Archbishop Williams said two clear things to The Episcopal Church on Thursday morning: Thank you for your engagement with the Anglican Communion, and the Anglican Communion loves you. The warm words included some implicit exhortation, however.
“Of course I am coming here with hopes and anxieties. You know that and I shan’t deny it. Along with many in the communion, I hope and pray that there won’t be decisions in the coming days that could push us further apart,” he said. “But if people elsewhere in the Communion are concerned about this, it’s because of a profound sense of what The Episcopal Church has given and can give to our fellowship worldwide. If we, if I, had felt that we could do perfectly well without you, there wouldn’t be a problem.”
The bulk of the archbishop’s meditation focused on Christians being called forth from nothingness.