Global concerns and Anglican Communion issues will be a major focus of the Episcopal Church’s 76th General Convention when it meets July 8-17 in Anaheim, California.
The church’s main legislative gathering, which meets every three years, also will welcome many international guests from various Anglican Communion provinces. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will attend General Convention for the first time July 8-9. He will participate in Bible study and be a keynote speaker at a global economic forum on the evening of July 8.
Convention will devote extensive conversation to global issues through its Committee on International Concerns, which will prepare legislation to be addressed by convention’s House of Bishops and House of Deputies.
Some of the key issues will focus on the crises and peacemaking efforts in conflict areas such as the Middle East, Sudan, Sri Lanka and the Great Lakes region of Africa.
Convention addresses global concerns for two reasons, said the Rev. Canon Brian Grieves, the Episcopal Church’s senior director of mission and director of the Advocacy Center.
We will focus on “Global Issues” and “Anglican Communion Issues,” but we will, in no uncertain terms, discuss the Covenant. Hmmmm.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
That “Global Issues” are the top priority for the General Convention shows how far TEC has strayed form being a truly Christian Church, and instead has become a radical, left wing, secular, political organization.
The primary goal of any Christian Church should be to help each of us as individuals find and follow Christ, and to spread the Good News of Christianity to others.
The irony is that all of the political nostrums that TEC supports (higher minimum wage, no drilling in Anwar, carbon caps on CO2, against stock options for executives, pro abortion, against the war in Iraq) hurt the very people they purport to help. Higher minimum wages mean higher unemployment for poor people, not taking advantage of our own plentiful natural resources (oil in Anwar, coal in the midwest, oil shale in the Rockies, oil off of the coasts of Florida and California, nuclear energy) means higher energy costs affecting poor people the most. The war in Iraq has liberated 20 million people, created a nascent democracy where tyranny once ruled, the rape rooms are gone, people in Iraq no longer fear chemical attacks from their own government, and Iraq’s neighbors no longer need fear an unprovoked attack.
Regardless of how one feels about each of these issues, these are secular, temporal issues of today, in which TEC has no expertise beyond blind ideology. The ultimate irony, is that TEC as an organization purports to take a firm stand on secular issues in which they have no expertise, and yet on issues regarding faith and the Bible, where one would expect expertise, the view is anything goes, Buddhist, Muslim, Wicca, open communion, etc. The world is upside down.
I would prefer to be a member of a church where I might disagree on the political issues of the day with the fellow in the pew next to me, but where our commonality is found in the belief that Jesus died for our sins, rose from the dead, and sits on the right hand of the Father, from whom all things were made, etc.
When the Church takes on the secular ideological battles, it just creates a wedge that divides us as Christians, when we should be joined together in our daily personal struggles with our own sin and shortcomings, even if we disagree with each other on the political, temporal issues of the day.
If TEC were serious about spreading the Good News, it would close the Washington office (why does a Church that fervently believes in separation of Church and State when it suits them, need an expensive office in the center of State Power?), sell 815, move headquarters to Dubuque, Iowa, St. Louis, or Memphis and give the resultant savings to the poor.
That they do not do this tells me all I need to know about TEC. TEC is all about secular power and influence, and not about bringing people closer to Christ and saving souls.
BillS
A perfect reprise of “The Caine Mutiny,” where as the waves threaten to swamp the ship, the captain frets over and investigates two missing ladles of strawberries.
TEC is insane.
How I wish TE”C” paid even lip service these days, let alone actual urgent evangelism and discipleship, to life-after-death matters.
And the Rev. Ian Douglas has the gall to call for a deeper consideration of how to meet the UN Millenial Development Goals! Perhaps if the miniscule 0.7% of the 2008 budget for the MDGs had not been cut for 2009 and diverted to lawsuits, even this non-Gospel distraction could be said with a straight face. But leave it to TE”C” to ensure that de Nial remains surging at flood tide and destructively overflowing its banks.
But not the ‘global issues’ raised by the actions of the ECUSA/TEC in the Anglican Communion disruption it has caused. That is adiaphora.