Jonathan Petre reports from Columbus in the Telegraph that Williams appeals for gay compromise as US dioceses plan split:
A number of conservative Anglican dioceses are poised to break-away from the liberal American Church over the issue of homosexuality, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.
In a development that will dismay the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, several American dioceses have held secret discussions about leaving the Episcopal Church and realigning themselves to a sympathetic conservative province.
The Archbishop of York is attending the convention. His appearance caused surprise to some Americans. Ruth Gledhill has a more colourful headline for this.
First, he read a message from Rowan Williams to each house of the convention (the bishops meet entirely separately from everyone else, unlike the English synodical custom) and then he not only attended the hearing on Windsor, but actually spoke to the committee. You can find reports of what he said here and here (second link is text copied from about halfway down here). And here is a conversation Andrew Gerns had with the archbishop.
The discussion of the Windsor resolutions continues on Thursday.
The local Columbus Dispatch had this report.
For comprehensive reporting of the convention see the Episcopal News Service convention website which includes daily video reports and a daily journal in PDF format.
See this page at Anglicans Online for more links to sources, with some explanations.
For blog commentary, see Jim Naughton on Daily Episcopalian as well as Kendall Harmon on titusonenine. Ruth Gledhill is also watching what goes by on the blogs.
These dioceses if they are network and of course they are, have already left the church. They refuse to sit with other bishops or to take communion. They refuse to contribute in church mission and work. They regularly call the rest of us heretics, apostates, and pagans. They are Episcopal in name only. Perhaps my view is a minority one, but I say let them go. Our Church will be better for it. They will have a fight on their hands over property and etc but that is to be expected. The sooner these bishops place themselves under another bishop’s… Read more »
Andrew Gerns blog entry about his conversation with the Archbishop of York is fascinating and, I think, so key to this whole thing.
I think my prayers are going to shift slightly in relation to Columbus. I think the Archbishop is truly in the right place at the right time carrying a Christ-like message that we would all do well to hear deeply.
I pray he gets listened to and is able to really help ECUSA get the best possible result this week.
I have to agree with the assessment of the behaviour of some ‘conservative’ dioceses in ECUSA. They have already broken communion with the majority of their own church. The AbC is deluding himself if he thinks otherwise. His posturing and lack of leadership has allowed the axis to form and grow strong. Nipped in the bud by an early and modest expression of the limited authority accorded to his office across the Anglican Communion this whole business could have been contained. It would then have been possible to save the Anglican Communion and to talk to about what the real… Read more »
“…I say let them go. Our Church will be better for it. They will have a fight on their hands over property and etc but that is to be expected. The sooner these bishops place themselves under another bishop’s jurisdiction the sooner they may be deposed and new bishops named.‖ RMF
Amen! And about time, too!
Nothing in the Archbishop of York’s conversation avoids the great lack of Windsor. That is, it tries to engage worldwide walking together without either explicitly engaging the issues of traditional Anglican leeway or traditional Anglican provincial autonomy. Instead of leading firmly into sufficient and generous Anglican worldwide time/space, though it says it aims to do so, Windsor falls rather nicely into the bear trap set for it by conservative thinking which aims to make our journey into discernment way too closed, too lock stepped, and too incapable ahead of time of the very listening/conversation we still say we seek. The… Read more »
I laughed like a drain to see Ruth flitting to the firm right again – much as she did at Lambeth 1998 – I dare say she expects better material to come her way (even in London) from this position at this time. She is such a one, that one!
I think she had better stay there this time – it suits her style!
Oh, that Ruth G: too bad she couldn’t have been around 230 years ago, and snip that whole “USA” business in the bud! [a few choice *hangings* might have sufficed then, the Gledhills of the AC think—and might still work, to whip the “sodomy-worshippers” (term from Gledhill’s *moderated* comments) into shape today? >:-/] But the Bloody Colonials *did* break away . . . and today most Episcopalians “in the pews” (y’know, that “moderate middle” that the reasserters always *claim* are on their side?) really don’t follow English archbishoprics (and the *race* of the right-honorable office-holder thereof). So some were surprised… Read more »
I thank God for the ministry of Archbishop Sentamu. May his message be heard.
Andrew Gerns writes of ++Semantu that “He pointed out to me that the language of Windsor itself looks forward to a new consensus in the future. [- implying that with time a *new* consensus on gay sex *will* be reached]. That is the current strategy of our liberal elite in the CofE, I think. It explains the glaring ommission of debate on the homosexuality issue at GS, and the lack of agreed sanctions in the HoB rules for clergy entering CPs, and the recent strange instruction from the English HoB to clergy – that they should not ask about the… Read more »
This is nothing new. The conservative dioceses have been planning and orchestrating their movement for years now — since GC03 and before. Remember the 2003 meeting at Plano, TX, where to even get in to hear the presentations one had to sign a covenantal statement of conservative belief? They are funded by those whose interest is to break the backs of any denomination that does not fit their model of conservative “hate the sin, love the sinner but only if they change their ways”.
“This is, I suspect what the liberal elite are hoping for. By not disciplining people who make same-sex sexual partnerships they become percieved to be normal (at least by many people).” Dave, most people already do perceive same-sex sexual partnerships as normal. By disciplining clergy who live in them, the Bishops would risk a complete collapse in their authority analogous to the situation in the Roman Catholic Church over contraception, not to mention driving people out of the church altogether. You seem to think that the church needs to impose a definition of sin on lay people in order to… Read more »
That you can characterize a video showing a child’s BAPTISM as a “pro-gay-sex film”, speaks volumes about you, Dave. >:-/
A few centuries ago a supposedly loving Church, on supposedly biblical grounds, justified its burning of gay people alive at the stake; the injustices are still not over. Get on with it, people, stop playing God.
F Salmon