America CANA) by the primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola.

“He (Minns) wasn’t even being considered. He wasn’t eligible to be considered,” he said. “The principle in which he’s not being considered is because the Archbishop has decided that CANA and AMiA (another breakaway group called the Anglican Mission in America) are the same class.” He noted that at the time that AMiA consecrations took place in 2000, then-Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey said that “he couldn’t accept them as regular consecrations; that he would not regard himself as being in communion with the bishops concerned, and the primates agreed to that. The two bodies are in the same position.”

Read it all.

From ENS:

House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson also issued a short statement saying that “the Episcopal Church elects bishops and consents to the election of bishops in a democratic and participatory manner. The process is carried out within our Constitution and Canons, both at the General Convention and in our dioceses. The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson is a duly elected and consecrated bishop of this Church. Not inviting him to the Lambeth Conference causes serious concern to The Episcopal Church.”

From ENS:

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori sent a short e-mail message to the House of Bishops urging “a calm approach to today’s announcement regarding 2008 Lambeth Conference invitations, a subject on which I plan to make no formal statement at this time. It is possible that aspects of this matter may change in the next 14 months, and the House of Bishops’ September meeting offers us a forum for further discussion.”

The ground-breaking work of Rene Girard has revealed the mechanism of scapegoating. Girard teaches that Jesus and the Hebrew prophets began loosening the chains of scapegoating. This action of isolating Bishop Robinson is retrogressive, taking us backwards to a shadowy, scary place from which we have already been delivered by Christ and the Prophets.

The isolation and exile of Bishop Robinson has implications for the Communion too, within the larger framework of scapegoating. A former Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, once said that if you touch one bishop of the Anglican Communion, you touch them all. This refers to the idea that bishops represent the unity of the Church. The bishop as a symbol of unity is usually understood at the level of a diocese, but there is a larger horizon of meaning – when we look at one bishop our spiritual vision can see all bishops everywhere, for the unity represented is most importantly the unity of the Church throughout the earth.

The isolation and exile of Bishop Robinson rebukes the bright vision of the unity of the Church, and subsitutes the mechanism of the diabolic, the shattering of communion and integrity. I cannot overemphasize how important it is to meet this action on our Archbishop’s part with the weapons of the spirit. I will be praying that my response and our response will be in solidarity with Bishop Robinson, mindful of our relatedness worldwide, full of shalom, and creative, in the manner of Jesus Christ.

Read it all.

Although disappointed that the Archbishop of Canterbury has decided to withhold an invitation to the 2008 Lambeth Conference of Bishops from the only openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion, members of Integrity Canada are relieved 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 U.S. ”“ is no bar to making the Lambeth Conference guest list.”

“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,” Schuh added, “but now General Synod delegates can discuss same-sex unions and vote their conscience without the threat of exclusion from Lambeth hanging over their heads.”

Chris Ambidge, convener of Integrity Toronto, commented on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s snub of Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire, saying, “It’s shameful that an Anglican leader is 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 only gay voice.”

“Again, they’re talking about us, not with us,” he said. “Canadian Anglicans must oppose this.”

If I were a bishop of the Episcopal Church, I would not go, until all my brothers and sisters were invited. And I would write the people of my diocese, the Presiding Bishop, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, politely explaining my absence. I don’t see it as a boycott per se, so much as a temporary suspension of any participation in the life of the Anglican Communion, which has clearly become toxic and which doesn’t want the Episcopal Church to participate as we are. Katharine Grieb of Virginia Seminary suggested as much at the House of Bishops, and it is time to consider her idea carefully. I would devote myself to the human and divine relationships that form the fabric of real communion, and stop worrying about large, expensive meetings of bishops. There is no equivalence between Gene Robinson, a duly elected bishop of the Episcopal Church, and Martyn Minns, part of a schismatic attempt to break our fellowship apart and realign (i.e. destroy) Anglicanism into a fundamentalist shadow of its true self.

My own bishops may choose otherwise, as is their right. They have a duty to interpret the vows they took, including their vow to “be merciful to all, show compassion on the poor and strangers, and defend those who have no helper.” (BCP, p. 518) But going to Lambeth, unlike going to General Convention, is a purely optional act. The only reason to go is to advance the mission of the Church, and I don’t see any way that it could advance the mission, if our bishops go to discuss Bishop Gene and the fallout over his consecration IN HIS ABSENCE. It is a pity that a meeting that is meant to be a Godly convocation to discuss matters of mutual concern has to be turned into an occasion for making symbolic statements, throwing the homophobes a little red meat of exclusion. And it is pity that the Archbishop of Canterbury fails to show ANY leadership. If this is really what his office requires of him, he should abandon it, and the office itself should be abolished. I think the non-violent option is to refuse to play these games and to refuse to lend Lambeth any legitimacy by the presence of our bishops.

Read it all.

Bishop Robinson could be invited to the July 16 to Aug. 4 gathering next year as a guest rather than as a participating bishop, Mr. Kearon said. But, he added, the bishop’s partner, Mark Andrew, would not be invited. Bishops’ spouses at Lambeth typically have their own conference, and Bishop Robinson recently announced that he and Mr. Andrew will take advantage of New Hampshire’s soon-to-be-signed civil unions law.
As for Bishop Minns and the AMIA bishops, he said, “The organizations in which they serve are not recognized by the Anglican Communion.”
However, Archbishop Akinola, in a May 6 letter to Archbishop Williams, called CANA “an initiative of the Church of Nigeria and therefore a bona fide branch of the Anglican Communion.”
“If he served in Nigeria, that was fine,” Mr. Kearon said of Bishop Minns. “But there was no reason to consider him. He was not eligible for an invitation.”
Bishop Minns also issued a statement, saying the matter was not so much about him “but about a worldwide Communion that is torn at its deepest level.”
Depending on whether U.S. Episcopal bishops agree in September to an ultimatum by Anglican bishops not to consecrate any more homosexuals, “the situation may become even more complex,” he added. “One thing is clear: A great deal can and will happen before next July.”

Read it all.

Canon Kearon said that the leaders of the communion recognized that Bishop Robinson was “duly elected and consecrated according to the proper procedures of the Episcopal Church.”

But to invite him, the canon said, “would be to ignore the very substantial and widespread objections in many parts of the communion to his consecration and his ministry.”

He said there was “no parallel” between Bishop Robinson and Bishop Minns, a rector who was installed as a bishop in Virginia this month by Archbishop Akinola, a crossing of boundaries that the archbishop of Canterbury criticized.

Bishop Minns heads a consortium of churches that have left the Episcopal Church, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. Canon Kearon said the convocation was not a recognized body of the Anglican Communion.

Bishop Minns said in a statement, “One thing is clear, a great deal can and will happen before next July.”

At the last Lambeth Conference, in 1998, the bishops passed a resolution “rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture” and declared their opposition to blessing same-sex unions.

The archbishop of Canterbury said in his letter to the bishops that he wanted the next conference to focus on prayer and reflection more than setting policy.

Read it all.

Two bishops at the heart of a deepening rift between the U.S. Episcopal Church and much of the worldwide Anglican Communion will not be invited to a global gathering next year of Anglican leaders, the secretary-general of the communion said Tuesday.

Neither Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire nor Bishop Martyn Minns of the breakaway Convocation of Anglicans in North America have been asked to attend the next Lambeth Conference, a once-a-decade gathering hosted by the archbishop of Canterbury. The conference is scheduled for next summer in England.

The communion’s secretary-general, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, spoke at a briefing for reporters in London, and his remarks were later distributed.

In the invitation sent Tuesday to more than 850 Anglican and Episcopal bishops, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the 77-million-member communion, said he had decided to forgo invitations to Robinson and Minns so that the meeting would focus on holding the increasingly fractious fellowship together.

Including bishops “whose appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the communion” would hurt efforts to create trust, Williams said.

Read it all.

From here:

Some Anglicans, especially critics of the authority of the Primates Meeting as an Instrument of Unity/Communion, have tended to see the four Instruments of Communion as competitors. There is no evidence that this view is held by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is himself an Instrument, and who presides at the Lambeth Conference, the Primates Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council. Clearly he views the Instruments as mutually encouraging, even as they have a specific and discrete identity and remit.

It has been the consistent position of ACI, going back to ”˜To Mend the Net,’ that the specific authority given to the Archbishop of Canterbury is that of gathering and inviting. And the place where that authority is his alone is the Lambeth Conference invitations.

But there is no evidence whatsoever that in making invitations for the 2008 Conference, +Canterbury has set aside or ignored the authority of the other Instruments.

It needs also to be underscored that the response of the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church to the requests of the most recent Primates Meeting says nothing probative in any way about the vitality and purchase of these requests. The means for providing regularization of various emergency extra-territorial ”˜missionary’ initiatives is the Pastoral Council Scheme and the Primatial Vicar. It is not the job of the Archbishop of Canterbury unilaterally to declare the regularization of these initiatives by inviting the bishops acting in such a status to the Lambeth Conference. That would be to reject the work of the Primates Meeting still alive and waiting final prosecution ”“ especially in the light of how the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church finally responds as of 30 September 2007.

It is tempting to wish to see individual initiatives, individual bishops, and individual Instruments as more definitive than others, and this instinct is alive on both ends of the Communion spectrum. What we are in fact seeing is the unfolding of a specific Anglican Communion polity, now come of age, and its hallmark is the mutual cooperation of four Instruments of Unity. The timing is such that the recent statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury is being given a specific kind of enhancement, but that may be misleading. In no way does his action in signaling an intention about present and future invitations stand over against the work of the other Instruments of Communion, and we can be sure he and his counselors have had this foremost in their minds.

We also wish to note the language of his statement””and this has not been properly emphasized due to concerns about CANA or New Hampshire””which points to the assumption that those Bishops attending do so with a commitment to the Instruments of Communion, and the statements and actions emanating from them. So far as we are concerned, the best indication of the mind of the Instruments in this season of disarray and challenge is what the Dar communiqué called the Camp Allen Principles: because these reaffirm Lambeth 1.10, Dromantine, The Windsor Report, and the serial statements and actions of all four Instruments.

It is our view that the efficient working of the Lambeth Conference, which is the desire of the Archbishop of Canterbury, needs an assumed commitment to these principles, if the meeting is not to be distracted and politicized according to this or that discrete concern or cause. We hope that the language used by the Archbishop of Canterbury at this juncture will receive specific commentary and elaboration. We believe we hear him rightly and trust that this perspective represents what is best for the healthy working of the Anglican Communion and the mission of Jesus Christ in this part of his Body the Church.

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori issued a brief statement to U.S. church leaders urging calm in response to the announcement Tuesday, reminding the bishops that “it is possible that aspects of this matter may change in the next 14 months.”

Anglican leaders have given the U.S. denomination until Sept. 30 to step back from its support of gays or risk losing its full membership in the communion. The Episcopal bishops will meet next on Sept. 20 in New Orleans.

“This decision places the vast majority of American bishops along with others throughout the world in an embarrassing position,” said the Rev. Martin Reynolds of Britain’s Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement. “If they accept their Lambeth invitations this might appear to support bishop Robinson’s victimization, while if they reject the invitation they will abandon our communion to the homophobes.”

In 2004, Robinson said that he told Williams he would be willing to attend Lambeth “in a diminished capacity” such as an observer if that would help bring conservatives to the table. Canon Kenneth Kearon, the communion’s secretary-general, said Tuesday that Robinson still could be invited as a guest.

“The question of Gene Robinson … I think has exercised the archbishop of Canterbury’s mind for quite some time,” Kearon said. “However, for the archbishop to simply give full recognition at this conference would be to ignore the very substantial and very widespread objections in many parts of the communion to his consecration and to his ministry.”

Robinson said in a statement Tuesday that “it makes no sense to exclude gay and lesbian people from the conversation.”

“It is time that the bishops of the Anglican Communion stop talking about gay and lesbian people and start talking with us,” he said.

Kearon said Williams is not considering a guest invitation for Minns, who was installed May 5 as head of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America.

Read it all.

Any host will tell you that the guest list can be a ticklish issue. And none could be more so than the Archbishop of Canterbury’s invitations to an important upcoming gathering of the bishops of the 77 million member Anglican Communion, which is currently embroiled in an angry internal debate over the ordination of gay clergy.

Earlier today Rowan Williams, the Canterbury Archbishop and thus the first-among-equals in the global religious group that includes the Episcopal Church in the United States, released a statement that he was sending out invitations for the 2008 Lambeth Conference of active Anglican bishops. Lambeth, which only meets once a decade, is the most important gathering of Communion leaders and the place where its most important decisions are made. Invitations also happen to be one of the few elements under the direct dominion of Williams, whose office is closer to coordinator-in-chief than Pope. The fact that the invitations had been sent was itself news ”” they hadn’t been expected yet. But at a related news conference, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, a Communion official, dropped a twin bombshell: Williams, he said, was not inviting the Right Rev. Martyn Minns, who is engaged in creating a conservative competitor to Episcopalianism in the U.S., or the Right Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire.

The exclusions speak volumes. The Communion is currently divided over a variety of issues that have found their fullest expression in a heated debate about the Episcopal Church’s 2003 election of Robinson, an openly gay man, as bishop. The elevation is virulently opposed by a large group of (primarily) developing-world archbishops known collectively as the Global South, some of whom have indicated that they would prefer to break up the Communion rather than accept gay bishops. Of this group, the most outspoken has been Nigerian archbishop Peter Akinola. Of all of Akinola’s many statements and acts of protest, the most controversial has been has been his appointment of Minns as a “missionary bishop” to a non-Episcopal American Anglican group called Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), which has absorbed formerly-Episcopal parishes in Virginia and Colorado.

By disinviting both Robinson and Minns, Williams may have pulled off a remarkable diplomatic feat.

Read it all.

“Integrity is outraged and appalled,” said Integrity President Susan Russell. “This is not only a snub of Bishop Gene Robinson but an affront to the entire U.S. Episcopal Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury has allowed himself to be blackmailed by forces promoting bigotry and exclusion in the Anglican Communion. This action shows a disgraceful lack of leadership on Williams’ part.”

“Integrity calls on all the bishops and the leadership of the Episcopal Church to think long and hard about whether they are willing to participate in the continued scapegoating of the gay and lesbian faithful as the price for going to the Lambeth Conference. It is purported to be a conference representing bishops from the whole Anglican Communion. That can’t happen when Rowan Williams aligns himself with those in the Communion such as Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria who violate human rights while explicitly excluding gay and lesbian voices from their midst,” Russell said. “Our bishops must ask themselves this question: ‘Is complicity in discrimination a price they are willing to pay for a two-week trip to Canterbury?'”

Integrity is currently contacting the leadership of the Episcopal Church and consulting with our progressive allies about this situation. We expect to make an additional statement in the near future.

–The Rev. Susan Russell, President

[available online here]

Read it all.

Dear All,

In response to requests for comments on the Lambeth Conference invitations, Archbishop Peter Akinola reaffirms that the Church of Nigeria is committed to the CAPA commissioned report “The Road to Lambeth”
(link here for Road to Lambeth doc)

Since only the first set of invitations had been sent, it is premature to conclude who will be present or absent at the conference. However, the withholding of invitation to a Nigerian bishop, elected and consecrated by other Nigerian bishops will be viewed as withholding invitation to the entire House of Bishops of the Church of Nigeria.

The Lord bless you as you remain in Christ

The Venerable AkinTunde Popoola
Director of Communications
Primate’s Office, 24 Douala Str., Wuse Zone 5, P.O. Box 212 ADCP, Abuja,
F.C.T., Nigeria.

(Fairfax, Virginia) ”” A statement was issued by the Anglican Communion Office on May 22 regarding the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Communion bishops in July 2008. The Rt. Rev’d Martyn Minns, Missionary Bishop of CANA (Convocation of Anglicans in North America), has made the following response:

“I have read the statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office regarding next year’s Lambeth Conference. While the immediate attention is focused on the invitation list, it should be remembered that this crisis in the Anglican Communion is not about a few individual bishops but about a worldwide Communion that is torn at its deepest level. This point was made repeatedly at the Primates’ meeting in Dar es Salaam. Depending on the response of The Episcopal Church to the Primates’ communiqué by September 30, the situation may become even more complex. One thing is clear, a great deal can and will happen before next July.”

Martin Reynolds said today: “We would respectfully remind the Archbishop of Canterbury of the Dromantine Communiqué where it says: ‘The victimisation or diminishment of human beings whose affections happen to be ordered towards people of the same sex is anathema to us.’ This is a flagrant example of victimisation that quite clearly intends to diminish Bishop Robinson’s status.”

Martin continues: “If the Archbishop of Canterbury is unable to follow the dictates of the Primates Group, yet alone the dictates of his own conscience, we are in a very unsafe state. We are deeply sorry for the failure of the Communion to live up to its own standards. Bishop Robinson and the diocese he was duly and canonically elected to serve have our full support and we believe they deserve much better. This decision places the vast majority of American bishops along with other through out the world in an embarrassing position. If they accept their Lambeth invitations this might appear to support Bishop Robinson’s victimisation, while if they reject the invitation they will abandon our Communion to the homophobes.”

It is likely Bishop Gene will be invited as a guest however. So I expect he will be there with us in the press office, as I cannot imagine there won’t be dozens of publications worldwide not willing to pay generously for his insight into the three weeks of proceedings.

But reading the letter, the line that moved me most was the bit at the end, about the “reply slip” attached to the letter, asking those invited to let Dr Williams know by 31 July this year whether they will be able to attend or not.

This is just so sweet. Like a vicarage tea party, almost.

Read it all.

With regard to the Issuance of Invitations to the Lambeth Conference, 2008
May 22, 2007

It is with great disappointment that I receive word from the Archbishop of Canterbury that I will not be included in the invitation list for the Lambeth Conference, 2008. At a time when the Anglican Communion is calling for a “listening process” on the issue of homosexuality, how does it make sense to exclude gay and lesbian people from the discussion? Isn’t it time that the Bishops of the Church stop talking about us and start talking with us?!
While I appreciate the acknowledgement that I am a duly elected and consecrated Bishop of the Church, the refusal to include me among all the other duly elected and consecrated Bishops of the Church is an affront to the entire Episcopal Church. This is not about Gene Robinson, nor the Diocese of New Hampshire. It is about the American Church. It is for The Episcopal Church to respond to this divide-and-conquer challenge to our polity, and in due time, I assume we will do so. In the meantime, I will pray for Archbishop Rowan and our beloved Anglican Communion.

For a long time a number of posters on House of Bishops/deputies listserv and prominent TEC leaders have gone on and on about the Anglican Communion’s Instruments of Unity having no real authority.

What is interesting to me about Archbishop Williams statement is that he acknowledges the authority he has to invite, or not to invite, indeed possibly even to withdraw a given invitation, to the Lambeth Conference. He then chooses (in a rare instance in Anglican history) to exercise that authority in a few “cases.”

This goes all the way back to Mend the Net.

So let’s end the fiction that the instruments do not really exist, or that they don’t matter, or don’t have any real authority.

They do have authority. And we do seek to be an Anglican Communion. Whether we ever become what God wants us to remains to be seen–KSH

Bishop Robinson was not expected to comment further until he has spoken with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

The bishops of the AMiA would not be invited to Lambeth because of the decision taken by Archbishop George Carey in 2000. Archbishop Carey “wrote to them saying he could not recognize their ministry” and that their “consecrations were irregular,” Canon Kearon explained. This decision was “confirmed at Oporto” by the primates in 2000, and the “decision was already fixed” by Archbishop Williams’ predecessor.

The case of CANA Bishop Martyn Minns exhibits “no difference” from the AMiA and he falls into the same category, Canon Kearon said.
On Bishop Kunonga, Archbishop Williams is “seeking further advice,” Canon Kearon said, but noted his case and that of one or two others had “nothing to do with the Windsor process.”

In 2002, the United States and the European Union banned Bishop Kunonga from travel to Europe and America in response to his complicity with the crimes of the regime of Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe.

Read it all.

The archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual head of 77 million Anglicans worldwide, has not invited two wayward bishops to a major conference next year, a move likely to stir controversy in the deeply divided communion.

Archbishop Rowan Williams has sent invitations to more than 800 Anglican bishops asking them to attend the Lambeth Conference in London in July and August 2008, but has not invited two American bishops — Gene Robinson and Martyn Minns.

Robinson has caused division since he was consecrated as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003, becoming the Anglican Church’s first openly gay bishop.

Minns, a deeply conservative Episcopalian, was installed last year as the head of a new Nigerian-based church branch in the United States designed as a refuge for orthodox believers. The Anglican Communion does not recognize his position.

“I have to reserve the right to withhold or withdraw invitations from bishops whose appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the Communion,” Williams wrote in his invitations, which were sent out on Tuesday.

It is inaccurate to describe Martyn Minns as “deeply” conservative for the record, and note that there is no similar adjective for Gene Robinson. Read it all.

Read it all

(ACNS)

The first invitations for the 2008 Lambeth Conference, to be held in Canterbury next summer, are being sent out today by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. The gathering, which is set to be the largest Lambeth Conference in the history of the Anglican Communion, brings together bishops from the Churches in the 38 Provinces of the Anglican Communion together with ecumenical and other invited guests.

The 2008 Conference is intended to comprise nearly three weeks of shared retreat, common worship, study and discussion. It differs from previous gatherings in that the bishops will begin the conference with a period of retreat and reflection. It is planned that much of this retreat time will be held in and around Canterbury Cathedral.

The first set of invitations are being sent today to over 800 bishops of the provinces of the Anglican Communion. In his letter of invitation the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, pays tribute to the Conference Design Group whose members, led by the Archbishop of Melanesia, have, with his full support, proposed a programme with an emphasis on fellowship, study, prayer, the sharing of experience and discussion, all aimed at equipping bishops for their distinctive apostolic ministry:

“Their vision and their advice has been an inspiration at every stage so far. I am hugely excited by the possibilities the programme offers for a new and more effective style of meeting and learning, and for greater participation, which will help us grow together locally and internationally. ”¦ it will also be an opportunity for all of us to strengthen our commitment to God’s mission and to our common life as a Communion. In connection with this latter point, we shall be devoting some time to thinking about the proposals for an Anglican Covenant, and about other ways in which we can deepen our sense of a common calling for us as a coherent and effective global Church family.”

“The Conference is a place where experience of our living out of God’s mission can be shared. It is a place where we may be renewed for effective ministry. And it is a place where we can try and get more clarity about the limits of our diversity and the means of deepening our Communion, so we can speak together with conviction and clarity to the world. It is an occasion in which the Archbishop of Canterbury exercises his privilege of calling his colleagues together, not to legislate but to discover and define something more about our common identity through prayer, listening to God’s Word and shared reflection. It is an occasion to rediscover the reality of the Church itself as a worldwide community united by the call and grace of Christ.”

Mindful of the speculation that has surrounded the issuing of invitations to the Conference Dr Williams recalls that invitations are issued on a personal basis by the Archbishop of Canterbury and that “the Lambeth Conference has no ”˜constitution’ or formal powers; it is not a formal Synod or Council of the Communion”, and that invitation to the Conference has never been seen as “a certificate of doctrinal orthodoxy”. Nevertheless Dr Williams recognises in his letter that under very exceptional circumstances an invitation may be withheld or withdrawn. Under this provision, there are a small number of bishops to whom invitations are not at this stage being extended whilst Dr Williams takes further advice.

Other invitations ”“ to ecumenical representatives and other invited guests ”“ will be sent out in due course. Bishops’ spouses are being invited to a parallel conference; invitations for this will be sent later in the year by Mrs Jane Williams, who is the host.

The text of the Archbishop’s invitation is below:

”˜Dear Bishop,

I am delighted to invite you to the Lambeth Conference of 2008 and I very much look forward to our gathering together as bishops of the Anglican Communion.
The dates of the Conference are 16 July-4 August 2008 and I trust you will already have heard something of the vision for the Conference as it has been unfolding. It will focus on our equipping as bishops for leadership in mission and teaching, and it will also be an opportunity for all of us to strengthen our commitment to God’s mission and to our common life as a Communion. In connection with this latter point, we shall be devoting some time to thinking about the proposals for an Anglican Covenant, and about other ways in which we can deepen our sense of a common calling for us as interdependent members of the body of Christ.

This will be my third Lambeth Conference and I am very confident of the quality of the programme being developed for it. I want to offer my warm public thanks to all those from across the world who have worked so hard at planning this ”“ especially the devoted Design Group under the Archbishop of Melanesia, those who attended the St Augustine’s Seminar last year, and our Conference Manager, Sue Parks. Their vision and their advice has been an inspiration at every stage so far. I am hugely excited by the possibilities the programme offers for a new and more effective style of meeting and learning, and for greater participation, which will help us grow together locally and internationally.

Because there has been quite a bit of speculation about invitations and the conditions that might be attached to them, I want to set out briefly what I think the Conference is and is not.

The Conference is a place where our experience of living out God’s mission can be shared. It is a place where we may be renewed for effective ministry. And it is a place where we can try and get more clarity about the limits of our diversity and the means of deepening our Communion, so we can speak together with conviction and clarity to the world. It is an occasion when the Archbishop of Canterbury exercises his privilege of calling his colleagues together, not to legislate but to discover and define something more about our common identity through prayer, listening to God’s Word and shared reflection. It is an occasion to rediscover the reality of the Church itself as a worldwide community united by the call and grace of Christ.

But the Lambeth Conference has no ”˜constitution’ or formal powers; it is not a formal Synod or Council of the bishops of the Communion, which would require us to be absolutely clear about the standing of all the participants. An invitation to participate in the Conference has not in the past been a certificate of doctrinal orthodoxy. Coming to the Lambeth Conference does not commit you to accepting the position of others as necessarily a legitimate expression of Anglican doctrine and discipline, or to any action that would compromise your conscience or the integrity of your local church.
At a time when our common identity seems less clear that it once did, the temptation is to move further away from each other into those circles where we only related to those who completely agree with us. But the depth and seriousness of the issues that face us require us to discuss as fully and freely as we can, and no other forum offers the same opportunities for all to hear and consider, in the context of a common waiting on the Holy Spirit.

I have said, and repeat here, that coming to the Conference does not commit you to accepting every position held by other bishops as equally legitimate or true. But I hope it does commit us all to striving together for a more effective and coherent worldwide body, working for God’s glory and Christ’s Kingdom. The Instruments of Communion have offered for this purpose a set of resources and processes, focused on the Windsor Report and the Covenant proposals. My hope is that as we gather we can trust that your acceptance of the invitation carries a willingness to work with these tools to shape our future. I urge you all most strongly to strive during the intervening period to strengthen confidence and understanding between our provinces and not to undermine it.
At this point, and with the recommendations of the Windsor Report particularly in mind, I have to reserve the right to withhold or withdraw invitations from bishops whose appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the Communion. Indeed there are currently one or two cases on which I am seeking further advice. I do not say this lightly, but I believe that we need to know as we meet that each participant recognises and honours the task set before us and that there is an adequate level of mutual trust between us about this. Such trust is a great deal harder to sustain if there are some involved who are generally seen as fundamentally compromising the efforts towards a credible and cohesive resolution.

I look forward with enthusiasm to the Conference and hope you will be able to attend, or your successor in the event that you retire in the meantime. My wife Jane will be writing with an invitation to the Spouses Conference which will run in parallel to the Lambeth Conference. Further communication to bishops will follow soon from the Lambeth Conference Office, including details of the costs and a reply slip on which you can respond formally to this invitation. It would be a great help if these replies were received by 31 July 2007. In the meantime, should you have any queries about the Lambeth Conference itself, or if you will be retiring before the Conference, please contact the Lambeth Conference Manager at invitations@lambethconference.org or consult the Lambeth Conference website www.lambethconference.org.

I trust you and your diocese will join with me in praying for God’s gracious blessing of our time together.

Yours in Christ,

Rowan CANTUAR