Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has described the decision by Lambeth Palace to remove Episcopalians serving on international ecumenical dialogues as “unfortunate … It misrepresents who the Anglican Communion is.”
Jefferts Schori’s comments were made during a June 8 press conference at the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod 2010 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Before the sanctions were imposed on the Episcopal Church as a consequence for having consecrated a lesbian bishop, Jefferts Schori said she had written a letter to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams expressing her concern.
“I don’t think it helps dialogue to remove some people from the conversation,” she said shortly after addressing General Synod. “We have a variety of opinions on these issues of human sexuality across the communion … For the archbishop of Canterbury to say to the Methodists or the Lutheran [World] Federation that we only have one position is inaccurate. We have a variety of understandings and no, we don’t have consensus on hot button issues at the moment.”
Well, call me crazy, but when you choose to walk apart, it means just that: you do things apart from the group. TEC has made its bed, now its time to lie in it.
The sanctions are necessary, and yes, they [b]are[/b] unfortunate. But thank God, they’re in place. Don’t say you weren’t warned, Kate!
Yes, #1. Whining sure isn’t becoming, is it? Sort of reminds me of the grumpy Israelites murmuring and complaining during their years in the wilderness, which the Lord didn’t like much either.
More to the point, this power struggle tends to remind me of the rebellion of Korah or Dathan and Abiram against Moses’ leadership in Numbers 16. Not of course, that ++RW is anything like a leader, mind you, but the jealous griping fits.
The brazenness of the PB’s rhetoric is astonishing, although given her past behavior, it’s hardly shocking. Still, I find her wild accusation that foreign intervening bishops have been seducing leaders in TEC and actively recruiting conservatives in America not only scandalous and deplorable, but downright mendacious in its blatant falsehood and even malicious. Like Eve, she’s trying to shift the blame. Or like the false religious leaders that Jeremiah blasts with withering invective in Jer. 6, the PB is so stuck in unreality and sinful disobedience that she’s totally unashamed; she has apparently forgotten how to blush when telling a lie (Jer. 6:14-15).
David Handy+
“I don’t think it helps dialogue to remove some people from the conversation,” she said
Like the dialogue between Eve and the Serpent, it is sometimes foolish to keep up said dialogue.
Don
#4, Yes, and sometimes it is appropriate to say, “Sit down and shut up”. It is important to say this when the speaker is causing a major disruption in the family…or in the classroom…by deliberatly starting arguments or by speaking lies.
Frances Scott
Well, the Episcopal Church didn’t give the AC a vote in TEC internal affairs, either. If you’re autonomous from the rest of the AC, the rest of the AC is autonomous from you.
Aside the from the glaring lack of theology and ecclesiology, I’d say the Dean of the Good Samaritan School of Theology did not get much training in politics either.