Updated Tuesday evening
The Bishop of Lichfield has expressed an opinion. See Gay row could split church from the Wolverhampton Express & Star.
The Guardian has Q&A: Anglican vote on homosexuality and also US bishops face crunch vote on gay split.
New Orleans Times-Picayune has Episcopal bishops walking a fine line.
National Public Radio has Gay Issue Looms over Episcopal Church.
Evening Updates
Living Church Steve Waring In Closed Session, Bishops Perfecting Response to Primates
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and the other members of the joint steering committee of primates and the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) met late into the night Monday discussing language on the eight or so bullet points which might constitute an acceptable response from Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the primates…
…Meanwhile Bishop Jefferts Schori has been meeting most of the day in private session with the bishops trying to obtain their consent on the wording developed during the joint steering committee meeting last night. Not all of the suggested changes have been received with universal enthusiasm from the bishops, and some have said they expect that at least some of the proposed changes may require an up-or-down vote. Among the issues said to be encountering the most resistance is the bullet-point item on same-sex blessings…
Agency France Presse US Episcopal bishops meet on gay priests amid schism threat
No debate ?
What planet has this man been been on for the last fifty years?
The Resolution is precisely what one would expect it to be, given the role of General Convention; now, if some people reject this, let ’em walk away. People must do what the must do.
Planet small, Planet protected. Planet please stop spinning around.
L Roberts – you are shocked a bishop holds to the teaching of the CofE / AC?
Bishop Gledhill’s friends, who are ‘gay’ and of whom he is ‘very fond’, should sit him down and talk to him about homosexuality. Perhaps he will grow to understand that it is views like his that make their lives ‘complex’. The good bishop should also apply his principled stance on this issue to the behaviour of Jesus, whose precipitate action, preaching, and teaching brought about a split in the People of the Covenant. A split that ultimately led to Bishop Gledhill’s inclusion in the People of God. I am sorry but I find it more and more difficult to live… Read more »
‘… the reason for it not so much the moral issue, it is the fact the Americans have gone ahead without a debate….’ No the anglican bishops show in many of their words and actions that they don’t care ‘so much (about) the moral issue’. In fact, they don’t even want a ‘devbate’ —whatever that means — he and they want a quiet life; free of stigma by association with gays. Wake up we’ve had the debate and the stigma is lessening. Except when the bishops blunder in. While you’re having your debate, Bishop(s), mind if we just get on… Read more »
L Roberts – you are shocked a bishop holds to the teaching of the CofE / AC? In a word, “No !” What I wrote is :– ‘No debate ? What planet has this man been been on for the last fifty years?’ Posted by: L Roberts on Tuesday, 25 September 2007 at 7:08pm BST BTW The CofE and AC (as we are constantly told) have no teaching (of their own but only ‘that of the Church’ — trouble is which Church notional or actual is that ? The pro-gay teaching in the (former) Archbishop of York’s Catechism comes to… Read more »
Not teaching but OPINION(s):—
‘Canon Gregory Cameron, the communion’s senior negotiator, said: “It has become clear to me there is a wider range of opinion in the American house of bishops than there is in the communion as a whole.”‘
You don’t like what the church says on x so you assert that the church has no teaching…… Is this a powerful argument, L Roberts? Be assured – the church has teaching and for the vast majority of us it is based on the bible (not “Gaia” whatever that means, not sociology, not psychology, not human rights but the word of God) The ABC has wasted 4 years because of a small minority pushing its agenda, trying to force everyone in the AC to accept its views as equally valid with what we see in scripture……it ain’t working and saying… Read more »
“aknowledge there are what Ford (with his normal honesty) calls “the clobber verses” and then either reject them or accept them…..” Honoured as I am by your compliment, NP, and perhaps showing a smallness of spirit, I would suggest there is another, more ancient, way. That is to do what the Church has done for 2000 years, read these verses in the context of trying to discern and understand the mind of Scripture, being true to what Scripture itself calls the “tradition” we have been given. Scripture is not some Divine Dictation in which God merely instructed people to write… Read more »
Ford – maybe the idea that scripture ain’t quite as clear as the words in scripture when we talk about certain sins is just the result of some people wanting to justify certain sins? You would not argue that scripture may mean various things with regard to caring for the poor….so we should not disagree with those who may say we should not care for the poor at all. You would not argue that, would you??? No, it is only on certain sins that scripture is supposed to have become mysteriously cloudy……and in other denominations, it is greed which is… Read more »
L Roberts said: “The pro-gay teaching in the (former) Archbishop of York’s Catechism comes to mind. As does the Osborne Report, as does the report of Lambeth bishops supressed by George Carey and replaced cuckoo-like with so-called 1;10.” I’ve had to correct your hyperbole about the Osborne report before, Laurence. Osborne was suppressed by the House of Bishops under ++Robert Runcie. It is not true that any report was suppressed at the Lambeth Conference. The sub-section report on human sexuality is still out there on the public record. There was always going to be a resolution from the sub-section. It… Read more »
“it is only on certain sins that scripture is supposed to have become mysteriously cloudy” Like usury, government sanction of the destruction of life that only God has the right to take away, remarriage after divorce, that sort of thing? Like hating one’s neighbour in the guise of defending the Gospel? That kind of sin? Like claiming that Paul’s instruction to judge, as a Church, the correctness of some people’s doctrine actually negates Jesus’s instructions not to judge others as individuals, thereby justifying your favourite sin? Yes indeed. And it is curiously those who most loudly assert the clarity of… Read more »
‘Osborne was suppressed by the House of Bishops under ++Robert Runcie.’ A Carey Exactly. It should have been published —not just circulated privately . ‘I’ve had to correct your hyperbole about the Osborne report before’ AC How can it be hyperbole when you accept it was suppressed under Runcie ? A Carey continued :- ‘The sub-section report on human sexuality is still out there on the public record.’ AC So it is part of the teaching of that Lambeth Conference then ! ‘There was always going to be a resolution from the sub-section. It was a tortuous route to get… Read more »
You don’t like what the church says on x so you assert that the church has no teaching…… Is this a powerful argument, L Roberts?’ There is, as we alll know, no monolithic ‘Church’ or ‘teaching’. If it were not so we would not have had this controversy in the Anglcian Churches. That is the point. Have you read what the Church teaches in the Archbishop of York’s Catechism ? Have you read or heard what the Metropolitan Community Church teaches ? And the Soceity of Friends ? Or Issues in Human Sexulity which recognises same sex relationships for the… Read more »
L Roberts, the commentary contained in all the section reports of that Conference is worth reflecting on as a theological record of that Lambeth Conference. I don’t believe that any of them were voted upon and adopted wholly by the conference. But I was pointing out that your hyperbolic response was playing fast and loose with the facts themselves. Finally, the reactions of ++Ndungane and ++Holloway and the signers of the pastoral statement do not indicate that there was any wrongdoing as far as the process was concerned. They didn’t like the result. Frankly, the presence of lobbyists from both… Read more »
Ford – none of the other sins you mention mean the AC must accept an adulterer or a drunk as a bishop.
Two wrongs do not make a right.
We are called to judge in the church even though we are sinners (1 Cor 5:12 is just one example of this)