US Bishops fail to convince primates: CEN 11.30.07 p 6.

November 28, 2007

Posted by geoconger

The Primates have returned a vote of no confidence in the Episcopal Church. Lambeth Palace reports that a majority of primates have rejected the conclusions of the ACC/Primates Joint Standing Committtee (JSC), and have told the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams the Episcopal Church has failed, in whole or in part, to honor the recommendations of the Windsor Report and the Primates’ Dar es Salaam communiqué.

The majority rejection of the JSC report comes as a blow to Dr. Williams’ hopes to avert a showdown between the liberal and conservative wings of the Communion. It also marks an unprecedented repudiation of the competence and judgment of the central apparatus of the Anglican Consultative Council.

Following the publication of the positive assessment by the JSC of the actions of the New Orleans meeting of the US House of Bishops, Dr. Williams wrote to the primates asking “How far is your Province able to accept the JSC Report assessment that the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops have responded positively to the requests of the Windsor Report and those made by the Primates in their Communiqué at the end of their meeting in Dar es Salaam?”

Of the 38 primates, including the Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu, Lambeth Palace reported it had received 26 responses, and no reply from 12. Of the 26, 12 stated they could accept the JSC’s findings, 12 stated they rejected the JSC’s findings, while three offered a mixed verdict, and one said it was continuing to review the matter.

Of those who had not responded, three were from Africa, three from the Indian subcontinent, two from Central and South America, and four from other areas. However, based on past statements from the African and South Asian provinces, the majority reporting a mixed or negative response will be increased to roughly a two third’s margin once their views are communicated to London.

Details of who voted how were not released, nor did the summary stand close comparison to the body of the report. While the summary graph reported 10 provinces as not having responded, the paper identified 12 no responses. Twelve provinces were stated to have rejected the report in the summary, while the body of the paper stated this number was 10. Three provinces were listed as having given mixed responses in the summary, while the body of the paper said two provinces had so spoken.

In characterizing the differences between Provinces that accepted and rejected the JSC’s conclusions, the report said “that the former have looked for the spirit of the HoB’s communiqué (and the JSC’s analysis), whilst the latter have looked more closely at their language.”

Dr. Williams’ queries to the individual members of the ACC were inconclusive. Of the 75 members, 13 reported they agreed with the JSC’s conclusions, 8 disagreed, two offered a mixed response, with the remaining members not responding.

Lambeth Palace stated Dr. Williams would offer his views in his Advent letter to the primates.

As posted at Stand Firm in Faith

At Stand Firm it was suggested that we not consider our Lord's injuction against suing other Christians because those fighting against us from pecusa are not Christians. My response to that is below as is my response to the front page article from today's Press & Sun-Bulletin (posted below). ed.

re: Christians suing Christians

While many if not most of us here believe that pecusa has latched onto a false gospel, the world around us doesn’t necessarily catch what appears to be a nuance. We claim to be Christians and they claim to be Christians - this is part of the problem. Secondly, is it really good stewardship of the monies entrusted to us for gospel work to spend it on lawsuits? I don’t think so.

There are a number of inaccuracies in the article, but I don’t blame the reporter. Given that he sought balance for his article by contacting the Diocese of Central NY, you can expect inaccuracies to be in the article.

1. The diocese had a number of meetings with former parishioners and could not find enough of them to have a vestry. The idea that they have some plan for future ministry is a sliver of the truth at best and more likely an outright lie. They have already spoken with local leaders and they got nothing out of it.

2. I have been told that there are more than two churches that have left pecusa, but one has not publicized their leaving.

3. The keep in trust line from Canon Lewis is rich. Does anyone really believe that the current trajectory of pecusa would be viewed favorably by those who gave so much to pecusa in the past?

4. The statement that Matt picks up follows by several paragraphs an earlier statement about homosexuality and blessings. Given that Moyers is speaking with both sides I don’t believe that he can be faulted for what he has written.

5. As I have said elsewhere, Adams has thrown the Diocese under the bus in his drive to make sure gays aren’t relegated to the back of the bus. Attendance, giving, giving to the diocese are all down according to the reports I have seen. The diocese bulldozed the diocesan conference center. The diocese has wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawsuits, including their failed attempt to defrock Fr. David Bollinger. The decisions that Adams has made have been a disaster for the diocese.

6. Does anyone really believe that there are 22,000 members of DCNY? Or 100 active congregations?

The Rev. Tony Seel

St. Andrew's church leaving its Vestal home

Congregation to worship at Memorial Park Baptist

By William Moyer
Press & Sun-Bulletin
StoryChat Post CommentStoryChat

VESTAL -- Almost six months after withdrawing from the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York, members of St. Andrew's Anglican Church in Vestal will leave their buildings on Mirador Road this week and share facilities with a Baptist congregation on Front Street.

After the congregation's vestry voted in June to leave the Episcopal Church, leaders faced the prospect of a long and costly legal battle with the diocese over the local parish's buildings, which include a church, community center and rectory.

"We said all along that we would not go to court for our buildings," said the Rev. Anthony Seel, pastor of St. Andrew's Anglican Church. "We do not believe that Christians ought to be suing Christians. The diocese had already sued St. Andrew's in Syracuse (which also withdrew), and we decided we weren't going to get involved in a court battle."

St. Andrew's in Vestal, which has aligned itself with the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, intends to relinquish the keys to its buildings on Saturday to a representative of the Central New York diocese.

The diocese will immediately consider at its options for the abandoned properties, said the Rev. Canon Karen C. Lewis, assistant to Bishop Gladstone "Skip" Adams, who's headquartered in Syracuse.

Lewis said the diocese will talk with other Episcopal leaders in the Vestal area to determine a ministry plan. A new Episcopal church in the buildings is a possibility, she said.

St. Andrew's Church in Syracuse is the only other congregation to withdraw from the Central New York diocese. Church leaders initially wanted to stay in their facility on South Salina Street, but they eventually opted to leave rather than continue costly litigation with the diocese over ownership of the properties. The congregation expects to move elsewhere sometime early next year.

Under state law, Lewis said, church property is held in trust by a local parish for future generations of Episcopalians. When a church withdraws from the denomination, it has broken the trust because it is no longer related to the Episcopal Church. Across the country, dioceses have prevailed in court cases concerning property of congregations that have opted out of the Episcopal Church.

At the root of both congregations' discontent is the national Episcopal denomination's stance on homosexuality and blessings of same-sex unions. The controversy has triggered theological schisms across the denomination, including affirmative votes from several regional dioceses to withdraw from the Episcopal Church on the grounds that it was swayed from orthodox teachings.

Seel said a final worship service for St. Andrew's at the congregation's Mirador Road building is scheduled for 6 p.m. Friday.

At 9 a.m. Sunday, St. Andrew's congregation will worship at Memorial Park Baptist Church, whose leaders voted last Sunday to share space with the new Anglican congregation. The two congregations will hold separate services -- Memorial Park worships at 11 a.m. -- but will look for ways to share ministries, Seel said.

About 130 members of St. Andrew's will make the move, Seel said. Membership is down from 180 in 2003 when the Episcopal Church elected and consecrated Gene Robinson, a practicing homosexual, as bishop of New Hampshire. Many consider that event to be the catalyst that ignited the current controversy between traditionalists -- who believe homosexuality is incompatible with biblical teaching -- and others, including Adams, who believe Christ welcomes all people, regardless of sexual orientation.

Earlier this year, Adams wrote a letter to pastors, saying he would "not ask gay and lesbian people to go to the back of the bus for a time."

Central New York has roughly 22,000 members in 100 Episcopal churches fr

J. I. Packer: Global Realignment; Who we Are and Where we Stand

From Anglican Mainstream:

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Presentation at Anglican Network in Canada Launch Conference

J. I. Packer

Aim of Talk

Do you remember Peter Sellers, creator of Dr. Strangelove and Inspector Clouseau, man of a thousand voices as they called him? He was once asked to record the whole Bible on disc, and he refused. “To do something like that,” he said, “you need to know exactly who you are. I don’t know who I am.”

Do we know who we are? I think we do, and I will state what I think straight away. We are sinners, miserable and hell-deserving, saved by the glorious grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are orthodox biblical Christians, members of the worldwide Anglican Communion, who value the Anglican heritage of wisdom and faithful devotion, and who cannot in good conscience go along with the increasing slippage from Anglican standards of the Anglican Church of Canada. We are in fact increasingly isolated in our church, much as Jeremiah long ago was isolated in Jerusalem - and if we do not feel something of Jeremiah’s distress at being so placed, I would say there is something wrong with us.

But we are so placed, and action is called for, and my aim in this talk is to ensure that we move ahead with clarity in our minds as to who we are, where we come from, what we are doing and why, and how to explain our action when we are challenged and criticized for it, as surely we shall be.

May I say: I tackle this talk with both a sense of compulsions and a heavy heart. When God called me from England to Canada three decades ago, I thought I was leaving behind the world of intra-church conflict in which I had been involved for twenty years, but no. In England, when Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones called on evangelicals ministering in doctrinally-mixed denominations to leave them, I resisted the idea. I did not expect that in Canada withdrawal from the diocese and province that had welcomed me would become an issue of conscience, but so it is. Like other Christians, I find peace in doing what I believe I have to do, but I cannot always find pleasure in it, and this for me is an instance of that. However, I move now to my argument.


The Anglican Communion

The Anglican Communion is one expression of the church universal, militant here in earth, and this is where I start.

a. The Church of God

What is the church? I state what I believe to be the Bible’s teaching. In its visible aspect - that is, as we see it in this world - the church is the entire community of those who profess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. This church is gathered in local assemblies, each of which, in the words of Anglican Article 19, is “a congregation” (that is, an association) of faithful men (that is, believing people). In its spiritual aspect, that is, in terms of its relationship to God, the church as a whole is three things together, corresponding to the three persons of the Holy Trinity. It is the family of the Father’s adopted children; it is the body of the ascended, glorified and enthroned Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord; and it is the community, or fellowship of mutual love and service that is created and sustained by the ongoing activity of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit draws us close to each other by drawing each of us close to Christ, and by so doing transforms God’s children in character, animates Christ’s body in ministry, and builds up each fellowship in love. Every congregation is called to live as an outcrop, microcosm, sample and specimen of the one holy universal fellowship.

b. The Church’s unity

Paul analyses the church’s given unity in terms of one body and one spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one family, and speaks of the resultant reality as “the unity of the Spirit,” which all Christians must work to preserve “in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4: 3-6). So the unity of God’s holy universal church is something to be recognized and expressed. Jesus’ prayer in John 17: 21-23 that all his disciples may be one as he and the Father are one shows us how this is to be done. The Father and the Son are one in thought, in love, in mutual honour and in disciple-making purpose (they were on mission together, we may truly say, at the time when Jesus prayed, just before his cross). So, too, the church, which is already one in Christ, must express its unity in all appropriate forms of communication, communion, and cooperation.

Togetherness with other congregations is integral to expressing Christian unity, and two principles of organized togetherness have emerged down the centuries: the geographical, which expresses the purpose of covering a particular area with functioning congregations, and the denominational, which expresses the sense that one is a trustee for some truth or practice that is not universally accepted, but that all need for biblical fullness of life together, so that as many churches as possible that have this distinctive feature should be founded. The two concerns, of course, regularly go together, distinct though they are. Thus, different patterns for connecting congregations have grown up, ranging from the pyramidal global structure of the Roman Catholic Church, with its Italian base, to the legally registered foundation deeds of each small addition to the 20,000 or so Protestant denominations that the statisticians tell us we can find if we look.

Now, it is in relation to these organizational structures, large or small, that the notion of schism should be defined. Schism means unwarrantable and unjustifiable dividing of organized church bodies, by the separating of one group within the structure from the rest of the membership. Schism, as such, is sin, for it is a needless and indefensible breach of visible unity. But withdrawal from a unitary set-up that has become unorthodox and distorts the gospel in a major way and will not put its house in order as for instance when the English church withdrew from the Church of Rome in the sixteenth century, should be called not schism but realignment, doubly so when the withdrawal leads to links with a set-up that is faithful to the truth, as in the sixteenth century the Church of England entered into fellowship with the Lutheran and Reformed churches of Europe, and as now we propose gratefully to accept the offer of full fellowship with the Province of the Southern Cone. Any who call such a move schism should be told that they do not know what schism is.

c. The Anglican Communion

Now, within this frame of reference, how are we to define the Anglican Communion? It is not, and never was, an integrated, pyramidal global organization with the Archbishop of Canterbury as its head. It is simply, as its name proclaims, a Communion - that is, a fellowship of independent provinces sharing ministry and sacraments on the basis of a shared faith, and bound together by a distinctive and very precious heritage - tradition, or style, as you might say - which all appreciate, and wish in some form to conserve. This heritage may be described as follows. (This is familiar ground, so I move over it quickly.)

First, Anglicanism is biblical. Anglicanism says to the world: “Show us anything in Scripture that should be taught and that we are not teaching, and we will teach it. Show us anything we are teaching that is contrary to Scripture, and we will stop teaching it.” The Bible, straightforwardly interpreted as revelation from God through human writers, is the Anglican rule of faith.

Second, Anglicanism is creedal, embracing and building on the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, which highlight the Trinity, the incarnation, Christ’s saving ministry and the reality of salvation itself. The 39 Articles dot i’s and cross t’s and fill gaps in the Creeds, clarifying in particular the doctrines of faith, of grace, of justification and of the sacraments.

Third, Anglicanism is liturgical, in continuity with the church of patristic and pre- Reformation days. Through Archbishop Cranmer we inherited a superlative Reformed Prayer Book, in which the thematic sequence, sin - grace - faith runs through the set services, so that it is a truly evangelical book, and should be appreciated as such.

Fourth, Anglicanism is pastoral, centred upon the making of disciples both domestically and through outreach. Bishops are ordained to give pastoral leadership, caring for both clergy and congregations, and their jurisdiction is to be exercised for the furtherance of pastoral goals.

Fifth, Anglicanism is missional in the sense of being committed to transformation through the gospel - transformation of individuals through teaching and nurture, transformation of congregations through preaching a renewal, transformation of culture through the wisdom and values of the gospel. The transformational purposes of the Reformers and Puritans, the eighteenth-century revival and later revivals, and the latter-day renewal movements, have permanently shaped authentic Anglicanism in a missional way.

Sixth, Anglicanism is not hierarchical nor maintenance-motivated, though it has sometimes appeared to be both; but in fact it is service-oriented. Dioceses exist to resource and help parishes, and provinces exist to coordinate both diocesan and local church ministry; Anglicanism is service-oriented at every level, and it is in loving practical service, shaped by the divine Word and empowered by the divine Spirit, that Anglican unity is finally expressed.

Lambeth Conferences, Primates’ meetings, the Anglican Consultative Council, and other national and international gatherings at leadership level, can only be called instruments of unity in a significant sense as they seek to further Anglicanism’s service in the gospel to a lost humanity. For the fundamental unity is unity in truth and in mission based on truth; nothing can ever change that.

Such, then, is Anglicanism; and if I may speak personally for a moment, one reason why siren songs urging me to abandon Anglicanism strike no chord in my heart is that I value his heritage so highly, and am so sure that if I walked away from it under any circumstances I should lose far more than I gained. The present project, however, is precisely not to abandon

Anglicanism but to realign within it, so as to be able to maintain it in its fullness and authenticity - and that, to me, is a horse of a very different colour. In this I recognize the calling of God.

Anglicans Adrift

For what should we think of global Anglicanism today? It has often been said during the past few years that the Anglican Communion is like a torn net, due to denials by some of things that the rest believe to be integral to the gospel and affirmation, mainly by the same people, of behaviour that the rest believe the gospel absolutely rules out. In certain cases communion with a small “c” - that is, full and free welcome and interchange of clergy and communicants at the Lord’s Table - has been suspended. How, we ask, has this come about? In brief, it is the bitter fruit of liberal theology, which has become increasingly dominant in seminaries and among leaders in what we may call the Anglican Old West - that is, North America in the lead, with Britain and Australasia coming along behind.

This has been the story over the past two generations, since Anglo-Catholic leadership began to flag. Let me explain. Liberal theology as such knows nothing about a God who uses written language to tell us things, or about the reality of sin in the human system, which makes redemption necessary and new birth urgent. Liberal theology posits, rather, a natural religiosity in man (reverance, that is, for a higher power) and a natural capacity for goodwill towards others, and sees Christianity as a force for cherishing and developing these qualities. They are to be fanned into flame and kept burning in the church, which in each generation must articulate itself by concessive dialogue with the cultural pressures, processes and prejudices that surround it. In other words, the church must ever play catch-up to the culture, taking on board whatever is the “in thing” at the moment; otherwise, so it is thought, Christianity will lose all relevance to life. The intrinsic goodness of each “in thing” is taken for granted. In following this agenda the church will inevitably leave the Bible behind at point after point, but since on this view the Bible is the word of fallible men rather than of the infallible God, leaving it behind is no great loss.

Well now; with liberal leaders thinking and teaching in these terms, a collision with conservatives - that is, with upholders of the historic biblical and Anglican faith - was bound to come. It came over gay unions, which liberals wish to bless as a form of holiness, a quasimarriage.

As part of its current agenda of affirming minority rights (that is the “in thing” these days), western culture has for the past generation accepted gay partnerships as a feature of normal life. Despite the pronouncement of the 1998 Lambeth Conference in favour of the old paths, New Westminster diocese began in 2002 to bless gay couples, and others followed suit.

The Windsor Report called for a moratorium on this, which was not forthcoming. The St. Michael’s report said that the issue, though theological, was not against Anglican core doctrine so was not a matter over which to divide the church. On a side wind and by a stopgap motion, the General Synod of 2004 declared gay unions to be marked by “integrity and sanctity”. The 2007 General Synod affirmed the St. Michael’s position. So here we are now, the Anglican Network in Canada, accepting the invitation to realign in order to uphold historic Anglican standards, not only regarding gay unions but across the board, as those standards were formulated in our church’s foundation documents and reformulated in the Montreal Declaration of 1994.

Anglicans Anchored

So, who are we today, and where do we stand at this moment in relation to all that is happening in the storm-tossed Anglican Communion? In light of what I have said so far, I put it to you that there are four things we can and must now say. They are as follows.

To start with, we are a community of conscience, - committed to the Anglican convictions - those defined, I mean, in our foundation documents and expressed in our Prayer Book. The historic Anglican conviction about the authority of the Bible matches that which Luther expressed at the Diet of Worms: “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. To go against conscience is neither right nor safe” - that is, it imperils the soul. As for the historic Anglican conviction about homosexual behaviour, it contains three points:

First, it violates the order of creation. God made the two sexes to mate and procreate, with pleasure and bonding; but homosexual intercourse, apart from being, at least among men, awkward and unhealthy, is barren.

Second, it defies the gospel call to repent of it and abstain from it, as from sin. This call is most clearly perhaps expressed in 1Cor. 6: 9-11, where the power of the Holy Spirit to keep believers clear of this and other lapses is celebrated.

Third, the heart of true pastoral care for homosexual persons is helping them in friendship not to yield to their besetting temptation. We are to love the sinner, though we do not love the sin.

We must hold to these positions, whatever the culture around us may say and do. So a biblically educated conscience requires.

Second, we are a community of church people, committed to the Anglican Communion.

We rejoice to know that the more than 90% of worshipping Anglicans worldwide outside the Old West are solidly loyal to the Christian heritage as Anglicanism has received it, and we see our realignment as among other things, an enhancing of our solidarity with them. As I said earlier, what we are doing is precisely not leaving Anglicanism behind.

Third, we are a community of consecration, committed to the Anglican calling of worship and mission, doxology and discipling. Right from the start church planting will be central to our vision of what we are being called to do.

Fourth, I think we may soberly say of ourselves that we are a community of courage, heading out into unknown waters but committed to the Anglican confidence that God is faithful to those who are faithful to him.

Anglican Communion Faces Serious Challenge

By STAFF WRITER, Nassau Guardian

The Anglican church in The Bahamas and worldwide is faced with a serious challenge, and Archbishop Drexel Gomez says he hopes and prays that they find a collective way forward to avoid the route of a split. This came from Gomez during his charge at the recent 107th session of the Synod, at Holy Trinity Conference Centre.

"Paul singles out homosexual intercourse for special attention because he regards it as providing a particularly graphic image of the way in which humans distort God's created order. God the Creator made man and woman for each other, to cleave together, to be fruitful and multiply.

"When human beings 'exchange' these created roles for homosexual intercourse, they embody the spiritual condition of those who have 'exchanged' the truth about God for a lie."

The Province of the West Indies adheres firmly to this theological position, according to Gomez.

"The diversity of opinions across the Communion has led some persons to conclude the Anglican Communion will have to divide, seeing that those who are convinced that the Gospel is clear in its teaching and must take precedence over culture cannot accommodate those who believe the contrary," he said.

"The split — if it occurs — will be about the most fundamental of all questions: the nature of reality. Which relationships correspond to God's ordering of life, and which violate it? It is clear that the future of the Anglican Communion is unclear at the moment, but there can be no doubt that the future shape of Anglicanism will have to undergo significant adjustments if the Communion is to remain intact" said Gomez.

He informed Anglicans that the Archbishop of Canterbury in his reflection clearly stated that as a result of the action taken by the Episcopal Church in 2003, that: "There is no way in which the Anglican Communion can remain unchanged by what is happening at the moment."

"Meanwhile, I hope and pray that collectively we may, as a Communion, find a way forward that avoids the route of a split. However, we are faced with a serious challenge," said Gomez.

<> <>At that last session, Gomez provided Synod with an update on the response of the Episcopal Church in the United States to the questions raised in the Windsor Report. The Primates reviewed the report on the response provided by the Episcopal Church and put questions to the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, the issues which were:

* Consent to the consecration to the Episcopate of people living in same-sex unions.

* Confirm that resolution of general convention means that a candidate in a same-sex union will not receive consent to be consecrated to the episcopate

The House of Bishops at their meeting held in New Orleans Sept. 20-25 said that the House acknowledged that non-celibate gay and lesbian persons are included among those to whom the article stated.

"While the use of the term moratorium was avoided by the Bishops the response provides a positive clarification and also provides reason to believe that consent for consecrations of gay and lesbian candidates will not be given in the Episcopal Church unless General Convention decides otherwise," said Gomez.

He further said that the Primates noted the ambiguous stance of the Episcopal Church. "There appears to us to be an inconsistency between the position of General Convention and local pastoral provision." The Primates requested to House of Bishops to "make an unequivocal common covenant that the bishops will not authorize any rule of blessing for same-sex unions in their dioceses or through General Convention."

The House of Bishops responded that they "pledge as a body not to authorize public rites for the blessing of same-sex union until a broader consensus emerges in the Communion, or until general convention takes further action."

While the bishops affirmed that the majority of bishops do not make allowance for the blessing of same sex unions they implied that quite a few bishops actually do. In addition, the bishops also implied that local pastoral provisions will continue in particular local contexts.

"In this regard the pledge of the bishops "not to authorize for use any public rites of blessing" fails to remove the ambiguity between the non-authorization of public rites and the acceptance of local pastoral provisions," said Gomez.

The Danger of Liberalism

Posted at AnglicansAblaze.blogspot.com

By Michael Baughen

Written in 1990, this article describes the present state of the Episcopal Church twenty-seven years later.

The greatest problem of the Church is in the insidious derogation of the Scriptures as Holy Writ. The modern mind of man will bring existentialist philosophy to bear, will welcome uncritically the in-club meanderings of the more liberal Biblical scholars, and will delight in the public rubbishing of deeply-cherished Christian doctrines. But it is the same mind of man that in the beginning resolved to take the forbidden fruit, ignored the warnings of God in the time of Noah, built the tower of Babel and crucified the Son of God - the mind that wants to be God, to put God under its feet, in its control and made in its own image or ideas. The battle, as always, is not intellectualism versus non-intellectualism but between unsanctified intellectualism and intellectualism which is submitted to the Living God.

What God?
We are told that the more liberal approach which can dispense with the accounts of the resurrection or of the Virgin Birth as mere later inventions to explain the experiences of early Christians has enabled many people to come to God. Yet we reply, what God? What sort of God? Is He the God who has revealed Himself in history, in Scripture and by His Spirit before whom we bow in dust and ashes, and from whom we receive redemption and renewal? Or is He the God whom we create from our experience (the way most religions seem to have begun) - forming, reforming our image of Him in a way that is comfortable to us as humans?

Inter-Faith
It is but a short jump from there to the New Age philosophy - to the God ‘inside’ and not ‘out there’, rather than the God who is both transcendent and immanent. It is but a short jump to denigrate the uniqueness of Christ as a man-invented doctrine; to re-interpret the Cross so as to remove any sense of sacrifice for sin, atonement, substitution or propitiation, while still incredibly accepting the Communion/Eucharist as central to worship. It is but a short jump to move prayer from living intercession to the Almighty God into becoming only inner meditation with one’s own being. It is but a short jump to inter-faith stew that in the same service can use the liturgies of different religions alongside and equal to the Christian liturgies. It is but a short jump to the shadowy Hades-like attraction of astrology, the occult and all so-called spiritual influences on man - for man never wants to admit his own guilt or sin, and in his deep-down desire to say he has no sin, he deceives himself.

‘Other Views’
This influence is colossal - for it is fed in endless R.E. lessons, theology schools and theological colleges. I attended a lecture a little while ago at a certain Ordination Course. It was on the New Testament. The total liberalism of the approach was so appalling as to leave me fuming. It was not the presentation of liberal views in themselves but the way in which all other approaches were dismissed in the sentence, used several times, ‘there are other views’. I thanked God for my own theological tutors in an evangelical setting who set out thoroughly each of the variant views of theologians and Biblical scholars. I well remember H. L. Ellison that marvellous Hebrew Christian scholar, expounding critical views of the Old Testament with such thoroughness that I felt only a scholastic Houdini could get out of it. Then in his unforgettable way, he would begin ‘But . . .’. He would show the flaws and strengths of the different arguments.

What then of those whose theological education is without this balance? They are dismissive of those who seem to hold the Scriptures as authoritative. They will frequently lash out with phrases like ‘closed minds’, ‘anti-intellectual’, ‘fundamentalist’ as if that settles the matter. It is like the old advice ‘when argument is weak, shout’. It is the cheapest and most despicable of attitudes to regard those who disagree with you as having a ‘closed mind’ when, in fact, they have a different mind. So often it is that they have never studied the scholarly approach of so many theologians, patristic, Old Testament and New Testament scholars, who have come more and more to a thorough position of Biblical inspiration and authority.

This article was reprinted from Cross†Way Issue Autumn 1990 No. 38. It has been used with the permission of the Church Society which holds the copyrights to the article. Michael Baughen (at time of publication) was Bishop of Chester. The article is an extract from the Bishop’s address released to the press. The article may be reprinted for non-profit purposes; provided that the original source is acknowledged and the text is not altered

Andrew Carey: Why I was Wrong About Katharine Jefferts Schori

Posted by Kendall Harmon at TitusOneNine:

I had high hopes for Katharine Jefferts Schori when she was elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the USA. Although she appeared to be on the extreme ‘left’ of the Anglican spectrum in many of her actions and statements, it was clear that here was a person of great depth, and a hinterland beyond church politics. There was a possibility at one stage that she might even attempt to lead the Episcopal Church into a process of reconciliation internally and with the Anglican Communion, at least temporarily stalling the lemming-like dash of her Church into heterodox oblivion.

It seems I was mistaken. So far she has shown the same adaptability of her predecessor. Like Bishop Frank Griswold she’s signed statements at Primates’ Meetings and then gone on to reject them in every particular. It always struck me as the height of absurdity that Bishop Griswold could sign the Primates’ Communiqué from the October 2003 meeting of the Primates, warning his own Church that to consecrate Gene Robinson would result in the ‘tearing of the fabric’ of the Communion and then to preside at the consecration of Robinson himself only a month or two later. His adaptability owed itself to his oft-expressed belief in ‘pluriform truths’. Consequently, he could enter into the opposing truths of the Primates, and the Episcopal Church, simultaneously. Most people would call this duplicity, his defenders would probably call it ‘postmodernism’.

Interestingly enough, while ditching the nauseating term ‘pluriform’, Katharine Jefferts Schori has taken a similar trajectory. At the Primates’ Tanzania meeting she assented to a communiqué calling on the Episcopal Church to put in place moratoria on same-sex blessings and consecrations, to cease lawsuits, and to provide a system of ‘alternative primatial oversight’ which reported to an international Anglican panel, of which she herself would be a member. Months later, it turns out, that she didn’t mean this at all. Sure, the American House of Bishops have promised some restraint over elections of practicing homosexual bishops, but they’ve said nothing meaningful about either samesex blessings or instituted any real changes to their system of ‘extended’ Episcopal visitation which is rejected by the very people it is intended to serve. But the area in which she has most betrayed the very same statement which she once signed up to, is on the matter of lawsuits. It feels impossible to keep count of the number of priests deposed by dioceses, or the number of disputes over property throughout the Episcopal Church. The biggest, of course, will be over dioceses extricating themselves from the Episcopal Church and linking to other Anglican provinces. It seems clear that Southern Cone is preparing to take dioceses under their wing, but there may also be African provinces prepared to offer similar ‘oversight’ to so-called ‘network’ dioceses. These dioceses argue that to be part of the Episcopal Church is a voluntary agreement, and testify that the diocese is the fundamental unit of the Church and the Bishop’s link to the Anglicanism through the recognition of the Archbishop of Canterbury is unrelated to the Provincial structures. So far three dioceses: San Joaquin, Fort Worth and Pittsburgh have taken steps to remove clauses relating to unqualified accession to the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church from their own diocesan constitutions. These steps require votes at two diocesan conventions. It is by no means certain that these moves at the second convention will gain the required votes, but Presiding Bishop Schori is out to get them.
In recent open letters to the dioceses she has threatened the bishops with deposition, under the almost summary procedure of a canon on the abandonment of communion. The canon is a housekeeping exercise, a way of deposing priests, and bishops separately who have already departed the Episcopal Church to another church completely. There is no trial, no ecclesiastical court, just a determination of abandonment of communion by a communion, a period of two months to recant, a hearing at the House of Bishops and a vote by the bishops. Ordinarily this canon shouldn’t be used until a bishop has actually departed communion, but the Presiding Bishop intends to use this measure, rather than presentment and a trial of a bishop, in order to hasten matters along. She will then declare the dioceses vacant, gather the parishes which remain loyal and have them elect a new bishop. Furthermore, it is the intention of the Episcopal Church to make sure that no churches, or dioceses, align themselves to any other part of the Anglican Communion and take their property with them. So the path she has chosen is not to seek reconciliation and peace with priests and bishops opposed to the direction of the Episcopal Church but to threaten them - thereby alienating them further. There is no doubt that this will be read widely as a further abandonment of the Anglican Communion by the Episcopal Church. But it may also be a sign that at last their true colours are being revealed and the dominant liberal faction in the Episcopal Church is resigned to accepting the logic of their position and going it alone.

--This article appears in the Church of England Newspaper, November 16, 2007 edition, page 12

The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion: An Appraisal at a Time of Waiting

Written by Rev. Dr. Christopher Seitz
Monday, 12 November 2007
7 November Address at Wycliffe College, Toronto

In his lectures delivered at Wycliffe College last month, Ephraim Radner has given an historical account of conciliarism and has described how Anglicanism developed over time a set of Instruments intending to maintain unity of faith in the light of missionary expansion and the emergence of nations in the New World (among other things). This did not happen from ‘the top down' or by an anticipatory prophetic template. The relationship between the Instruments, and their relative weighting, interplay, etc, is due to a slow process of interrelationship and maturation, and flows from the fact that mission and growth is in God's hands: this requires constant prayer and reflection in the area of accountability and mutual forbearance, provision for which cannot be given beforehand by ecclesial fiat or one-size-fits-all polity design. This also prevents one from simply historisicing the Instruments, on the one hand (the first is more important than the last), or seeing them as matters of preference or choice-competitors for our politicking-on the other. Or, it should do. If this historical, or providential reality, is grasped, then it is less surprising, if not still disturbing, that the Communion is in a difficult time. This is all to do with the fact that Anglican Christianity has been a successful missionary movement, spanning the globe whilst maintaining-it has been hoped-an Anglican catholic face. What is required is that we understand how to preserve and steward what God has provided. But this must be done in accordance with certain basic assumptions about the character of Christian life provided by the Scriptures, and not in the name of institutional survival or peace-keeping only - two sure-fire ways to get in the way of God's purposes in the church, even in, or especially in, times of stress and strain. Ironically, these ‘peace-keeping' instincts are now shared on both ends of the theological spectrum: autonomy arguments on the part of national churches seeking to accommodate a new understanding of sexual ethics, on the one side; and on the other, efforts of individual dioceses and parishes, linked to individual Primates, to carve out zones of confessional purity and integrity - the zeal for which is in proportion to perceptions of how dire the situation is, or the knock-on effect of how pressured their existence appears to be, given efforts to move out of TEC and form new structures.

In the case of TEC, moreover, the issue is complicated by a polity that seeks to frustrate the maintenance of any stance which views women's ordination in strict terms of reception, not done-and-dusted acceptance: that is, as an innovation being tested and received - or not. Because TEC has rejected this understanding, and because a PEV (provisional Episcopal visitor) scheme was not adopted, the traditional position has been maintained not across the geographical spectrum (as in the UK; or as in the Communion at large), but in specific dioceses of TEC: dioceses which now feel they have nowhere to go but into zones of special integrity and survivalism - and into the company, though they may not say it too loudly, of those who are chiefly friends of expedience and not of core ‘catholic' principle.

I mention this because in TEC, while there may be a general spirit abroad for carving out a special province in the light of theological innovations by ‘the revisionist majority,' the number of bishops actually seeking such a solution are relatively few at present (perhaps the three hard-pressed anglo-catholic dioceses; and Pittsburgh). This is because hope still exists on the part of a number of bishops, and of a large number of parishes outside their dioceses, that another way forward is possible. This may be due to not liking what they are seeing-legally, emotionally, morally, practically-when dioceses seek to move out of TEC or otherwise form a new province or structure; it may be for lack of having a clear sense of what to do, for godly or for less salutary reasons; it may have to do with belief in a communion accountability that simply will take more time, at a time when time feels short all the same.

On this account, then, the ‘waiting' of conservatives is for several things:

1) an adjudication of TEC's response to the Dar es Salaam communiqué. While others have announced this a foregone matter, and have used this to justify their actions, other bishops are still waiting, if with diminished hope or worry or both. Such an adjudication would entail, in the very end, it is hoped, a decision by those who made the requests, the Primates, and a conviction that even should he be viewed as opposed to this-a view I do not share-or worried about it, the Archbishop of Canterbury will nevertheless be in no position to usurp the will of the Communion at its widest expression: the Primates (and perhaps even the ACC). That is, there is hope for the eventual good ordering accomplished by Communion Instruments in the providence of God (which is not the same as Eastern Standard Time). The Primates will, when all is said and done, be the arbiters of the situation. The reasons for this are varied, but inhere with the reality that the Primates as a totality are representative of the Communion at its widest expression, they have been given ‘enhanced responsibility' by the other Instruments, and the Archbishop of Canterbury cannot set himself up in opposition to that, and has not so done, and in our view has no intention so to do.

2) a clarification of the invitations to Lambeth, pursuant to the ABC's stated, if compressed, remarks in the initial account of his intentions about Lambeth Conference. This is all the more crucial, and to my mind was always tied up with, the need for an assessment of TEC's views in the light of the DES communiqué. Despite lots of speculation, we do not know and will not know until he declares it, what the invitation list and its footnotes will look like. For that matter the Archbishop's own declarations about the actual character of the conference itself were sufficiently controversial to require revisiting, and this is tied up in the nature of the matter with the character of invitations proper. In short: do all come and all ‘fight it out' regarding the neuralgic issue of sexual teaching (put the proverbial ‘skunk on the table'); or do those come, and only those, who are prepared to accept the teaching of the last Lambeth conference (and perhaps its latent but real synodical character, to boot) and to say so before their respective constituencies.

3) the covenant process itself, as the means by which individual provinces describe the character of Communion life, such that some will be able to embrace this wholeheartedly, and others less so, if at all. On this, see the Windsor Report.

Naturally, waiting is hard, and all the more so when, due to the tsunami of information and the tidal waves of speculation, expectations get ratcheted up and deadlines are made to perform as final clearing stations. This then does not happen according to expectation, new deadlines appear on the horizon, and the need to check the newest news-the breaking flash that sorts things out, or tidies up just one mess anyway-borders on an obsessive compulsive disorder. And of course, sometimes the waiting seems wrongly or deceitfully protracted, and that makes things worse. People weary and decide that ‘enough is enough.' The system is being manipulated. As of course it is, in the nature of the thing. Systems are like that (read any account of Nicaea).

During such a period, it becomes crucial to be able to identify and differentiate. Recently the Archbishop of Canterbury assured the Diocese of Central Florida, through a letter to its concerned Bishop, that it was the diocese, not the ‘national church', that was the foundational sacramental unity. Here was an effort to assure based upon a long-accepted view of the status of Bishop and Diocese - though it appears to have been challenged almost immediately, if obliquely, by the same ‘national church's' insistence that any diocese seeking to leave, not just differentiate, would be open to serious-legal, canonical-challenge. So what kind of differentiation is possible-if for nothing more than morale's sake-if it is not leaving, but equally if it can hope to wait in hope, as surely God would desire?

We may see the partial answer to this by a kind of default, or bank-shot. If a Bishop of a Diocese seeking to differentiate by leaving/forming new structures is deposed, or if they run into deep challenges within their own regions (costly, preoccupying, etc), the attractiveness of that view of things may diminish. There is a certain outraged attractiveness to leaving and moving on (it is deep in the DNA of the United States), but when one looks at the precise details of this, the legal ramifications, the ability to get all on board-consider the trouble that an organized minority in Pittsburgh can cause-the conclusion can be sobering. I believe this is what Bishop Howe has been trying to suggest, even sympathetically, in Central Florida. This game may be ‘zero sum' with a vengeance.

Probably more crucially, and this question has been posed already, is the character of the alliance of the common causers as such, particularly in the long haul. How truly ‘common' is it, and how likely is it that movements which began for diverse reasons, from diverse causes of concern, sponsored by diverse forces with their own diverse constituencies, can remain a viable ‘detached' unity? One can ask this question without for a second questioning the seriousness of the circumstances and the perceived need to find a way forward, after critical-in some cases irreversible-steps have been taken.

On the positive side, though, what might differentiation look like if it is not the formation of separate structures? In the United States, one has rightly asked what the actual role is of the Presiding Bishop, in terms of polity and canon. Must he or she visit dioceses? Must he or she preside as chief consecrator? Can individual bishops not conduct their affairs-form bonds of cordial alliance, prayer and catholic faith-without any serious objection or hindrance as it now stands? Long has been the practice of dioceses determining the nature of financial giving. Bishops are not obliged to support seminaries, attend meetings, fund projects - and what is in fact a long list of voluntary associations of various kinds. The one place where there is a clear pinch of impingement is consents for new Bishops, and so rightly the anglo-catholic dioceses have feared for their own circumstances in the absence of any meaningful Episcopal visitor arrangement, as have others (South Carolina). And the other chief area of concern would be parishes in dioceses whose bishops have signaled whole-hearted acceptance of teaching and practices still not approved in the Communion as a conciliar reality. What of them?

It is here that the pressure of waiting, and a lack of confidence about catholic adjudication, makes itself felt. No one is denying that, least of all ACI.

But precisely at such times one must weigh the choices very carefully and move with resolute prudence. Our instinct is for the formation of a non-juridical alliance of Bishops, compliant with Windsor and the ‘Camp Allen principles' (see the Dar es Salaam Communique). This would require no approval of the House of Bishops or any canonical ingenuity or manipulation. Consistent with the spirit of the Primatial Communique from Dar es Salaam, we would also urge the assistance of a group of ‘Communion Associates.' These would be Primates from various parts of the Communion. Their appointment would happen in consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury. These Associates would visit, along with the Bishops of the alliance, their own and fellow dioceses, in order to demonstrate the maximal degree of Communion fellowship and forbearance. The point is to make clear their commitment to live in the highest degree of Communion fellowship and not to major in disputes with those who happen, at this juncture, to exercise more political power in TEC.

They would also entertain requests from parishes outside of the alliance and would ask the Bishop in question for permission to visit: to teach, preach, encourage, and where permitted, perform sacramental acts. The character of ‘episcopal visitation' would be allowed to take form and gather momentum, without need of any juridical structures or mechanisms. If the character of Communion Association could be modeled within Dioceses aligned with such a concern, and in parishes in other dioceses where requests have been made and approved, it would be difficult to understand the reasons such visitations might be turned away elsewhere. And that fact would of course find its way into the public reckoning, as we now live in a world with few dark corners. And so, if proper, consistent and Communion-ordered life could be modeled within TEC, perhaps the matter of consents and of the integrity of anglo-catholic life would become better published concerns, capable of broader adjudication - certainly than presently exists within a region concerned with autonomy as a sort of end unto itself.

There is another aspect to this. As we contemplate the reality-and it is a spiritual reality for sure-of waiting, we must also reckon with the march of time in other respects. Clearly there are bishops, dioceses, parishes which have concluded that Lambeth 1.10 and the requests of Communion life are too burdensome, or just wrong. There is no evidence this ‘witness' will change and every evidence it will increase in intensity and in clarity. It will therefore be a fact on the ground that will have to be processed through the Instruments of Communion.

In the meantime, if there are alliances of Communion association and hope, these will be able to stand and wait with better resolve and with a better sense of spiritual discernment, as the other forces at work in the individual provinces-in the US and in Canada-are allowed to declare their intentions. To repeat, this is a time not for forming new structures and detaching, but for staying, and for maximizing those spiritual and practical resources that build up and manifest what the Anglican Communion has been about in quieter days, when other stresses and strains were presenting different kinds of challenge.

There are further serious ramifications to consider. ‘Leaving' may seek to take the form of ‘belonging' - to another section of the Communion. But this is potentially to dislodge the struggle from the point where it must be joined, with charity and with grace, if the dispute is not to be prolonged indefinitely. It is to spread the struggle far and wide, to broaden its scope, and so to magnify, and not to resolve, its intensity. What looks for some like a ‘rescue' in the American region is yet another example of the American Church monopolizing the Communion's attention and dictating the terms of its becoming, at this critical time. There are, in other words, not just practical difficulties of leaving and starting new structures; there is also the ecclesial chaos that results, with dioceses and provinces claiming to be in Communion with Canterbury (or rejecting this altogether) but not with one another.

Let us therefore lean with hope into the larger missionary success story and trust that God will preserve what is of his will, and let other realities fall to the side as people declare their wishes. For this is required a disciplined waiting and a belief that the Anglican Communion has sufficient instrumentality to carry us through the difficult season we are in. Time-God's Time-is not on the side of those who have sought to adjust his truth or the received teaching of the church consistent with that truth. The Communion is his gift and it is our conviction that the instruments guarding that gift will, in God's Time, provide the resolution we so ardently seek.

Christopher Seitz
Professor of Biblical Interpretation and President,
The Anglican Communion Institute
7 November 2007

A Church Out Of Control

HTTP://TOALLTHEWORLD.BLOGSPOT.COM/2007/11/CHURCH-OUT-OF-CONTROL.HTML

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2007

Anyone who lives in the Episcopal Church these days has probably already
recognized himself (or herself) to be a victim of the (purported) old
Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times!" However, the last two
weeks have seen the times get even more interesting than usual.

First, there was the news item: "Presiding Bishop reaches out to bishops
attempting to withdraw dioceses"-such a compassionate sounding title for an
article conveying that the PB had sent letters threatening disciplinary
action against the bishops in question! As one commentator put it, "The
Episcopal Church is probably the only place where 'being reached out to'
means being threatened, deposed, and sued." These threats against bishops of
dioceses come on top of the numerous places around the country where the
Episcopal Church is involved in legal action against departing parishes.

A concurrent development with the escalating legal tensions over the past
year has been the repudiation of the General Convention 2006 resolution
(B033) urging restraint in giving consent to the election of a bishop "whose
manner of life might present a challenge to the larger Communion"-in other
words, a gay bishop. This call for restraint has now been repudiated by
various dioceses, a partial list of which includes: Los Angeles, New Jersey,
California, Rochester, and (just this past weekend) Chicago.

Chicago held its election for a new bishop this past weekend also. While,
Tracey Lind, the partnered lesbian candidate (and Dean of the cathedral in
Cleveland) was not elected, the Chicago Tribune reported the successful
candidate, Jeff Lee, from the Seattle area, as saying:
"I am overwhelmed and grateful to God for the opportunity to come to such a
great diocese," Lee said by telephone. "In many ways, I believe Chicago
reflects the face of the Episcopal Church in all its diversity. Rich and
poor, urban and suburban, black and white, gay and straight ... and I
believe I've been called to be a bridge-builder and a reconciler."

The election marked the most recent flash point in the conflict over
homosexuality in the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion.
The 2003 consecration of Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church's first openly
gay bishop, began a shift in the church and some thought there would be
further divisions if Lind were elected bishop.

When asked about his stance on gays in the church, Lee said he supported
full inclusion.

"I believe God is calling us to full inclusion of gays and lesbians in
ministry of this church. ... There is a place for everyone in the church,
and the church has to catch up with God's vision," he said.

In case anyone doesn't remember, this is simply a repeat of the Diocese of
California's election of a bishop, where they also did not elect the lesbian
candidate, but elected a "straight, white, male" bishop who was just as
strongly committed to advancing the blessing of same-sex unions and the
ordination of non-celibate homosexuals.

This past weekend also brought news that the Diocese of Northern California
has voted to support gay couples.

All of this means that, despite the Windsor Report and the Dar Es Salaam
Communique, despite the General Convention's passage of B033, and regardless
of what the House of Bishops said at its meeting in New Orleans, the
blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals
will continue unhindered.

There was also this rather bizarre news item that the Episcopal Church is
taking disciplinary action against three retired bishops. The three retired
bishops: Fairfield, Bena, and Cox have, since their retirement, been
received into, respectively, the Anglican provinces of Uganda, Nigeria, and
the Southern Cone. Their "crime" is, apparently, that they have, under the
direction of their new provinces, ministered to Anglicans in North America
who are also affiliated with those overseas provinces. The substance of the
complaint is that the bishops failed to "resign" in a way that was approved
by the House of Bishops. I am sure the bishops thought their resignation was
taken care of when they retired. To all but the most bellicose among us,
pursuing these bishops in retirement must seem like an egregious example of
legal overkill. But, hey, welcome to the Episcopal Church!

Then there is the news that the Province of the Southern Cone has passed a
resolution opening its doors to any US diocese that desired to transfer into
that province. This is a move obviously aimed at the bishops and dioceses
who are "being reached out to" by the Episcopal Church's litigious Presiding
Bishop. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.

In all this, the silence from Lambeth Palace has been deafening!

Ealier in the week, there was a report from London Times religion writer,
Ruth Gledhill, that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, "described
the plan of [Southern Cone] Archishop Greg Venables [to take dissenting US
dioceses under his wing] as a 'sensible way forward.'" I am willing to bet
that this is the last talk of that sort anyone hears from the ABC.

There seems to be a pattern emerging here. This isn't the first time Rowan
Williams has made a comment that seemed to support orthodox Anglicans in the
US, only to have the comment nullified several days later in an official
"clarification" issued from Lambeth Palace.

It appears that, if someone can actually talk with Rowan Williams, the
fellow isn't really a bad chap. But then his Wormtongue managers at Lambeth
Palace and the heavily US-funded Anglican Communion Office regain their
control over him, and he becomes once again entranced to do nothing while
evil prospers.

Actually, the ABC seems to be acting under the assumption that the best way
to keep the Anglican Communion together is to keep the Episcopal Church
together. Thus, he is remaining silent while the litigious (did I mention
that already?) Presiding Bishop crushes all dissent. American Conservatives
are apparently supposed to reconcile themselves to being casualties in a war
Rowan would like to pretend doesn't exist.

In reality, the only way to save the Anglican Communion is to discipline the
Episcopal Church for its departure from Anglican Communion norms. The
Archbishop of Canterbury can accomplish this discipline through his
prerogative of invitations to the Lambeth Conference. The Primates can
accomplish this discipline by censuring the American Church and limiting
TEC's participation in the instruments of unity. If this does not happen,
not only the Episcopal Church, but the Anglican Communion will fly apart
under the centrifugal forces of the orbit into which the anarchic deviations
of the American Church have cast it-and it will happen sooner rather than
later.

Are you listening, Rowan?

Robert S. Munday
Dean and President, Nashotah House

A letter from Bishop Iker to the Presiding Bishop

November 12, 2007
The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
815 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10017

Dear Katharine,

I have received your letter of November 8th and am rather surprised by your suggestion that I have somehow abandoned the communion of the church and may be subject to ecclesiastical discipline. Such a charge is baseless. I have abandoned nothing, and I have violated no canons. Every year at our Chrism Mass, I very happily reaffirm my ordination vows, along with all our clergy, that I will be "loyal to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of Christ as this Church has received them." (BCP, pages 526 and 538) It is highly inappropriate for you to attempt to interfere in the internal life of this diocese as we prayerfully prepare to gather in Convention.

The threatening tone of your open letter makes no attempt to promote reconciliation, mediation, or even dialogue about our profound theological differences. Instead, it appears designed to intimidate our delegates and me, in an attempt to deter us from taking any action that opposes the direction in which you are leading our Church. It is deeply troubling that you would have me prevent the clergy and laity of this diocese from openly discussing our future place in the life of the wider Anglican Communion, as we debate a variety of proposals. As you well know, the polity of this Church requires the full participation of the clergy and lay orders, not just bishops, in the decision making process. It grieves me that as the Presiding Bishop you would misuse your office in an attempt to intimidate and manipulate this diocese.

While I do not wish to meet antagonism with antagonism, I must remind you that 25 years ago this month, the newly formed Diocese of Fort Worth voluntarily voted to enter into union with the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. If circumstances warrant it, we can likewise, by voluntary vote, terminate that relationship. Your aggressive, dictatorial posturing has no place in that decision. Sadly, however, your missive will now be one of the factors that our Convention will consider as we determine the future course of this diocese for the next 25 years and beyond, under God’s grace and guidance. In closing, let me be very clear. While your threats deeply sadden us, they do not frighten us. We will continue to stand firm for the unchanging truth of the Holy Scriptures and the redeeming Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, whatever the costs. I shall continue to pray for you, as I trust you will pray for me, in the difficult days ahead.

Faithfully in Christ,

The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Bishop of Fort Worth


The Presiding Bishop’s letter

8 November 2007

The Rt. Rev. Jack Iker
The Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth
2900 Alemeda Street
Fort Worth, TX 76108

Dear Jack,

As you are undoubtedly aware, it is my view that recent amendments to your Diocese's
constitution violate the Constitutional requirement that the Diocese maintain an
"unqualified accession" to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. I have
now reviewed several proposed constitutional amendments that will be considered at
your forthcoming diocesan convention. It is evident to me that several of these proposed
changes would further violate the Church's Constitution, while some other proposed
changes would undo the problems created by the earlier amendments. It is clear from
your public statements and from what I understand your position to be regarding these
matters that you endorse the first set of changes. Your statements and actions in recent
months demonstrate an intention to lead your diocese into a position that would
purportedly permit it to depart from the Episcopal Church. All these efforts, in my view,
display a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between The Episcopal
Church and its dioceses. I call upon you to recede from this direction and to lead your diocese on a new course that recognizes the interdependent and hierarchical relationship between the national Church and its dioceses and parishes. That relationship is at the heart of our mission, as
expressed in our polity. Specifically, I sincerely hope that you will change your position
and urge your diocese at its forthcoming convention to adopt the proposed amendments
that will bring the Diocese's constitution into agreement with the Church's Constitution
and Canons. If your course does not change, I shall regrettably be compelled to see that appropriate canonical steps are promptly taken to consider whether you have abandoned the
Communion of this Church -- by actions and substantive statements, however, they may
be phrased -- and whether you have committed canonical offences that warrant
disciplinary action. It grieves me that any bishop of this Church would seek to lead any of its members out of it. I would remind you of my open offer of an Episcopal Visitor if you wish to receive pastoral care from another bishop. I continue to pray for reconciliation of this situation,
and I remain

Your servant in Christ,

Katharine Jefferts Schori

'Realignment' of Anglican Communion underway

From The Times of London Online

November 9, 2007

Ruth Gledhill Religion Correspondent of The Times

One of the largest provinces in the Anglican Church has voted to “extend its jurisdiction” to cover the whole of the US.

The decision marks the formal start of a "realignment" of the Anglican Communion in the row over gays and could help stave off actual schism.

The province of the Southern Cone, which includes Argentina, Peru and Chile and is headed by expatriate British Bishop Greg Venables, is offering itself as a “safe haven” for traditionalist US dioceses that wish to secede over gays.

The plan will allow disaffected US dioceses to leave the oversight of The Episcopal Church Primat Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori but to remain within the body of the Anglican Communion and in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

According to well-informed insiders, Dr Rowan Williams, while opposed to separatist solutions to the Anglican crisis, has described the plan of Bishop Venables as a “sensible way forward.”

Up to five dioceses in the US are understood to be interested in moving to the Southern Cone province. They include San Joaquin, Fort Worth and Pittsburgh. The development is unprecedented. While provinces such as Nigeria and Uganda have ordained bishops to pastor US parishes, none has yet agreed to take on board an entire diocese.

In a recent letter to one traditionalist US bishop, Dr Williams indicated the strenth of his support for diocesan autonomy. He said: “The organ of union with the wider Church is the Bishop and the Diocese rather than the Provincial structure as such.”

Bishop Jefferts Schori has made it clear that she will take legal action under canon law against any bishops that lead their dioceses into another province. The legal actions will enable canon lawyers to focus for the first time on the extent to which traditional diocesan autonomy in Anglican and Catholic church structures is a reality.

Four US diocesan bishops met Bishop Venables and his bishops at his episcopal headquarters in Buenos Aires in August to discuss the plan. Bishop Venables met Dr Williams in London in September where they discussed the proposal.

In an interview with The Times, Bishop Venables said: “We have talked with a number of US dioceses and bishops. They think the could remain within the Anglican Communion if they are no longer part of The Episcopal Church. So we took an overwhelming decision in our provincial synod this week to receive into our province any diocese that wishes to come.”

The diocese must first go through the necessary synodical procedures to separate from The Episcopal Church. The San Joaquin diocese is furthest down this road. Bishop Venables said: “It is a bit like a refugee situation. If next door’s children come running out in the middle of the night, the first response must be to give them a safe place before you find out what is going on and sort it out.”

The Southern Cone province has about 40,000 members, with a large number consisting of Wichi, Toba, Mapuche, Lengua and Chorote Amerindians. It is one of the smallest provinces numerically but one of the biggest geographically, covering six countries from Tierra del Fuego to northern Peru.

The Southern Cone province was founded in 1983 but existed as a diocese since the mid-19th century, under the province of Canterbury. The Falkland Islands are still under Canterbury because of the 1982 conflict.

Anglican missionaries went to South America in the 19th century specifically to save the Amerindian tribes from extinction. Charles Darwin inspired their journey by telling British missionary Allen Gardiner that they were among the most endangered indiginous peoples. Gardiner went on to lead the first Anglican mission to Amerindians in South America. Although Gardiner died of starvation on the beach in Tierra del Fuego in the 1840s, his death inspired others to take up the work, including the present Bishop Venables.

Southern Cone Offers 'Safe Haven' for American Dioceses

From The Living Church:

11/08/2007


Dioceses that wish to secede from The Episcopal Church because of disputes over doctrine and discipline will be given an ecclesiastical home in the Church of the Province of the Southern Cone.

Meeting Nov 5-7 at St. Paul’s Church, Valparaíso, Chile, the Southern Cone synod voted to extend the province’s jurisdiction to North America, allowing dioceses and other ecclesial entities to affiliate with the province.

The Provincia Anglicana del Cono Sur de América is comprised of the dioceses of Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Northern Argentina. The Diocese of Bolivia already has provided pastoral oversight to several dozen congregations in the United States comprised of former members of The Episcopal Church. In addition, Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone exercises a personal prelature over former members of the Diocese of Recife (Brazil).

Bishop Venables told The Living Church the offer of a provincial home for traditionalist American dioceses merely recognized the existing splits within the church. He said the Southern Cone was not precipitating a crisis or invading The Episcopal Church, but was offering a safe haven within the Anglican Communion for those wishing to flee.

By a supermajority, delegates to the Valparaíso synod voted to permit traditionalist North American dioceses to affiliate with the province. The vote goes a step beyond Bishop Venables’ intervention in Brazil, and marks a major shift in the ecclesial structures of the Anglican Communion.

In 2005, Bishop Venables extended his personal primatial oversight to Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti and 40 priests of the Diocese of Recife after they had been deposed by the Brazilian church for contumacy.

Bishop Cavalcanti and his supporters, representing more than 90 percent of that diocese’s members, were issued a “statement of support” by Bishop Venables that recognized their “ordinations and ministries, and provide a special status of extra-provincial recognition by my office as Primate of the Southern Cone until such time as the Panel of Reference, the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Anglican Communion has, in some way, adequately addressed this crisis.”

The Nov. 7 vote permits dioceses as ecclesial entities, not merely individuals, to join the province.

A spokesman for the Diocese of Pittsburgh noted the Southern Cone was one of a number of provinces offering a home to American dioceses. On Nov. 2 Pittsburgh adopted the first reading of an amendment to its constitution that stated the diocese “shall have membership in such Province of the Anglican Communion as is by diocesan Canon specified.”

Up to five dioceses of The Episcopal Church may affiliate with the Southern Cone. In December, San Joaquin’s diocesan convention will vote on a second reading of a secession clause, allowing the diocese to join other provinces -- a move Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has called unlawful.

A spokesman for the Archbishop of Canterbury said Archbishop Rowan Williams had no comment at this time on the Southern Cone vote

(The Rev.) George Conger

Traditionalist pressure mounts on Anglican Communion

Thu 8 Nov 2007, 16:11 GMT

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

PARIS (Reuters) - Traditionalist Anglican leaders have stepped up pressure on their deeply split Communion by urging it to postpone its consultative conference and pledging more support for rebels against liberal local churches.

Nine leaders from the "Global South", known as primates, want to delay the Lambeth Conference, a 10-yearly assembly due in 2008, and hold an emergency summit of primates to resolve a crisis sparked by a gay bishop being named in the United States.

Also this week, two leading traditionalist archbishops -- Peter Akinola in Nigeria and Gregory Venables in Argentina -- vowed to continue to defend parishes and dioceses seeking to leave the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of Anglicanism.

Four Episcopal dioceses are considering switching allegiance to foreign primates in protest against their church's support for gay bishop Gene Robinson, despite threats of disciplinary action from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

"We reject the religion of accommodation and cultural conformity that offers neither transforming power nor eternal hope," said a statement signed by nine primates from Africa and Asia who also called for a delay in the Lambeth Conference.

The statement, dated October 30 but only posted on Wednesday on the traditionalist website Global South Anglican, added that primates from developing countries -- where traditionalist stands are strongest -- should hold their own summit next year.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual head of the world's 77 million Anglicans, has been struggling to keep the loose group of 38 church provinces together despite the traditionalist rebellion against liberal Western churches.

UNDERMINING ANGLICAN STRUCTURES

The dispute has split both the Communion and some Western churches, where vocal minorities are seeking support from the Global South leaders. Letting dioceses choose which primate to follow undermines Anglicanism's regional structure.

Venables, archbishop of the Southern Cone of South America, said in an interview his province had agreed to provide oversight for U.S. dioceses that quit the Episcopal Church.

"Conservatives in America and elsewhere cannot wait in limbo any longer. They need a safe haven now," he told the Daily Telegraph in London. "The new realignment demonstrates the depths of the divisions that already exist."

Traditionalists are increasingly invoking Martin Luther, the German monk who triggered the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. "We are facing a similar situation today," Akinola said in an open letter to fellow primates issued on Wednesday.

Bishop Robert Duncan, whose Pittsburgh diocese voted last week to realign with a foreign primate, responded to the threat of Episcopal Church disciplinary action with Luther's famous quote: "Here I stand, I can do no other."

The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a Virginia-based breakaway group linked to Nigeria, has announced that Akinola will consecrate four new bishops there in early December. CANA has two American bishops and one from Nigeria.

At the same time, liberals in the United States and Canada continue to campaign for their churches to allow blessings for same-sex unions, another policy the traditionalists reject.

A lesbian priest, Rev. Tracey Lind, is one of eight candidates in the vote this weekend for the next bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Chicago. Her election would further divide the Communion, but she is apparently not a frontrunner.

Making the Case for Pittsburgh’s Resolution One

From The Rev. Johnathan Millard's presentation to the annual convention of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, in which he makes the case for Resolution One (via Stand Firm in Faith):

1. There is confusion concerning who God is:

Over the past 40 years there has been a drift away from orthodox ways of speaking about God. In some places in TEC instead of God being referred to as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, He is addressed only by function as creator, redeemer and sustainer, and not in personal ways. The problem with this approach is that it makes God more remote and the fact is God has revealed himself to us through the Scriptures not just by function, but in personal terms as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Another example is when the name LORD is replaced with "God." So instead of the Liturgical greeting:

"The Lord be with you" you may encounter in some parts of TEC "God be with you" or even "God is in you" with the response: "and also in you." The word LORD apparently is perceived as too male, and too authoritarian. The earliest creedal statement was simply "Jesus is Lord." And yes, it was meant to be authoritarian. I was very sad when I attended the Interfaith service at Calvary last week, to see precisely such a change had been made to the liturgy. When it came to share the Peace, the wording was not: "The peace of the Lord", but rather "The Peace of God."

2. There is a lack of clear teaching about the divinity of Christ:

In answer to a question referencing the divinity of Jesus, in an article published earlier this year, the Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Shori, said this: "If you begin to explore the literary context of the first century and the couple of hundred years on either side, the way that someone told a story about a great figure was to say 'this one was born of the gods.' That is what we're saying. This carpenter from Nazareth or Bethlehem - and there are different stories about where he came from - shows us what a godly human being looks like, shows us God coming among us."

At best that is ambiguous or confusing, and at worst it is false teaching. Jesus was much more than someone who "shows us what a godly human being looks like." And the Church does not say that he was "born of the gods." The biblical witness and the faith of the church is that Jesus is the Son of God: fully God and fully man. The Word became flesh (John 1). We proclaim this truth weekly in the Nicene Creed.

3. There is a lack of clear teaching about Salvation and Sin:

Questioned about selfishness and falleness, the Presiding Bishop said this:·"The human journey is about encouraging our own selves to move up into higher consciousness, into being able to be present in a violent situation without responding with violence ... " and in the same interview she went on to say: "The question is always how can we get beyond our own narrow self-interest and see that our salvation lies in attending to the needs of other people."

This is not the Gospel story of sin and redemption. The Scriptures teach that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:23). The Scriptures teach that salvation is not through our works, or our efforts to move up to a higher consciousness, or even through attending to the needs of others. Our salvation lies in Jesus, "who while we were still sinners, died for us." (Rom. 5:8); and all who believe in the LORD and call upon his name will be saved. (Rom. 10:13)

4. There is a drift towards universalism:

The Presiding Bishop says of Jesus: "we who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box" (Time Magazine: July 17,2006). Jesus said: I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6).

When, some years ago, I first heard Bishop Duncan speak of us living in a time of Reformation of the Church throughout the world, I confess I wondered if that was a little grandiose. I now believe, without a doubt, that he was right. This was illustrated for me, once again, just last week. I was deeply saddened to hear Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu deny the particularity of the Christian Faith, mocking the idea that Jesus could possibly be the only way to God, and declaring that all religions are worshipping the same God, just by different names. The archbishop is a great man who has done wonderful work for reconciliation and peace. I salute him for all the good he has done, but I am sad and troubled that he would be so dismissive of the supreme work of love and salvation that our Lord Jesus Christ did for us on the cross.

5. There is a loss of confidence in the Gospel as Good News for all:

The official teaching of the Anglican Church on the issue of human sexuality is that which has been set out by the Lambeth Conference in 1998 (Resolution 1:10). But here's the key point concerning the Gospel that I want to make:

[The Conference] "recognises that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation. Many of these are members of the Church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the Church, and God's transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of relationships." [emphasis added]. It is that confidence in the transforming power of God that the actions of TEC now challenge. So instead of welcoming and loving all into the church so that they might experience
transformation, TEC simply welcomes and affirms people just as they are - denying them the healing and hope and transforming power of God.

6. There is erroneous teaching and practice regarding human sexuality

Over the past couple of decades there has been a serious rejection of the clear teaching of the Bible and the Church on human sexuality and marriage. The clear teaching of Scripture and tradition and of the one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church is that sex is for marriage. The only sexually intimate relationships that are good and holy according to Scripture and tradition are those between a man and a woman, within an intended life long, faithful covenant of marriage. That means that pre-marital sex, extra-marital sex, gay sex, any sex outside of marriage is all contrary to God's will. This is the clear teaching of the Bible and of Jesus.

7. There is a seemingly 'social justice only' view of the mission of the church

I have struggled to find any clear statements from the Presiding Bishop about the basics of the faith. From her inaugural sermon through to all kinds of talks and sermons and interviews that I've seen or heard extracts from she seems to be concerned primarily with a political and social gospel. She seems to be concerned principally about the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. There is much to be commended about these goals and much to challenge us - but they are by no means the same thing as the message of salvation for those who are perishing. (John 3: 16). If the Millennium Goals are our gospel message it falls seriously short of the message of proclaiming "Christ and him crucified." (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).

8. There is contempt for the Authority of the Bible

Bishop Bennison has said: "The church wrote the Bible, and the church can rewrite the Bible." No, that is a serious error.

9. There is failure by Bishops to defend the faith

The role of a bishop in the words of the 1662 ordinal is: ''to banish and drive away from the church all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to the Word of God." - Here in the States, the very opposite is true. Rather than drive away false teaching many of the bishops of TEC embrace it, celebrate it and declare to be good and holy that which God declares to wrong. To ordain an openly gay, non-celibate man - when the rest of the world urged TEC not to do this - is not only contrary to Scripture but is also an arrogant display of American intransigence.

10. There is a lack of respect for truth or unity

There seems to be a cavalier spirit among many in TEC that disregards the mandate for unity with the one holy, catholic and apostolic church. Claims are made by 'progressives' that they are putting truth ahead of unity. However the 'truth' they claim is that it's a matter of social justice and Christian virtue to bless same sex unions and permit practicing gay and lesbian people to hold any office within the church. This is, of course, is contrary to the truth as revealed in Holy Scripture. And the only unity they secure is among a tiny minority of the church worldwide.

Episcopal Diocese votes to leave

Pittsburgh will realign with theologically conservative Anglican province in another nation

<>
Saturday, November 03, 2007

By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Bishop Robert Duncan -- "We have a tough road ahead. We will be faithful and charitable and do everything we can to help those congregations who are uneasy about this, or who may be very opposed to this, to be part of our fellowship."

In yet another ecclesiastical earthquake to rock the Episcopal Church, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has voted to leave that denomination and realign with a theologically conservative Anglican province in another, yet to be chosen, nation.

At their annual convention in Johnstown, laity voted, 118-58, and clergy voted, 109-24, to join another Anglican province, and to allow like-minded parishes outside the 11-county territory to become part of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. The vote came two days after Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the Episcopal Church warned that such action could cause the denomination to remove Bishop Robert Duncan from office as bishop of Pittsburgh.

"We have a tough road ahead. We will be faithful and charitable and do everything we can to help those congregations who are uneasy about this, or who may be very opposed to this, to be part of our fellowship," Bishop Duncan said after the vote. During his speech prior to the vote, he proposed finding ways for two local Anglican dioceses, one of which would be the minority still aligned with the Episcopal Church, to share important assets such as Trinity Cathedral and Sheldon Calvary Camp.

He read the brief reply to Bishop Jefferts Schori. The first of its three lines was a famous quote from Martin Luther when he broke with the Catholic Church: "Here I stand. I can do no other." It continued, "I will neither compromise the faith once and for all delivered to the saints, nor will I abandon the sheep who elected me to protect them."

So far, he said later, three Anglican provinces have "expressed willingness" to welcome the Diocese of Pittsburgh, but he did not name them. The resolution adopted yesterday cannot be adopted unless the convention approves it again at next year's convention. A choice about which province to join will not be made until after that vote. The Anglican provinces that are best known for taking in conservative U.S. parishes are in Africa.

Because of the requirement to vote again next year, "Today's action of the Diocese of Pittsburgh is not final," said Robert Williams, director of communications for the Episcopal Church. "But, more to the point, dioceses do not leave the Episcopal Church. Dioceses are set in place by the churchwide general convention."

The divisions between liberal and conservative Episcopalians, and between many of the U.S. bishops and their counterparts in the global South, derive from differences over biblical authority and interpretation. Many conservatives say their main concern is that some bishops do not believe that Jesus was God incarnate.

But the differences reached a breaking point in 2003 with the consecration of a partnered gay bishop in New Hampshire. The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, with about 20,000 members in 71 churches, is part of the 2.2 million-member Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of the 72 million-member Anglican Communion. At least three other dioceses have initiated or are contemplating measures similar to Pittsburgh's.

The Rev. George Werner, a former dean of Trinity Cathedral, Downtown, and a former top official of the Episcopal Church, told the assembly that Bishop Jefferts Schori was not trying to intimidate them, as some speakers had said. "Her heart is filled with Jesus," he said, saying that it was her legal and moral responsibility to exercise governance over the church and the property that was entrusted to the denomination.

After the vote, the Rev. Werner predicted "chaos" in the Diocese of Pittsburgh as parishes are pitted against each other and against the national church in property lawsuits.

Joan Gunderson, a member of Church of the Redeemer, Squirrel Hill, had presented a counter-resolution to keep the diocese in the Episcopal Church.

"I think it's been a tragic mistake. The Episcopal Church is not what it has been called [by those who want to leave]. I mourn the division and its consequences," she said after the vote.

In his speech, Bishop Duncan said that diocese had come to a fork in the theological road.

"The matter finally comes down to an unavoidable choice between cultures. There is the culture of the wider Episcopal Church: Theologically innovative, at the edge of mainstream Christianity, secularly attuned, declining ... and ready to sue or depose to obtain its way," he said. "By contrast there is the culture of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh: Scripturally centered, critiquing the secular agenda, among the fastest and few growing dioceses of the Episcopal Church, relative to the population decline ... allowing vast freedoms in the form and manner of ministry."

Debate was fraught with talk of litigation and of loss of pensions and cuts in salary for clergy who left the Episcopal Church. Many supporters of the resolution said those were sacrifices they were prepared to make.

"At the end of the day, the issues before us aren't about canons and conventions and procedures and lawsuits. They are about the centrality of the cross of Christ," said the Rev. Jonathan Millard, rector of Ascension parish, Oakland, who introduced the resolution.

Not all theological conservatives advocated breaking now. The Rev. Daniel Hall, an Episcopalian working at First Lutheran Church, Downtown, said he shared Bishop Duncan's theological concerns, but that the primates of the Anglican Communion should be allowed more time to try to resolve the situation.

"I cannot support this resolution because of this time of spiritual desolation in which I find myself ... St. Ignatius commends us to refrain from making significant decisions when we find ourselves so desolated," he said.

Supporters and opponents of the resolution spoke alternately and in equal numbers.

"As a lesbian, I have found the Episcopal Church to be embracing. I have been transformed by the love in this church," said Mary Pat Donegan from Church of the Redeemer, Squirrel Hill, who wanted to keep the diocese in the denomination.

Joan Morris, a member of St. Andrew's Church, Highland Park, spoke against breaking apart.

"None of us has a full understanding or could divine the full truth, but we do have a divine call to search together as one body in Jesus Christ, regardless of the differences among us. Without each other we each see a smaller truth and lose the corrections that we need from each other," she said.

After the vote, the Rev. Werner said he believed that Bishop Jefferts Schori was willing to talk, but that simply allowing local Episcopalians to leave the denomination taking millions of dollars of Episcopal property was not a legal option.

"On a case-by-case basis, all things are possible. The presiding bishop will carry out her fiduciary responsibility. She will keep the door unlocked. She will welcome people back," he said.

Bishop Duncan said he was proud of the way people on all sides had conducted themselves.

"This is the most wonderful diocese in the church," he said. "There is no reason that we cannot continue being this way with each other" even as different members choose different provinces.

"Maybe some day God will put us back together," he said.

Ann Rodgers can be reached at arodgers@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416.

First published on November 3, 2007 at 12:00 am