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[Back to index of May 2007 articles] What is the price of our Anglican unity? By Bishop John Bryson Chane Recently I participated in a BBC radio program that focused on the current state of the Anglican Communion and the response of the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops to the oversight scheme proposed by the primates at their meeting in Tanzania last February. Based on questions posed by the interviewer and some of you in the Diocese of Washington, I thought it appropriate to let you know specifically why the bishops of the Episcopal Church voted to recommend to the Executive Council of our church not to accept such a plan. Since our decision to consecrate Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire, the Episcopal Church has worked hard to repair our relationships with those who were alienated by our decision. We participated fully in the fact-finding conducted by the Lambeth Commission when it undertook work on the Windsor Report in 2003. In 2004, the House of Bishops approved a process of Delegated Episcopal Oversight to meet the needs of individual congregations within our various dioceses that disagreed with the decisions of our 2003 General Convention. In March 2005, in response to a call from the Anglican primates that we refrain from consecrating openly non-celibate gay candidates to the episcopacy, our House of Bishops adopted a covenant statement pledging to refrain from consecrating any new bishops until our General Convention the following year. In June 2005, we acceded to a request from the primates, and sent our delegates to the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in Nottingham, England as "observers," rather than as voting representatives. (The ACC is one of the four "instruments of unity" mentioned in the Windsor Report. It is made up of clergy, laity, bishops and primates, and is the most representative body within the Communion.) Then, at our General Convention in June 2006, the Episcopal Church approved Resolution B033, which urged diocesan bishops and Standing Committees to withhold consent should any candidate whose "manner of life" might further strain relationships within the Communion be elected to the episcopacy. Each of these actions required the Episcopal Church to compromise either its principles or its independence for the sake of the Communion. None of these actions has been required of other provinces which have ignored Lambeth resolutions, or behaved in ways that give scandal to the global community. And several of these actions were initially accepted as sufficient signs of our good faith by the bodies that made these requests. Yet it seems that every time the primates gather, the goal line that the Episcopal Church must cross is pushed a little bit farther from where we are standing. At the same time, several primates in Africa and one in South America have violated our provincial and diocesan boundaries with impunity. This action, which predates the consecration of Bishop Robinson, flies in the face of our ancient catholic understanding of "one diocese, one bishop." Such boundary violations have been deemed inappropriate by the Lambeth Conferences of 1988 and 1998, the Windsor Report and the Primates meeting in Dromantine, yet they continue unabated, and the Archbishop of Canterbury never raises his voice. The February 2007 meeting of the primates in Tanzania spent most of its time addressing human sexuality issues and how to discipline the Episcopal Church and gave little attention to the Millennium Development Goals and human rights violations endorsed by the Church of Nigeria, and a bishop from the Church of the Province of Central Africa. This was quite troubling to the bishops of the Episcopal Church. It must be clearly understood that to participate in the primates' pastoral oversight scheme would violate our Episcopal Church canons (laws) and our constitution. Participation would change the Windsor process and the covenant design process which was supposed to be a consultative endeavor involving all Anglican provinces on an equal footing. It would violate the founding principles of the Episcopal Church following our liberation from colonial domination. It would be a very serious departure from our English Reformation heritage and would discard the orthodoxy of our Book of Common Prayer. Participation would ultimately mean re-committing our laity to the dominance of leadership from bishops and primates, an odious hardship that was terminated by our separation from the Papacy in the 16th century. The local governance of the church would then be left in the hands of a distant and unaccountable group of foreign primates. In the midst of the uncertainty that has gripped the Communion, the Episcopal Church has remained steadfast in its support of its many partners in ministry. Our church finances about one third of the Communion's annual operational budget. More than 80 of the 110 dioceses within the Episcopal Church are partnered with one or more foreign dioceses. Meanwhile, Episcopalians throughout the country give tens of millions of dollars annually to support aid and development programs especially in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Some $18 million annually is directed from the Episcopal Church Center in New York, and many millions more come from Episcopal Relief and Development and individual dioceses that support the humanitarian work of the church abroad. The Diocese of Washington, through its South African Partnership, works directly in the countries of South Africa, Swaziland, Namibia and Mozambique and currently has more than 12 parishes actively engaged in various ministries in Africa. This does not take into account the many parishes of the diocese that are engaged in mission work in Honduras, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, nor does it take into account the Diocese of Washington, its several parishes and numerous individuals that financially support the Archbishop of Canterbury's Compass Rose Society. In 2006, the General Convention of the Church voted to increase its contribution to the Anglican Consultative Counsel by 10 percent annually for the next three years. We did so even after the primates requested that we not send voting representatives to the ACC meeting the previous year. I ask for your continued prayers as we seek ways in which to bring the Communion together under the Archbishop of Canterbury's moral leadership in ways that support the independent nature of our provinces. [Back to index of May 2007 articles]
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