The compromise being worked on over the weekend has seen the US moderate conservative bishops Charles Jenkins of Louisiana and Henry Parsley of Alabama working with liberals Jon Bruno of California and John Chane of Washington DC and Canons Kenneth Kearon and Gregory Cameron, of the Anglican communion council, on a formal statement that would keep the majority of US bishops together.
The resolution would also allow dioceses out of sympathy with the church’s leadership to seek their own Episcopal oversight and also for the setting up of a pastoral council with foreign representatives.
Update: Chip Webb has some commentary on this article here.
This system has always gone back to what they believe is a compromise toward the end of its meetings. The trouble is it is not a compromise but a means by which they continue to create facts on the ground.
I am happy to wish this group well but the proof is in the pudding. The fact that there is no conservative in the list is not grounds for optimism in my view.
I just honestly doubt that this group will treat the depth of the problem with the radicality it needs to move out of its present state of being “desperately stuck.” I will be delighted to be wrong.
PS sources say, predictably, that there are various new proposals being bandied about this weekend.
I wouldn’t think having Canon Kenneth Kearon crafting something would inspire much confidence.
Parsley is a conservative now, eh? Louie Crew is also from Alabama, as I recall, and I’m not sure this makes him a conservative. But the press and others seem to assume that any bishop from Alabama just must be conservative. Perhaps in a relative sense Parsley is conservative, but that itself says volumes about how far the Episcopal Church has strayed from the Faith Once Delivered.
“US moderate conservative bishops Charles Jenkins of Louisiana and Henry Parsley of Alabama working with liberals Jon Bruno of California and John Chane of Washington DC and Canons Kenneth Kearon and Gregory Cameron, of the Anglican communion council”
Wow, what theological diversity! Bruno, Chane, Kearon, and Cameron seem peas from the same pod. The only news here (and if the story is true, it’s big news) would come from Kearon and Cameron’s role in Lambeth Palace.
Jenkins, whatever his personal convictions, has deeply embedded himself in ECUSA’s status quo. When he has dissented, he has done so weakly and (as I recall) in fuzzy language.
Parsley, though staking out a more conservative theological position, has distinguished himself as ECUSA’s preeminent institutionalist.
So if the report is correct, what’s the news here? Only Kearon and Cameron.
Form of words, here we come?
But of course any resolution is non-binding. Only General Convention can do this. Or are they lying? How can you tell? Well their lips are moving.
The lede is very frustrating:
[i]Senior Anglican church officials and American bishops were last night meeting in New Orleans to draft a statement aimed at keeping the US Episcopal Church within the worldwide communion [b]in the face of attacks from conservative church members[/b] over the Americans’ attempt to remain welcoming towards gays.[/i]
Right…. so it’s all the conservatives’ fault
Why would anyone continue to talk with TEC and its minions? Why? And yet this is happening, talk and more talk and more talk. This blog is all chatter about shall we or shan’t we, how can we stay together, what we really need to do is pray, let us have a radical solution ( a solution of any sort) that will keep us all together, I am so afraid we will all fall apart, let us talk and talk and talk. Did not Christ say, “The babblers you will always have with you?” Hasn’t anyone run out of patience with the ABC who has not got the nerve, the courage, the will, to say to TEC, “We tried with you and you have done nothing but peddle your own position. Now we want nothing more to do with you.” Speak plainly, yes ,yes, yes, of course, but ACT? What is this paralysis? It certainly looks like simple cowardice to me. Larry
“Why would anyone continue to talk with TEC?”
And why would Lambeth Palace staff be allowed to talk with TEC?
Irenaeus, Are you being sarcastic? I cannot tell.
In any case, if your questionliteral, my answer is, “I don’t know now. Originally, there was reason ecause there was hope. Now, we know TEC’s real face, and there is no reason for Lambeth, from top to bottom, to talk to TEC at all, and plenty of reason to ignore them. To continue to talk is to give them face, and time and credence, none of which is desireable. Do you disagree? Larry
Formal – having the form of, recognizably following a form. Nope, nothing about authorized. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, in the ECUSA/TEC it ISN’T a duck until authorized to be a duck by the HOB approved by the Executive Council and voted on at General Convention says it’s a duck. But it is acceptable in our common life to act like it’s a duck when we want to. Tomorrow it can be a goose or a pheasant or a raven, depending on how the mood takes us.
Diversity is only trumped by polity.
The General Convention Church in action. And you wonder why no one trusts ECUSA/TEC?
Just about all of these bishops need to be discplined. I have never seen a bunch of grown men and women act so irresponsibly. I am going to fire a letter off to my bishop as soon as he gets back. I am sure he will sneak back into town and act like nothing has ever happened. (Edited slightly)
The article does not say Henry Parsley is a conservative, for the record. I know emotions are running high but please interact with what is actually there.
Zoot, you wouldn’t happen to be in West TN, would you?