The House of Deputies will be asked to consider meeting in two unusual sessions early in the 76th meeting of the General Convention to discuss Resolution B033 passed by the last convention.
“The purpose of this discussion will be to exchange information and viewpoints among the deputies, and to inform Legislative Committee #8 World Mission, to which committee all the resolutions relative to B033 have been assigned,” House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson wrote in a June 29 letter to deputies and first alternate deputies.
Anderson wrote that she believes the House of Deputies “will benefit by having an opportunity to discuss B033 apart from the context of legislative procedure” and noted that “many deputies have indicated their longing to discuss B033 together as a house.”
Is there really such a thing as unusual in TEC anymore. Extra-canonical and constitutional are more usual. They just make it up as they go along.
Well golly, can anyone venture a guess as to what this ad hoc convocation might do? The anticipation is just too, too much .
This may be a first for me, but I agree here with Bonnie Anderson- the HoD (and the HoB, for that matter) SHOULD discuss B033 outside legislative session. They should decide what they really want to do, where they really want to take the church, and then do it. Hopefully in a resolution that is clear and forthright and does not leave us all trying to figure out what the word “is” means. Or “gracious restraint.”
I do NOT anticipate agreeing with the outcome, but it makes a lot more sense to approach a critical issue this way, than trying to get everybody to stay an extra half hour to ramrod something through the last session of the last day, ala 2006.
Speaking of GC resolutions, check them out here:
http://gc2009.org/ViewLegislation/
I found the following particularly interesting:
C004
C009
C010
C014
C015
C017
C019
C021
C023
C024
C025
C028
C031
C036
C039
C041
C046
C054
C055
D020
D022
D025
I’m sure I missed some, but reading through them show just how lop-sided things have become in TEC. Only D020, calling for support for the Covenant, seemed to come from the reasserter side.
Wonder what Dr. Schori has to say about that. Seems she was pretty clear B033 would not be reconsidered. Maybe, outside the legislative sessions, this is a way for it to be reconsidered without being reconsidered, if you get my meaning.
Fr. Darin Lovelace+
St. David’s Anglican Church
Durant, Iowa
Interesting – are we seeing a difference between the HOB and the HOD? Is this a rear guard action by the ladies with bad haircuts?
PM-
The PB has stated that she doesn’t want B033 repealed. What she does want is the revision of Title III and IV of the canons to a) effectively overturn B033, making it essentially a deposable offense to abide by it- something along the lines of “no person shall be denied office in this church due to age, gender, race, sexual orientation, sex partners, divorce, previous arrest and conviction…..” and b) give her the power under title IV to depose anyone she wants for transgression of title III while at the same time preventing any orthodox bishop from deposing anyone for violation of, say, communing the unbaptized or worshiping other gods.
The probable point of the meeting is to make clear to the HoD that they will indeed get to have their cake and eat it too. They will leave the convention with the Communion moderates praising them for not overturning B033, but they also get gay bishops and gay weddings, all with the blessing of the ACO, ACC, ABC and any number of other acronyms.
We will all loudly cry “foul” but the deed will be done. And the Communion will commission a report, which 2 years later will upbraid TEC, to be followed by the JSC mitigating said report, and by then it will be time for Lambeth, and the 300 bishops, representing the world’s 4.5 million Anglicans, will meet at Lambeth.
However, we can hope (as I did above in #3) that they will actually discuss the issues surrounding B033 and be honest about their response. In this case, there are a number of influential deputies who really feel strongly that to do right by their constituencies, they need to have a vote to repeal. Time will tell. It is always amusing to watch KJS and Bonnie Anderson circling each other as they vie for power- they are allies so long as driving the orthodox into the sea is the primary goal, but with the orthodox gone or contained in a few dioceses, there are likely to be clashes as Mrs. Anderson and her deputies try to seize control from the bishops.
It would be interesting (but moot) to hear what K J-S thinks “our current position and identity” is. Who constitutes the “we” of this “Our” possessive pronoun? Not me or my diocese, I imagine.
However.
A correction is needed in this article which states:
“B033 passed after then-Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold told a joint meeting of the houses of bishops and deputies its passage would signal to the rest of the Anglican Communion the “willingness of the majority of us to relinquish something in order to serve a larger purpose.”
It was NOT Griswold who addressed the HoD on B033, it was K J-S herself. She had already been elected and ratified. Bonnie Anderson, who had also already taken the reins of the House, stopped us just as people had lined up 10 deep at every microphone to present amendments to the resolution. Anderson told us that it was her prerogative to invite guests onto the floor of the HoD, and she was now inviting our new PB to come and speak to us. Katy appeared immediately and told us that it was necessary to have [i]some[/i] statement to present to the Communion acknowledging the Windsor Report. She said that we did not have time to amend B033 before the end of the session. She also said — and this is etched on my memory — that “our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters and those who support them” should not be discouraged by this because she assured them that indeed ” you will get everything you have been asking for” if they had the patience to wait just a little bit longer. She essentially indicated: Just pass this thing for now.
[SOOOO interesting that the article puts the onus for this on the now retired Griswold. Anyone who was there can tell you it was K J-S]
So here “we” are — whoever gets to be included in “we” and I have a distinct feeling that the “little bit longer” period is over and the promise is about to be kept.
With the resolution changing the language in the marriage canons from “husband & wife” to “spouses” and “man & woman” to “persons”, B033 is going to be moot anyway.
“All the sacraments for all the baptized” is the war cry. “We” are going to claim “our identity” alright.
…….and only 34 of us left on the floor to try to turn the tide.
For the record, a resolution does not have to be “repealed” or “revoked” in order to be rescinded.
According to a recent opinion by the Chancellor to the President of the House of Deputies:
[i]A Resolution adopted by one General Convention remains the position of the General Convention until it (1) expires by its own terms, (2) is revoked by a subsequent act of a General Convention, or (3) is superseded by General Convention’s adoption of something clearly contrary to the prior enactment even if the prior act is not explicitly revoked. A General Convention cannot bind a future General Convention, a future General Convention can always change what a prior General Convention has done.[/i]
The Presiding Bishop’s “preference” that we not revisit past legislation is happily met by option (3).
…. all the sacraments for all the baptized and ….. the unbaptized as well ….. Is the direction it is taking.
#9 How dishonest.
This is what you get with Christianity by majority vote. Wonder if the Rev’d Russell, et. al., will be content if some future GenCon undoes what will likely be done at this impending one. Seems unlikely, but the principle is surely in place. Suppose this principle also justifies the recent action of the folks in California regarding gay “marriage”. Can’t have it both ways, folks. Either the principle of majority rule works, or it doesn’t.
In the area of Christian faith and order, this makes for a ridiculous situation – one which disallows any sense of Christian faith as an anchor in changing circumstances. Faith and order simply shifts with the times, with the whims and practices of culture. This is not the biblical faith, nor the faith of the Christian Church universal. TEC continues to separate itself from the Body of Christ, and use legal justifications for unholy actions.
Fr. Darin Lovelace+
St. David’s Anglican Church (not just saying so, but in communion with well over half of the world’s Anglican believers)
Durant, Iowa
Not so much “dishonest”, Pageantmaster, when you view B033 for what it really was: it was a resolution (i.e., a motion) that General Convention 2006 recommend something to the bishops and standing committees. As such, it was over and done with as soon as it had passed: the recommendation stood as made, and then General Convention (the body that made it) immediately went out of business for ever. There is nothing to “revisit”, “repeal”, or “revoke”, any more than you can “repeal” an event that is wholly in the past. The Curmudgeon, btw, takes [url=http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2009/06/2009-church-follies-iii-veni-sancte.html]the same view[/url] as the Chancellor of the House of Deputies — but it would be nice to have the latter’s opinion out in the open for all to see, instead of just insiders like Ms. Russell.
#13 Chancellor
It was actually this that I thought was dishonest:
[blockquote]The Presiding Bishop’s “preference†that we not revisit past legislation is happily met by option (3).[/blockquote]
Thank you for the link to Curmudgeon which I will go and read.
I am still getting my head around the idea that Diocesan Conventions cannot change their mind about decisions about things like their canons and affiliations and yet apparently General Conventions can, or so we are told by some in TEC.
I understand, Pageantmaster (and frdarin). What is “dishonest” about the PB’s statement is that B033 is not “past legislation”. A resolution enacted by General Convention is nothing more than a motion — a proposal that a body do something as a body, such as take a stand, or make a recommendation to someone else. A motion is not a statute, and the whole difficulty (on both sides of this debate) is that both sides keep treating B033 as though it were some kind of statute.
For a diocese to change its canons, or its affiliation, requires genuine legislation — that will have ongoing and binding effect. (The same is true if ECUSA were to change its canons or affiliation.) But when a diocesan convention passes a resolution — e.g., requesting the Presiding Bishop to observe the canons, and not be guided by her unilateral interpretations of them — that simply expresses the mind of that convention at that moment, and nothing more. Any subsequent convention can be of a different mind, and can adopt a contrary resolution. Neither is binding on anyone.
Just keep in mind the distinction between a statute for people to obey and follow, and a simple motion that a group do or say something, and you’ll have no trouble. It’s really apples and oranges.
(Sigh) I suppose a large part of the fault lies with the fact that General Convention has a whole category of resolutions on its site which are legislation — in that they propose amendments to the canons, or to the constitution. But the thing that makes them legislation is their content — they actually amend previously existing legislation, and so are legislation themselves.
It would be helpful if proposals to amend legislation were called “bills”, or “acts”, and not “resolutions” — though technically, such a piece of legislation “resolves” — if the other House concurs — to amend canon such-and-such. As I say: (sigh) it’s not easy to categorize them by their language. It’s far better to look at what they in fact accomplish.
As Chancellor points out GC resolutions are not binding. What is also dishonest it pretending that they are and that they mean something when in fact they don’t. B033 was treated as binding for the purpose of scuttling Dar es Salaam. And it was sufficient for TEC to pretend and the ABC to proclaim that Windsor had been complied with.
What we see is lies piled on top of lies.
Of course not even the Canons are binding as the discussion on communion of the non-baptized shows.
#9 Susan exposes (with glee) one strategy to negate B033,
[blockquote] or (3) is superseded by General Convention’s adoption of something clearly contrary to the prior enactment even if the prior act is not explicitly revoked. A General Convention cannot bind a future General Convention, a future General Convention can always change what a prior General Convention has done. [/blockquote]
#11 Pageantmaster claims this to be dishonest.
This is politics!
Dear Susan,
Drop the politics and consider the damage done by negating a resolution in which we promise to do no harm to the rest of the communion.
Signed,
Not so gladly…U.P.
Ms. Russell, If you do succeed in getting BO33 rescinded, what will you influential lobbyists demand from the Episcopal Church next?
A resolution from a preceding convention is already dead as it is only a snapshot of a moment in time that can never return. I fear we are in for more Proceedings from the Senate of Lilliput in Anaheim this year. Yawn.
I agree with TJM on this: I’d like to see the “prophetic” revisionistas have the courage of their convictions, and honestly state where they want to take TEC–out of communion with the majority of Anglicanism. Let them have their political triumph, garbed in warm, fuzzy “celebrating diversity” and “generous orthodoxy” emissions. Then let the rest of the AC, if they’re honest and fed up enough, do the decent thing and let TEC walk apart down the broad path. And, then the institutional liberals, and remaining moderate bishops, can man up and choose whom they will serve.
TEC dishonest?????????? Since when does honesty gain you anything in the Episcopal club?
Intercessor
There would be great symbolism in the repeal of BO33 and I wish they would do it. It would be the honest thing to do.
#20 … Our “agenda” is and has been patently transparent: The full inclusion of all the baptized in all the sacraments.
#25, Does your agenda for the Episcopal Church include the ordination of Priests who have been baptized and uphold conservative beliefs and practices?
Rev’d Russell,
Please identify the provenance of this phrase: full inclusion of all the baptized in all the sacraments.
Fr. Darin Lovelace+
St. David’s Anglican Church (not just saying so, but in full communion with a clear majority of the Anglican faithful on the globe)
Durant, Iowa
Rev’d Russell,
And while you’re at it, please show me where Richard Hooker, or any other Anglican divine, referred to the three-legged stool.
Fr. Darin+
The three-legged stool is, I believe, an invention of the twentieth century.
Three-legged stools are designed for milk-maids and serve no udder purpose.
Ms. Russell, two quick questions:
1) Does “full inclusion…in all the sacraments” extend to publicly unrepentant sinners?
2) Do you support communion without baptism?