THEMETHATISME'S LETTER TO THE ABC

From Conscientisation:

My Lord Archbishop,

Peace and blessings in our Lord.

I am delighted to read press reports over the weekend in respect of changing the current provisions regarding divorce and the appointment of Bishops. Not simply because I believe this to be just, but because I believe The House itself would benefit from the presence of persons who have a greater experience of livelihoods which have not been 'the norm'. I further note the comments recorded by Fr. Geoffrey Look At ME Kirk and trust that in such vein he and his FiF brethren will consequently be subject to the same strictures you have chosen to underline with The Episcopal Church in America and will be relegated from the premiership division, for not toeing the line in accordance with the provisions of Windsor and the forthcoming covenant.

The covenant is by the way, an extremely bad idea. I could make biblically based comments about swords and eyes for eyes but you are much more aware of these things than I and I have never wasted much time in teaching grandmothers (or grandfathers) to suck eggs. I have also never really been into the kind of biblical literalism that the folly of Cpt. Look At ME Kirk expresses as wisdom nor do I truly believe that he should suffer its consequences. Nor should TEC, nor our gay and lesbian brethren throughout the world. Human beings are exceptionally bad at covenants; they should remain the prerogative of God alone. We are not possessed of the capacity for one-sided sacrifice, have not the omni-conscience required to exercise forgiveness on the scale required to mirror the great covenants of our faith history. (Rabbi Sachs knows about this, you should ask him next time you have a chat.) In our hands covenants can only be blunt swords which wielded even with the best of intentions will only disable, removing eyes in exchange for big left toes and such.

I regret to inform and am sincerely sorry that my progressing ill-health has necessitated my standing down as church-warden in my parish. But this has at least allowed my now more sedentary habit of letter writing to be extended and you may hear from me more often now. Every cloud...


I remain your servant,

A gem, isn't it? I had to have the letter, and TheMe gave me permission.

GOOD NEWS FOR TEC

From The Lead:

The Virginia Supreme Court ruled this morning in favor of the Diocese of Virginia in the property dispute between the diocese and CANA. In its ruling the court reversed and remanded the case.

Read the opinion and a statement from the Diocese of Virginia at The Lead.

BISHOP DREXEL GOMEZ KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT ALBANY DIOCESAN CONVENTION

The Most Reverend Drexel Gomez will be the keynote speaker at the Albany Diocesan Convention which begins this Friday. Archbishop Gomez is the retired Bishop of Diocese of the Bahamas. He sat on the Lambeth Commission which produced the Lambeth Report in 2004. He was chair of the Covenant Design Group which produced the Anglican Covenant. The selection of Archbishop Gomez as speaker was a shrewd move, as his presence will do much to awe the delegates and help ram through approval of the Anglican Covenant, which is a priority of our diocesan leadership.

Read the rest at Openly Episcopal in Albany.

MEANWHILE BACK IN THE GULF....

Rich Matthews dives into the oil without a Hazmat suit south of Venice, Louisiana. None the other divers in the boat join him without the protective diving suits. Surprise!




From The Huffington Post:

Some 40 miles out into the Gulf Of Mexico, I jump off the boat into the thickest patch of red oil I've ever seen. I open my eyes and realize my mask is already smeared. I can't see anything and we're just five seconds into the dive.

Dropping beneath the surface the only thing I see is oil. To the left, right, up and down – it sits on top of the water in giant pools, and hangs suspended fifteen feet beneath the surface in softball sized blobs. There is nothing alive under the slick, although I see a dead jellyfish and handful of small bait fish.
....

I make my way to the back of the boat unaware of just how covered I am. To be honest, I look a little like one of those poor pelicans we've all been seeing for days now. The oil is so thick and sticky, almost like a cake batter. It does not wipe off. You have to scrape it off, in layers until you finally get close to the skin. Then you pour on some Dawn dishwashing soap and scrub. I think to myself: No fish, no bird, no turtle would ever be able to clean this off of themselves. If any animal, any were to end up in this same puddle there is almost no way they could escape.

Triste. Les pauvres animaux.

AND ONE MORE THING - OR TWO OR THREE

Southwark Cathedral - South London

 

Click on the picture for a larger view.

Presiding Bishop Katharine's visit to Southwark Cathedral is in addition to her recent presence as a guest at General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada and her impending visit to General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church, which begins tomorrow.

Go Kate!

Photo from Wiki.

H/T via Lapin to John Chilton at The Lead for the link to the service at Southwark Cathedral.

LETTER TO THE PRESIDING BISHOP FROM INCLUSIVE CHURCH IN ENGLAND

Inclusive Church sends an open letter to Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

09 June 2010

Dear Bishop Katharine,

We rejoice that in your Pentecost Letter the Episcopal Church has reaffirmed its strong affirmation of gay and lesbian people as part of God's good creation and your continued commitment to recognising, led by the Spirit, that God is calling and fitting gay and lesbian people to be ordained leaders of the Church.

We regret that the Archbishop of Canterbury has suggested in his letter to the Anglican Communion that The Episcopal Church should not be a participant in Ecumenical Dialogue on behalf of the Communion and should serve only as consultants on IASCUFO. The Archbishop may experience ecumenical partners saying they "need to know who it is they are talking to” but our experience is of ecumenical partners saying we are carrying forward this difficult discernment process for the whole church, that they have similar or more contentious issues to deal with themselves, and that they are appreciative of the open way we are facing this issue.

We do not support the Archbishop's position that only those in agreement with the majority view can be participants as Anglicans in ecumenical dialogue or for that matter any other representative body of the Anglican Communion. Indeed, the Episcopal Church's diligence in undertaking "deep and dispassionate study of the question of homosexuality, which would take seriously both the teaching of Scripture and the results of scientific and medical research” with gay and lesbian people, as resolved at the 1978 Lambeth Conference, and in upholding their human rights, as emphasised at the 1988 Lambeth Conference, has been in marked contrast to the position of other provinces whose status as representative participants is unchallenged. We ask you to have the courage, commitment and humility to "remain at the table" not just until you are asked to leave but indeed until the table is removed from you. We recognise this is asking you to be in an uncomfortable place but the self-denial being asked of you is not for a gracious withdrawal but a silencing of voices that need to be heard.

The 1979 Anglican Consultative Council Resolution on Human Rights specifically called on member churches "to rigorously assess their own structures, attitudes and modes of working to ensure the promotion of human rights within them, and to seek to make the church truly an image of God's just Kingdom and witness in today's world”. In 1990 the ACC resolution on Christian Spirituality urged "every Diocese in our Communion to consider how through its structures it may encourage its members to see that a true Christian spirituality involves a concern for God's justice in the world, particularly in its own community”. We recognise that developments in the life of the Episcopal Church have been in line with and, in part, a response to this call.

In 2005 The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada were asked to withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council. Inclusive Church appealed to you not to accede to this request. We argued that "The Anglican Consultative Council, consisting of Bishops, Clergy and Laity is currently the most representative body in the Anglican Communion; were you to withdraw your participation it would no longer be a fully representative body. It is our belief that your actions, taken in response to the pastoral needs of gay and lesbian people and the justice of their claim to full participation in the life of the church, do not justify the breaking of "the bonds of communion” or any moves to exclude you from the conciliar life of the Communion. On the contrary it means you bring to the Anglican Consultative Council experience and counsel that would otherwise be absent and without which the Anglican Communion can not progress to a deeper understanding of the issues surrounding sexuality or ever achieve reconciliation."

We hold to that view still today and ask that you resist this process of excluding those Provinces of the Communion most committed to the visible inclusion of all Anglicans in the life of the Church. This process and the proposed Anglican Covenant are not building unity, they are turning disagreement into institutionalised disunity - even inventing mechanisms of exclusion to facilitate the process.

To agree to a voluntary self exclusion would not be to agree to a self- denying ordinance for the good of the whole. Gay Anglicans are part of the Anglican Communion in every province. Some are facing persecution by their own churches because of their courageous witness. By remaining at the table, the Episcopal Church has the opportunity to remind those who serve on representative bodies of their existence and to raise their voice. We ask that you resist this misguided process that is formally excluding those who speak for people the Communion should urgently be seeking to include. (My bolding)

Yours sincerely,

Canon Giles Goddard

Chair, Inclusive Church

I believe that we must pay close attention to this plea from Inclusive Church, especially to the words which I have bolded. LGTB members and their supporters in many of the churches in the Anglican Communion and Christian churches outside the Anglican Communion see the Episcopal Church as a lifeline, as a leader in promoting what we are required to do in the words of the prophet Micah.

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8

And in the words of Jesus.

‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.
Matthew 7:12

I am convinced that in any decisions about our relationship with the Anglican Communion, those of us in the Episcopal Church must give great weight to the situation of our brothers and sisters outside our church, where no meaningful discussions of justice for LGTB persons in the church occur, but especially to those in churches in which the leadership not only does not speak against the persecution of LGTB persons, but whose leaders actually promote their persecution. In other words, our decisions are not simply about us but have far-ranging consequences.

H/T to Thinking Anglicans for the link to the letter.

TELL 'EM, KATE!

What an excellent photograph of Bishop Katharine. It's one of the best that I've seen.

From Episcopal Life:

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has described the decision by Lambeth Palace to remove Episcopalians serving on international ecumenical dialogues as "unfortunate ... It misrepresents who the Anglican Communion is."

Jefferts Schori's comments were made during a June 8 press conference at the Anglican Church of Canada's General Synod 2010 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
....

"I don't think it helps dialogue to remove some people from the conversation," she said shortly after addressing General Synod. "We have a variety of opinions on these issues of human sexuality across the communion ... For the archbishop of Canterbury to say to the Methodists or the Lutheran [World] Federation that we only have one position is inaccurate. We have a variety of understandings and no, we don't have consensus on hot button issues at the moment."
....

Jefferts Schori said Williams' letter "really jumped" the process around the proposed Anglican Covenant, because it "imposed a number of the sanctions that were envisaged in the fourth section." The covenant is being viewed as way of addressing tensions in the communion over the issue of human sexuality.

Asked whether Williams has adequately addressed the issue of cross-border interventions, Jefferts Schori said, "I don't think he understands how difficult and how painful and destructive it's been both in the church in Canada and for us in the U.S. ... when bishops come from overseas and say, 'Well, we'll take care of you, you don't have to pay attention to your bishop.'" Such actions "destroys pastoral relationships," noted Jefferts Schori. "It's like an affair in a marriage," she said. "It destroys trust."

She added that it's "a very ancient teaching of the church that bishops are supposed to stay home and tend to the flock to which he was originally assigned."
....

Part of the church's mission is to gay and lesbian people, she added. "Where's the good news in this for them?"

Another deals with addressing human suffering, she said. "Suicide rates among gay and lesbian teenagers are much, much higher than the national average in Canada and the U.S. How do we address that? That's an aspect in these Marks of Mission."

The five marks of mission:

To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom;
To teach, baptize and nurture new believers;
To respond to human need by loving service;
To seek to transform unjust structures of society;
To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.

More good words from our PB. What is the Archbishop of Canterbury thinking? The Anglican Communion does not speak with one voice. Will all the members of the committees from the other denominations simply forget the existence of the Episcopal Church? The cleansing from the committee of the members of TEC looks more appalling, high-handed, and duplicitous every minute that goes by.

I suppose that if the ABC was not shamed by excluding Bishop Gene Robinson from Lambeth, he won't embarrass himself by his latest exclusions.

H/T to Ann Fontaine at The Lead for the link.

WITH DEEPEST AFFECTION

 

 

 

 

Don't blame me. Blame Doug.

STORY OF THE DAY - PERFECT COMBINATION

We need a letter that's like i & u together
for when we're doing stuff like this, he
said & I hugged him & said a lot of
people want a letter like that.


From StoryPeople.

ONE PRIMATE "OVER THERE" LIKES US

From the website of the Scottish Episcopal Church:

...the Rev Rob Warren interviews The Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Most Rev David Chillingworth, in which he speaks about the Anglican Covenant, the Whole Church Mission and Ministry Policy and the Gender Audit.

Bishop David warmed this American heart with his gracious words during the interview about the close relationship between the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Church in the US. I was delighted to hear that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will be a guest at General Synod of the SEC. Ever since I learned of the history of the SEC giving us our first bishop in the Episcopal Church, Samuel Seabury, I've been forever grateful, and I'm pleased that the warm and historic ties between the two churches continue.

Bishop David's comments on Bishop Katharine's visit and the close relationship between the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Church in the US can be heard approximately between minutes 3:33 and 6:04 on the audio.

Bishop David blogs at Thinking Aloud.