The Episcopal Church, USA held a press conference in New York on the Lambeth Conference today. It featured the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and the Rev. Dr. Ian Douglas, professor at Episcopal Divinity School and a member of the Conference’s design group.
You can watch the entire press conference here.
Related news story:
Lambeth Conference will help bishops strengthen partnerships, Jefferts Schori tells media
And earlier:
Lambeth Conference will focus on equipping bishops for mission
Admittedly, I could only take about 30 seconds of KJS. What she said is that they won’t have any legislative sessions because in such formats there are outsiders and insiders, winners and losers.
So where the TEC will dominate the vote, there will be a vote. (Albeit, a cowardly voice vote so that there is no accountability.) Where the TEC might lose, we have indaba.
Rowan, are the puppet strings uncomfortably tight?
You haven’t listened – and you’re scornful?
May I offer my thanks to the leader of a tiny,minority, heretical grouping within the Anglican Communion for her determination of how Lambeth will be conducted. Also my good wishes for her time with “all the bishops of the Sudan”.
My problem with the presentation is this. Where there is a clear predicament that needs some sort of resolution, talk is a means and not an end. I know the value of face to face meeting and all that, but the effect is an optimism that is unrealistic. I typed out some notes as they spoke so made a commentary. I was just left unconvinced, and that is as a clear supporter of TEC and what it is doing.
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/05/lambeth-walking.html
Goran:
Don’t expect to much out of RobRoy. He’s inside the Donatist bubble, hearing only what he wants.
His comments about puppet strings showes just mindset of these people. They think all of us are in league with secret cabals, since in the end most of this is IRD financed troublemaking.
Of course saying that makes me a racist …
I’ve looked into this matter of Indaba too. It does not imply lack of resolution or resolutions as at Lambeth. It means participatory meeting around a matter – and out of such an in depth meeting comes the difficulty of a resolution after seeing the other’s point of view.
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/05/indaba.html
What I got out of the streaming video was three broad change themes: (1) from meeting difficult challenges, head on, in our share global church life, to meeting those difficulties face to face. Could, say, Akinola or Duncan or Venebles blithely talk so poorly of me as nothing but a exemplary problem of evil – in Akinola’s case as a cancer which needs to be obliterated? – if he sat at dinner in my home across from my partner and children? Or visited me one day at work, thriving and serving in our interdisciplinary professional teams? (2)from the sequence (more… Read more »
I had the opportunity recenlty to have a personal meeting with the new Archbishop of the Sudan and his Lady Wife, along with about a handful of other gay and lesbian clergy, and three or four other representatives of my diocese, including a Ugandan bishop in exile, our Suffragan Bishop, and the Africa Officer of the (International) Episcopal Church Center. It was a frank discussion, and valuable, I think, both for us and for the Archbishop. We did not “solve” anything, but came away from the hour-long session with greater understanding of the situation. I don’t think the Archbishop will… Read more »
“at least he now knows that there are gay and lesbian people who take Scripture seriously, and are doing their best to serve the church.”
Tobias, I think this meeting sounds wonderful. I am concerned though that a bishop of the Church should have to be told that there are gay people who actually DO have faith. It shows the pernicious effect of the misinformation coming out of the Right.
Thank you, Tobias. You planted, and ++KJS will water, and…? (Lord, hear my prayer)
Thanks Ford, One of the things Abp Den Bul explained was that in his culture sexuality of any sort is simply not discussed. So it isn’t just misinformation (though there is plenty of that) but also lack of information, coupled with a cultural unwillingness, or at least resistance, to even talking about heterosexuality. At one point the Abp said emphatically, “For me it is not about gay or not. We are all children of God.” This helps me to understand others in the Global South who keep saying, “This is not our issue.” It is partly that they don’t want… Read more »
I’d like to hear more about the Ugandan bishop in exile. He does not seem to be taking the same line as his not-in-exile Primate. Is he invited / will he be going to Lambeth?
I’d just like to say that we in the Diocese of Missouri planted seeds even before Tobias and his friends in NY had a chance to do so. [Yeah, I know that we folks in fly-over country will never get any recognition.] Archbishop Daniel of Sudan came to Missouri before moving on to New York. We had several events for him, including some social events in which people were introduced to him with “and this is my partner xxx.” But my hat’s especially off to Tobias and the NY folks for hosting a gay/lesbian discussion. We were afraid to do… Read more »
“It is partly that they don’t want it to be an issue, but also that it distracts them from their primary mission” This is much the same attitude in my parish, actually, and one that I very much appreciate. We are an aging parish trying to reignite the spirit of mission that was once at our core. We are in a downtown neighbourhood where people are so cut off from the Church that a couple of Sundays ago, during a baptism, one of the party, during the sermon, took out a cel phone and ordered a pizza for afterwards! One… Read more »
Ford “SSBs are not on our radar, and our inherent discomfort with change, especially at a time when we are painfully trying to make changes, will keep it off the radar for a while yet, hopefully” Last Saturday we were at a dinner party where the host, an ordinand, asked God’s blessing on a plate of fishballs and pasta. I really do fail to see why relationships should come lower in the hierarchy of things God could be asked to bestow his blessings on than spaghetti. Bearing in mind, the church doesn’t DO the actual blessing, it is stimply asking… Read more »
Malcolm, it’s Bishop Ben Ogwal; he left Uganda in fear for his live during the Amin years — his son (IIRC) had been murdered. He served in Central Pennsylvania for some years before coming to NY, where he serves at a parish and occasionally functions to help out with episcopal duties. He was a very good presence at the meeting, not at all in line with the present Primate of his homeland; but I don’t know if he is invited to Lambeth. Lisa, thanks for the good word on the seeds planted in Missouri. That’s good farm country and I… Read more »
@Erika Baker:
Surely you knew about St. Gregory of Nyssa’s extended treatise on the sacramental nature of fishballs.
Or was that meatloaf? Well, my dad always claimed my mom’s meatloaf was divine…
“I really do fail to see why relationships should come lower in the hierarchy of things God could be asked to bestow his blessings on than spaghetti.” Well, maybe there is a reason. Heterosexual sex is inextricably linked with reproduction, which is a sharing in the creative nature of God. Non-procreative sex is therefore a different thing, and “different” here doesn’t mean inferior. Matrimony is not about validating relationships, though that is what straight people use it for. It is about asking God’s blessing on a state that shares His creativity. This idea is ancient, and quite pagan, which is… Read more »
Ford but why equate “relationship” with “sex” and link “creativity” with proceation only, as though that was the only creative act in any human relationship? When I got married I certainly did not think the church was simply blessing my sex life. And no-one ever says that childless marriages are not sharing in God’s creative nature. Have you read Tobias Haller’s articles on this on his blog? But I wasn’t talking about marrying straight couples vs blessing same sex ones. I am questioning the deep feelings against asking God to bless a relationship between 2 human beings, ANY relationship between… Read more »
A stumbling block seems to be the word “blessing”, I think the word “invocation” would more appropriate Ford and Erika.
Something that is happening in the U.S. is the emergence of “gated communities”, where alike minds/wealth/political/social categories live in great independence from others. This in part is what is fueling the split in the Episcopal Church. It isn’t that we aren’t talking to one another (without cell phone/e-mail/text messaging/crackberry interuptions (did I say distractions?)). We aren’t even living near one another. Something that I think hasn’t been met upon yet in the west of England or Newfoundland, yet.
Erika, Because sex is the only act that creates human life. Humans are creative in many ways, granted, but surely there’s a lot more significance, “Cosmic significance”, in the creation of a human being than in the creation of a work of art, however great that art is. What’s more, I don’t agree with your comparison of Harvest blessings with SSBs. You may not agree, but there are many for whom homosexual sex is a sin. It is part of a gay relationship, so to bless that relationship is to bless, among other things that may be good and beneficial,… Read more »
I would note that in the latest issue of The Living Church (North America) that there was an article about “The Blessing of Bikes (Motorcycles)”.
Why we get so worked up about (usually somebody else’s) sex is beyond me. I think it ultimately comes from an outright abhorrence of nature, and sex reminds us of very much a part of this earth we are.
Ford
I didn’t ignore your last comment, we’ve been away for a few days.
I hear what you’re saying but I do begin to think our conversation about this is going round and round in the same circles.
I’ve asked you before whether you’ve read Tobias Haller’s thoughts on this. It would be really good if we could move our debate on a little instead of both of us reiterating the same points again and again.
“say, Akinola or Duncan or Venebles blithely talk so poorly of me as nothing but a exemplary problem of evil – in Akinola’s case as a cancer which needs to be obliterated? – if he sat at dinner in my home across from my partner and children?” – DrDanFee Good DrDan, Akinola would in a heartbeat. He has no use whatsoever for gay people, except as a tool to attack anything that doesn’t smack of his form of orthodoxy. He is lead cheerleader of a Nigerian government effort to crack down harshly on all gay people. Any meeting of gay… Read more »