Really, for such a large and established organization, the C of E and the Communion in general are really behaving like the "not quite ready for prime time players" (to steal a phrase from Saturday Night Live). The amateurish nature of the press relations is astounding. It seems to play directly into the meme that the Communion and the Conference are in disarray and unraveling at the seams. An adversarial relationship with the press seldom produces an atmosphere where you can get your positive message out. It just makes it seem that you are hiding something (and not doing it very effectively)

I think the whole press assumption and attitudes around Lambeth have been deeply revealing and depressing - why should they have any access when their only agenda is to stir the whole gay question with stunts like the Daniel Deng interview by The Times. The answer to the journalists question is that there probably is not any point in being there unless they are prepared to genuinely report what is actually happening (rather than what their Editors and the demands of the front page want to happen)- and of course it is a dated media which has been superseded by the whole internet and bloggers real accounts of what is happening. Congratulations to the Lambeth media team for their skilful handling of the press (lessons learned at last)and for yesterdays wonderful march - now there is a real story for the Times et al to cover.

As a sometimes journalist, I can tell the Lambeth organizers that the only thing you get when you bar journalists from your meeting is bad press. The first question will always be "what do they have to hide?"

And both "security" and "privacy" as reasons to deny a list of the attendees is pure bovine manure. Does anyone really think there's some great conspiracy to "off" a bishop somewhere? And "privacy" makes no sense at all--all these bishops had to make travel plans to get there. For the ones from outside the UK, that means visas, passports, etc. When your travel requires permissions (often to leave and to arrive), privacy makes no sense at all. For the UK bishops, well, there's an easy way to get a rough idea of who's there--just ask at the local diocese if you can speak to the bishop. If he's not in residence....

"Journalists do actually know how to behave themselves during services."

Like the journalist who interrupted the Service at St Mary's Putney after Gene Robinson's sermon and seconds before the prayers, asking if there was time for questions?

Mannes, Manners; where are the famed Anglican Manners of yore?

Actually, it parallels the whole "why is Jesus here?" debate.

There are some who think that Jesus was sincere in his promise of gentleness to the Daughter of Zion, and thus to provide suitable dwellings for all beings in Creation.

There are others who think Jesus is aligned with those without compassion or mercy and only concerned whether they and their ilk are suitably acknowledged.

God exists independently of either camp and God will provide no less suitable dwellings for the non-Christians than they have tolerated for their own kind.

"The least the organisers could do is to lay on a public eucharist before the bishops’ service."

Why? The Lambeth conference is not something put on for the benefit of the media. Neither is there any reason why the public "has a right to know" how bishops come to their decisions. We are not some Crown Corporation. We are a part of the icon of the Kingdom of God. We as Anglicans must be concerned that we have discerned the will of God in selecting our bishops, indeed in everything we do. We are not answerable to the Press, nor indeed to secular society. If this idea of "the public's right to know", which actually means "the media's right to maximize circulation numbers" comes somehow out of the CofE's status as state Church, that is a compelling reason to end that status immediately. Besides, the Press long ago lost the right to claim they are representing the truth. It isn't about truth, it's about being the first ones to publish something, whether or not that something is true is secondary. It's the scoop that counts, not the truth of that scoop.

“What, then, is the point of our being here?”

My question precisely. Because it sells papers, perhaps? Because, as has been suggested here already, the selling of papers is so much easier if one can not only report on nasty infighting in the CofE and Her offspring, but if you can also stir up the pot with sensational headlines?

The idea that the Communion can 'treat 'em mean and keep 'em keen' by keeping the media at arm's length is a mistake. If you don't give them the story you want, they'll go get the story they want. Some are there to report on schism and disaster but some (most?) are not. Bishops are public figures on official business: their attendance is a matter of legitimate interest, and the quotation of 'privacy laws' (which, despite the Mosley case, don't exist as such in the UK) is just daft. I know that the Communion Office feels hurt by recent reporting and the ABC has just reason to be suspicious after the 'sharia' speech, but pushing the media out of worship and refusing to give details of attendance will only make a worse atmosphere and worse reporting.

This may come as a shock, but the Lambeth Conference has not been arranged for the benefit of the Press! It is to enable Anglican bishops and their spouses from all over the world to meet, study the Bible, pray together and discuss how as bishops they are to fulfil their roles.

It seems clear from all that the press have said in the months leading up to this conference that nothing less than stories of in-fighting and schism will do. So why should they expect to be given any special privileges or access, when the bishops and their spouses expect to be able to carry out their discussions and studies free from the prying eyes and ears of those who have a destructive agenda.

And this whining over not joining the bishops for worship is pathetic. Firstly, nobody else does either; and secondly there is a beautifully laid out prayer room providing morning and evening worship, and afternoon prayers, and it is open throughout the day. Come on, people, be adults and stop behaving like spoilt children!

Good to see your own joke recycled. I'll admit it is rather obvious.

One wonders now if the privacy laws operate; whether journalists can say too much about this gathering of consenting adults.

O keep the press far hence that's foe to all that Rowan Williams is attempting. The press have done much to exacerbate the problems. They remind me of the lamentable Abp Deng who complained that with all this indaba humbug we are not getting a chance to talk about what we came here to talk about, namely levitical abominations. Abp Deng would love to make Lambeth another Dar Es Salaam, and boasted, just as Akinola did, that Rowan will toe the line he and his cronies have come to lay down, the line, namely, of Biblical Fundamentalism -- surely the most dangerous force in the world of religion today.

Ford Elms and I *finally* agree on something! ;-)

Lambeth is not a business meeting. It is a time of prayer and relationship-building---and neither of those things can (or should) be done in the media.

And the Eucharist is not a spectator event. I admit that the most likely reason they don't want journalists there is to keep them from reporting on who refused to take communion with/from whom---but that still doesn't change the fact that the Eucharist is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God...not the Guardian or the Telegraph.

I am a voting member of my parish in TEC. I have an absolute right to attend and observe any vestry meeting or committee meeting. I have an absolute right to attend and observe my diocese's convention; I have an absolute right to attend and observe TEC's general convention. TEC's bishops are at Lambeth, in part, representing me. I have no right to know which ones are there? Or what they are discussing?

I don't think so.

No, the conference is not held for the benefit of the press, but it is held for the benefit of the Communion as a whole, and the Communion should be able to learn something more of the conference than what the organizers decide to announce at the end.

"Lambeth is not a business meeting. It is a time of prayer and relationship-building---and neither of those things can (or should) be done in the media."

That seems to be the way that Rowan Williams and the people who planned the event are trying to define this particular conference. However, I don't think it is an accurate description of previous conferences.

I think that one can just as legitimately define it as a meeting of leaders who have a responsibility to communicate with and be held accountable by the broader church membership. They need the media to do that.

Pat
this is fascinating.
Is there no provision in the Episcopal Church for confidential discussions among those who are responsible for the running of the parish?

How do you deal with pastorally sensitive issues that need to be agreed on before making them public? How do you ever foster a sense of collegiality and safety and a place where people can speak their minds without having to worry about public consequences?

Isn's safe exploration of all issues and concerns a requirement of any decision making process?

Accountability - absolutely!
But complete openness at all levels? From my vantage point in the UK I find that rather counter productive.

"I have no right to know which ones are there? Or what they are discussing?

I don't think so."

The other comment I would make here is that it is perfectly safe for US bishops to express their views.

But some of the bishops' blogs hint at delicate and conciliatory conversations with African bishops, there is a sense of small shoots of hope for changing hearts and minds.
I treasure that enormously and I know that it would not be possible if the conference was completely open to the public. These bishops would have to toe the party line, divisions would intensify and no-one would learn anything from each other.

Jim Naughton reports that the Lambeth Conference has run about $2M in the hole on its expenses. Presumably they will be looking for people to help them cover that debt. More favorable press coverage could be very helpful in such an endeavor.

Erika Baker is quite wrong. It was not a journalist who sought to interrupt the service at Putney, but an elderly gentleman who may, or may not, have been a protestor. I was there and saw him. It is highly unusual for bona-fide worshippers to stand up to ask questions in mid-service after sermons (perhaps it ought not to be!) and so, bearing in mind the previous interruption by the biker, Giles Fraser, the celebrant, denied the man's request and he sat down quietly. Who knows what his question would have been? In any event he didn't try to raise it afterwards when there were clergy he could have approached.
As a former religious correspondent who is not attending the Lambeth conference, I think it is naive and counter-productive of the organisers to be quite as secretive as they appear to be, since they must assume that there is public interest in the gathering and its deliberations, given the state of the Anglican communion.
I gather that the Archbishop of the Sudan's intervention was not in a private interview but a public press conference. In the absence of other, public, news from the conference that day it was obvious that his views would provide the lead to anything written. If there was any mischief-making going on, it wasn't from the press: what should they have done? Ignore him and what he had to say?
The idea however that editors send journalists purely to sensationalise "in order to sell newspapers" is frankly risible. They do it because there is a public interest and they wish to provide information to their readerships. If they want to sell newspapers there are many more notable or sensational stories in the world that they can give space to (and do) - which may be why the interest from most British secular newspapers has been pretty close to zero. Good for the Times, Telegraph and Guardian for sending correspondents to cover the gathering.
The day, frankly, when no media can be bothered to report the doings of the Anglican communion is the day when it finally drifts into irrelevance and obscurity as far as the public role it seeks to exercise is concerned.

"And both "security" and "privacy" as reasons to deny a list of the attendees is pure bovine manure. Does anyone really think there's some great conspiracy to "off" a bishop somewhere?"

Well, actually, now that you mention it....

"Ford Elms and I *finally* agree on something! ;-)"

I don't recall too many spats with you. Unsettling, though, isn't it, when you find yourself in agreement with someone who has been on the opposite side of the fence from you on mostly everything. It really shakes me up when it happens:-) Seriously, I used to read Barbara Amiel's columns in MacLeans magazine, and she is as far from me politically as someone can get. But every once in a while I'd find myself agreeing with her. Then I'd have to take a shower:-) So, feel free to do so, trust me, I can understand the sentiment:-) (And I hope I put enough smilies here to show I am not at all put out by this).

Oh, bosh! Lambeth IS of course, all those wonderful high sounding things. It is also like any other conference, and the deals do tend to get cut in back rooms at three in the morning after numerous bottles of scotch. Talk about the work of the spirit!
Pat is right to remind us that this shindig will boil down to a very craftily worded and largely agreed upon set of statements communicated at the end. These things need to be as bland and innocuous as possible and that's hard to manage when the GS+ is all for escalating them into meaningful legislation. The stakes are high and I can certainly understand why the planners have chosen to keep a exceptionally tight rein. I do hope that will not ultimately have worked against them.
When forced to it, I'm really in favour of the press doing what democratic societies at least have come to expect of them and what they are trained to do - namely, ferret out news and give an accurate accounting of it.

Pat, I guess you vote for the President but don't have a right of entry into the Oval Office. I don't think even TEC accords the 'right' of other folk to attend its House of Bishops. Let's let the bishops do what it is their business to do at Lambeth without telling them how to do it.

Some of the press have behaved badly. I was interested to see the Primate of Sudan 'set up' by manipulative questioning. At least one of his questioners has, I suspect, done her professional reputation some lasting harm. I thought Jim Naughton very wise to warn the bishops about 'committing news', lest what they are doing get hijacked by the media feeding frenzy.

Too many professional journalists are often focussed on getting a story, even if it means creating one by manipulation of the details. It is difficult to avoid the temptation to aim for the front page by means of sensationalizing something. This isn't going to stop but at least it makes sense for our bishops to be wary of the reality.

Oh how I wish I could rest confident that this meeting was for my real good. Instead, it is likely to contain at least some mawkish and superior exclusively straight elements which delight in talking badly to me, talking down to me about everything from science to faith to hermeneutics, and talking bad and down about me to any number of other vulnerable audiences who will have little chance to test those horrible loud claims by knowing me accurately in my daily life.

All realignment sound and furious talk of unity, signifying that I am the problem and the target. What's not to like about this meeting, then?

Stephen
I apologise, I assumed that the man must have been a journalist as I could not imagine any regular churchgoer believing it would be appropriate to interrupt a service.
My fault!

Erika:

Of course the vestry can go into "executive session" to discuss certain matters--but those matters are spelled out quite specifically in the by-laws of most parishes, and are usually limited to personnel issues.

It's important to realize that in the US, most parishes are not-for-profit corporations, subject to the laws regulating such institutions, and those laws (in most states) require open meetings of the vestry who are, for legal purposes, the board of directors of the corporation.

Now--I just completed a three-year term on our vestry and it's true that in those 36 months we never had a non-vestry member show up for a meeting....but if someone had, we would have had no authority to bar them from listening to our deliberations and votes.

"Pat, I guess you vote for the President but don't have a right of entry into the Oval Office. I don't think even TEC accords the 'right' of other folk to attend its House of Bishops. Let's let the bishops do what it is their business to do at Lambeth without telling them how to do it."

Not without warning, no. But if I petition to meet with the President, I have a right to have that request considered and responded to. Many "ordinary citizens" meet with the President (or members of his staff) every year for various purposes.

As for TEC's HoB, I've looked on line for info about how open its meetings are and have not found anything. OTOH, there was a lot of press coverage of this year's meeting and it didn't seem to be anywhere near as restricted as the coverage coming out of Lambeth.

It is the Executive Committee that governs TEC between general conventions, not the House of Bishops. The meetings of the Executive Committee are open to the public unless they go into executive session.

Stephen Bates once again misses the point about the relationship with the Press - the suggestion is that the nationals are not interested in the real story of Lambeth only the sensationalised gay stories or that the Press arranged Daniel Dengs press conference - it was evident from Ruth Gledhill's video coverage who planned it for that Day and hence the sense of set-up with a newly elected Archbishop with limited experience with the UK press. Readers should simply compare the amount coverage given by the quality papers for that Press Conference with the two others which the Archbishop has made on Darfor and a desire for the continuing relationship with TEC. So the only stories which gain good coverage are the sensational ones which are selectively reported to gain the Editors attention. Lister Tonge sums up the reality well - and the careful management recognises the reality. If there was nothing in the quality press about a particular day at Lambeth so what - it just reflects that the real business of Lambeth is about our Bishops meeting personally and privately and building relationships which cannot be reported. The public role of the Church is about what it does on the ground in real life - it is journalist's fantasy to suggest that this is dependent on column inches in The Times Guardian or Telegraph.

Ford, maybe the suggestion was made to hold a public Eucharist before the Bishops' Eucharist because there are others at the conference, like reporters, who might want to worship and make their Communions.

The Eucharist is primarily a public service of the Church. I understand the need to give the Bishops their space, but barring hoi polloi from the Eucharist unsettles me.

In my secular life, I am an accredited public relations practitioner.

I'm sure that would automatically disqualify me to do media relations for the Anglican Communion.

You know, there is something between giving the media untrammeled access to every damned thing and keeping them locked in a box.

But as someone has noted, the media are going to write a story. This kind of imperious (and idiotic) approach to media relations i virtually guaranteed to ensure that the story they write is the last bloody story you want them to write.

Everyone involved in the Lambeth media relations team should be fired.

Now. Before the end of the conference.

Then they should hire some people with actual real world experience at media relations. (Preferably from the political side. It'll take lots of "private briefings" and "exclusives" to get this clusterf*** back on track.)

This is all too funny.

Tanzania. Lots of Anglicans behaving really badly, and the press watched and recorded it happening.

Lambeth. Some of the worst Anglicans from Tanzania haven't shown up (thanks God). This conference's organising Anglicans bar the press from somee events, which means they can't witness Anglicans behaving badly.

The press wonder why they are there. The same Anglican organizers say it was because they asked to be there. God chuckles, the whole thing about Anglicans behaving badly has simply been exposed once again.

You see the "evil" secular state wants to see what is going on behind closed doors. Because the Anglicans are behaving badly behind closed doors, they bar the media so there are no witnesses. But the process of barring the media simply exposes that there are behaviours they know should not be witnessed and recorded.

Perhaps the Anglicans would like to go back and read the bible and learn how to "walk the talk" so that they don't mind if the media observes them since they know they are "above reproach" in their conduct.

The public service vernacular for this is "probity".

Stephen Bates
I think it was Jim Naughton who said at the beginning of the conference that a successful conference would mean extremely little news would emerge, and that he wondered whether the press might find that satisfactory.

I appreciate what you're saying, and I particularly appreciate Malcolm+'s comments about PR.

There are, of course, extremely trustworthy journalists. You have always been one of them, so is Jim.
But on the same day I had to apologise to you for posting a wrong statement, I also had to applologize to another poster here on another thread because I had taken the combined news reports of an event as authoritative and had not referred back to the original source - which painted a completely different, much less sensationalist picture.

And while you're right to say that the church needs the media, it is also true to say that media relations are not its prime reason for being at Lambeth.
Coming out of the bishops' blogs is a sense of very tender shoots of listening and a coming together arising out of the lambada groups.

This conference will not solve all the problems of the AC and there will be many afterwards who feel that it has failed... and the cries of betrayal will go along predictable lines so that you only have to look at the journalist/commentator's name to know which view they will be taking...

But if it does restore some trust among the bishops across the divide, and if the privacy and enclosed atmosphere of the event helps to establish that, then all power to the arrangements.

Erika:

The problem is that, without open press access, there are those--on both sides--who will question the process by which this "coming together" takes place. Who was pushed? Who was doing the pushing? Who will be--at heart--responsible for the writing of the final statements of the conference?

The recent suggestion of something like a "Holy Office" for the Communion is a case in point. Where did it come from? Who proposed it? What are the real chances it will come to pass?

Oh Erika... "lambada groups"!

What a wonderful pun - I haven't laughed so much for ages, at the thought of all those bishops engaged in hot Brazilian dancing...

I'll be chuckling all day now - thank you!

Pat
"Oh Erika... "lambada groups"! " - see, Paul worked out who does the pushing and the pulling and the jigging!
Oh dear... do not post before the 1st coffee, do not post before the 1st coffee, do not post before....

Yes, not having open access does make things difficult. But even with access people will disagree about who said what, when and way. There are still those who insist that Gene Robinson's consecration started this debate, for crying out loud! And no pointing them to actual historical truth will change their reading of history.

If the groups work then it doesn't matter who wanted them. I'm not talking about arriving at a carefully crafted political statement or a compromise people were pushed into. If that's what happens, then the groups will not have worked.
But if there is a genuine growth in understanding and friendship, a genuine will to stay together and to work side by side - why should it matter how it came about, other than to acknowledge that the whole delicate process worked?

We're not measuring something tangible here. Unlike the "who on earth came up with the Holy Office" idea, we're looking at a general easing of the underlying relationships of those who will then make decisions together.

They will be fully accountable for the decisions, and there will be plenty of people telling their part in it in a week's time.

The decisions are open to scrutiny, this particular decision making process, however, relies on a sense of fellowship that cannot be achieved if all small shoots are immediately held up to the flashlights of cameras and the noise enhancing microphones of the media.

It's payback time for the all those press, media and Internet scoundrels who have played such a destructive part in the development of "The Anglican Crisis." I couldn't be happier to see most of them locked out and fed scraps.

Right now we are being subjected to this "Holy Office" baloney which is nonsense. On Thursday and Friday it was "Bishops Stuff Themselves at Lambeth Palace" ... on and on and on. It's been anything goes to sell newspapers or to feed the predudices of crazed partisans who hate religion or Anglicans or both.

After all the press and and Internet abuse over time suffered by Rowan Williams and Katharine Jefferts Schori I'm happy to see the press at Lambeth kept on a short leash.

Erika - The Bishops do lambada while the press are left in limbo?

Pamela
Yes, and at the end they all do the Lambeth Walk together.

@Tom Allen - I take exception to your assertion that Ruth G arranged the press conference with the Sudanese ++ - I arranged it for 3.30 that afternoon and that was because someone had very kindly left the position statements on homosexuality and genocide (the two are unrelated) in the press room. The same happened with the second observation report from the WCG. The two age document was very casually dropped off. For the rest of the posters, while I agree that the conference is not for the press, keeping us out is rather like denying children sweets. We just go a bit crazy. Besides, it's not like we need to go stirring the point x

"it was evident from Ruth Gledhill's video coverage who planned it for that Day and hence the sense of set-up with a newly elected Archbishop with limited experience with the UK press".

Sorry to have stirred a bout of professional jealousy but I did not say that Ruth Gledhill "arranged" the conference - it was her video which revealed who was behind it - the same people who " very kindly" left the press statements for journalists to be picked up and they have a Gafcon style agenda.

The question is not whether it was right for the voice for the Sudanese Archbishop to be heard as someone who has chosen to attend the conference it clearly does, but whether he realised "how" it would be heard by Christians and Bishops from other parts of the world and what a gift it is to journalists who have a single agenda about the conference.

I am left with the impression that the real source of frustration for the Press is not being "kept out" but that the Conference is not running to the sole script which is of interest to Editors.(Gay bishop split Anglican Communion) If there was real interest in the Anglican Communion where are the stories in the "quality" papers about the real circumstances which Bishops minister in across the world?

Where is the matching coverage to a Nigerian Christian leader being granted political asylum here in the UK because of death threats in his home country because he is gay?

I assume Tom Allen is referring to the person who, in Ruth's video, appears repeatedly behind the speaking archbishop, and who Tom assumes had a hand in proposing to the archbishop that he should find a way to talk to the press about his views.

The same person is not to be seen as far as I can tell in the ENS complete recording of the event, and furthermore is the only question asker who does NOT have the ENS camera swung to show him when he asked the archbishop a question during the press conference. Does this mean that ENS is also part of the great pro-GAFCON conspiracy? I doubt it.

"Where is the matching coverage to a Nigerian Christian leader being granted political asylum here in the UK because of death threats in his home country because he is gay?"

Thank you, Tom Allen.

Simon Having not seen the ENS coverage of the event I am not sure I understand what the second paragraph means - I am not suggesting that ENS or any of the press are part of a pro-Gafcon conspiracy - just that it is interesting to see who is "assisting" the Archbishop at his press conference - and their motives (and their awareness of the significance) might be different from the Archbishops. The main point of my original post is that the press got what they wanted in terms of Editors demands and "Gay Bishop scoop stories", and that the coverage is disproportinate to the other press material issued by the Archbishop. Fortunately the response from the TEC has by and large been what it should have been - which to talk face to face with the Sudanese Bishops while making clear that Gene's Robinson's resignation is non-negotiable.The point being that the Lambeth Conference is for the Bishops to meet personally rather than communicate via press headlines.If the suggestion is that the Press are offering balanced coverage across the range of issues being covered at the Conference I invite people to draw their own conclusions - for example Google "The Times" then on the Times site search "Gledhill" and see whether the interactive list which comes up reflects the Lambeth Conference which many of us have been reading and hearing about. At least Ruth Gledhill has covered the Asylum story on the blog (- but main paper coverage?)- the comments are revealing as well!

@Tom Allen - I've noticed on this thread that there seems to be an assumption that the press are the bad guys and that we're intent on destroying the Communion by luring bishops into the lion's den and provoking them. There is no big conspiracy or agenda setting by reporters or their editors. By being excluded from many of the scheduled events we are not able to report on the "tender shoots" Erika refers to so it is inevitable that people who are not happy with the conference, or its direction, will find us out.

Riazat Butt: I make no assumptions about the press being "bad guys" - I judge by what is written and have come to a conclusion that there is one agenda - you continue to deny this.

I like many other Anglican Guardian readers will remember July 25th for a long time to come - there was a gift of story about Anglican Bishops walking down Whitehall to a meeting with Gordon Brown to protest about world poverty - what was your headline for the day on P15 of 25th July

"Bishop accuses church of manipulating summit over 'tolerance guide' to gay clergy"

and we have to get to approx paragraph 19 before we get to the real topic of the walk.

There was no shortage of access to Bishops or opportunity to get their views on the days agenda but there is one solitary quote.

You also abuse the word "exclude" - you can only be excluded from something which you have a right to attend - you have not "right" to attend anything at Lambeth. There is IMHO only one person who has been excluded from the sessions at Lambeth and that is Gene Robinson (and no I am not saying I don't understand why etc)

Lambeth 2008 will be historic in media terms for being the first conference where the blogs and the internet are more important than the printed press. Long may we continue to hear the real views (from all shades of opinion)and feelings first hand.

I believe that we as a People of G-d, in the redemption of Christ and the Love of the Holy Spirit are coming to terms with the idea given to the Galation community so many years ago that , " There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither slave nor freeman, there can be neither male nor female-for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)

We have a hard enough time with the covenant G-d gave to us on Sinai by commandment, and Jesus on earth who gave us our commission to " You must love the Lord your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind... and love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-39).

I do not believe that any other covenant could do anything but limit, that which we have already been given by G-d and Christ and the Holy Spirit. And there is nothing in either of those above mentioned that would exclude anyone from full inclusion in our anglican institutions. Not to mention the constitutional issues involved, within the Episcopal Church.

And for those who would say “ We don't see why welcoming the gay or lesbian person with love must mean blessing what they do in the Church's name or accepting them for ordination whatever their lifestyle.” I have no answer except, you are not the only ones who make up the People of G-d within or without of the Anglican Communion. There are as many who believe that by not giving a blessing in the name of the church or accepting them for ordination is as morally repugnant and theologically unsound as you find not to. So we disagree. Let’s get over it and get on with it. As the song says, “There are no good guys, there are no bad guys, there’s only you and me and we just disagree.”

I hope that in some small way to read these words gives those on both sides of these issues hope, that in spite of ourselves and whatever the reasons we have that when Jesus says, “ I love you” , he didn’t mean just me or you. John-Albert Dickert Cincinnati, Ohio USA