I had a rare opportunity to publically agree with my former Los Angeles clergy colleague, David Anderson, in a BBC radio interview this morning (actually VERY late last night, CA time!)
Check it out at BBC TODAY and do keep ALL of the episcopal elections happening today in your prayers.
11 comments:
Susan, terrific refutation of the Canon and respecively, the answers to the interviewer's questions. I love the nutshell conciseness and yet getting it all said that needed to be said. Thank goodenss you are the President of Integrity...I can think of no one else who can say it like you do.
Susan,
We are rejoicing at the power of the Holy Spirit as we have elected the one called by God to be the 8th Bishop of CA. Richard (my spouse) and I were deeply honored to be elected from our parish to serve as delegates. What a powerful and amazing experience to be present to see God work in real time. Thank you for Integrity's support of this decision - we feel that we have the person that God has called to move this Diocese into new frontiers. Blessings!
Boy... I can't believe Bishop Duncan controlled the election today like he did.
A white southern male from ALABAMA. Boy did some people step back and bow to the conservatives today. He may come across a little liberal but wait till that mama calls and chews him out. You guys will be getting baptised in a creek. I bet he was a Pentacostal growing up.
Jeff, et al, If you're really interested in inclusivity and communion with all in ECUSA, then what is the problem with people posting things that might be in oppostition to what you personally believe? For instance, I found this very sound:
(From Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner)
"I strongly disagree with you regarding the character of “compliance” with Windsor, and what that means and means in the eyes of many Communion leaders, including Rowan Williams. First, his own views about marriage seem to have shifted, as is evident in his remarks to the ACC last June and elsewhere. Likewise, his sense of just what the status of Lambeth I.10 within the Communion is. Granted, he (if we are to take Bp. Langrish’s views as in any way reflecting his own) and others realize that a whole-hearted personal embrace of this resolution’s theological foundations may not be forthcoming from all; but it is clear that he believes that the resolution itself represents the formal “teaching” of the Communion, and that therefore its theological foundations are not irrelevant but actually properly inform teaching. Second, Windsor itself is not just about practical actions, taken within some vacuum of public affirmation and meaning. There is an entire theology about the church, however broad, that upholds its recommendations, and this theology includes the character of teaching, witnessed life, and the place of Scripture as informing and even directing this. Lambeth I.10 figures in all of this. Third, the remarks of members of the ECUSA Commission subsequent to their recent Report make it clear that there are not only varying interpretations of what their recommendations mean and imply held on the part of the drafters of this Report, but actually contradictory ones, perhaps (in my mind) even ones that seem double-minded in comparison with the straight-forward language of the Report itself. That being the case, there is every reason to believe that “bare actions” are and will be considered inadequate if they are not tied to clear and clearly-interpreted commitments. The matter of trust for the Communion’s future life is at stake in this. The Report is now shown to be conspicuous by its wax-nose, and almost worthless if it is taken on the terms of some of its own drafters. Anything coming out of General Convention that resembles the Report in this way (although there are many good things, on paper, within it), will prove a further stumbling block to ECUSA’s future communion with other Anglican churches, whether or not there is an election and consent to another [noncelibate] gay bishop.
There are, to be sure, a variety of views among even Global South bishops as to how such clarity will and should be articulated and embodied. But the desire for it is almost universal, and the failiure to provide it will do nothing less than contribute to the already fracturing lines, not only within ECUSA, and between ECUSA and other parts of the Communion, but within various churches of the Communion itself. No one can underestimate the destructuve degree to which ECUSA has thrown a poisoned apple into the everyone’s midst. There is every sign that Rowan Williams knows this, and may well realize that the poison has already been ingested by everyone. There is little cause for optimism here, and every cause for pleading with the Almighty."
I think you exagerate what the special commission's report actually does, Jeff. On ssb's it's resolution only rules out public blessings, not all blessings entirely. What counts as a public blessing is somewhat up in the air at the moment, and may only mean that no diocese can have a liturgy for such a blessing approved for use whenever priests want to use it. This problem is actually present in the Windsor Report itself as well. When it says that provisions for private pastoral responses need to be made it doesn't explicitly rule out some sort of private blessing.
Concerning the consecration of bishops, while the resolution on bishops may function like a moratiorum, "exercising extreme caution" isn't quite the same thing as "refraining from". It's really close, but it is possible that won't be good enough.
Jon
Regarding the Windsor Report and "border crossings": The WR asks bishops not to INITIATE crossings of diocesan borders, but it does not say that they cannot respond to parishes and priests who are in a compromised relationship with the bishop of their diocese. The African and South American bishops who have visited parishes in the US, or who have taken parishes under their wing have been invited by the priest or parish.
Is this ideal? Not at all. But having bishops who do not believe or teach the historic Gospel is far from ideal as well. Even under the best of circumstances, I know that I will never agree with my bishop totally, but I do want a bishop whose spiritual judgment I can trust, and those who warp the Scriptures so as to make them support sex between members of the same sex, or who have a Jesus who is a sage and not a Savior, or who are gnostic, adoptionist, or modalist (or all of the above) is not someone I can trust to give the spiritual leadership needed for biblical ministry.
"I do want a bishop whose spiritual judgment I can trust,"
I understand that. Had I the misfortune to live in the Diocese of Ft. Worth, I couldn't conceivably trust the judgment (spiritual or otherwise) of an ignorant bigot like Jack Iger. So under your "plan", I could continue to be an Episcopalian if I lived there. I'd just have to look to, say, Jon Bruno for spiritual guidance.
hiram's point about "initiating" or not is not only incorrect, but misleading. the Windsor Report clearly invites intervening bishops to halt all border crossings AND to repent for them AND to seek reconciliation with affected bishops and dioceses.
"We call upon those bishops who believe it is their conscientious duty to intervene in provinces, dioceses and parishes other than their own:
♦ to express regret for the consequences of their actions
♦ to affirm their desire to remain in theCommunion, and
♦ to effect a moratorium on any further interventions.
We also call upon these archbishops and bishops to seek an accommodation with the bishops of the dioceses whose parishes they have taken into their own care. " (section 155)
And then of course there is the issue of repentance and reocnciliation for all those bishops and clergy in the Network who are aiding or abetting interventions.
There is clear language delivered directly to dissenting bishops in our Church:
"We further call upon those diocesan bishops of the Episcopal Church (USA) who have refused to countenance the proposals set out by their House of Bishops to reconsider their own stance on this matter. If they refuse to do so, in our view, they will be making a profoundly dismissive statement about their adherence to the polity of their own church. "
(section 155)
No one is off the hook with WR. ALL are invited to repent and reconcile.
It is an invitation to Communion, "it is not a judgment."
Thanks, RMF; I was recalling what someone said, not what the WR said itself, so I stand corrected.
As for DEPO -- it does not meet the needs of the parishes that need help. As presently constituted, DEPO provides for a visiting bishop for ceremonial purposes, whereas the parishes who seek alternative oversight want just that: oversight. They want an orthodox bishop to oversee their ordinands, the search and call of new clergy, and the like. Too many reappraising bishops take measures - sometimes subtle, sometimes very notice -- to shut reasserting clergy out of search processes, to place "moderates" in reasserting parishes, and to force conservative candidates to attend seminaries designed to turn their brains to mush. No bishop, as several of my friends have noted, has ever sent a candidate to TESM to "be broadened."
The aim of reappraising bishops seems to be to wear us out, drive us out, and prevent us from sustaining ourselves or growing.
Thus, DEPO does not really meet the need.
DEPO is one issue in the process and again, the issue is not one sided, hiram.
Implicit in DEPO is recognizing the integrity of the Episcopal Church and its bishops. Implicit, is the recognition of the ecclesial prerogatives of the current bishop.
Some dissenting parishes as part of their DEPO demands insist that their bishop renounce his approval of +Robinson as a heretical move, or make some other such recantation on this or that issue picked by the parish or clergy, or that he agree to never again visit the parish or that he renounce any claim to property or assessments.
But this directly undermines and destroys the purpose of DEPO. DEPO is not to be used to make a bishop renounce or recant or about face on his ecclesial authority and prerogatives.
It is to maintain integrity of both sides, within established structures. This is why the WR invites bishops not to make "profoundly dismissive" actions about their church processes.
But, I don't want to get bogged down in the "You! No you! Wait! You!!!" type of postings here.
The main thrust of my post is that WR invites us ALL to Communion. It invites ALL parties to express regret and to repent. It is not just for one side or one part of the Church to do this, it is not even just for the Episcopal Church. It is for the entire Communion.
So I think it important going forward, to keep this in mind, that no one in this current messiness is exempt from taking steps to Communion. There are some problems and deficiencies in the WR in my opinion but at minimum, I believe that it gets this part right.
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