Update Friday evening
Stephen Bates of the Guardian has arrived in Columbus and filed his first report: Deadlock looms over response to gay cleric.
Solange De Santis of the Canadian Anglican Journal has a further report: Sexuality issues cause timing concern at Episcopal convention
Rachel Zoll has a further report: Episcopalians Pressured on Gay Bishops
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In London, Ruth Gledhill tells readers of The Times that Episcopalians are Undecided, oblivious, or utterly entrenched. On the ground in Columbus, James Bone reports that I’m no abomination, says gay bishop.
Jonathan Petre in the Telegraph has US Church warned by bishops to be tougher on gays
Robert Pigott for the BBC reports Anglican church in crisis debate. Yesterday the BBC had Gay bishop ‘not an abomination’
The Church Times has Upbeat General Convention starts with ‘U2charist’.
For those of us outside the US, the Canadian Anglican Journal reports are helpful:
Episcopal Church convention opens debate on sexuality
Episcopal General Convention: developments in brief
For more detail, go to ENS. Thursday night’s video report is strongly recommended. The last four minutes of this programme is a meditation by John Sentamu.
Associated Press Rachel Zoll has had several reports this week:
Wednesday
Episcopalians Debate Gays Being Bishops
Thursday
Gay Bishop Says He’s ‘Not an Abomination’
Episcopalians Weigh Not Having Gay Bishops
Danforth Warns Episcopalians on Issues
Friday
Episcopalians Debate Issue of Gay Bishops
A transcript of the CNN programme, “Larry King Live” can be found here.
I watched the Larry King show, and to me one of the most telling moments was when King asked Fr. Anderson why he stayed in the Episcopal Church. “I like a good fight,” he said. That certainly says a lot, doesn’t it? Now ask me why I stay, when I know there are those, both in my own parish and nationally, who wish I would go – it’s a praying, serving, often argumentative community, where the Good News is preached and the Sacraments are celebrated, where you don’t have to park your brain before entering the church, and it is… Read more »
John Sentamu asks the meeting of Deputies at GC, ” Do these resolutions bear the marks of your own crucifixion ?” I am always given pause for thought by kinds of christian devotion & teaching with a masochist under-current. I find it unhealthy, and it tends to be those in power, requiring this of the powerless. The CofE bishops have conspicuously avoided their own ‘crucifixion’ down the years by not joining lgbt people beyond the pale, (with Jesus, ‘without a city wall). But the churches have often pinned lgbt folks down and given us a tough time. What about easter… Read more »
Laurence:
I seem to remember something about taking up our cross and following Jesus . . . . Hmmm, this would mean that we were willing to follow him through suffering, humiliation and death that we might be exalted with him through transformation in resurrection to new life.
Ah well, guess I must’ve been wrong on that one. However, I am in good company as I’m pretty sure the rest of the church has also been saying this for around 2,000 years.
Steven
`What about easter images of newlife, fresh starts, and leaving the tomb of fundamentalism, for the fresh air of a freer way of thinking and believing and being?’
Well, I don’t mind, if it’s a viable thing to abstract doctrinal change from the resurrection, of course.
All I ask in life is for folks to make up their own minds based on some actual information and let others whose interpretations differ live. What’s the problem with that?
As a member of ECUSA (unweildy or otherwise), I find Ruth Gledhill’s comments remarkably offensive and uninformed. She leaves out the possibility that the majority of ECUSA members are convicted of the righteousness of the actions of their church. Many of us believe — as a result of study, prayer, observation, and conversation — that what ECUSA has done in welcoming LGBT members fully into the church is the work of the Holy Spirit. Do we care about relations with the rest of the communion? Of course we do, and we have bent over backwards to try to be accomodating… Read more »
Good point, Ruth.
And yes, it may even be that the lives of gay and lesbian people are more important than the continuation of a prejudiced institution
We know where folks like Ms. Gledhill wish us to go, and it is palpably not towards peace, goodwill, and listening inquiry across diverse communities of overlapping conversation. Ms. Gledhill knows all, to just the extent that she can comment always from inside her own framework while never bothering to account for it, except as the obvious or standard given. This is pre-modern method, and has been increasingly complemented since the Enlightenment Era (if not indeed in some ways since the Renaissance) by emergent alternatives. Of course I haven’t read every single word Ms. Gledhill has eve written, and I… Read more »
Ruth: As a traditionalist I have no reason to doubt your sincerity or that of other liberals. And, like most traditionalists, I am not pleased with most of what liberals have done, are doing and plan to do on almost any of the matters currently at issue. However, while this is the big problem, the “straw that breaks the camel’s back” for me is the unwillingness of liberals to accept the logical and unavoidable consequences of the decisions they have made and plan to make. In practice, this translates as unwillingness to simply say (with apologies to Martin Luther): “Here… Read more »
Steven, Thanks for your response to my attempt to express something. I think Jesus call to me, and to us, to join him in cross-bearing, is very different from those in power demanding it of the powerless and marginalised. I think many of us lgbt folks have had a crucifying expereince at the hands of the powerful church. I found realising i was not only different, but one of them” excriciating from early teens onwards. I found the whisperings, when a man I admire suddenly vanished– and discovering he had been ‘read out’ of the Brethren assemblies, was devastating. Aversion… Read more »
Steven says: `In practice, this translates as unwillingness to simply say (with apologies to Martin Luther): “Here I stand, I can do no other!” rather than to indulge in more mealy mouthed Episcopal fudge’ I’m a scottish episcopalian. Here I stand, fully aware that not everyone is the same as me nor desirous that they should be, but believing in accepting folks for what they are first and foremost. But that’s just me, not the SEC, and certainly not the ECUSA, but it *is* what I see behind the episcopal churches, and I’m glad of valuing diversity when I see… Read more »
ECUSA loses 35,000 members a year…….just another shrinking “liberal” sect.
I wonder how long it will take for the new global “TEC” realignment to die out completely? Too long, probably, but best for it to do so without infecting and embarassing growing churches with the smell of their death and doublespeak.
Nersen
We have a clear case of the post-Renaissance perversion of ++Anselm’s atonement-theory here.
Anselm would not have approved.
To sacrifice ++Sentamu to the bullies saves no one. We are not Christ.
Steven, what you seem not to realize, is that the idea that “we’ve come to a fork in the road, and must divide” is IN ITSELF a key element of the so-called “traditionalist” POV. (Granted, a few like MerseyMike also share it: luv MM, but isn’t he a Quaker now?) The democratic-majority of TEC *DOES NOT ACCEPT* this ultimatum for division. If the AC Primatial-majority wants TEC out, they’re going to have to DO more to (literally) *kick us out* (Call the cops! Have us arrested! At least in Nigeria, they seem to understand this part of the bargain ;-/).… Read more »
Tim and JC: All I’m asking is that liberals finally say what they mean and mean what they say and stop all the double-speak and equivocating. Don’t beat around the bush, just say it!! You can have no doubt by now that any half-baked ECUSA/TEC assertions made in an attempt to please everybody (particularly traditionalists) will not please ANYBODY(liberal or traditionalists). In fact, it will disgust everyone! You’ve got the votes–DO IT! That is what is at issue right now: Where does ECUSA (TEC) stand, not whether ECUSA (TEC) would like to continue in the Anglican Communion. To be sure,… Read more »
My Father and his family were Anglicans from England and came to the United States for a “better” life (which they found). My Mothers family were Colonists to America from England and in later generations became Pioneers to the West. Most of my family “roots” are Episcopalian/Anglican. If I’m radically “inclusive” at our General Convention and not “afraid” of scorn, threats, anger, hatred or discrimination from the “Traditional” Anglicans in England it’s because my genetic makeup has “known” all of this from YOU before! There are many Episcopalians with background like mine. It is specifically BECAUSE of some of the… Read more »
For many of us in The Episcopal Church (TEC) ++Cantuar and +Dunelm come across as hypocrites in trying to impose their interpretation of the Windsor Report on GC 2006. We know that ++Cantuar and +Dunelm, as member of the House of Lords, were participants in the creation of the CPA, and that they signed off on the C of E’s pastoral guidelines for C of E clergy entering into same-sex civil unions. By their very actions they secretly condone what TEC bishops have openly permitted since the 1990s. Why that ‘double standard’? Respect for ++Rowan Cantuar has hit rock-bottom on… Read more »
Steven, where you would like TEC to *stand* on principle, it is my fervent hope that we *move* on principle: move to be wherever the Lambeth Conference is held, entering into it as much as we are physically (incarnationally!) able. …and you still haven’t answered my question: will you (support) physically kicking TEC out? [Whereas it’s my FEAR that we Episcopalians—in our liberal inclination to be “nice”—will let you go without a struggle: ala “well, if we’re not wanted there…” Lord, I hope I’m wrong! Letting the AC go, would be like Jesus leaving the money-changers alone. He wasn’t “nice”… Read more »
We’ve tried in every way possible to politely listen, do what is asked of us and move on, but it seems nothing is going to be enough until TEC prostrates itself in abject penance and agrees to the terms everybody else seems to want to put on us. We’ve tried to listen — which is more than most in the Communion have done. Tell me, what has been said to the Primates who cross the provincial lines without permission as per the Windsor Report? What has been said to the provinces where listening to the GLBT folk isn’t even a… Read more »
Steven writes: `That is what is at issue right now: Where does ECUSA (TEC) stand, not whether ECUSA (TEC) would like to continue in the Anglican Communion. To be sure, the first issue will doubtless impact the second. However, a wishy washy statement will probably cause almost as much damage as a bold assertion of the liberal position (as everyone will see wishy washy as just another unreliable bit of ECUSA fudge). So, why not go on and stand on principle for a change????’ What makes you think any “liberals” are not saying what they mean? Have you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECUSA#Beliefs_and_Practices… Read more »