LETTER FROM INCLUSIVE CHURCH TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

From Giles Goddard of Inclusive Church in England:

Dear Archbishop

We are writing to express our grave concern about the contents of your Pentecost letter and its consequences applied with such speed by the Anglican Communion Office.

Your letter opens with a reminder of the joy of Pentecost, when "we celebrate the gift God gives us of being able to communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ in the various languages of the whole human world”. But the result of your proposals - to summarily remove from those Communion bodies to which you directly appoint, those provinces which are in your view in breach of the moratoria - is a diminishing of the diversity of the Anglican Communion and a silencing of the different languages in which we are called to speak.

Our concerns are three-fold.

First, it is clear from the actions of the Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion that the application of the sanctions is one-sided and disproportionate. The Anglican Church of North America may now provide cover for the Bishops previously ordained by Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya but these provinces remain committed to them and the actions which made the emergence of ACNA possible, actions carried out in direct violation of the moratorium that you asked for. It would be farcical to suggest they are no longer breaking the moratoria just because they have been successful in generating a breakaway body to provide local cover for the result of their acts.

The Secretary-General is "seeking clarification” regarding the Southern Cone and Canada. However, without consultation, he has proceeded in removing members of The Episcopal Church from Communion bodies. This kind of punitive exclusion will do nothing to promote the "path of mutual respect and thankfulness that will hold us in union and help us grow in that truth.”

Second, by proposing these actions you are not strengthening but diminishing the distinctiveness and the contribution of the Anglican voice to our ecumenical dialogue. It is clear that all the major churches are engaged in the struggle to acknowledge and include LGBT Christians. The Anglican Communion has been more open than most about its struggle, and has earned the respect of many of our partners in this. By excluding those provinces which have been able, despite deep controversy and through profound study and prayer, to include both those who welcome LGBT Christians and those who do not, you are empowering the Anglican Communion to speak with a voice which does not reflect its truth; it is, in short, inauthentic. Further, it fails to acknowledge the terrible persecution which is experienced by LGBT Christians, and those who uphold human rights as reflecting crucial Gospel values, in many of those provinces which are at the forefront of opposition to TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada. Your previous statements opposing homophobia and seeking generosity from (among others) the Church of Uganda are undermined by these actions.

Third, the actions proposed and taken appear to pre-empt the consequences of the draft Covenant. You reiterate that "the Covenant is not envisaged as an instrument of control”. And yet, by these sanctions you are prefiguring the life of the Covenant by already excluding from Anglican dialogue those who do not have majority support - creating, by default, track 2 churches. It is increasingly clear, as discussions about the Covenant continue, that whatever its original intentions it is already becoming an instrument of control, an additional "instrument of unity” which will achieve precisely the opposite.

By excluding TEC and possibly the ACoC in this way, the voices are also silenced of the thousands of members of the Church of England for whom the life of TEC and the ACoC is a source of joy and thanksgiving - for whom the full inclusion of LGBT Christians within our parishes is already a reality, even though the structures and senior hierarchy of the Church of England are unable to acknowledge this reality.

You stress the urgency of mission. The result of these actions is further to undermine the mission of the Church of England, and to cause despair amongst those who are trying to enable all to understand the love of God. Supporters of Inclusive Church have spoken with you on a number of occasions about the vital urgency of speaking generously about the breadth of Christian experience. Unless we do, we will be unable to re-engage with the communities we seek to serve in this country and who are bemused by the Church of England's continuing rejection of LGBT Christians.

The period of engagement for which you call will not be served by putting in place further exclusionary structures. It is only the conservative extreme of the Anglican Communion which appears to support - indeed, to encourage - further division. We are profoundly supportive of the sort of frank and open conversations for which you too hope. Therefore, a question - how do you anticipate these conversations being fruitful when decisions have already been taken which further reduce the status of LGBT Christians and those who welcome them?

Yours sincerely

Canon Giles Goddard

Chair, IC

Another good letter from Giles Goddard. I believe it's vital that Archbishop Williams hear from members of the Church of England. The members of his own church do not speak with one voice, and yet, the Archbishop wants the entire Anglican Communion to speak with a common voice. That the Archbishop of Canterbury sent out such a letter in the season of Pentecost continues to amaze me.

With a good many others, I ask what need is there now for an Anglican Covenant? The Archbishop seems to think he already possesses the powers of discipline in Part 4, the most questionable section of the Covenant for many of us, and we have a preview of how the powers will be used.

BISHOP ROBINSON TO ARCHBISHOP BROGLIO

From The Huffington Post:

Archbishop for the Military Services USA Timothy Broglio released a statement earlier this month arguing that the federal government should not repeal the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which prevents gay and lesbian men and women from serving openly in the military. He claims that doing so would compromise the faith and role of Roman Catholic military chaplains. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. His arguments are so spurious and misguided it is hard to find a place to begin in refuting them.

The separation of church and state is not threatened by a change in the DADT policy, despite the archbishop's claims. No Roman Catholic chaplain, nor any other chaplain with negative views of homosexuality, will be required to teach, preach, or counsel anything outside their own beliefs. No gay or lesbian serving in the military would expect to go to such a chaplain and receive a blessing on his or her sexual orientation.

The archbishop restates in his letter what everyone knows: The Roman Catholic Church believes and teaches that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered" and "are contrary to the natural law" and that "Homosexual persons are called to chastity." If you go to a chaplain with those beliefs under a repealed DADT, that's still what you're going to get in the way of counsel. What you won't get under the repeal is a dishonorable discharge to boot!
....

The archbishop inexplicably goes on to drag alcoholics into the debate: "For years, those struggling with alcoholism have benefitted [sic] from Alcoholics Anonymous. Like homosexuality, there is rarely a cure. There is a control through a process, which is guarded by absolute secrecy. It is an equivalent to 'Don't ask don't tell'. The process has worked well for some time without the charge that it is discriminatory."

I can say as a recovering alcoholic and a gay man that there is no end to the problems with this analogy. No one would argue with the reality of the havoc created by an addiction to alcohol--a toll of pain and trouble visited on the individual, families, and society alike. No such social toll is caused by men and women proudly saying to the world, "I'm gay." Saying that there is no cure for homosexuality, as for alcoholism, is to say that there is something that needs curing. The archbishop is welcome to his opinion, but he must admit that it flies in the face of contrary judgments by every reputable psychiatric association in the world.

Archbishop Broglio's analogy of homosexuality with alcoholism is mind-boggling in its ignorance. Perhaps the archbishop should cease commenting in that vein, if he wishes to convince anyone with a brain of the rightness of letting DADT stand. DADT is a policy right out of the Bizarro world of hypocrisy, where up is down, black is white, and nothing is as it seems. That anyone advocates hiding and lying about one's sexual orientation under threat of expulsion as the proper way to run the military today is beyond belief.

Of course, read the rest of Bishop Gene's commentary at HP.

STORY OF THE DAY - BODY STUFF

This is a box filled with things that make
your body tingle & she's saving it for
some time when she's in a long-term
relationship & can make better use of it.


Oh yeah! Me, too! We've only had 49 years together. I'm talking REAL long-term.

From StoryPeople.

COLBERT - BP STOCK SINKS

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CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?

Look what that cat MadPriest dragged in.

When Grandmère Mimi made her state visit to England last year we met up in Yorkshire and visited the quaint village of Lastingham for lunch.

After our meal, Mimi and me went to have a look in the church. On the way back to the car, we were Googled and have been immortalised on their street view function. Mrs MadPriest can be seen in the distance opening the boot of our car.

Dat is me, and dat is him. I don't know about immortalized, but the picture was taken in March of 2009, so it's probably been on Google's street view function for quite a while. Amazing!

Below is a picture of the Norman crypt of the Church of St. Mary in Lastingham, the church Jonathan and I visited that day.

ON GENERAL SYNOD OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF CANADA

From Anglican Journal:

“Despite all our differences we are passionately committed to walking together.” So said a pastoral statement approved today by the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada on the issue of same gender blessings. And it may mark the beginning of a new spirit and approach to a question that has divided the church in recent years.
....

The result is a document that acknowledges continuing differences within the church on the issue, and says “at this time, we are not prepared to make a legislative decision.” The statement instead committed the church to more dialogue. This compromise left both sides wanting more, but there was a new and surprising level of support from both sides, and the statement was approved by a large majority within the 350-member synod made up of lay people, clergy and bishops.

“For many members of General Synod there is deep sadness that, at this time, there is no common mind. We acknowledge the pain that our diversity in this matter causes. We are deeply aware of the cost to people whose lives are implicated in the consequences of an ongoing discernment process…,” they said. “For some, even this statement represents a risk. For some, the statement does not go nearly far enough.”
....

And there were concerns expressed. Kellina Baetz from the diocese of Algoma said the document “fails to acknowledge the reality that inaction is also action.” She pointed to a piece of the text that said “we accept that different local contexts call at times for different local discernment, decision and action.” Then she asked, “Now I understand that the language here is perhaps deliberately vague for good reason, but I don’t know how you call that anything other than affirmation of local option.” Local option is a term used for one proposed resolution to the issue in which dioceses and local parishes could decide whether or not to bless same-sex unions.

The delegates to General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada did what they did and what they felt they must do. Presumably, the ACofC did not make a "formal" collective decision to depart from the moritoria of the Windsor Report, which has now become a list of rules that member churches of the Anglican Communion must follow, according to the Archbishop of Canterbury and other members of the AC, although how a report came to be a set of rules is still a mystery to me.

Oh, and it appears that the "rules" are more restrictive for some member churches than for others. In the end, I'll wager that the representatives from the Episcopal Church will be the only members of the ecumenical committees who will be asked to stand down, although we are not the only member church to have departed from "gracious restraint" in the matter of following the "rules" of the Windsor Report.

STORY OF THE DAY - VETERAN TRAVELER

carries a lot of suitcases but all of them
are empty because she's expecting to
completely fill them with life by the end
of this trip & then she'll come home &
sort everything out & do it all again


From StoryPeople.

Due to extreme busyness, I've not had time to attend to email, my blog, phone calls, nor much of anything but the duties that demand my attention now. When I can, I'll get back to all those things. Don't worry. Nothing is wrong here, except that I'm quite busy.

I love the "Story of the Day" today, and I sneaked in the few minutes required to post the story before moving on.

"CANTERBURY 2010 - A VISION AND LAMENT"

In the light of the setting sun
I saw the stones of the cathedral
seemed to be made of gold, pure gold.

And the great white crane flew by
on wings that beat so slow, so slow,
much slower than the beating of my heart,
and turned not, but flew on, flew on.

And after sunset, in the dim gray light of evening
I touched the stones of the cathedral
and found they were not gold at all;
not gold but only stone, cold stone.

And the great white crane still flew,
and turned not back
past Canterbury’s cold, cold stone.

Tobias Stanislas Haller

June 10,2010

Of all the words I've read and written about this letter or that letter, or this statement or that statement, the words of Tobias' elegy speak most closely to what is in my heart. Thank you, my dear brother, Tobias.

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.