The presiding bishop responded that “until” was Windsor language. I concurred and asked if any bishop objected to the use of “until” as opposed to “unless,” and she replied, “no.” She could not recall any opposition to this major shift in wording.
That’s incredible. Let’s remember that while the Windsor Report said “until,” the primates deliberately changed that word to “unless.”
Drawing on some powerful imagery from JRR Tolkein, Sarah Hey at Stand Firm outlines her hopes for how the Windsor Bishops will act in these crucial days:
For several years now, I have been clear with myself and others about what I hope for and seek. I believe that the Anglican vision of the church and the gospel is the most beautiful and complete Christian vision that there is. I want a disciplined, boundaried, ordered, and united Anglican Communion as the vehicle for that vision. I believe that such an Anglican Communion is the best, and probably the only hope for carrying that vision. It appears now highly unlikely that the Anglican Communion will discipline itself or further establish its ordered and clear identity — and thus the vehicle for carrying that vision to sinners will be lost, at least in the United States. Furthermore, because of my theology, numerous options that may be open for others are closed to me.
I understand that others do not believe as I do — but those who do, must take the path as it leads, regardless of any sadness or pain or defeat that may lie ahead.
This brings me to the Windsor bishops who are at this moment in the closed session of the House of Bishops meeting.
The temptation must be great for artificial closure — a shortcutting of the path that seems to lead to defeat. The honorable path is that of taking one’s stand for the clear and sole path towards the integrity and wholeness of the Anglican Communion — and that path is firmly standing for the doctrine and practice of the Christian faith and of the Anglican Communion. It is firmly standing for the principles espoused so clearly in the Windsor Report. And it is standing for the solution offered to the intractable problems that face us by the Dar es Salaam communique.
Down that path one must go. The ACI believes it. Kendall Harmon believes it. The staff at StandFirm believe it. In fact, there has rarely been such unity amongst conservatives in the Anglican Communion as today. All of us believe with our whole hearts that the path forward is Windsor and Dar and the outcry amongst us all, nearly to a person, is to please put to the floor a clear and forthright resolution that answers the questions of Dar, and vote as a stalwart unit for that resolution, making certain that your names are on the record for it.
But as we have learned — and I mean this personally, and am not pointing the finger at others — there are many opportunities for a conservative Episcopalian under immense pressure to betray one’s principles, one’s path, and one’s comrades. One might negotiate with other progressive bishops and produce a resolution that proves “acceptable” to a bare majority, but unacceptable to your fellow traditional bishops and which betrays the principles of the Windsor Report and the communique from the Primates. One might watch one’s comrades speak and urge for a clear statement, while remaining silent oneself. One might vote for the wrong resolution, in the hopes that it will pass without having to vote on the principled and clear resolution. One might refuse to let one’s vote be known, in the hopes of slipping quietly away. One might fail in defending the principled resolution from amendment, and then end up voting for the amended one as “the best we can do.” One might yield to the need of your diocese for money and aid. One might be tempted not to use the language asked for at Dar, but instead use “blurry words” that some revisionists might vote for. One might yield to the nearly irresistable temptation to save one’s diocese from the dissent and anxiety that may arise should a principled resolution come to the floor and be defeated. What will happen, an orthodox bishop may think, should I “step off that plane with no piece of paper that proclaims peace and stability for our time?”
If you read the Bible carefully, you may observe that the prophets reserve some of their strongest condemnations for lack of honesty””before God and before others. These people honor me with their lips, Isaiah says, but their hearts are far from me. The God of reality wants his people to face the reality about God, our world and ourselves, and we do nearly everything in our power to avoid it.
All this brings us to the central question facing the House of Bishops meeting this week in New Orleans: Is the leadership of the Episcopal Church going to be honest about what they really believe and are doing or will they hide behind an institutional and verbal smokescreen?
Again and again in Minneapolis in 2003 we heard that God is doing a new thing and that the gospel of justice demanded that we must change our teaching to say that persons in non-celibate same sex unions are appropriate models for Christian leadership. But now that the Archbishop of Canterbury is coming to town and there might be serious consequences, a number of bishops are coming to the meeting like Monty Hall seeking to play “Let’s Make a Deal!!” Instead of owning the new theology they have embraced, they are going to hide behind words and phrases which say one thing while a number of them believe and do something else.
You can arrange the subterfuge yourself. First they will say as Bishop Parsley said to the New York Times this week:
The primates want us to say that we don’t approve public rites of blessing, and we have not done that. They don’t want us to approve gay bishops in committed relationships, and the 2006 general convention resolution makes that unlikely. Basically, what I’m saying is that what they are asking is essentially already the case.
So some are going to claim they are already doing two of the three things they have been asked, and then you add some kind of new Primatial Vicar proposal and–tada!–the institutional smokescreen is up.
Ah, but we need to pay attention to the man behind the curtain because what you see in the Episcopal Church is not what you get.
First, the bishops and the Archbishop of Canterbury and the others who gather in New Orleans need to focus on the key issue of whether there is “local pastoral provision” for same sex blessings in certain parts of the Episcopal Church. Here is the wording in the relevant section of the Tanzania communique:
There appears to us to be an inconsistency between the position of General Convention and local pastoral provision. We recognise that the General Convention made no explicit resolution about such Rites and in fact declined to pursue resolutions which, if passed, could have led to the development and authorisation of them. However, we understand that local pastoral provision is made in some places for such blessings. It is the ambiguous stance of The Episcopal Church which causes concern among us.
The activist group Integrity says it knows of 11 dioceses that have official, written policies allowing the blessing of same-sex relationships:
Arkansas
California
Connecticut
Delaware [Bishop Wright’s office will only provide a copy to other bishops, apparently]
Long Island
Nevada
New Hampshire
North Carolina
Utah
Vermont
Washington
Beyond these, there are numerous others which allow for blessings ”“ Newark, [see also here], Los Angeles, Massachusetts [see also here, and here], New York, and the list could go on.
For example the just consecrated new bishop of Olympia said just recently:
he is comfortable continuing Bishop Warner’s stance of letting individual priests decide whether to perform blessing ceremonies for same-sex unions.
The other key phrase is the phrase from Lambeth 1998 1.10, that Anglicans
…cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions
The Bishop of New Jersey just said recently in a New Jersey newspaper:
We in the Diocese of New Jersey respect the discernment of the local congregations as they search for and call clergy to serve in leadership. All clergy candidates are subject to the same reference and background checks, including conversations with the bishops and deployment officers of those applying from other dioceses. Among the questions that I always ask is the following, based upon one of the ordination vows in our Book of Common Prayer: “Is this priest’s personal life a wholesome example to the people?”
I believe that gay and lesbian clergy, living in monogamous, faithful and stable unions, are a wholesome example to the people of our churches. Once assured of that, I welcome congregations to call such clergy to lead them in their life and ministry.
I have met the Rev. Debra Bullock, who comes with the very highest recommendations from her seminary faculty and from the clergy and lay leaders where she served in Chicago. She is a faithful, dedicated, hard-working, warm and talented priest. She will bring new life and new energy to St. Barnabas in Villas and to St. Mary’s, Stone Harbor.
This IS legitimizing a non-celibate same sex relationship for someone ordained, and it is against the mind and teaching of the Anglican Communion.
Second, the bishops and the Archbishop of Canterbury and the others who gather in New Orleans need to focus on the inadequacy of resolution B033 as passed in a hurried and confusing manner on the last day of General Convention 2006. [note from elves: and dissented to immediately by a group of up to 20 bishops, and rejected by at least 9 dioceses at their diocesan conventions last year]
It is very important to quote over and over again the key section of the Windsor Report which invites TEC to
effect a moratorium on the election and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same gender union until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges” (Windsor Report 134)
Notice three things. First, it is a specific aspect of the person’s life in view””their involvement in a non-celibate same sex union. Second, it is both a moratorium on the election and on the consent to such a person. So it is not just the consent process which is spoken about. Third, VERY IMPORTANT, note that it has a time frame “until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges.”
With regard to the SECOND aspect just mentioned, it is worthwhile to recall the resolution proposed by the Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion for the General Convention 2006 (this wording never made it to the floor but it is important in that it shows the intent of Windsor in this regard WAS understood by the special commission):
Proposed resolution A161 read:
Resolved, the House of _____ concurring, That the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church regrets the extent to which we have, by action and inaction, contributed to strains on communion and caused deep offense to many faithful Anglican Christians as we consented to the consecration of a bishop living openly in a same-gender union. Accordingly, we urge nominating committees, electing conventions, Standing Committees, and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise very considerable caution in the nomination, election, consent to, and consecration of bishops whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.
Please observe that the committee included nomination, election and consent as all these were clearly in view. In the last two years three dioceses””California, Newark and now Chicago, have nominated non-celibate same sex parterned persons to be finalists for bishop in their dioceses. This is not what the Anglican Communion asked for.
Resolution B033 reads
Resolved, That the 75th General Convention receive and embrace The Windsor Report’s invitation to engage in a process of healing and reconciliation; and be it further Resolved, That this Convention therefore call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.
Note that the focus has been broadened and is no longer on the specific issue that Windsor asked for, that the nomination and election aspects are eliminated, and that there is no time frame specified.
In the Episcopal Church we have not done what was requested of us in either case. Bishop Parsley is wrong.
Finally, any discussion of the Tanzania Primatial Vicar proposal–which was rejected by the House of Bishops when they last met, and by the Executive Council thereafter–does not matter until BOTH of these first two matters are resolved and TEC’s leadership makes clear that it will do what the Anglican Communion wants.
I for one will be delighted if all of these issues are resolved on the terms which were called for, and the Anglican Communion finds a future of unity in truth which God intends for us as we proceed further into the twenty-first century. But it must come as we honor the Lord with our lips and our hearts.
So, my prayer for New Orleans is for HONESTY. The leadership of the Episcopal Church changed its teaching and practice climactically in 2003 and moved it away from that of the Anglican Communion. God did a new thing and justice had to be done. So let the TEC leaders have the courage of their convictions and say what they actually believe before God and the global Anglican leaders. If they fail to do so, where is the justice in that?
Welcome to the Alice in Wonderland world of “process” which so dominates the upper echelons of the leadership life of the Episcopal Church. If words COULD be interpreted in a way that does not favor the leadership’s goals, they are not, but when the wording does, they are interpeted that way, restrictively. There is some talk that this whole conflict and crisis among Anglicans is all about power, and it is not primarily about power, actually, but about truth and other things. Yet power plays a role, it is just that TEC leadership does not do much self-criticism about how they exercise their own power. Words mean what those in leadership in TEC want them to mean in too many instances. One wishes there would be some self-scrutiny on such matters because the implications would be considerable. The lack of honesty in this church in some matters has become intolerable. People are saying one thing and doing another and using words to mislead others into thinking they are not doing what in fact they are doing….
The key language in this resolution may be found here: Lambeth “cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions.” Anglican practice needs to be in accord with anglican teaching. Therefore, there can be no pastoral practice in a local setting which either is or is seen to be somehow “legitimising or blessing”¦same sex unions.” And this means that local blessings, whether in houses or churches or wherever, and whether they have official sanctioned liturgies or not, cannot be done, if they are of non-celibate same sex couples.
Lest there be any doubt about this, the Archbishop of Canterbury said at the concluding press conference of the Tanzania primates meeting:
The teaching of the Anglican Church remains that homosexual activity is not compatible with scripture.
Read it all. And note that Bishop Councell’s article posted below is exactly legitimizing a same sex union in his diocese. This is the new theology and practice which TEC has embraced. Why will its leaders not admit this openly and honestly? Do they lack the courage of their convictions?
The Lambeth Commission, included bishops from all provinces of the global church, speaking about the Windsor Report in an interview with this reporter published June 4, 2005, the Anglican Archbishop of the West Indies, the Most Rev. Drexel Gomez, a member of the Lambeth Commission, said
“We concluded on the basis of who we are and on the basis of our own Anglican self-understanding that the actions of the Church in the United States and the Church in Canada have departed from the Anglican way of doing church. We said it (homosexual behaviour) is not only un-Anglican but contrary to Scripture. In that context, we called on the churches involved to express ‘regret’. The language was chosen deliberately. Some of us wanted to put ‘repent.’ But we felt, let us put it in the language that is the lowest common denominator to get a response. To express regret and say you won’t do it again is very close to what the New Testament calls repentance. We felt that if we went that way, we had a far better chance of evoking a response as opposed to just coming up to them and saying repent. We asked them to have a moratorium – not to do it again. And to explain the theological reasons why they acted that way.”
The 2.3-million member Episcopal Church in the United States, which is led by Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, convened the general convention in June of 2006 but did not fulfil the wishes of the Windsor Report.
As has been reported by the press, the Episcopal bishops last spring were given three requests and a deadline by the global Anglican primates. They were asked to stop consecrating actively gay bishops (meaning no more Gene Robinsons), to stop formal blessings of same-sex unions, and to provide space for those who dissent from the regnant liberal theology of the Episcopal Church. The deadline was September 30, so the upcoming meeting will in effect signal definitively whether or not the American church will decide to remain in step with the Anglican Communion or instead detach itself and go its own way.
Williams’ stance at the meeting will inevitably signal whose side he is on. The majority of the Episcopal Church’s bishops do not want to comply with the primates’ requests, as they signaled vociferously last spring. The question is: If they refuse, what if anything will happen to them? Will the American bishops get to come to Lambeth and participate in the other global conferences of Anglicanism no matter what they do, or will refusal mean that they’ll have to sit at home?
It’s an important question, because sitting at home would mean that the American church would no longer have any say in the decision-making bodies of Anglicanism. In effect, it would mean that the Episcopal Church would no longer be a fully constituent part of the Anglican Communion””which, especially when viewed in light of Anglicanism’s history, would be a striking change. Many American bishops who otherwise would support Gene Robinson would at the least be given pause by such a momentous choice.
Of course, it is just this choice that the Americans want to avoid, as, most likely, does Rowan Williams. In many ways Williams is close theological kin to the American church, and it will be extraordinarily difficult for him to prosecute this sort of separation.
But as wrenching as it may be for him, it is probably the only way to keep the majority of Anglicanism together.
Not doing it will likely set off a domino-like series of effects. In essence, the decision-making authority of Anglicanism’s central instruments will collapse””if the agreement hammered out by the global primates last spring in Tanzania is seen to have no bite, future meetings will become toothless and ineffectual.
From The Living Church:
It’s popular in conservative circles to say that our identity is anchored to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Bishop Jeffrey Steenson wrote a forceful apology for a Canterbury magisterium in the Anglican Theological Review (“The Unopened Gift,” Vol. 87), various Windsor bishops’ statements have said as much, and the Windsor Report itself seems to give the archbishop such a place of honor.
But with great respect for Bishop Steenson and the Windsor bishops, just to say something doesn’t make it true, and to say it often doesn’t make it less false. The Archbishop of Canterbury has never been the focal point of unity in the Anglican Communion. Instead, the focus of unity has always been a theology, what the prayer book calls “the substance of the Faith,” of which the archbishop is obligated to uphold. To give Canterbury control over our identity gives him far more power than he was ever meant to have.
According to Ian Douglas (Understanding the Windsor Report, coauthored with Paul Zahl), the four “instruments of unity” described in the Windsor Report were never identified as such before 1987. The Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Singapore in 1987 considered a paper that brought the four together for the first time. Yet, in reading the Windsor Report, one would get the feeling that these four ”” the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Consultative Council, the primates, and Lambeth Conference ”” have always been authoritative.
Anderson summarized the work of both the Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion and the special legislative committee that was appointed to deal with the commission’s proposed resolutions in response to the Windsor Report for the 75th General Convention, which met in June 2006.
She also explained the five resolutions passed by the Convention. The resolutions Anderson discussed were A160 Expression of Regret, A165 Commitment to the Windsor and Listening Processes, A166 Anglican Covenant Development Process, A167 “Full and Equal Claim” for all the Baptized, and B033 On Election of Bishops.
Anderson reminded the groups that the Episcopal Church has not authorized a public rite for blessing same-gender relationships. Such blessings were one of the concerns of the Windsor Report.