Thinking Anglicans

Los Angeles: Orombi's reply to Bruno

Uganda is a long way from Los Angeles, but yet was close enough to Pittsburgh for Archbishop Henry Orombi to have been a guest at their diocesan convention on 5/6 November, see picture here.

The full text of Archbishop Orombi’s reply to Bishop Bruno’s letter, dated 3 November, inviting him to come to a meeting in Los Angeles, has now been published. You can read that reply here. The original report about Bishop Bruno’s invitation is here.

The letter from Orombi concludes:

Our churches in Los Angeles came to us like children who were running away from home, and we have offered them a safe place to be. So for us, the first question that must be asked is Why are they running away? We didn’t look for them or hunt for them. We are responding to a need. And, we will continue to respond to a need until the local problem is resolved; we will not relinquish them into a spiritually dangerous situation. Therefore, we see no need for a meeting until you and the Diocese of Los Angeles have repented of your participation in and promotion of unbiblical behavior and teaching.

What the Windsor Report said was (my emphasis added):

150. In these circumstances we call upon the church or province in question to recognise first that dissenting groups in their midst are, like themselves, seeking to be faithful members of the Anglican family; and second, we call upon all the bishops concerned, both the ‘home’ bishops and the ‘intervening’ bishops as Christian leaders and pastors to work tirelessly to rebuild the trust which has been lost.

and also:

155. We call upon those bishops who believe it is their conscientious duty to intervene in provinces, dioceses and parishes other than their own:

* to express regret for the consequences of their actions
* to affirm their desire to remain in the Communion, and
* to effect a moratorium on any further interventions.

We also call upon these archbishops and bishops to seek an accommodation with the bishops of the dioceses whose parishes they have taken into their own care.

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Milton
Milton
19 years ago

Apparently there are some “recommendations” of the Windsor Report that Bishop Bruno is himself choosing to ignore. While he himself has said he would not perform any more same-sex blessings, he will not prohibit priests in his diocese from doing them. Some bishops with principle and backbone have said there will be NO same-sex blessings in their diocese while they are bishop, our own Bishop Herlong in Diocese of Tennessee among them. Let’s look at what caused this crisis in the first place, namely the abandonment of obedience to the plain teachings of Scripture revealed by its ultimate author, the… Read more »

David Huff
David Huff
19 years ago

“Some bishops with principle and backbone…” You mean like Bishop Bruno ? Or Bishop Johnson of W. Tenn. (if you want a conservative) ? People with the guts to do the right thing in the face of constant vitriol from the “orthodox” organizations like the AAC/”Network”/whatever they’re calling themselves this month ? Hey, if we’re gonna talk about backbone, how about +Gene Robinson ? He has to face more hateful garbage than *any* of these others, to say nothing of wearing a bulletproof vest out in public (BTW, I’ve always wondered, are the ultra-conservatives *proud* of the fact that +Robinson… Read more »

Milton
Milton
19 years ago

David, I’d be interested in even one actual quote of “vitriol” from AAC or ACN or the continuing Anglican groups. Please don’t set up non-Christian crackpots like Fred Phelps (“God hates fags”) as your straw men to knock down; no one in their right mind takes those pathetic cases as serious representatives of orthodoxy. As for +Gene Robinson wearing a bulletproof vest, why does he? Has there been even the hint of an attempt to attack him physically, or verbal threats made to him? Please quote them, if you know of any. Of course, if you take the pointing out… Read more »

J. C. Fisher
19 years ago

“he has broken canons referring to divorce without cause (Jesus allowed only one cause, adultery; Paul also allowed abandonment, neither of which +Gene’s ex-wife committed)” While I do not for a moment want to suggest that +Gene’s ex-wife Isabelle committed adultery or abandoned him, the (happy) fact remains that she remarried long before +Gene even _met_ his partner Mark. In the interpretation of most Anglicans (I believe), +Gene would be entitled to remarry without ecclesiastical hindrance (it’s only the *gender* of the marital partner that is at issue here). Milton, much of the rest of your words strike me as… Read more »

David Huff
David Huff
19 years ago

“I’d be interested in even one actual quote of “vitriol” from AAC or ACN or the continuing Anglican groups.” My goodness, such a “target-rich” environment you’ve given me 🙂 OK, how about practically anything on the website VirtueOnline http://www.virtueonline.org/ ? (esp. in the comment sections, they’re *overflowing* with Christian love 😉 Or Nigeria’s Archbishop Peter Akinola who infamously branded gay people as “worse than dogs and pigs” ? And no, you *don’t* get to discount Fred Phelps. He is as much a creature of the Christian Right as retired Bishop Jack Spong is supposedly of the progressive wing. (BTW, as… Read more »

Milton
Milton
19 years ago

J. C. Fisher, I am certainly willing to repent of sin pointed out to me. But reading your post, I can’t quite tell what sin you are finding in me, other than, perhaps, disagreeing with your interpretations of Scripture, which seem to be in line with the reappraisers view. That view rejects the clear consensus of nearly 2000 yrs. straight back to the church fathers who walked with Jesus while He walked this earth. Of course, this makes me, since I disagree with you, narrow-minded and in some unspecified error. Complacency is not something I think applies to me nowadays,… Read more »

Milton
Milton
19 years ago

One issue I did not comment on from J. C.’s post. For +Gene to divorce his now ex-wife without Scriptural cause is enough to disqualify him from being a bishop, or a priest, for that matter. The fact that most Anglicans and probably most Christians take pre-marital sex (guilty myself and have paid a heavy price for that in hindsight), adultery, divorce, and remarriage so lightly and in near-total ignorance or defiance of Scriptural teaching simply shows how far, far, indeed we have fallen. You’re right, +Gene or his partner’s gender has no bearing on his previous divorce, though gay… Read more »

Christopher Shell
Christopher Shell
19 years ago

It reminds me of the old saying: If you want people to believe something is true, just continue saying it often enough, and they will start to believe it, or at least to think it is more plausible. Likewise with divorce. Divorce has never been other than hateful and (generally speaking) dominically forbidden. How can its frequency in modern American culture change this? Modern American culture is irrelevant to the case. But it does explain why people now take it more lightly. It is nothing to do with its being less bad. It is everything to do with people becoming… Read more »

J. C. Fisher
19 years ago

“though gay marriage WAS spoken against by Jesus [:] “For God made them male and female, and for this cause a man shall leave his mother, and a woman shall leave her father, and the two shall become one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined, let no man put asunder.” Now see, this is what drives me absolutely nuts! (and makes me most “disagreeable” I suspect): where, in the above quote, is the phrase *”gay marriage”*??? [To the response “Well, that’s the clear implication/plain meaning/logical inference, etc. etc.”, I can only say “No, that’s *your* implication, meaning, inference: not Jesus’s.”]… Read more »

Milton
Milton
19 years ago

J. C., first let me say I do not feel angered or attacked by you and I hear coming through your posts a person I think would like very much were I to meet you in person. Your same-sex attraction is not a threat to me, nor does it give me any feelings of loathing for you or superiority over you. I do wonder how you can miss Jesus’ lack of defining marriage as male-male or female-female when He had a golden opportunity for a “teachable moment” to us slow learners. As for the Holy Spirit apparently telling you that… Read more »

Milton
Milton
19 years ago

Some rebuttals to David Huff’s claims. Blaming conservatives for Fred Phelps and the “religious right” is somewhat like blaming Jesus for the Crusades. Neither Phelps nor the religious right seems to have read the Bible very much and grace and forgiveness apparently are foreign concepts to them. Jesus said His kingdom was not of this world, but the religious right seems very much interested in temporal power, unlike the issues that drive Anglican conservatives. On the other hand, Jack Spong denies virtually every defining characteristic of Christianity, leaving only a Unitarian-flavored mush. His Jesus is simply a radical reformer who… Read more »

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