Telegraph George Pitcher Anglicans struggle to find a safe place for sex
Times Ruth Gledhill’s blog Lambeth Diary: ‘Pastoral Forum’ proposed
The Bishop of New Westminster, Michael Ingham and the Bishop of Mississippi, Duncan Gray gave statements to the WCG hearing. Both can be read by scrolling down at this page.
ENS has video of last night’s news conference about the document, here.
Integrity issued a press release, LGBT Anglicans Back on Chopping Block
The Inclusive Communion response is available as a PDF here.
10 CommentsBBC Robert Pigott Oppose gay bishops, Anglicans urged
Guardian Riazat Butt Anglican forum to deal with controversial issues in bid to heal rift between factions
Telegraph Martin Beckford Archbishop of Canterbury to create group to punish rule-breaking Anglican churches
The Times Ruth Gledhill Anglicans to halt gay bishop consecrations and same-sex blessings
Anglican Journal Marites Sison Proposal calls for moratorium on same-sex blessings and gay ordinations
ENS Mary Frances Schjonberg Windsor Continuation Group proposals on homosexuality issues, interventions, get mixed reception
Living Church Steve Waring ‘Time Out’ Proposed at Lambeth Conference
25 CommentsUpdated and republished 11 pm Monday Originally published at 7 pm
The full text of the Preliminary Observations issued by the Windsor Continuation Group is now available at ACNS.
Windsor Continuation Group – Preliminary Observations to the Lambeth Conference (Parts 1, 2 and 3)
This document is NOT a report by the Windsor Continuation Group. It constitutes their preliminary observations on the life of the Communion and of the current state of responses to the recommendations of the Windsor Report, and offering some suggestions about the way forward. These observations are offered to the Lambeth Conference for conversation and testing. Are they an accurate description of the current state of our life together?
Update at 11 pm Monday
The document as published by ACNS currently lacks the final page of the paper version which reads
Update 2 pm Tuesday
The omission described above has now been corrected.
Ministering “pastorally and sensitively to all”.
The WCG note that the Resolution 1.10 of Lambeth 1998 included a call for “all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriage and any trivialisation and commercialisation of sex”.
We further note that in Dromantine in January 2005, the primates stated that “the victimisation or diminshment of human beings whose affections happen to be ordered towards people of the same sex is anathema to us. We assure homosexual people that they are children of God, loved and valued by him, and deserving of the best we can give of pastoral care and friendship”.
We believe that the time is ripe for the bishops of the Lambeth Conference to reaffirm the commitments expressed in these statements, and to invite them to be committed to challenging such attitudes where they may exist in the societies, churches and governments of the nations in which they proclaim the Gospel as good news for all without exception.
Also, there are problems with the two links to PDF files at the bottom of the ACNS page. One of those links is to the PDF version of the same document(s), which contains the same omission, and the other is a PDF version of the first draft of the Indaba process document, but I am unable to open it on a Macintosh.
58 CommentsAnother interview by Pat Ashworth was in last week’s Church Times and is with Archbishop of South-East Asia. Read Clarity needed before next ACC — Archbishop Chew.
9 CommentsArchbishop Deng’s suggestion that 500 of the bishops had been present at a meeting of provinces of the Global South on Monday was described by someone who had been there as a huge over-estimate: the number was around 150. But his claim that 17 provinces agreed with the statement was thought extremely likely to be accurate by the Archbishop of South-East Asia, the Most Revd John Chew…
…“Sudan came out with the statement for reasons of their own, and felt they had to say something. It was important for them to make that statement, and we appreciate them for that. I don’t think you will find any of the Global South provinces disagreeing with what they say. The way they put it will be coming from Sudan, but the essence — yes.”
Archbishop Chew had not studied the statement, but there was nothing new in it, he suggested: it repeated Windsor and was consistent with the Primates’ statement from Dromantine. “They are not calling for anything new, which would have been unfair. They are saying that if we do not take up what we have committed [ourselves to] seriously, then even in the eyes of the secular world, our credibility is reduced…”
Pat Ashworth at the Church Times blog has interviewed the Bishop of Botswana, read it in full here.
19 CommentsTHE FURORE over the Archbishop of Sudan’s comments last week is dying down: a bit of excitement that grabbed all the headlines, including our own. The story is moving on. But many have since observed that the official statement on sexuality that came from the Sudanese House of Bishops (and with which 17 provinces concurred) did not contain a call for Gene Robinson’s resignation. That came in the afternoon press conference, a day after the statement was put into circulation.
Bishop Peter Lee of Virginia was one of those expressing puzzlement. “We had a meeting of six to eight American bishops with Sudanese bishops, all having diocesan links. It was a very helpful meeting because we respect and appreciate the Sudanese position and at the same time welcome their commitment to remain in relationship with us: we accept that we have much to learn from them and they seem to welcome our participation in their lives,” he said on Saturday.
“Archbishop Deng Bul made it clear at the press conference. He was asked what he would do if he were Gene Robinson. It was a speculative question and he said if he was Gene Robinson, he would resign. It was not a formal call from the Sudanese bishops. He did not repeat that to us as a demand at all.”
The Bishop of Botswana, Trevor Mwamba, was even more forthright on the discrepancy between the statement and the views expressed later by Archbishop Deng. “My personal view is that it wasn’t helpful at all. I can understand where they are coming from in being in a Muslim context. But having said that, I am also aware that somebody organised that position. In the context of the conference it’s regrettable that it was done but here are other factors at play and we need to name those factors.
“We are using each other at times for ends which are not constructive. That’s just one example of people being used. Another is that people are continuously talking up the absence of our brothers from four African provinces from this meeting. But the point is that a lot of those brothers of ours – 200 is a nice round figure – would have wanted to come here. That’s important to say.”
Bishop Mwamba described the situation as it had been in Uganda, “where a special Synod is organised and provision passed which would penalise any bishop coming to the Lambeth Conference. That denied freedom of expression in terms of any individual bishop. The invitation to Lambeth is in the gift of the archbishop and it is up to a particular bishop, not a particular province, to say I will come or I won’t come.
“What are we saying about our leadership styles? It was the same in Nigeria- many would have been glad to come. So when they say 200 of our brothers have boycotted the conference – definitely no. Maybe given the freedom, one or two would have stayed behind. It must be clearly understood: the reason why they didn’t come is that they were forced not to come.” He finds it therefore a paradox that while they stay at home, some of the American allies who have been working with them – for example, Bishop Robert Duncan and others – are here…
Changing Attitude reports that:
UK grants asylum to Director of Changing Attitude Nigeria
As Ruth Gledhill notes on her blog about this, Lambeth Diary: Nigerian gay Christian activist granted asylum:
This is extremely rare here and a clear indication of how seriously the British Government is taking the attacks and threats made against him in Nigeria. It will also surely send a signal to bishops meeting here about this whole issue, to be on the agenda of indaba groups this week…
and the Church of Nigeria still has this statement on its official website.
30 CommentsI spent all of Friday and Saturday at the conference, staying overnight on campus. Some of each day was spent in the Marketplace, where I was helping Dave Walker, the cartoonist, who has a stall there selling his products, but obviously he can’t be on the stand at the same time as he is being cartoonist in a tent elsewhere on the campus.
All of the bishops I talked to so far have been positive about the state of progress, though I did see a few eyebrows raised when I told them what Rowan Williams had said to the press on Friday about the success rate of Indaba groups (around 80% going as expected).
Jim Naughton spent some time on Saturday trying to assess where the Conference had got to so far, see Live: where things stand. As I am quoted there saying that it was late in the 1998 conference before things started to get really difficult, I thought it might be useful to link here to what I wrote on the corresponding Sunday of 1998. I titled it then “calm before the storm”.
Tom Wright wrote a letter home about the Lambeth Conference so far. Read it on Fulcrum at Mid-Lambeth Conference Letter to the Diocese of Durham. He also seems reasonably up-beat about progress to date. I must admit I thought one of the most interesting tidbits of information was:
this is the first time for nearly a year that I have had more than seven consecutive nights in the same bed
which seems quite remarkable given that the Diocese of Durham covers only 987 square miles according to the CofE Year Book, and thus on the small side by global communion standards.
However, it does put into context the problem he had last Saturday when, while he was giving all those interviews to newspaper reporters, he was at the same time trying desperately to find his missing robes to wear for the opening service. In the event, he had to go without, as they had not been posted to him from Bishop Auckland, as planned. (The parcel which at one time was thought to contain the Bishop of Durham’s convocation robes turned out in the end to contain the shoes of the Bishop of Chile.)
I talked to Archbishop Phillip Aspinall fairly late on Saturday afternoon, and was rather surprised to discover that he had no idea at all of that morning’s (rather sensational) UK national newspaper headlines about the conference. This would not be surprising for your average jobbing bishop attending the conference, but he is after all the frontman for the official daily press conferences and I would expect someone or other to have made sure he was properly briefed before that started (at 1.30 pm).
More generally, and more worryingly, the bishops did not seem to be aware of the documents being issued by official bodies like the Windsor Continuation Group to the conference and also to the press. I am left wondering how such information is being disseminated INSIDE the conference itself.
13 CommentsThe Telegraph has a report by Jonathan Wynne-Jones which is headlined Homosexual bishops face Anglican Church ban.
This refers to the third report from the Windsor Continuation Group, which is due to be released on Monday afternoon. See here for the first and second reports. According to Wynne-Jones the third one will say:
The paper, “How do we get from here to there?”, stresses that it is vital that an Anglican Covenant be agreed so that churches around the world are mutually accountable and united by a common set of beliefs. This must happen as soon as possible, it says, to prevent further haemorrhaging of the Anglican Communion over the issue of homosexual clergy.
Until a consensus is reached, the American and Canadian churches must refrain from consecrating more homosexual bishops and carrying out blessing services for same-sex couples, the paper says.
If they do not, they will face being pushed to the margins of the communion and find themselves excluded from the councils that are central to the governance of the Church.
This was of course what the original Windsor Report recommended in 2004. But it also recommended an end to boundary crossings, and now it seems that recommendation may also be repeated:
The African churches, which oppose having practising homosexuals in the clergy, will be told that they must stop intervening in the affairs of other churches as their actions are deepening the rift.
Nigerian and Ugandan archbishops have taken control of dozens of parishes in America and Canada opposed to a liberal agenda.
It seems extraordinarily unlikely that the Nigerians, Ugandans, and indeed the Kenyans or Rwandans, would now agree to undo this, no matter what TEC or ACC agreed to do.
The Sunday Times published a long interview with Bishop Gene Robinson by Rosie Millard.
The BBC reports on a sermon given by Rowan Williams at St Dunstan’s Church, Canterbury today and broadcast on BBC Radio 4, in Anglicans ‘must resolve tensions’. The full text of the sermon is here.
22 CommentsRowan Williams writes in the Guardian about A new spiritual politics of limits
Terry Philpot writes in Face to Faith about how The Catholic church has done much lately to protect children, but little to protect priests.
Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about John Donne on a chill island
In The Times the Credo column is written by the Archbishop of Sydney. No, not that one, the other one. See World Youth Day took Sydney by storm and prayer.
Earlier Simon Barrow wrote on Ekklesia about Peacemaking after Christendom. Read more about his book Fear or Freedom?: Why a Warring Church Must Change.
In the Church Times Giles Fraser wrote Try being transformed by joy.
7 CommentsHere’s a piece I wrote for Lambeth Witness. It’s in this issue here (PDF).
Lambeth: The View from the English Pew
by Simon Sarmiento
Thinking Anglicans
I’m fairly sure the average English churchgoer thinks that the Lambeth Conference is something of great importance to bishops. After all it gives them a chance to get away from home with their wives for over two weeks, and the Church Commissioners will pick up the full tab. Unlike their American counterparts, they are already accustomed to the primitive plumbing facilities of English university residence halls, which they experience every July when General Synod goes to York. But hey, it’s free.
I don’t believe though that many Church of England (CofE) parishioners think that the Lambeth Conference is of importance to them. They know that the Church of England is ultimately controlled by Parliament, via powers delegated to the General Synod, but they also know that the General Synod is very rarely able to agree on anything very quickly, if at all. So the chance of anything changing in their parish church because of something a Sudanese bishop said is rather remote.
And most parishioners know that what the national newspapers and television tell them about the CofE is rubbish anyway. They know this because their parish clergy, especially those who are members of General Synod, tell them this all the time.
And because the average churchgoer doesn’t read the Church Times, the only thing they will ever learn about Lambeth is what they hear in the pulpit. Lots of sermons have been preached in England recently about the Conference, and how important it is to pray for the bishops, including those not coming. In fact the main thing most people know about this conference is that hundreds of bishops are staying away. They may not be very clear about why this is, but one thing they are all certain of: it’s not the Church of England’s fault.
4 Comments(I realise earlier reports for the past couple of days are missing, but I will start the catch-up process with the most recent material.)
Guardian Riazat Butt Lambeth Conference: Archbishop of Canterbury backs Anglican ‘Holy Office’
Telegraph Martin Beckford Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams backs ‘Anglican Inquisition’
The Times Ruth Gledhill Anglican version of the ‘inquisition’ proposed to avoid future schism
What is this about? It is about this document, available here. Right at the end is this sentence:
The Common Principles of Canon law Project ( Anglican Communion Legal Advisers Network) gives a sense of the integrity of Anglicanism and we commend the suggestion for the setting up of an Anglican Communion Faith and Order Commission that could give guidance on ecclesiological issues raised by our current ‘crisis’.
Ruth Gledhill explains further in her blog, Lambeth Diary: Anglican ‘Holy Office’.
Robert Pigott has a diary entry for 25 July about this press conference, see Agreeing to Disagree here.
In the Church Times blog Pat Ashworth had Rowan on ecumenism – all in the same boat.
And here is the Anglican Journal report on this story, by Marites Sison Proposal calls for creation of Faith and Order Commission
and Episcopal News Service has this report by Mary Frances Schjonberg, Lambeth Conference begins considering ‘difficult situations’
and Religious Intelligence has a report by George Conger Lambeth: Is Inquisition on the cards?
and the Living Church has a report by Steve Waring Archbishop: Communion Faith and Order Commission Gains Momentum.
This week’s Church Times press column is available on day of publication and is written by the Editor himself.
Read Press: Saying no to the media by Paul Handley which includes this:
46 Comments…THE RELATIONSHIP between the press and the conference organisers — mediated through the media team — is deteriorating nicely. Having been told earlier that journalists could not attend the cell groups, the indaba groups, or the “self-select” seminars, and some of the plenaries, it was found that the fringe meetings were also out of bounds, unless the meeting organiser agreed otherwise. A journalist had been ejected from a meeting (on the subject of mediation) the previous evening.
The latest news was that members of the press were also barred from the 7.15 a.m. eucharist, because “it is important for bishops and their wives to be able to worship freely”. The image conjured up was of obtrusive television interviews being conducted at the communion rail. Journalists do actually know how to behave themselves during services. It felt like dragging our Lord into the organisational pettiness. The least the organisers could do is to lay on a public eucharist before the bishops’ service.
THE OTHER ROW on Tuesday was about a list of those attending. This has not yet been forthcoming — and might never come forth — because of “security reasons” (10.30 a.m. press conference) or “privacy laws” (1.30 p.m. press conference).
We did wonder, briefly, whether the security reasons had something to do with Radovan Karadzic masquerading as Rowan Williams (see below); but the Archbishop later visited Dave Walker’s cartoon tent, and there was no hint of a Serbian accent.
Lots of press questions were about the presence of bishops from provinces that had previously announced that they were boycotting the conference. “Nigerian bishops” (10.30 a.m. press conference) changed to “a fax from a Nigerian bishop indicating that he was coming” by 1.30 p.m. “So,” a German reporter asked dryly, “the fax is here but not the bishop?”
After a tetchy discussion about all these restrictions, a journalist asked, without a hint of irony: “What, then, is the point of our being here?” A member of the media team said grumpily afterwards: “Well, you asked to come here.”
Church Times leader: Wheat and tares in Canterbury
Economist Going their own way, by God
Comment is free Theo Hobson The Anglican communion has never been stranger
International Herald Tribune Chloe Breyer The Anglican Church’s shifting center
18 CommentsCommon Cause Partnership Welcomes Jerusalem Declaration.
The statement includes this:
The intention of the CCP Executive Committee is to petition the Primates Council for recognition of the CCP as the North American Province of GAFCON on the basis of the Common Cause Partnership Articles, Theological Statement, and Covenant Declaration, and to ask that the CCP Moderator be seated in the Primates Council.
Comment on this is collected at Episcopal Café see Petition for a North American province of Gafcon.
42 CommentsPat Ashworth writes on the Church Times blog about this.
See The Lambeth Conference: Keeping the media at arm’s length.
…Our morning press briefings bristle with tension and frustration. The Church House communications team are brilliant: they go the extra mile for us every time and are taking all the flak for whatever higher authority has decreed that we cannot have a list of the 670 bishops who are said to be present. Lawyers and privacy laws have been mentioned. Today we are told there will be a list, but that bishops can decline to be on it. So our readers worldwide – whose Church this is – cannot know whether their bishop turned up or not…
…It’s the story of our lives, speaking to somebody afterwards, if they’ll speak to you at all. It’s second-hand reporting. It just won’t do. None of the bishops’ seminar options, the ‘self-select sessions’, are open to us. I look at the range of issues and am desperate to sit at the feet at some of the renowned people from all over the globe who are leading them.
Here is everything that matters, everything the Church should be engaging with. What wouldn’t I give to go to The Deadly Co-epidemic of Tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS, chaired by the Archbishop of Cape Town? Or The Consequences of Climate Change in Sub-Saharan Africa? I want to know about the Church’s role in peace building and conflict resolution. The mission challenges posed by eastern spiritualities. Christian responsibility in relation to the Holy Land. And the rest.
I want to hear it from the horse’s mouth. I want to see the flashpoints, hear the burning things I hope the bishops want to say from their own contexts. I don’t want someone else to tell me what was said. The conference is heavily in debt and there’s all the more need for us to know it is doing its work. The only result of keeping the media at arm’s length like this will be the headlines that everyone’s expecting and nobody wants.
Let me repeat that last sentence:
The only result of keeping the media at arm’s length like this will be the headlines that everyone’s expecting and nobody wants.
9 CommentsThe Times Ruth Gledhill
Bishops invited to give tribal politics a go at the Lambeth Conference
and Cardinal Ivan Dias: Anglican Church suffering spiritual Alzheimer’s
Also Lambeth voices: a panel of Anglican bishops share their views with Faith Online
Guardian Riazat Butt
Call at Lambeth for gay bishop to resign post
and Cardinal accuses Anglican Communion of ‘spiritual Alzheimer’s’
Also Conference diary
Telegraph Martin Beckford
Liberal churches have ‘spiritual Alzheimer’s’, claims Vatican cardinal
and Church needs a miracle to survive, says Archbishop [this is not Rowan Williams speaking]
BBC Robert Pigott
Lambeth diary: Anglicans in turmoil
and Anglicans accused of ‘demonising’ Windsor Continuation Group
Religious Intelligence George Conger
Vatican official in warning to Anglican bishops
and Akinola: Conference attendance ‘is immaterial’
Updated
This evening, the other statement issued yesterday by the Sudanese bishops has been published by ACNS. This is headed Statement of the Sudanese Bishops to the Lambeth Conference on the Situation in Sudan and it starts out with this:
We, the Sudanese Bishops gathering at the Lambeth Conference, would like on behalf of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan (ECS) and the whole Sudanese people, to acknowledge and appreciate your prayers and support during the 21 years of war in Southern Sudan and in reaching the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement / Army (SPLM/A) on 9th January 2005. The CPA provides the basis for a just and sustainable peace in the Sudan. We give thanks to God for the agreement and express our support for all efforts to ensure its full and timely implementation.
After 21 years of war, in which more than 2 million people lost their lives and more than 4 million people have become refugees or internally displaced, we are greatly encouraged at the new future offered by the CPA. However, we remain deeply concerned that the conflict in Darfur, in Western Sudan, continues unabated, and at the localized conflict in several places which threatens stability and the sustainability of peace…
Please do read it all.
A helpfully annotated copy with hyperlinks added, can be found here. Thank you, Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation.
8 Comments(This article has been delayed, sorry.)
More4News, the programme produced by the Channel 4 News team for the More4 digital channel, had a report Tuesday evening on the Lambeth Conference, and the Bishop of New Hampshire. You can watch the report by going here.
Anglican Journal has Lambeth Conference will deal with ‘breakdown of trust’ by Marites Sison concerning the Windsor Continuation Group.
And also, Zimbabwe talks provide ‘a little hope’, says bishop.
The full text of the presentation by Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples in the Roman Catholic Church, can be read on ACNS at The church needs apologists, not apologisers, Cardinal Dias says.
ACNS had two articles relating to the presentation by Brian McLaren on Monday evening. See Evangelist praises passion of bishops and A chat with Brian McLaren.
1 CommentThis report about my second visit to Canterbury on Monday has been delayed, mostly because Tuesday, when I was not there, was a much more exciting day, at least for journalists. Whether this is connected to my absence, I do not know.
Anyway, when I went again to the Registration Desk, I was able to obtain the full content of the previously missing Welcome Pack content, namely a paper Campus Map.
Also from a separate IT Desk I was able to get a WiFi login for my own personal use. I have to say that the instructions for using it in conjunction with Windows XP (which is what my laptop runs) are definitely not for the faint-hearted. However, on Monday I was able to connect using the Press Room’s ethernet rather than the WiFi, and so avoided the challenge again.
During the day I attended two press briefings, one conducted by Paul Feheley of Canada and one conducted by Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of Australia. The latter was the one at which the Archbishop of Canterbury answered questions, which have been pretty thoroughly reported elsewhere already. I didn’t understand the logic of his answer about why the Bp of New Hampshire had been excluded, but then neither did most other people I talked to.
The earlier briefing was dominated by complaints from several other journalists, but Bill Bowder in particular, about being excluded from the morning and evening worship in the Big Top. I was personally surprised to discover this was the case as I distinctly recall ten years ago that these sessions were not restricted only to bishops and spouses, and plenty of outsiders attended them on various occasions. No convincing explanation of the need for this restriction has yet been offered.
I also spent time in the Marketplace. Among the exhibitors there were Inclusive Church, and also WATCH, Changing Attitude and LGCM.
LGCM, which is sponsoring the Peterson Toscano shows next week, had several interesting documents available, including this review (PDF) of the book by Phil Groves, which has been mentioned as a major resource for sexuality-related discussions at the conference. Unfortunately, Professor Michael King is not impressed by this book, although he does like a couple of chapters in it. These were not the ones written by his professional colleagues. You can read a much more favourable review of this book here, and another critical comment here. I have still not read most of it, so am reserving judgement. There is also more about the book here.
Speaking of books, I was sorry not to be there today, Wednesday, when Peter Francis, who edited the book Rebuilding Communion to which I contributed a chapter, was due to be the LGCM Guest of the Day.
At the end of the day, I went down to St Stephen’s Church for Evening Prayer. Everyone was welcome to attend this service…
8 CommentsUpdated six times Originally published at 6.27 pm
Full video of entire press conference now available from ENS, see below.
The Bishops of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan have issued a statement, which is copied in full below. In addition, the Primate of ECS held an impromptu press conference in which he stated that the Bishop of New Hampshire should resign.
Jim Naughton has reported on this here, and
Ruth Gledhill has reported on it here. Note this now includes a video of the archbishop’s remarks
Also reported by Marites Sison here.
And by George Conger Lambeth rocked as Archbishop calls on Robinson to resign.
And by Cherie Wetzel here.
Now, reported by Riazat Butt in the Guardian Gay bishop should resign for good of the church, says African archbishop
And by Ruth Gledhill in The Times Sudanese Anglicans demand gay bishop Gene Robinson resigns
And also by Martin Beckford in the Telegraph Gay bishop Gene Robinson ‘must be sacked’ to save church from schism
And Mary Frances Schjonberg for Episcopal News Service has Sudanese primate wants Robinson’s resignation
Note ENS has also has a full video recording of the entire press conference. Find it here. Navigate to the two videos by date: 07/22/08
And on Wednesday morning by Robert Pigott for the BBC Gay bishop Robinson ‘should quit’
And the Daily Mail Dismiss gay bishop, say Third World church leaders
Original Statement of the Bishops of ECS
89 CommentsIn view of the present tensions and divisions within the Anglican Communion, and out of deep concern for the unity of the Church, we consider it important to express clearly the position of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan (ECS) concerning human sexuality.
We believe that God created humankind in his own image; male and female he created them for the continuation of humankind on earth. Women and men were created as God’s agents and stewards on earth We believe that human sexuality is God’s gift to human beings which is rightly ordered only when expressed within the life-long commitment of marriage between one man and one woman. We require all those in the ministry of the Church to live according to this standard and cannot accept church leaders whose practice is contrary to this.
We reject homosexual practice as contrary to biblical teaching and can accept no place for it within ECS. We strongly oppose developments within the Anglican Church in the USA and Canada in consecrating a practicing homosexual as bishop and in approving a rite for the blessing of same-sex relationships. This has not only caused deep divisions within the Anglican Communion but it has seriously harmed the Church’s witness in Africa and elsewhere, opening the church to ridicule and damaging its credibility in a multi-religious environment.
The unity of the Anglican Communion is of profound significance to us as an expression of our unity within the Body of Christ. It is not something we can treat lightly or allow to be fractured easily. Our unity expresses the essential truth of the Gospel that in Christ we are united across different tribes, cultures and nationalities. We have come to attend the Lambeth Conference, despite the decision of others to stay away, to appeal to the whole Anglican Communion to uphold our unity and to take the necessary steps to safeguard the precious unity of the Church.
Out of love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, we appeal to the Anglican Church in the USA and Canada, to demonstrate real commitment to the requests arising from the Windsor process. In particular:
– To refrain from ordaining practicing homosexuals as bishops or priests
– To refrain from approving rites of blessing for same-sex relationships
– To cease court actions with immediate effect;
– To comply with Resolution 1:10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference
– To respect the authority of the BibleWe believe that such steps are essential for bridging the divisions which have opened up within the Communion.
We affirm our commitment to uphold the four instruments of communion of the Anglican Communion: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council; and call upon all Provinces of the Communion to respect these for the sake of the unity and well-being of the Church.
We appeal to this Lambeth Conference to rescue the Anglican Communion from being divided. We pray that God will heal us from the spirit of division. We pray for God’s strength and wisdom so that we might be built up in unity as the Body of Christ.
The Most Revd Dr Daniel Deng Bul
Archbishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan and Bishop of Juba
