[Bishop Fred] Hiltz was coy with reporters yesterday – including journalists from overseas who are covering the Synod – about his personal views on same-sex unions.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to simply declare my position and thereby pre-empt the outcome of the (weekend) discussion,” he said.

But Hiltz made no secret of his irritation toward fellow bishops in African countries or “provinces,” who have imposed themselves in the affairs of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church by assuming “oversight” of conservative North American congregations who were unhappy with the liberal views of their own bishops.

Bishops of one country “interfering in the affairs of another,” said Hiltz, “is not on.”

Speaking to delegates soon after his election, Hiltz said whatever pressures he faces during his tenure, he will work hard to keep Anglicans together in “one great company of disciples.

“I love this church. I’ll always love it,” he said. “I will try to the best of my abilities to be a Primate that drives the church together, to keep people at the table and not to isolate them … to ensure that we remain together in Christ.”

Read it all

Watch it all (hat tip: DT).

As gay-supportive Anglicans hold their breath for General Synod decisions in June – allowing local option for the blessing of same-sex unions and taking the first steps toward inclusive marriage – some Anglican clergy are already counting the cost of the Church’s failure to move forward more quickly. They foretell the consequences should Synod decide for the status quo, or worse.

In Saskatoon in January, the Rev Shawn Sanford Beck advised his bishop that he is no longer willing to restrict his pastoral ministry to conform to an “unjust law” and that he would, if asked, bless same-sex unions and officiate at same-sex marriages. “I will no longer discriminate against homosexual people when it comes to the exercise of my priestly duties,” the priest stated in an open letter.

Unlike recent cases in which a priest and archbishop quietly participated in same-sex marriage services and later had their license to marry temporarily suspended, Rev. Sanford Beck faced a more severe penalty for stating his intention publicly.

Saskatoon Bishop Rodney Andrews urged the priest to reconsider or lose his license to minister, not just to marry. Not willing to withdraw, Shawn lost his license and then his job as director of a downtown ministry serving aboriginal people. He cannot perform priestly duties without special permission, including within his role as chaplain to Integrity Saskatoon.

Shawn is undeterred, saying that he and his young family accept the consequences of his statement. “As a priest and leader in the church, my complicity in upholding our current law makes me at least partially responsible for the ongoing suffering of LGBTT Christians, and I can no longer take part in that. If my current action helps render visible that which has been made invisible, then I will be happy to bear the consequences. I too will stand ‘outside the gate’ where so many other queer Christians have been sent.”

Read the whole piece

Read it all. Many of us are watching the debate live here. The matter currently under debate is a slightly amended form of this resolution:

Subject: St. Michael Report
Moved by: The Ven. Dennis Drainville, Diocese of Quebec

Seconded By: Mrs. Barbara Burrows¸ Diocese of Edmonton

Note: The mover and the seconder must be members of the General Synod and be present in the House when the resolution is before the synod for debate.

BE IT RESOLVED:

That this General Synod accept the conclusion of the Primate’s Theological Commission’s St. Michael Report that the blessing of same-sex unions is a matter of doctrine, but is not core doctrine in the sense of being credal.

Update: The motion carries.

Another update: Peter has a description of the debate here.

Yet another update: The final amended language is apparently this:

BE IT RESOLVED:

That this General Synod accept the conclusion of the Primate’s Theological Commission’s St. Michael Report that the blessing of same-sex unions is a matter of doctrine, but is not core doctrine in the sense of being credal, and that it should not be a communion-breaking issue.

Watch it all.

[Jan] Nunley said [David Booth] Beers, who declined to be interviewed, wasn’t threatening legal action. But Wicks Stephens, chancellor of the Pittsburgh-based Anglican Communion Network, of which Quincy is a member, isn’t convinced.

“What we’re seeing is an attempt on the part of The Episcopal Church, and now acting through the executive council, to simply issue intimidating language and threats in areas in which they have no authority,” Stephens said. “They’re after us because we reserve the right not to follow their unbiblical actions.”

Nor was the Rev. John Spencer, the president of Quincy’s standing committee, persuaded by Nunley’s reassurance.

“It’s just one more example of the sort of placating talk that we hear from the national leadership,” said Spencer, vicar of St. Francis Church in Dunlap. “They continually talk about reconciliation and trying to build bridges and so forth, but in my opinion this was another example of a heavy-handed tactic. ‘Submit or there will be legal consequences for you.’ ”

The church’s demands – or suggestions or threats, depending on whom you’re talking to – startedabout a year ago, Spencer said.

He said Beers sent a letter to Quincy and other dioceses telling them that if certain parts of their constitutions weren’t changed promptly, the presiding bishop would have to decide what action to take.

“It was sort of a veiled threat,” Spencer said. “It was a clear statement that we needed to change the constitution in order to conform to the language that they said it needed to have.”

Read it all.

During the demonstration in Boston, I spoke to an opponent of ‘gay marriage’ who told me that he despaired of having his point of view heard because the opposition from the homosexual community was so well-organised.

Certainly, that particular Boston lobby, including many people from a wide variety of churches, was skilled in changing the minds of a small number of politicians whose vote swung the verdict in favour of ‘gay marriage’.

In the same week that the Boston vote took place, I read in the New York Times that the American Episcopal Church was maintaining its determined stance on same-sex relationships and was arguing that the Anglican Primates had no right to impose their views on a member-church of the Anglican Communion.

The current, and apparently unstoppable, move towards schism within worldwide Anglicanism was triggered by the decision of the USA members to approve the appointment of the openly homosexual Bishop Gene Robinson, despite the pleas of the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and other senior colleagues not to do so.

By going ahead in the way they did, the Americans showed once again a theological imperialism that is so repugnant.

Read it all.

Funny how the people complaining about the media are those whose interests are at risk because of revelations in the media that did not come out in the typical top-down-the institution-controls-the-flow-and content-of-information manner.

Do bloggers sometime reveal too much information? Yes. Is some of it untimely? Yes. But are all institutions better for the greater transparency from, particularly the newer forms of, media? Yes.

I would say that given the responses of Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda to the Lambeth invitations, the multiplicity of lawsuits and depositions and departures in the United States, not to mention Canada, that the alleged crisis in the Anglican Communion is far from overblown. Rather, these scholars and bishops ought to get out more, read the blogs, subscribe to a newspaper. They will discover that their first premise is definitely out of touch with reality.

If their first premise is out of touch with reality, then what of their other conclusions?

This seems to me to be reminiscent of Winnie the Pooh commenting, “Tut, tut, it looks like rain.”

—Canon Neal Michell of Dallas in a comment on Ruth Gledhill’s blog

Bonnie Crawford-Bewley points to a photo pinned to a tack board to help explain why she cares deeply about a vote by the Anglican Church of Canada this weekend on blessing gay unions.

Both Crawford-Bewley and her wife Michelle are beaming in the family snapshot, taken after their daughter Tiana, 8, was baptized by Crawford-Bewley’s father, a retired Anglican priest.

The couple had their relationship blessed in a non-Anglican church 17 years ago, but Crawford-Bewley said she is still bothered that her beloved Anglican Church is torn over whether to bless same-sex unions.

“Marriage is an important institution, and the church not being willing to bless our union and not being willing to marry us is very much making us second-class citizens,” said Crawford-Bewley, 45.

“It’s that constantly being told ‘You’re not good enough’ that needs to stop,” she said in an interview on the sidelines of the Canadian church’s general synod, its highest decision-making body.

Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, Anglican Church of Canada, Anglican Provinces, Canadian General Synod 2007, Same-sex blessings, Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion)

Unlike Bishop Matthews, Bishop Hiltz was not known for his theological conservativism prior to his election. At a time of such obvious doctrinal (and electoral) division, a major challenge for the new Primate could thus be the extent to which he will prove practically willing and able to reach out to all parts of the church, including conservatives, in keeping with Synod’s theme of “drawing the circle wide.”

Read it all.

Secular and church media, both from Canada and overseas, tried to pin the primate-elect down on where he stood on the controversial issue which is scheduled to be debated ”“ and perhaps decided ”“ by General Synod on June 23.

But Bishop Hiltz would only voice his support for the “synodical process,” or the church’s legal procedures, adding that he believed that the church needed to follow its processes and listen to the recommendations both of the Canadian church’s St. Michael Report (which examined the issue of whether same-sex blessings were a matter of doctrine) and the international Windsor Report, which recommended ways of keeping the Anglican Communion together in spite of deep divisions.

“We need, as a church, to look at all the dimensions,” said Bishop Hiltz, naming Scriptural study and matters of pastoral care as examples. “I have personal views, but I am conscious of the office I hold as a bishop and as a primate-elect. I don’t think it’s appropriate to declare my position ”¦ The conversation must go forward in the way that the church has decided it should go forward.”

Read it all.

The recent tragic loss of nine Charleston firefighters on Monday reminds us of the front-line heroes who live and work among us everyday. As a former firefighter and fire commissioner, I have been privileged to observe and learn about the reasons that motivate a person to become a firefighter.

The poet, Khalil Gibran once wrote, ‘Work is love made visible.’ If ever there were a better definition of a firefighter’s work, this is it. We can observe the truth of this quote weekly on the nightly news.

While we know what firefighters do in situations like the one that occurred in Charleston and during some of the natural disasters we experienced several years ago, what do they really do most of the time and why do they do it?

First, let’s set the scene. Very few people know that the U.S. has the worst record in the civilized world for destruction of life and property by fire. Most of these fires do not occur in large buildings or in catastrophic events, but in single-family homes. Fire departments answer around one million calls annually. A fire occurs in the U.S. about every 18 seconds.

The average number of people who die each year in fires in the U.S. is about 3,500. A person dies in a fire in the U.S. every hour. To gain some perspective of the problem, imagine two fully loaded 747 planes crashing in a mid-air collision every month, year in and year out. This has been our average annual record for more than 20 years. This, of course, does not count the more than 18,000 people who were maimed or horribly disfigured last year and the direct destruction of property valued at more than $16 billion. We lose about 100 firefighters a year, as well. This kind of loss simply does not occur in most countries in Western Europe or Japan.

Read it all.

The first limitation is an inadequate concept of what in the past has been called heresy (a word not used here), that is, a denial of core doctrine that breaks the church’s prior unity in faith. The Report equates core doctrine with what is affirmed in Anglican foundation documents and argues that blessing same-sex unions, whatever else it is, is not a violation of core doctrine, but is an adiaphoron, a secondary matter, which does not warrant any breach of church communion. But the reasoning on which this conclusion is based is not the whole story, though it is indeed part of it. However, a sounder, profounder concept of what in the past has been called heresy is: any belief or practice that negates any part of the New Testament gospel of Jesus Christ, understood as the divinely revealed truth that shows our sinful race the way of salvation from sin and sin’s consequences. This concept covers not only doctrines of the Creeds and Anglican foundation documents, but also the practice of faith in Christ, repentance, obedience, life in the Spirit, and personal holiness, according to the Scriptures.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 lists behavioral habits that, if not repented of and forsaken, keep people out of God’s kingdom, and male homosexuality is explicitly included in the list (vss. 9-11). Paul goes on to celebrate the power of the Holy Spirit sanctifying persons at Corinth who had previously lived in the ways he has mentioned. It seems undeniable that he would have viewed blessing same-sex unions as sanctifying sin, and thus as a denial of an essential ingredient in the gospel, namely repentance of all one’s sins and forsaking of them. And the gospel as such is surely the church’s core doctrine.

The gravity of the homosexual lifestyle as Paul views it warrants the description of it when found in the church as practical heresy; which raises the question, whether the suspending of full communion pro tem is not warranted and indeed needed as a disciplinary measure, aimed at bringing offenders to repentance. The Report fails to face this issue of conscience and wisdom, which arises from straightforward biblical exegesis and for some is very real and pressing.

Read it all.

Read it all and make sure to note the letter to the editor on the same subject as the previous blog post.

Read it all. This was already available in an earlier linked version of Anglican Journal Daily but I wanted to make sure (ahem, ahem) that you saw it. I agree with her 100%–KSH.

(Press Release) FAIRFAX, Va. (June 22, 2007) ”“ The Anglican District of Virginia (ADV), an association of Anglican congregations in Virginia, announced today its strong enthusiasm for the forthcoming consecration of Bishop-elect John Guernsey. The Reverend Guernsey, rector of All Saints Anglican Church in Woodbridge, Va., was elected by the Anglican Church of Uganda to serve as Suffragan Bishop to its orthodox parishes in the United States.

According to Jim Oakes, Vice-Chairman of the Anglican District of Virginia, “We eagerly anticipate the formal consecration of Bishop-elect Guernsey. The new role Rev’d Guernsey has been called to fill underscores the growing movement towards maintaining orthodox Anglican beliefs here in the U.S. We praise the Church of Uganda for electing such a strong candidate to oversee its congregations in the States. Rev’d Guernsey is a bold man of Christ who has been integral in providing support for parishes that wish to uphold the sacred authority of Scripture and practice orthodox Anglicanism. ADV looks forward to continuing to strengthen its relationship with Rev’d Guernsey.”
The Anglican District of Virginia is comprised of 19 churches, four of which are associate members under the authority of the Anglican Church of Uganda. These parishes which include All Saints Anglican Church in Woodbridge, Christ Our Lord in Woodbridge, Church of the Holy Spirit in Ashburn and South Riding Anglican Church in Fairfax will receive pastoral oversight from Bishop-elect Guernsey. In total, Rev’d Guernsey will oversee 26 orthodox congregations in the U.S. that are connected to the worldwide Anglican Communion through the Church of Uganda.

ADV members are in full communion with constituent members of the Anglican Communion through its affiliation with CANA, a missionary branch of the Church of Nigeria. ADV members are a part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, a community of 77 million people. ADV is dedicated to fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission to make disciples while actively serving in three main capacities: International Ministries, Evangelism, and Strengthening Families and Community. ADV is currently comprised of 19 member congregations, 15 of which are under the ecclesiastical authority of the Bishop of CANA, The Right Reverend Martyn Minns, and four of which are ADV associate members and ecclesiastical members under direct authority of other Anglican Archbishops, strongly supported by ADV members.

Watch it all.

(Parish press Release)

Oceanside, Calif. ”“ We are deeply disappointed that the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego and its Bishop, James R. Mathes, have been caught up in the national tidal wave of lawsuits being filed by The Episcopal Church against local church congregations that have realigned with other Provinces of the Worldwide Anglican Communion, and instead have filed a senseless and intolerant lawsuit against St. Anne’s Anglican Church in an attempt to confiscate all of its church property, including the sanctuary, Bibles, hymnals and office files.

We are amazed at the disregard of the religious and property rights of St. Anne’s church members who overwhelmingly voted their conscience to end their affiliation with The Episcopal Church and The Episcopal Diocese of San Diego over a year ago. Missing from the Diocese’s lawsuit and press release is any confession that the property of St. Anne’s is, and always has been, held in the name of St. Anne’s. Over many decades, St. Anne’s members have given sacrificially to maintain the property and operate the church without any financial support from the Diocese.

Since ending its affiliation with The Episcopal Church in January 2006 to remain steadfast and loyal in their commitment to the Holy Scripture and the historic teachings of Christianity, St. Anne’s membership and ministries have flourished, growing more than 40%, adding new clergy, and spawning two new churches in the San Diego area.

St. Anne’s will continue to worship at its present location and facilities in Oceanside.

In its funny little way the news this week that the Advertising Standards Authority had banned reruns of the 1950s egg advertisements that featured Tony Hancock was more compelling evidence on the state of modern Britain than even Marr’s obiter dicta.

“Go to Work on an Egg” was unacceptable, we were told, because it encouraged an unhealthy lifestyle. I had no idea that we had a government body that still operated on Stalinist principles but there it is. How long will it be before it is not just the free speech of advertising that is curtailed but the evil practice it promotes, and we ban egg consumption along with smoking? Goodbye England. Welcome to Absurdistan.

At root of this nonsense is, of course, the sheer scale of government. The reason you can’t be allowed to eat an egg is that, because of the lack of real choice in healthcare provision, you’re no longer responsible for the financial consequences of your own actions. If you get heart disease from too much cholesterol, the State, collectively known as the NHS, will have to treat you; and that costs the State more and more money so the State will have to stop you from doing it in the first place.

This is the self-perpetuating logic behind the unstoppable momentum of the expanding State….

The bigger it grows, the more it intrudes into our lives, and the more it intrudes into our lives, the more dependent we become on it. Education is the same. Our great universities are struggling to compete in a global market because they are hamstrung by the State. They are dependent on central government for their funding; but that funding is insufficient to meet the needs of global competition. But because they need government money for what they do, they cannot break free.

Leviathan is now so large that, outside London, half the population is dependent ”“ either through public sector jobs or benefits ”“ on taxes. Its power is so large that it has bent us all into submission. It has produced a culture in which no one needs to take responsibility for anything because someone else is always there to back us up.

That in the end, was what was behind another sorry spectacle of Britain’s decline this week ”“ the Fulton inquiry into the capture of the Royal Marines and sailors in March by Iranians. It was of course, to outward appearances, magnificently Gilbertian ”“ the first Sea Lord doing the honorable thing and shuffling off the blame on to anyone but himself. But its message was very modern.

Mistakes were made but no one made them.

Read it all.

The collapse of authority goes further still. The bishops of the ACC, like those of the ECUSA, have utterly deconstructed their own authority. That authority is moral”“that is, it is based upon their fulfilment of a theologically-based mandate, that of the faithful acceptance and transmission of the authentic traditions of the Christian faith. By affirming homosexuality bishops have shown themselves unwilling to accept and assert this moral, i.e. theological, authority. Thus they can now look only to the canons”“I the bishop must be obeyed because that is what the rules, the legal mind, of the church demand. My imagination? Hardly. Look at New Westminster, Arizona, Connecticut, and elsewhere in the ECUSA. The Anglican church has now begun to persecute those folks who have been faithful supporters for decades and who will not follow a post-modern leadership into an abandonment of that which they have hitherto been led to regard as the truth”“and which the vast majority of Christians around the world, including most Anglicans, continue to regard as God’s will for humanity.

So it appears that anglophone, western, Anglicanism, has abandoned its three-legged stool, and has become a new form of Quakerism. By this I mean very simply that the authority of the Bible has now been abrogated by a new revelation which comes to us by way of what we feel. This is a very different church from that one which I thought I had joined, and I fear that another critic is correct when he states that apparently when ”˜radical’ Anglican bishops and their abbetors now speak, they speak of different gods. I am resolved to stay with the old one.

Read the full text of both letters here.

From the Press and Sun-Bulletin:

After months of discussion, a Vestal church vestry voted this week to withdraw from the Episcopal Church and join an orthodox province that believes homosexuality is incompatible with biblical teaching.

“We’re doing what we believe,” said the Rev. Anthony Seel, pastor of what is now St. Andrew Anglican Church. “We’re not in the same place as the Episcopal Church.”

Seel said the vestry’s 8-0 decision Monday came after years of discussions and a recently completed congregational survey that showed 88 percent of St. Andrew’s adherents — between 250 and 275 members — favored leaving the Central New York Diocese and the Episcopal denomination.

Central New York’s bishop expressed regret Thursday at the local church’s decision.

“It’s very sad to me that we’ve come to this day,” said Bishop Gladstone “Skip” Adams from diocesan headquarters in Syracuse. “Let’s stay at the table (and talk). Separation is not necessary. It’s possible to disagree.”

Read it all.

Read it all.

Read it all.

From ACC News:

June 22, 2007 — Results of the fourth ballot for the election of the Primate:

Bishop Fred Hiltz: Clergy:56 Lay:75

Bishop Victoria Matthews: Clergy:62 Lay:60