Most of the time, I cannot be characterized as a patient person. I like to ”˜cut to the chase’ and ”˜get to the bottom line.’ I am well aware, though, that this approach will not work in our current context. These issues are far beyond any easy answer that can be solved using parliamentary procedure to articulate a specific answer. Besides, as has been pointed out, that hasn’t exactly been working for us. So I will make every effort to listen to my brothers and sisters without the need to defend or critique, but with a heart turned toward what God who might actually be calling me to change.

Read it all.

Find the links on this page.

One Rwandan bishop and five Kenyan bishops have broken ranks, defying their House of Bishops to attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference. However, no Nigerian or Uganda bishop has defied his church’s decision not to attend the every-10-year conference due to the presence of the American bishops.

“We’re sorry they are not here,” Archbishop Rowan Williams said, of the approximately 250 bishops from the four African provinces, Sydney and other evangelical dioceses who are absent.

Initial claims that a Nigerian bishop had bucked his Church have proven false.

However, Archbishop Peter Akinola told ReligiousIntelligence.com the whole issue of who was or was not at Lambeth was immaterial. “At this point it is a non-issue for us. After Lambeth, any Nigerian who may have chosen to flout our provincial and collective decision will have to answer to the general synod. It as simple as that.”

Access by the media to the gathering of bishops is sharply restricted, and the bishops themselves have scant knowledge of what is taking place. Unlike past conferences, there is no daily newspaper and what information that can be gleaned from official channels is available only to those bishops with laptops.

Read the whole article.

Dr Williams said: “There is a question about the legitimacy, so to speak, of what emerges from this. It’s a point I put as strongly as I can to the people who are not here in fact; that if they want their voice incorporated in this, this is the way to do it.”

One of the three English Bishops boycotting the conference, the Bishop of Willesden, the Rt Rev Pete Broadbent, said: “If Rowan wants to put that point to me, he should ask me himself.

“It’s not a question of who’s there and who’s not. It’s a question of does anybody feel that what Lambeth does is a definitive statement of what the Anglican Communion believes, because thus far it’s not been the case that people have held to agreements made.”

Bishop Broadbent also rejected the suggestion that by not being there, he could not have his voice incorporated: “I don’t think anyone’s ruled themselves out of the right to comment on the Conference’s conclusions. The bigger question is will Lambeth produce any definitive solutions to the problems of the Anglican Communion, and even if they do, will the Churches in North America take any notice?”

Read it all.

News — and sometimes Not-News — is flying thick and fast. The big news of yesterday, from my point of view, was the stand that the Bishop of Sudan took publicly — and from what I have heard through the grapevine various TEC people are meeting with him today. Whatever happens in such a rumored meeting, I’m confident that TEC will be clever enough to articulate 1) the roses, sunshine, and bubblegum of their “relationships” with the Province of the Sudan and 2) just how humble and gentle and non-retributive and generous the Episcopal Church actually is in response to the Primate of the Sudan’s remarks. That’s basically the best they can do — and of course, they must do their jobs.

Which brings me to a little glance at the press in general.

Read it all.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Indaba groups focused today on “The Bishop and Social Justice” – which really meant “The Bishop and the Millennium Development Goals,” in preparation for tomorrow’s London day. The day will begin early, with buses leaving campus at 7 AM to travel about three hours to Whitehall Place, where a “Walk of Witness” through the streets of London will be led by Archbishop Rowan and Lady Jane Williams, on behalf of the MDGs.

The Archbishop said in May, “This walk will be a poignant public act of commitment by the Anglican Communion and other faith groups to continue to put pressure on those who have the power and resources to help end extreme poverty across the globe. It will be about pledging, as a Church, to play our part in continuing to develop lasting solutions. It will also be a walk where we will be in step with those who know at first hand the impact that the unfair distribution of the world’s resources can have on daily living and life opportunities.”

The walk will pass a number of London landmarks, including the gates of Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament and “Big Ben,” and Westminster Abbey, ending at Lambeth Palace, the London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Upon arrival there will be a “rally,” expected to draw in the neighborhood of 1,600 persons, including members of Her Majesty’s Government, an address by the Archbishop (whom we are coming to affectionately call “the Energizer Bunny”) and Hellen Wangusa, the Anglican Communion’s Observer to the United Nations.
In our Indaba groups today we focused on the twin questions: “What can I, as a Bishop, do…” and “What can we, as Bishops, do to further the MDGs”? In our group it became evident that most of our Dioceses are already fairly deeply involved in implementing at least some of the MDGs (think: houses in Honduras, relief efforts in New Orleans, Mustard Seed outreach in Ft. Pierce, etc., and our plans for a major effort to combat malaria this fall).

(Of course, the point of the effort is not so much that churches and Dioceses will implement the MDGs as it is to induce governments to do so, and there is a small irony here in that the present Prime Minister of Great Britain, Gordon Brown, is already under a fair amount of criticism for his very overt commitment to the MDGs! But perhaps the effort will encourage him, and others, to “keep on keeping on.”)

Tomorrow afternoon, we then go on to lunch at Lambeth Palace (where the PM will address us), and then to Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s Garden Party.

Anecdote: ten years ago Warren Richardson told me it was a “lifelong dream” of his to attend the Opening Eucharist of a Lambeth Conference. I said I would see what I could do. I contacted the then ABC, George Carey, who said, “No, every seat in the Cathedral will be assigned, but if he would like, I can get him an invitation to the Queen’s Garden Party.”

So, Warren and Pam took their vacation that year by coming to England for the Party. Warren told me he had a little speech prepared, should he happen to be introduced to Prince Philip. He and the Prince had been at the same place in Georgia some time earlier, and Warren wanted to relate that point of contact to him.

Well, about half an hour after we all arrived, the Queen’s ushers, in their bowler hats, came out to create a large open rectangle among the guests, and shortly thereafter the Queen and the Prince came down the stairs, and headed into the midst of it. At that point one of the ushers came directly to Warren and asked, “Would you care to meet Prince Philip?” “I WOULD; and my Bishop would, too!” exclaimed Warren; “He’s right over there.” (The Prince was very gracious to both of us.)

This afternoon we had our first “Hearing” regarding the “Windsor Continuation Group” and the effort to produce an “Anglican Covenant.” If anyone thought we might be close to completing that task at this Lambeth Conference, I think s/he was quickly disabused of the notion. I would guess there were 300 present, and following an opening update of where we are in the process we had about an hour for comments. 21 people each spoke for approximately three minutes apiece, eight of them Americans. (We haven’t entirely given up trying to dominate the proceedings!)

The tone was set by the first speaker, a Bishop from TEC, who used his time to assert the need for the FULL acceptance of LGBTs by the Church; he was really quite animated about it, and then he ended by declaring, “And I believe in the Virgin Birth, the bodily resurrection of our Lord, the necessity of his death upon the cross for our salvation; I believe him to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and I believe the Bible contains all things necessary for our salvation!”

Almost all of those who spoke were fairly to deeply critical of the efforts to date, albeit for all different kinds of reasons. There was great anger expressed by a number of our Bishops over the incursions into their Dioceses by international jurisdictions. And there was a claim by one of them that, “Less than 7/10 of one percent of The Episcopal Church has defected” over “the issues,” so “Please, let’s stop repeating the ‘myths’ about how deep this ‘crisis’ is.”

One of our Bishops apologized on behalf of TEC for our “tearing the fabric” of the Communion.

One of the predominant themes from many (both TEC and others) was that we do not want a Covenant that can be used “juridically” to expel, discipline, or exclude.

Apparently, a number of others wanted to speak, but we ran out of time. They were invited to write down their concerns, and to come to the other Hearings scheduled later during the Conference.

Tonight I have just come from a meeting of seven of the “Global South” Primates, several of the British Bishops, and 14 of our American Bishops, some involved in “Common Cause” and some in “Communion Partners.” The point was again made that CP is an “inside” strategy, and CC an “outside” one, but that both are needed; and we want to do the best we can to support each other. The Primates were very clear in repeating several times their promise of solidarity with both efforts.

It is nearly midnight, and tomorrow is going to be a long day. Thanks for your prayers.

Warmest regards in our Lord,

–(The Right Rev.) John W. Howe is Bishop of Central Florida

There has been “a breakdown of trust” among members of the Anglican Communion, there has been “an inconsistency between what has been agreed and what has been done,” there is “turmoil” in the Episcopal Church of the U.S., there is “a diminishing sense of communion,” the bitter divide over homosexuality is affecting relations with the church’s ecumenical partners.

These were preliminary observations made by the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) on the state of the Anglican Communion and on the responses by Anglican provinces to the Windsor Report. These responses were presented to bishops for discussion Monday at the Lambeth Conference. The WCG was created last February by the Archbishop of Canterbury to “address outstanding questions arising from the Windsor Report and the various formal responses from provinces and instruments of the Anglican Communion.”

The Windsor Report, produced in 2004 by an international commission, outlined ways of healing divisions within the Anglican Communion over human sexuality. It recommended a moratorium on public rites of same-sex blessings and on the election of a gay person to the episcopate, the enactment of an Anglican Covenant, and an end to cross-border interventions.

Read it all.

It was not the most joyous of starts for the Lambeth Conference, the once-every-10-year gathering of the bishops of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion in Canterbury, England. Speaking last Sunday at the formal opening ceremony in the city’s storied cathedral, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, observed that the global association of Anglican churches, including the Episcopal Church of the United States, faced the most serious challenge of its history.

The absence of roughly one fourth of the Communion’s 880 invited bishops underscores his words. It reflects the growing schism between conservative and liberal factions with strongly differing views on tradition, doctrine, and Scripture, particularly as they touch on the hot-button issues of homosexuality and women in the clergy.

Read it all.

The Lambeth Conference is now believed highly unlikely to resolve the controversy over the ordination of actively gay bishops or blessings for same-sex couples.

The two issues have riven the Anglican Communion in recent years and have led to about a quarter of its bishops worldwide boycotting the current conference, which continues until August 3rd.

In a statement yesterday, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, Right Rev John Neill, said he believed that “we are now engaged at Lambeth not in solving an issue, but in staying together for the sake of Christ, the church and above all the world which he calls upon us to serve”.

This “has not happened because anybody is trying to impose a liberal agenda.

“Liberals and conservatives should not attempt to demonise one another.

“We need both, but we need more, we need to be together,” he said.

Read it all.

(ACNS) The Archbishop of Canterbury will today (Thursday 24th July) lay down a challenge to world leaders on behalf of the worldwide Anglican Communion and other faith groups: you must keep your promises on aid and development as failure to do so will lead to further starvation, disease and death in the world’s poorest countries.

Dr Rowan Williams will be joined in his plea to governments across the world by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who will also address the audience of 650 Anglican bishops, their spouses, and representatives from other faith groups and Churches. The rally, set in the courtyard of Lambeth Palace, follows a walk of witness through central London, where up to 1,500 faith leaders, diplomats, parliamentarians and NGO heads will take to the streets to highlight the urgent need for more action on tackling poverty through sustainable solutions.

In the Archbishop’s letter ”“ which is the event’s manifesto ”“ he will outline how this generation has a genuine opportunity to eradicate extreme poverty. The document stresses, however, that most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed by global leaders in 2000 to halve poverty by 2015 will not, as things stand, be fulfilled by this deadline ”“ and in fact, risk never being achieved at all.

The letter will be handed to the Prime Minister during the rally by Dr Williams, flanked by Christian and other faith leaders including Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster; Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi; Sir Iqbal Sacranie OBE; Dr Indarjit Singh OBE; and other senior representatives of Muslim and Sikh organisations.

Read it all.

A Vatican official told the world’s Anglican bishops that ignoring Christian tradition and making decisions apart from the wider church are like degenerative diseases.

At the Lambeth Conference, where the Anglican bishops are struggling with such issues as the ordination of women, gay bishops and gay unions, Cardinal Ivan Dias appeared to allude to a “spiritual Alzheimer’s” threatening to destroy the historical memory of the Anglican churches.

Read it all.

If you have found information sources for Lambeth 2008, please let us know. Do not assume that since you have heard about it or read it, we have. We never mind hearing about something twice, but dislike not hearing about it at all. Please contact me at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com with your good ideas on this front–KSH.

Some bishops attending the Lambeth conference on July 23 reacted to a statement made the previous day by Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul of Sudan that the Episcopal Church had lost its way and asked Gene Robinson, the bishop of New Hampshire who is in a same-gender partnership, to step down.

“We have had some harsh words from our good friend Daniel Deng Bul,” said Bishop Jeffrey Lee of Chicago in a video statement also available on youtube aimed at the diocese and released July 22.

He confirmed that the longstanding companion relationship between his diocese and the Diocese of Renk, where Deng served as bishop until his election this year as primate of Sudan, would continue. “He had harsh things to say about the Episcopal Church and some of the actions we have taken. I had a chance to talk to Daniel, and what I can say to you, bottom line, is that our affection for each other continues. His affection for the Diocese of Chicago and gratitude for many gifts we have given and brought to the Sudan continues.

“My commitment is that our relationship will continue, that it’s bigger and deeper than differences over discipline matters and the things that divide us. My commitment remains to the Episcopal Church and the processes we have taken to the full inclusion of all God’s people and we were able to share about that.”

Archbishop Mauricio de Andrade, primate of Brazil, said he thought the Sudanese archbishop’s statement was “very sad,” adding that “now is the moment for listening and conversation, not the moment for ‘agree with me or I won’t talk with you.’ It is the moment for being open, sharing and especially listening.”

Read it all.

Here is one:

Re “The Culture of Debt,” by David Brooks (column, July 22):

Mr. Brooks does not mention one important reason societies develop good habits or bad ones: Our leaders can have transformative impact.

Franklin D. Roosevelt calmed us down. John F. Kennedy got us to volunteer. Ronald Reagan made us less dependent on government. George W. Bush could have asked us to sacrifice. He didn’t. His post-9/11 advice was to go shopping. Obviously, too many of us did just that.

Mel Sokotch, New York

Read them all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury and other religious figures will stage a procession in London to call on governments to keep their promises on aid commitments for the world’s poor. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, discusses the importance of ending extreme poverty.

Listen to it all (about 8 1/2 minutes).

Here is part of one entry from Bishop Hilary Garang of the Diocese of Malakal, the Upper Nile, Sudan:

“To be honest, we are in a bad stage. We are sharing a deep concern about the faith of our communion which is taking our human energy, and time. There is a politically motivated agenda: it is as if the Church is not owned by all of us. It is a tragedy to see this before our eyes. We, as a generation, have an opportunity to witness for Christ, and it is hampered by this. We live in a multifaith society. The Anglican Church has had a big role in our country and has united the smaller churches for protection.For the last decade, we have looked towards the EU and the US as a source of light for the Gospel. Now they are telling us something which we do not understand. The Jerusalem Declaration made by Anglicans who attended GAFCON has wakened the concern of every region. It seems in deliberating we are doing something others have evaluated that it is not going to work

.

Read them all.

Churches nationwide are fretting and sweating to reel men into their sanctuaries on Sundays.

Women outnumber men in attendance in every major Christian denomination, and they are 20% to 25% more likely to attend worship at least weekly.

Although every soul matters, many pastors say they need to power up on reaching men if the next generation of believers, the children, will find the way to faith. So hundreds of churches are going for a “guy church” vibe, programming for a stereotypical man’s man.

“I hear about it everywhere I go,” says Brandon O’Brien, who detailed the evolution of the chest-thumping evangelism trend this spring in Christianity Today.

Read it all.

Members of the House of Bishops of The Church of the Sudan knew that The Episcopal Church would attempt to make the exclusion of Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire an issue at the Lambeth Conference, and so they prepared the two letters released yesterday before they departed for the England.

“This was our unanimous position that we agreed to,” said the Rt. Rev. Benjamin Mangar Mamur, Bishop of Yirol. As to the timing of their release, he said the Sudanese bishops left that decision to their primate, Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul.

Read it all.

THE UNFLINCHING pleasantness of everyone is as exhausting as these hot, humid July days in Canterbury. Because, even if the world’s Anglicans are perceived by some to be at war with one another, it is such a lovely war.

After all, who can sustain murderous thoughts for long when confronted continuously with nothing more sinister than a seemingly endless parade of whitest teeth bared only in cheery greeting. The exhausting part is that this is expected to be reciprocated in kind, however agitated one’s inner, slavering demons.

It is the Anglican way, this wearing down of rigid position through the application of the relentlessly pleasant until an acceptable level of fudge has been arrived at. And it is what is happening once again at this Lambeth Conference. That is how this most disparate worldwide Communion has survived so much. Not least women.

Read it all.

At daily news conferences mild-mannered archbishops have encountered hostility from correspondents irritated at being banned even from the early morning service of Holy Communion. They have scarcely been mollified by the explanation that the exclusion is for “security reasons”.

However, the media have been welcomed to the blue, twin-peaked, big top – visible on the hilltop University of Kent campus from miles around – for a number of evening seminars.

Perhaps, given the lack of access to debates about evangelism and “Anglican identity” taking place in the groups of 40 to which discussions are limited, it’s not surprising that the most recent seminar was carefully scrutinised for all-too-elusive signs of “news”.

Read it all.

Kendall has been doing an incredible job at posting excerpts from the blogs of dozens of US and British bishops, as well as posting gazillion articles from the US and UK press. But like the Lambeth conference itself, (where US bishops make up over 20% of the participants), the voices from the US, UK and Canada threaten to overwhelm all the other voices.

We’d love to start featuring reports and blog entries from Anglican Provinces around the World. If you know of reports from bishops or news articles being published in other Provinces, please post the links in the comments or e-mail us!

I’ve just come across two websites that have reports from Brazilian and Cuban bishops.

I’ve just discovered a blog that has entries by Bp. Miguel Tamayo of Uruguay and Cuba

http://desdelambeth.blogspot.com/

The blog entries by +Tamayo are here:
http://desdelambeth.blogspot.com/2008/07/mensajes-del-obispo-miguel-tamayo-4.html
http://desdelambeth.blogspot.com/2008/07/mensajes-del-obispo-miguel-tamayo-3.html
http://desdelambeth.blogspot.com/2008/07/mensajes-del-obispo-miguel-tamayo-2.html
http://desdelambeth.blogspot.com/2008/07/mensajes-del-obispo-miguel-tamayo-1.html

These can be translated using Google’s Language Tools
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

====

Also, the website of the Anglican diocese of Brasilia has Lambeth reports posted:
http://dab.ieab.org.br/

Again, you can use Google language tools to get a rough translation from the Portuguese.

One of the key elements of this year’s Lambeth Conference is, of course the Indaba groups. The way it works is this: We all meet in small Bible Study groups of around eight people after Breakfast each morning, to study the ”˜I ams’ of St John’s Gospel. This is proving a most productive experience. Perhaps bishops do not get the opportunity often enough to have fellowship in Bible Study groups!

Then, after coffee, five of the Bible Study groups come together to make up one Indaba group. Indaba is, we are told, a Zulu word for a gathering for purposeful discussion, used often when there is a difficult issue to be faced. ”˜It is’ says the opening section introducing the concept, ”˜both a process and method of engagement as we listen to one another concerning challenges that face our community and by extension the Anglican Communion’. It appears that part of the genius of Indaba is being aware of the issues without trying to resolve them immediately: certainly a very Anglican way! There are to be no hidden agendas, we are to think in terms of ”˜both-and’, rather than ”˜either-or’, and to trust our leadership. So far, so good, and the little tasks we have been asked to do on ”˜The Bishop and Anglican Identity’ and ”˜The Bishop and Evangelism’ have been relatively enjoyable – the kind of things you would do at a Youth Fellowship Weekend – but I share a growing uncertainty about where the process is going. The next stage, apparently, is to elect a ”˜listener’ to gather the ideas and take them to the next level, and then there will be various ‘hearings’, but no resolutions.

Read it all.

Greetings, again, in the name of our Lord. Allison and I miss all of you in South Carolina, pray for you, and carry you in our hearts while we’re here!

It is already past midnight, but I want to give you some highlights from these last couple of days. We finished today’s sessions (Tuesday) by hearing Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples at the Vatican, at the Plenary Session. Frankly, both Allison and I thought it was the clearest and boldest proclamation of the Gospel we have heard thus far at the Conference. Dr. Brian McLaren’s presentation last evening was perhaps more engaging, but it was more of an analysis of the changing contexts of the modern, post-modern, and post-colonial world in which we find ourselves doing mission in these first years of the 21st Century. This context is challenging for all Anglicans in our global family, but particularly for Episcopalians.

For now I’ll leave it to others to talk about the Indaba process that we are experiencing here at Lambeth. I’m trying to be patient with it, as it unfolds, but to say there is more than a little unrest from all corners would hardly be an overstatement.

There was a gathering of over a hundred bishops this afternoon from diverse provinces””TEC, U.K., New Zealand, Australia, Sudan, to name a few who gathered with some of the Primates of the Global South. Bishops from Common Cause and Communion Partners were present. I found it quite encouraging. Most of you know that I have strong convictions regarding the need for a Covenant to guide our common life as Anglicans and many of us are here not least because the Archbishop has said that Lambeth is about the Windsor Process and the Covenant. I have not, in the least, weakened in my resolve or commitments to that””or to helping shape an Anglicanism sufficient for the Twenty-first Century. But I need to tell you there is far more to this conference than what we might call the North American problem, (which, you may remember, I believe has revealed the Achilles heel of the Communion). Nevertheless, I cannot possibly convey to you in this short report the incredible witness to Jesus Christ and the gospel that is made on a daily basis in our small group Bible studies and the Indaba sessions by bishops from various parts of Africa, North and South India, South America and elsewhere. The need to partner with these people for the spreading of Christ’s Kingdom, the alleviation of suffering and deprivation, and for mutual prayer and support grows in me on a daily basis.

Read it all.

Bloggers and reporters innumerable are churning out reports and commentary on the ongoing Lambeth Conference, and I’ve been dutifully reading as much of it as I can stand. My job, you see, is to spend too much time on the Internet, so that you don’t have to. (At least, that’s how I justify it to myself.)

Reading it all is a bit like wading through a marsh, or picking one’s way through a thicket, except with more pointy bishop’s hats and English accents. Much of what’s out there is either of little use, strongly biased, or hopelessly misleading (especially in the British press), but every now and again one runs into something truly worthwhile. Herewith my guide to must-read Lambeth news and comment….

Read it all.

Check them out.

It’s not often that one can claim to be a keener Anglican than one’s local bishop, but I am attending the Lambeth Conference, and Pete Broadbent, the Bishop of Willesden, is not. He is an evangelical, who sympathises with the Gafcon movement. I ask a couple of local vicars what they think of his boycott: they are not impressed. “By staying away from the conference I think the bishop undermines his own authority,” says one. So in my neck of the woods this conference is hardly conducive to episcopal authority and church unity.

The main point about this conference is that it is determined not to make rules, or “resolutions”. It’s just a massive talking-shop. The idea is that bishops get to hear other points of view in small discussion groups modelled on the Zulu council meeting, the “indaba”. The experience is meant to make the bishops glad to belong to a common body, full of cultural diversity.

I arrived in Canterbury on Sunday, as the bishops’ retreat ended, and the conference proper began. There was a lot of episcopal idealism in the air, a lot of bullish upbeat rhetoric. A South African bishop told a press conference about the indabas of his native village. There was also an Australian bishop there: he didn’t tell us whether indabas resembled his native tradition of drinking tinnies round the barbie. At the risk of sounding un-PC, there is a serious point here: the Anglican communion does play the exotic-primitivist card quite strongly.

Read it all.

“The Church is not something made by men. It is the instrument of the living God for the setting-forward of His reign on earth . . . This is an hour of testing and peril for the Church, no less than for the world. But it is the hour of God’s call to the Church . . . For those who have eyes to see, there are signs that the tide of faith is beginning to come in.”

—Said about what gathering of what Christian group when–guess first and then please read it all.

I heard several different people report from the American provincial meeting held on Monday afternoon, that our bishops are finding it difficult to encounter so many disagreeable attitudes towards them. In short, they are wondering why they are disliked (some said ”˜hated’) so strongly by so many bishops from other provinces.

And folks, they “don’t get it.” They see their actions as fully in line with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Bp. John Chane, who is getting a great deal of face time here, was in the today’s Lambeth Daily video report as a featured bishop on The Bishop and Social Justice, which is today’s theme. He said into the camera that he and all of the other bishops of the United States believe in Jesus. I have never heard him make any kind of statement of that nature before. I acknowledge that he didn’t say what they believe Jesus to be: Incarnate Son of the Living God, or just one of multiple ways? He followed that with Jesus is the American’s model for social justice, which is not a new statement for this group.

Their efforts to tell the others that there is nothing wrong with the American church and that we are not in turmoil and/or crisis is falling on deaf ears. So far, three bishops have approached me, asked if I was an American and asked me about what is really going on in our church. Several reporters from other countries have done the same.

Yesterday at the ad hoc press conference with Archbishop Deng Bul of the Sudan, the Episcopal News Service correspondent here asked if he had spoken with Gene Robinson. When he replied “No”, she asked if he would like to.

That’s when the archbishop replied, “We will not talk to Gene Robinson or listen to him or his testimony. He has to confess, receive forgiveness and leave. Then we will talk. You cannot bring the listening to gay people to our Communion. People who do not believe in the Bible are left out of our churches, not invited in to tell us why they don’t believe.”

Read it all.

“We have a major crisis. A family that doesn’t face into the crisis it has is a family that is going to fall apart.”

–The Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh from an interview which can be seen on video via this page

I think that what is very moving is the commitment of all the bishops, but especially those from Africa. The bishops of Sudan, especially, give a tremendous witness for our faith. Although they have been persecuted by the Muslim central government, they have resisted forced conversions. I met one of their bishops who is now living with his people in Northern Kenya, where they had to find refuge in order to avoid extermination. Please keep them in your prayers.

This afternoon we had our Provincial meetings, so we headed to the Big Top, which is the only place that could accommodate our numbers. Among the exciting things that we saw was a video from the Episcopal Youth Event meeting in San Antonio. The EYE is a one of the most joyful events of the Church, and it definitely would have been my preference to be with our young people in warm San Antonio rather than in this cold “summer?” weather.

One of the topics of the meeting was the absence of the bishop of New Hampshire from our gathering. I must say that we were very upset because due to security, Gene Robinson could not even meet with the rest of the bishops. Regardless of what position you may hold on this issue, as Americans we are used to more equality, and to have one of our duly elected bishops forbidden to meet with us is a travesty. This was a meeting of the bishops of The Episcopal Church, and it is sad that in the 21 Century we are still acting as if we were in the Middle Ages.

Later on we went back to the Indaba group and then to a reception sponsored by the Episcopal Church Foundation. It was good to eat non-cafeteria food, although it was only finger food from a hotel. Some of the bishops are staying in the hotels of Canterbury, as they were not very happy with sleeping in our small cells, separated from our spouses.

Read it all