The Windsor Bishops' Letter

From The Living Church Foundation, via Galleycat, via Jim Naughton (enough "vias"?) comes word of a letter from a group of Windsor bishops to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The signatories do not include my bishop, Charles Jenkins, who has, in the past, described himself a Windsor bishop.

The letter states:

“We want to reassure you that we are committed to the Camp Allen principles and realize that for us, they are the way by which we intend to remain united as we move forward in these challenging days,” the bishops stated in an April 26 letter.

“We also realize that the covenant process is critical to these discussions, and indeed is the focal point of the work now underway to define our life together. For us, neither of these commitments has wavered in light of the recent decisions by the House of Bishops.”

From "The Living Church Foundation":

The letter was signed by the following bishops:
• John W. Howe, Central Florida
• James M. Stanton, Dallas
• Jeffrey N. Steenson, Rio Grande
• Edward L. Salmon, Jr., retired, South Carolina
• Don A. Wimberly, Texas
• Gary W. Lillibridge, West Texas
• D. Bruce MacPherson, Western Louisiana

Jim Naughton says this:

The seven style themselves a “steering committee,” making one wonder how many passengers are on this particular bus. At one point, the group that endorsed the Camp Allen principles, numbered in the mid-20s, depending on when you were doing the counting. But their ranks have been reduced by retirements and defections occasioned by the harsh recommendations made to the Episcopal Church by the Primates of the Anglican Communion at their February meeting in Dar es Salaam.

And that was before the group’s leaders and its high profile consultants began shooting themselves in as many feet as they had amongst them.

Jim talks about the connection between the Reverend Radner of the Anglican Communion Institute and of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, and the Reverend Armstrong, also a member of the ACI, who "had been suspended from his duties as rector of Grace Church and Saint Stephen’s in Colorado Springs by the bishop of Colorado, the Rt. Rev. Rob O’Neill." Go read Jim to understand the tangled web. It's difficult to follow the connections and twists and turns.

The result:

So it came to pass that a five-man organization [ACI] that presumed to tell the 77-million member Anglican Communion how to resolve its internal difficulties had to disassociate itself from its own Web site. The ACI now has a new Web site, but credibility, unlike domain names, can’t be bought.

Again, where is my bishop in all of this? I don't know. There's nothing new on the website of the Diocese of Louisiana on the subject since Bishop Jenkins' statement on the House of Bishops meeting issued on April 4, 2007. This member of the flock is still in darkness.

I do believe that the unity of Windsor bishops is unraveling.