The Bible Studies at this Encounter have been beyond extraordinary. For three days, we have studied a portion of three chapters in Isaiah, search for God’s reason for creating Covenants. Tuesday was Isaiah 61:1-13; Wednesday was Isaiah 41:1-9 and today was Isaiah 50:4-9 with 2 Timothy 1:8-14 thrown in for good measure. There is such a feeling of unity here ”“ that’s one of the reasons the Bible Studies are so enjoyable. This is not a state of political unity where we agree on a strategy or a legislative agenda, like General Convention. This is spiritual unity. We have the same understandings of the basic words of Scripture. When one says God, the Father Almighty, or Sovereign Lord, the other knows what you are referring to. You don’t have to redefine the term or question the other person’s understanding of same. So, there is much less tension here. No one is a stranger.

Couple that with the fact that the Global South bishops and archbishops are not creating anything new. Abp. Mouneer Anis reiterated this morning that the Global South has a structure that includes a Primate’s Standing Committee and an administrative team, newly elected at this Encounter. President: Abp. John Chew of Singapore; Vice President Abp. Henry Orombi, Uganda, (who is still stranded in London); Secretary Abp. Mouneer Anis of Egypt/Middle East; Treasurer Abp. Nicholas Okoh, Nigeria; at large Abp. Stephen Than Myint Oo, Myanmar and Bishop Albert Chama, Central Africa. The Global South has a structure for their own development only. They are not leaving the Anglican Communion and they are not forming their own communion.

Read it all.

The Global South-to-South Encounter entered into its third. What does it mean for the Churches in the Global South to be a “Light for the Nations?

The day started with Archbishop Robert Duncan presiding at Holy Communion. In his homily, he reminded us that we, who are “deeply, truly and permanently loved” are truly free. We do not “go our own way” to find freedom, but we come to Jesus, the bread of life. Assistant Bishop Rennis Ponniah, led the Bible Study, sharing from Isaiah 42:1-9. Bp Ponniah emphasized the vital need for a fresh vision of the Church. The scope of the Church’s ministry has to include the bringing forth of God’s justice in society, by modeling covenantal relations and by teaching society the keeping of God’s moral law. The nature of the Church’s presence is as a servant to the world’s needs; Anglican ministers are not celebrities, but celebrants. Finally, Bp Ponniah once again reminded us to look to the Holy Spirit as the source of the Church’s power, to give us an indefatigable constancy to do God’s work every day.

Read it all.

Global South Churches must work together in mutual co-operation in all the aspects for church development. For example:

* Scenario 1 ”“ Mission workers of Diocese B are sent to pioneer new frontiers in Diocese A.
* Scenario 2 ”“ Diocese A raises its own workers and sends to them to Diocese B for training with the support of Diocese B with the view to the trained workers returning to Diocese A for service.
* Scenario 3 ”“ Diocese B sends trainers to Diocese A to train its workers and leaders.

We must avoid a dependency mentality. Even if there is a need for financial support, it should be done in a way consistent with the law of diminishing support.

Links and Companionship perhaps is a better way forward ”“ two or three dioceses linking together or creating a companion relationship for mission and ministry. Today’s world is a global village and the mobility of people is rapid. People do travel frequently. We can capitalize on this and promote mission trips and awareness between dioceses and provinces. It must be a two way parallel affair where both are on the same playing field. We can encourage more East and South links. The same can be promoted for theological training. Instead of sending our students to the North and West for training, we can explore the new adventure of training in the East and South. I can identify a few factors of benefit.

Read it all.

The opportunities for mission are legion. The fields are ripe for harvest. My brothers and sisters, we are the Eleventh Hour Workers. Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, to send out laborers into the harvest.

I would hope that we could leave this meeting of Global South Provinces having resolved together to make the next ten years a Decade of Mission in the Global South. Where we resolve such things as:

* Every Province will create a mission sending agency. We know how to receive missionaries very well. But, we can’t receive from one another, if we have no way to send them to one another. This means we must also address the issue of supporting missionaries we send, whether through the traditional means of support coming from the sending church, or through non-traditional means of tent-making and Business as Mission.
* We will collaborate together to strengthen our churches, especially those living in strong multi-religious contexts.
* We will commit ourselves to doubling the size of our Provinces and increasing the number of Provinces in the Global South.

Read it all.

Now, the Global South believing community has the same ethical challenge before it. We are the descendents of Abraham by faith in Jesus. We too are called to keep the way of the Lord. If we walk in the way of the Lord ”“ by following the instruction of the Lord ”“ in other words God’s word is to be a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths. Scripture has to be our guiding factor in our decision making.

If we pursue justice ”“ that is if we seek course correction ”“ if we act as a plumb line showing where the wall has gone off plumb then we would be acting as the light to the nations. We can only be a light to the nations by doing justice ”“ by this we are calling people to be accountable. Peter proclaims to the Jews in his encounter with Cornelius that he was proclaiming Jesus whom God appointed judge of the living and the dead. The resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of the final putting-to-rights of all human injustice. In the light of the Resurrection, the Covenant Community must never stop reminding the world’s rulers and authorities as well as its own rulers and authorities that they themselves will be held to account, and that they must do justice and bring wise, healing order to God’s world ahead of the day of the Lord’s coming.

The Global South of the Anglican Communion is called to be a light to the nations. As the covenant community we need to illumine the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Only Jesus can remove the veil that blinds.

Read it all.

Day 2 of the 4th Anglican Global South-to-South Encounter was a time for all present to listen, meditate and share on the richness of the covenantal idea. As Archbishop John Chew reminded us, to allow the covenant effected by Jesus to “challenge and engage us”¦ to reflect it in our lives.”

The day started off with the Holy Communion, led be participants from Asia, with the Archbishop of Melanesia, David Vanugi serving as the celebrant. Then the morning Bible Study followed, led by the Bishop Rennis Ponniah, the Assistant Bishop of Singapore. Sharing from Isaiah 6: 1-13, he exhorted us to be like the contrite prophet who was “undone by the stunning holiness of God, amazed by the sheer grace of God, and captivated by the salvation purpose of God.” It was a call to repentance and humility, that God cannot use us as His servants unless we are totally broken before Him.

Read it all.

“It is the work of the Spirit that heals the Body of Christ, not the plans or the statements of any group, or any person, or any instrument of communion,” Dr. Rowan Williams said in a video address to the Fourth Global South to South Encounter.

Dozens of conservative Anglican leaders opened a five-day conference Monday in Singapore. Participants intend to build on the vision of the “One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ” as they confront the brokenness of the 77 million-member body.

They are there to discuss the Anglican Covenant ”“ a document aimed at preventing a split in the Anglican Communion.

“Initially, it was felt that a comprehensive Anglican covenant would help heal the wounds and restore confidence in our relationships within the Anglican family, as it would provide for accountability,” said retired Archbishop of Nigeria the Most Rev. Peter Akinola in his opening address Monday.

“But as things stand today in the Communion, this Encounter gathered here in Singapore needs to assure itself if the proposed covenant offers any such hope.”

Read it all.

Why do we need structures?

-To enhance and sustain Christ’s mission.

-To further active partnership in the Gospel and guarantee our interdependence in the Communion

-To compensate for the undermining of bishops and primates who have made proper vows and have determined those vows will not be violated . To our sorrow, they are still deposed.

Let me say this clearly. We do not need another Communion. WE are the Communion. Others may wish to form a new communion. That is not our desire. We are not to compete with the current dysfunctional structure of the Anglican Communion, but find a way forward at the current time. It is time to stop reacting and get on with the important job of Christ’s mission that we have been given.

Read it all.

Check them out from Anglican TV.

Check it out.

Covenant is obviously a very key central biblical concept. Our intent is however specific and limited for our gathering.

My intention is to try digging into the deep core pulse of the covenant reality in the God-Israel relationship and its working out or otherwise of its vocational existence.

While the paper’s focus is not on the challenges and crisis of the Anglican Communion, it is inevitable some reflections and comments would be made to it, with particular reference to the vocation of the Global South as our evolved existence since 1994 has defined it, and now in its fellowship with the wider orthodox family in the Communion….

Read it all.

He went on to say that the Anglican Communion had been reflecting on the need for a covenant “in the light of confusion, brokenness and tension within our Anglican family ”“ brokenness and a tension that has been made still more acute by recent decisions in some of our Provinces.?

“In all your minds there will be questions around the election and consecration of Mary Glasspool in Los Angeles. All of us share the concern that in this decision and action the Episcopal Church has deepened the divide between itself and the rest of the Anglican family. And as I speak to you now, I am in discussion with a number of people around the world about what consequences might follow from that decision, and how we express the sense that most Anglicans will want to express, that this decision cannot speak for our common mind.

“But I hope also in your thinking about this and in your reacting to it, you’ll bear in mind that there are no quick solutions for the wounds of the Body of Christ. It is the work of the Spirit that heals the Body of Christ, not the plans or the statements of any group, or any person, or any instrument of communion. Naturally we seek to minimize the damage, to heal the hurts, to strengthen our mission, to make sure that it goes forward with integrity and conviction.? Naturally, there are decisions that have to be taken.? But at the same time we must all…share in a sense of repentance and willingness to be renewed by the Spirit.

Read it carefully and read it all and note if you desire to you can watch the full address on video there.

A historic gathering of worldwide Anglican leaders started yesterday at St. Andrew’s Cathedral. But the fourth ‘Anglican Global South to South Encounter’ (GS4E) was already marked by intense feelings of distress.

The Anglican Global South, grouping 20 provinces in the southern hemisphere, represents three-quarters of the 75 million Anglicans around the world.

“My sisters and brothers from around the world, I am troubled, I am sad; in fact I am confused,” said newly retired Nigerian Archbishop Peter J Akinola.

Speaking at the opening service, Bishop Akinola traced the recent history of the inability of the Anglican Communion to resolve its theological-ethical crisis.

Read it all.

His Grace Bishop Anba Suriel, the representative of the Coptic Orthodox Church, reminded us that the Covenant of Christ involves the shedding of blood. For some, it means martyrdom or death as we will normally understand that word. It is a price still being paid by some today, as did some Egyptian Coptic Christians last Christmas. However, to be faithful in our witness is also one form of martyrdom. It is costly to remain faithful to the truth and teaching of Scriptures. He said his Church is praying that this Encounter will be a faithful witness in the midst of challenges in the Communion.

We were reminded of the seeds of the Anglican Church growing in various parts of Asia. Pastor Rinzi Lama and Pastor Shyam from the Anglican Church in Nepal shared on the grace of God in helping the Anglican Church in Nepal, though still in her infancy, to grow to 7,000 worshippers today.

Read it all.

We all know that signing the covenant will not stop TEC from pursuing its own agenda. In fact only recently, it elected and confirmed another openly practicing lesbian priest to the episcopate. The Communion is still unable to exercise discipline. We are God’s Covenant to the world, yes, but we are divided. We lack discipline. We lack the courage to call ”˜a spade a spade’. Our obedience to God is selective.

My sisters and brothers from around the world, I am troubled, I am sad in fact I am confused. If the churches in the Global South sign up, would they then become a new Communion? Wouldn’t that further polarize the church? On the other hand the Churches in the Global South cannot forever continue to merely react to the actions of the Western churches. If TEC for political reasons chooses to sign, and we can’t stop them, but continues to disregard the mind of the Communion on these matters that have caused us so much grief, it will make nonsense of the whole exercise.

Where do we go from here?

Our desire in the Global South is for a genuine healing of the Church. Our desire is for the restoration of sacramental communion among all the churches in the global Anglican family. Much precious time has been spent, or maybe wasted, on this crisis. The real mission of the church, which is to make Christ known to all is suffering and in some cases neglected. We in the Global South cannot continue in this way. Yet, we see no light at the end of the tunnel. Time is God’s precious gift for which we are accountable to God as His stewards. This Encounter must show us the way forward in all of this.

Read it all,

In concluding, I wish to make two points:

a) The absolute necessity for economic empowerment in the Global South and

b) The treachery of another Gospel which is afraid of and denies the deity of Christ.

The first point: We in the Global South must realise that God has not cheated us in the area of natural and human resources. It is God’s will that we grow economically, to provide for our needs for the work of God and give to those in need. It is not God’s will that we remain perpetually dependent on the handouts from the sacrifice and self-denial offerings of other people. More so, when sometimes these handouts are given with strong strings attached to buy loyalty or compromise on critical issues of faith. We should dig deep wherever we are, and educate our members of the grave danger of living on other people’s resources. We must work together on equal partnership in the fellowship of the gospel with those who are sincere, and who live according to the truth of the Gospel. Grants, donations, gifts and any form of assistance given rather patronizingly should be rejected. We must relate and negotiate from the point of strength rather than a beggarly position.

In Being Faithful13, this idea is captured this way:

“…but there are ways of providing support and showing concern that are ultimately irresponsible, even if well-intended. We think, for instance, of the way that support to the poverty-stricken, both within individual nations and between nations, has sometimes helped create a demeaning culture of dependency and perpetuated problems of vulnerability and indignity rather than solving them”.

The LORD also gave us some talents (Mt. 25:14 ”“ 30). We must not condemn ourselves by sheer lack of enterprise. Secondly, the deity of Christ is increasingly becoming offensive in some quarters in our communion. For others the uniqueness of Christ cannot be taught in our pluralistic society. But pluralism was there, in the first …[century]. The Jewish religion was there, so were the Greek Philosophies and religions, hence it was said that the cross was foolishness to the Greeks, and a stumbling block to the Jews. The creeds, the 39 articles (see 2, 3, 4) and the Holy Scriptures, all uphold the deity and uniqueness of Jesus, the Christ. To deny these fundamentals is to abandon the way; it is apostasy; it is “another gospel”, which is condemned in scripture.

Read it all.

… Tea has begun and the Bishops and Archbishops are gathering in the side yard of St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore under the big white tent. The first press briefing has closed and we were informed that seven people may not arrive, most due to the Iceland volcano debacle in London. So far, Mrs. Susan Grayson, London, Church of England; the Venerable Michael Lawson, Church of England, Diocese of London, Archdeacon of Hampstead; the Rt. Rev. David Urquhart, Bishop of Birmingham, Church of England. Archbishop Henry Orombi, Uganda is still trying to make arrangements to arrive. Please keep praying that God will find and provide a way.

The Bishop of Malaita, Solomon Islands, The Right Reverend Sam Sahu sent regrets as well as the Rt. Rev. Mike Murphy from the United States, Anglican Mission in America. The Archbishop of Canterbury was invited, but declined due to a full “diary.”

Read it all.

The conference aims were described by our founding fathers as follows:

1. To meet, to know and to encourage one another in our faith and mission as Christians of the ‘South’.
2. To listen to God and to listen to one another.
3. To share our stories, our needs, our resources, our vision.
4. To explore and encourage ways of offering ourselves and our unique gifts as Christians of the South for the enrichment of the whole Church and for world mission.
5. To discover our unique identity as Anglican Christians of the non-western world.
6. To encourage qualitative and relevant leadership development for our rapidly growing churches so as to secure the future of the Church in the South and worldwide. To enable partnership, both South to South and South to North on the basis of equality and mutual respect.
7. To explore ways of being authentically Christian in our cultural milieu while remaining universally connected to the global Anglican Communion.

Read it all.

In our time together, we will begin each day by gathering in communion with the Lord and one another around the Lord’s Table and His Word before the business of the day. Then there will be the daily Thematic Addresses expounding on the Gospel, the Covenant, the Light for the Nations and explicated by the Plenary Presentations on Global South Structures, Missions and Ministry, and Economic Empowerment through Capacity Building.

Even as we do so, we are keenly aware of the current issues and deepening crisis and challenges facing our Communion. There is no denying that these issues will inevitably be of great concerns in our minds, prayers and conversations. We have the challenge of how we will respond to the Anglican Covenant. It is important that we can share our respective views, even if we differ.

Whatever the responses, it is imperative that the Global South stays on course in what the Lord has called us to since the mid 80s. This movement has evolved by the grace of God in many amazing ways. In recent years, our orthodox Western associates have also grown closer in fellowship and partnership with us. We need to see clearly all that the Lord is seeking to do through this movement. We need to be discerning, staying focused on the key tasks before us. We need to faithfully and collegially grow our unity on the basis of mutual trust and respect. From that position, we will be able to exercise our God-given stewardship of the historic faith and order, and other related issues in and for our Communion and His Church.

Read it all.

Most of the 130 primates, bishops, clergy, senior lay leaders, associates and observers have arrived in for the 5-day Encounter which starts today, Monday 19th April. Yesterday, some have preached or worshipped at the Cathedral and parishes across the island. This morning, some are being welcomed at the Trinity Theological College and taken on a tour of her work.

A few have been stranded or delayed due to last week’s global “ash-ed Wednesday”. One key Primate who has been delayed is Abp Henry Orombi, along with some other UK participants. We are saddened by their absence and will contnue to pray for the travel chaos to be resolved. What has not been ashed out is a short video message from the Archbishop of Canterbury, which had arrived through the Net. This will be screened on Tuesday morning.

Read it all.

Check it out and you can find many other resources at [url=http://anglicanprayer.wordpress.com/2010/04/14/roundup-of-south-to-south-resources/]Lent & Beyond[/url].

The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) Primates Council has bracketed the UK with Kenya and Uganda as nations “where Christian views are marginalised and ignored”.

England is also defined as an “Associate Par­ticipant”, along with Australia, New Zealand, the Anglican Church in North America, and the Communion Partners of the Episcopal Church in the United States, in the “Fourth Global South to South Encounter” to be held in Singapore later this month.

The Council, which constitutes the Primates of Nigeria, West Africa, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and the Southern Cone, to­gether with the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, and the leader of the Anglican Church in North America, Archbishop Robert Duncan, was meeting in Bermuda as guests of the American businessman Emmanuel Kam­pouris.

Read it all.

Persecution, political instability, secularism and violence are some of the challenges facing provinces in the Global South, according to a prayer guide prepared for the fourth Global South Encounter.

The Church of Uganda compiled the prayer guide for participants in the international gathering, scheduled for April 19-23 at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Singapore.

Each of the 21 provinces lists items under the categories of “give thanks,” “commit to” or “pray for.” Even some of the “give thanks” items speak to struggles faced within the provinces.

Bishop Lawrence left for the meeting today–yours prayers are encouraged. Also, please read it all.

We acknowledged that the issues that divide our beloved Communion are far from settled and that the election of the Reverend Mary Glasspool, a partnered lesbian, as a Bishop in Los Angeles in The Episcopal Church (TEC), makes clear to all that the American Episcopal Church leadership has formally committed itself to a pattern of life which is contrary to Scripture.

This action also makes clear that any pretence that there has been a season of gracious restraint in the Communion has come to an end. Now is the time for all orthodox biblical Anglicans, both in the USA and around the world, to demonstrate a clear and unambiguous stand for the historic faith and their refusal to participate in the direction and unbiblical practice and agenda of TEC.

We recognise that the current strategy in the Anglican Communion to strengthen structures by committee and commission has proved ineffective. Indeed we believe that the current structures have lost integrity and relevance. We believe that it is only by a theologically grounded, biblically shaped reformation such as the one called for by the Jerusalem Declaration that God¹s Kingdom will advance. The Anglican Communion will only be able to fulfill its gospel mandate if it understands itself to be a community gathered around a confession of faith rather than an organisation that has its primary focus on institutional loyalty.

Read it all.

One running theme in recent comments here, but also for a long time now on many blogs, is the plea to see some real discipline of TEC. Something which did not occur with any substance after 2003 (the closest was the suspension of TEC for one ACC meeting at which its suspended members were observers), and something which should now happen with the Glasspool confirmation. So the argument goes, and it is an argument with merit because the Glasspool confirmation has a deeper significance than being the confirmation of a partnered lesbian person to be a bishop. That deeper significance is this: following Gene Robinson’s consecration a series of restrained decisions on the part of TEC’s GC meant that there was plausible argument in response to calls to discipline TEC that TEC might not actually be walking apart from the Communion, the Robinson consecration being a temporary diversion from the one path of Anglican polity; now however TEC has effectively announced that no temporary diversion has taken place, it is walking apart from the Communion.

Actually I want to suggest it is walking apart from the Communion in two ways. The first is walking apart from the common direction in the Communion, that Anglican bishops who are neither single nor married are living contradictory to Scripture and tradition. The second is walking apart from an emerging direction that the Anglican Communion cannot remain as it is, essentially a meeting point of Anglicans, but must move forward to becoming a worldwide church. To me it is inescapable that a consequence of the Glasspool confirmation is confirmation that TEC under no circumstances will be beholden to any authority larger than itself and thus is deeply opposed to any movement of the Communion towards becoming a worldwide church.

Read it all.

The paper aims to draw out the historic significance of the Anglican Covenant for the Anglican Communion. It begins by examining the nature and reasons of the “ecclesial deficit” of the Anglican Communion. It points out that the ecclesial status of the Anglican Communion has never been clarified. The Anglican Communion arises historically as an accident. It has never been constituted as an ecclesial body. The paper traces the transformations in the Anglican ecclesiastical map amid powerful global undercurrents in the second half of the twentieth century. It reflects on the emergence of the status of the See of Canterbury as “focus of unity” of the Anglican Communion. It proceeds to point out how uncritical adoption of the term “instruments of unity” from Protestant ecumenical dialogues led to confusion and mistrust among Anglican Churches. The paper then explores the potentials of communion-ecclesiology for the Anglican Covenant. It goes on to argue that the Anglican Covenant, grounded in the New Covenant, provides the canonical structure of the Anglican Communion. It constitutes the particular Churches to be a confident Communion of Churches. The inter-Anglican structures of the Anglican Communion should in fact be the ecclesiastical embodiment of the Anglican Covenant.

Read it carefully and read it all.

This was an accident waiting to happen. In a way it is almost surprising that it took seven years from the ordination of Gene Robinson, a partnered gay man, as bishop of New Hampshire, for a second such incident to occur. That event has been seen as tearing the fabric of the Anglican Communion, which has been held together in little more than name ever since. Is this the final nail in the coffin? Will the Anglican Communion be torn apart by intractable divisions?

The fourth Anglican Global South to South Encounter is set to take place in Singapore, April 19-23. The current situation in the Episcopal Church is not their principal focus. Yet they represent the large and growing majority of Anglicans in the world, and the primates (archbishops) and others who will be present are unequivocally committed to Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth conference of bishops, which remains the official position of the Anglican Communion….

Many of the provinces (national church bodies) represented at this Global South encounter are already out of communion with the Episcopal Church or in “impaired communion”. Please pray for these godly brothers and sisters as they prepare for this important gathering.

Pray also for the Archbishop of Canterbury, and also for the godly bishops who still remain in the Episcopal Church, such as our own Visitor Bishop, Russell Jacobus of the Diocese of Fond du Lac. And let us believe that the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead is more than able to bring light into this dark turn of events, to bring good out of evil, and breathe life into a culture of death.

Read it all.

With the election of the Reverend Mary Glasspool, a partnered lesbian,as a Bishop in Los Angeles in The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion reaches another decisive moment. It is now absolutely clear to all that the national Church itself has formally committed itself to a pattern of life which is contrary to Scripture. The election of Bishop Robinson in 2003 was not an aberration to be corrected in due course. It was a true indication of the heart of the Church and the direction of its affairs.

There have been various responses to the actions of TEC over the years. Some have been dramatic and decisive, such as the creation of the Anglican Church of North America, an ecclesiastical body recognized by the GAFCON Primates as genuinely Anglican. For others, however, the counsels of patience have prevailed and they have sought a change of heart and waited patiently for it to occur. Those who have sought a middle course may be found both inside and outside the American Church.

This is a decisive moment for this ”˜middle’ group. Their patience has been gentle and praiseworthy. But to wait longer would not be patience ”“ it would be obstinacy or even an unworthy anxiety. Two things need to be made clear. First, that they are unambiguously opposed to a development which sanctifies sin and which is an abrogation of the word of the living God. Second, that they will take sufficient action to distance themselves from those who have chosen to walk in the path of disobedience.

–(The Right Rev.) Peter F. Jensen is Archbishop of Sydney

From a letter to the editor here:

The full-page ad in the March 2 Post and Courier by The Episcopal Forum of S.C. begs for a response.

Some may respond by becoming members, others by raised eyebrows. My response is bemused and unpersuaded.

As a life-long Episcopalian, former dean of one of the Episcopal Church’s 11 seminaries, ordained priest for 49 years and author of several books including “A Church To Believe In,” I am less enthusiastic about the current state of the Episcopal Church (TEC) than members of the forum appear to be.

And I say this as someone who has visited nearly every diocese in this church, including Alaska and Hawaii, and preached or spoken in most. Also, I am a convinced Anglican with a deep loyalty to our Anglican heritage.

In its description of “I am an Episcopalian” the forum touches on many issues with which I have great sympathy: the dignity of every person, our ancient liturgy, women’s ordination, lay involvement and the world-wide body of 70 million members of which we are a part.

What it does not say as clearly as it ought is that this worldwide body, the Anglican Communion, is profoundly upset with the current activities of the Episcopal Church, to the point that a majority of its Primates (chief bishops in each international province) consider themselves in broken communion with it, and increasingly are officially recognizing the newly-formed Anglican Church of North America as a more authentic representative of true Anglicanism in this continent.

Why?

— Leading bishops and theologians of the Episcopal Church, including the presiding bishop, will not affirm Jesus Christ as the unique Son of God and the only way to salvation.

— While the Bible is mined for interesting theological ideas, TEC is unwilling to submit to the clear teaching of Scripture on many issues, including those of marriage and sexuality.

— TEC has consistently sided in its affirmations with the pro-abortion forces within government and society.

— Far from honoring differences, as the forum says, TEC is involved in more than 60 lawsuits against its own churches and dioceses whom it considers unEpiscopalian because they cannot follow present leadership of TEC because of its lack of adherence to traditional Christian beliefs.

— TEC’s presiding bishop has consistently assumed powers that are uncanonical, and thereby unlawful under TEC’s own laws and constitution, and freely removes bishops and clergy who openly differ with her.

— In flagrant refusal to submit to worldwide Christian opinion, it has ordained a noncelibate homosexual as a bishop and is poised to ordain others as bishops who similarly live in relationships that disregard the biblical norm for sexuality.

— TEC’s House of Bishops will not discipline fellow members who widely disseminate outrageously unChristian views with impunity.

I believe that the vast majority of Episcopalians in the Diocese of South Carolina question the forum’s understanding of the Faith and Order to which we all have pledged allegiance.

Rather, we stand firmly and lovingly with our bishop and those clergy and laity who carry on effective ministries in Christ’s name throughout this Diocese.

THE VERY REV. PETER C. MOORE, D.D.
Ponsbury Road
Mount Pleasant