This is the title of a publication from the Chicago Consultation.
As the press release says:
Earlier this month, diocesan standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction were formally notified of the election of the Rev. Mary Glasspool as bishop suffragan in the Diocese of Los Angeles. Bishop-elect Glasspool is the second openly gay, partnered person to be elected bishop in the Anglican Communion.
The 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal Church affirmed, through Resolution D025, that God calls partnered gay and lesbian people to all orders of ministry in the Episcopal Church. The Chicago Consultation believes that this position is consistent with traditional Anglican polity and theology. To aid standing committees and bishops with their role in the consent process, we have published a collection of essays by eminent theologians across the Episcopal Church…
God’s Call and Our Response is available as a PDF file.
It is is edited by the Rev. Dr. Ruth A. Meyers, Hodges-Haynes Professor of Liturgics at Church Divinity School of the Pacific. It includes essays by:
More about the Chicago Consultation here.
A brief look at Dr Hall’s paper suggests Rowan Williams would find it useful. “We are a church that determines membership and status by behaviours rather than belief.” “Because bishops serve the whole church, he (bishop White, author of the Episcopal system) deemed their election needed to be ratified by the whole church as a mark of unity.” “the consent process serves as a check on a diocese electing a bishop who has been otherwise demonstrated as unfit …” for “advocating theological positions clearly outside the norms of Anglican practice.” bearing in mind the first of Dr Hall’s maxims that… Read more »
Friend Martin, Perhaps you might try reading Dr. Hall’s essay with a generous spirit. I believe he fairly states how the Episcopal Church operates. I have participated in several elections of bishops, and as a member of my diocese’s standing committee confirmed elections of bishops in other dioceses, and I have voted to confirm bishops as a deputy to General Convention. Episcopalians look to the Bible to form our faith and the Book of Common Prayer for statements of belief, but we do not consider our church a “confessional” church. It is in worship that belief finds expression, i.e., in… Read more »
“We have been wrongly tempted to believe that we must choose between relationships in the worldwide Anglican Communion and full participation of all of our baptized sisters and brothers, including those who are LGBT.” – Dr. Ruth Meyers, Chicago Consultation – This statement, by Dr. Ruth Meyers, epitomises the struggle that many have – in TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada – with the expectation of those opposed to their prophetic stance on the inclusion of women and the LGBT community in the life, ministry and governance of both Churches. To insist that TEC and the A.C,of C. have,… Read more »
Thanks Tom
I can of course read this piece in the spirit it was written, though I think it might have briefly mentioned and commented on the consents process for South Carolina and Kevin Thew Forester.
My background leads me to read all material in this genre from a position that is not my own.
I will try and read the rest later today. The first essay rather put me off.
By the way, I was very critical of the document TEC brought to the ACC as its “defence” against accusations of heterodoxy. Not that I didn’t stand with every word (well nearly!) of To Set Our Hope on Christ, just I thought it flawed and weak and amazingly insubstantial coming from a church with so many resources at a very significant time etc etc
Yet even recently when I made a critical comment about it on liberal blog the moderator did not publish it.
THAT attitude is our undoing.
Martin, you aren’t alone in thinking that TEC’s response at Nottingham could have been more robust. We are forever attempting to say what we mean without offending anyone. Too often we err on this side of not offending anyone.
Well in a cursory read, I hear this set of essays from Chicago as a strong call for Big Tent Anglicanisms to globally recall the customary or traditional Anglican vitamins of agreeing to disagree while we continue in common prayer. Sad and puzzling that we hardly ever hear this sort of strong call, Big Tent plus Agreeing to Disagree plus Continuing in Common Prayer – from, say, Rowan Williams personally (occupationally? You’d think he was chief cook and bottle washer in Big Tent Church Life, alas, but not so far?); from one of the ballyhooed Instruments of Communion aka Unity;… Read more »