By Matthew Davies, May 28, 2010
[Episcopal News Service] Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is proposing that representatives currently serving on some of the Anglican Communion's ecumenical dialogues should resign their membership if they are from a province that has not complied with moratoria on same-gender blessings, cross-border interventions and the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the episcopate.
Williams made his proposal in a May 28 Pentecost letter to the Anglican Communion, in which he specifically refers to the May 15 consecration of Los Angeles Bishop Suffragan Mary Douglas Glasspool and the ongoing activity across provincial boundaries. Glasspool is the Episcopal Church's second openly gay, partnered bishop.
Two Episcopal Church members serving on the Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue and one on the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order are expected to be affected by the proposal.
When a province "declines to accept requests or advice from the consultative organs of the communion, it is very hard to see how members of that province can be placed in positions where they are required to represent the communion as a whole," Williams said. "This affects both our ecumenical dialogues ... and our faith-and-order related groups."
Williams said that affected provinces "will be contacted about the outworking of this in the near future."
Episcopal Church members currently serving on the Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue are the Rev. Thomas Ferguson, the Episcopal Church's interim deputy for ecumenical and interreligious relations, and Assistant Bishop William Gregg of North Carolina.
Other members that may be asked to resign their membership are the Rev. Canon Philip Hobson and Natasha Klukach from the Anglican Church of Canada and the Rev. Joseph Wandera from the Anglican Church of Kenya. Some dioceses in the Canadian church have made provisions for blessing same-gender unions and the Kenyan church has consecrated former Episcopalians as bishops in the U.S., an action that is in contravention of the moratorium on cross-border interventions.
Williams recommends that affected members serving on the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order should revert to consultant status. The Rev. Katherine Grieb, an Episcopal priest and professor of New Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary, serves on that commission. Other members who are likely to be affected by Williams' suggestion are the Venerable Dapo Asaju of Nigeria, the Rev. Edison Muhindo Kalengyo of Uganda and Bishop Tito Zavala of Chile, Southern Cone, all of whom hail from provinces that are currently involved in cross-border interventions in the United States.
The third phase of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission is unaffected by Williams' suggestion as its members have yet to be named.
"In our dealings with other Christian communions, we do not seek to deny our diversity; but there is an obvious problem in putting forward representatives of the communion who are consciously at odds with what the communion has formally requested or stipulated," Williams said. "Their views deserve attention, respect and careful study. They should be engaged in serious dialogue -- but it would be eccentric to place such people in a position where their view was implicitly acknowledged as one of a range of equally acceptable convictions, all of which could be taken as representatively Anglican."
The moratoria were first mentioned in the 2004 Windsor Report, a document that made several recommendations on how the communion might maintain unity amid disagreements over theological interpretations and human sexuality issues. The moratoria have since been supported by the communion's primates or episcopal leaders, at their February 2009 meeting, and the Anglican Consultative Council, the communion's main policy-making body, at its May 2009 meeting.
The Episcopal Church's General Convention, meeting in July, passed Resolution D025 that declared the ordination process open to all people. Glasspool is the first openly gay priest to be elected and ordained as bishop since the passage of Resolution D025.
"Our Anglican fellowship continues to experience painful division, and the events of recent months have not brought us nearer to full reconciliation," Williams said. "There are still things being done that the representative bodies of the communion have repeatedly pleaded should not be done; and this leads to recrimination, confusion and bitterness all round."
Williams said he hopes that the Anglican Covenant, which was first suggested in the Windsor Report, will help the communion focus on mission and he reiterated that it should not be seen as an instrument of control. The covenant's final text was sent to the communion's 38 provinces in December with the request that they consider adopting it.
Williams acknowledged that the communion currently faces a dilemma. "To maintain outward unity at a formal level while we are convinced that the divisions are not only deep but damaging to our local mission is not a good thing," he said. "Neither is it a good thing to break away from each other so dramatically that we no longer see Christ in each other and risk trying to create a church of the 'perfect' -- people like us."
Neva Rae Fox, the Episcopal Church's program officer for public affairs, said that an Episcopal Church response is not expected at this time.
-- Matthew Davies is editor and international correspondent of the Episcopal News Service.
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