Latest Anglican News                           Volume 1, Number 11,              3 October 2007

Both The Episcopal Church (TEC) semiannual House of Bishops (HoB) meeting in New Orleans and the first ever Common Cause Partners (CCP) Bishops meeting in Pittsburgh are history.  This report will be devoted mostly to the CCP meeting and comments that followed it, including some remarks by Bishop Sutton, who was in attendance.

The TEC HoB meeting in New Orleans, which was covered at some length in last week’s report, is dealt by this rather facetious summary by an unnamed blogger:

They said:  We aren't changing a thing; we aren't moving. 

They didn't say:  We will stop the harassment of godly priests and bishops whose cherished beliefs are deeply held and Biblically-based.

They said:  No one can stop us because we don't wish to be stopped.

They didn't say:  Those who do not hold the same beliefs as we do are not wrong and we will not stand in the way of their preaching, teaching, and living those beliefs, nor will we continue in our litigious ways to deprive them of property; nor will we honor the life-long commitments they have made to the faith once delivered to the saints.

They said:  Same old same old.

They didn't say:  We repent.

That's what they said - and didn't say.

One last comment about the TEC HoB meeting, from traditional Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, "Sadly it seems that our hopes were not well-founded and our pleas have once again been ignored."

What happened in Pittsburgh?  Some irrevocable steps have been taken by some of the Anglican Communion Network (ACN) Bishops present…steps away from TEC.  It is expected, in the next few months, several dioceses will begin the action to extract themselves from TEC; Ft. Worth and Pittsburgh, and perhaps Quincy and San Joaquin.  These dioceses may even be prepared to walk away from their properties, if necessary.  Truth and faith come before property ownership.

The official press release from the CCP states:

 “Anglican bishops from ten jurisdictions and organizations pledged to take the first steps toward a ‘new ecclesiastical structure’ in North America. They formally organized themselves as a ‘College of Bishops’ which will meet every six months. They also laid out a timeline for the path ahead, committed to working together at local and regional levels, agreed to deploy clergy interchangeably and announced their intention to, in consultation ‘with those Primates and Provinces of the Anglican Communion offering recognition under the timeline adopted,’ call a ‘founding constitutional convention for an Anglican union (in North America),’ at the earliest possible date agreeable to all of the partners.

‘We met deeply aware that we have arrived at a critical moment in the history of mainstream Anglican witness…  God has led us to repentance for past divisions and opened the way for a united path forward. To him be the glory,’ said Bishop Robert Duncan, convener of the CCP.”

Last Sunday, during Adult Sunday School class, Bishop Sutton gave those attending the presentation by Diane Jerdan, an REC missionary in France, a few glimpses at what happened in Pittsburgh.  He said, “The formation and necessity for the CCP is brought about in the U.S. and Canada by the breakdown in adherence to scripture and to the faith once delivered to the saints.  The CCP has between 200,000 and 300,000 parishioners in 700 to 800 churches.  They hope to plant up to 1000 new churches in the next decade.  An example for this is that the REC has doubled its membership in the last ten years.  A paradigm was drawn between the formation of the CCP federation and constitutional conventions of the original thirteen American colonies.  Each constituent member has its own constitution and has/had to work hard to create a CCP/U.S. constitution acceptable to all.”  He emphasized, “The CCP is a federation and no REC autonomy will be surrendered in the process of agreeing to its constitution.  Once the federation agreement is ratified by all the organizations its clergy will be able to work interchangeably.”  This means Bishop Sutton could, if invited, preach, baptize, confirm, marry and even ordain in churches of the other members.  He also said that a delegation from CCP will be sent to each of the 38 AC provinces to seek their recognition.  Bishop Sutton said, “At the CCP meeting, Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan quoted from a new book by Philip Jenkins, which describes the remarkable shift in religious leadership from the West to the Global South. Also, Duncan said, “there hadn’t been an Archbishop of Canterbury worth killing since 1556, and he challenged the bishops present to do the Lord’s work to the extent that each would be worth killing.”

Commenting on the CCP meeting, retired Bishop John Rodgers (AMiA) and Fitzsimons Allison (ACN) said, “…We acted…to provide a place where faithful Anglicans could remain Anglican and at the same time be obedient to Christ, and to resist and overcome a culture and churches growing increasingly hostile to biblical Christianity.  The CCP, together with other Anglicans world-wide, is seeking to retain and proclaim the Anglican Faith…  This historic Faith,
reformed and catholic, is being diluted and denied by a leadership intent on conforming to the increasingly non-Christian, secular culture of the West…   We openly confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, no matter the cost…  It is our firm conviction that this beginning…though small in number, will echo widely, impacting the whole Anglican Communion as well as challenging the compromising main-line churches in North America…  May the impact of this act amaze us all by its extent and effects from and for Christ.

Who was in Pittsburgh?  Of the 51 Bishops present, this is a partial list, including only those who have visited CHC at one time or other since 1999: REC – Leonard Riches, Royal Grote, Ray Sutton, Dan Morse, Charles Dorrington, Michael Fedechko, George Fincke, David Hicks; APA – Walter Grundorf, Richard Boyce; ACN  – Robert Duncan, C. Fitzsimons Allison; Kenya - Bill Atwood; AMiA – Chuck Murphy, John Rodgers; CANA – Martyn Minns, David Bena; FiFNA – Keith Ackerman, Jack Iker, William Wantland; EMC – William Millsaps, Holy Cross – Paul Hewitt.  Also present was Archbishop Yong Ping Chung, South East Asia (retired), who spoke at CHC on a thundery night this past spring.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said she was not surprised by the (decisions made in Pittsburgh) and remained skeptical that the groups would be able to formalize a union.  She said, ““It just makes it clearer that the group of bishops is finding that the number of congregations in The Episcopal Church who want to affiliate in that way is shrinking and they are looking for partners with similar philosophy and theology outside The Episcopal Church. I think it would be remarkable if they could all gather into one body. They have such a history of splitting that it would be a sign of the Spirit’s moving if they could gather into a coherent whole,” she said.

On Sunday, September 30, the deadline set by AC church leaders for TEC to roll back support for same-sex unions, TEC Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori declared, at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, “All people, including gay and lesbian Christians… are deserving of the fullest regard of the church…  We’re not going backwards.”  Jefferts Schori said these are the views of the church's bishops as well as of its lay members - who have increasingly affirmed rights for same-sex couples. As such, Jefferts Schori's comments served as the punctuation to an historic day.

From a press release by AMiA: (In the CCP) …federation, each of the member groups, organizations, and missionary initiatives involved will now be united in a formal alliance designed to strengthen the level of our cooperation, collaboration, and communication together.  At the same time, we clearly understand that each CCP partner will maintain its own distinct autonomy, “culture”, and strategic vision.  Indeed, as is stated in the federation Articles that we have now adopted, “The autonomy of the individual Jurisdictions and Ministries, and their constituent bodies, is in no way restricted or superseded by membership in the CCP.”

It appears that what is happening in the U.S. will soon be emulated in England. Conservative British Christians will throw down the gauntlet to the Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC) by demanding that he openly disown TEC over gay bishops.  According to the conservative church organization there, named “Reform”, representing 1,000 parishes in the U.K., a letter is to be sent to Dr Rowan Williams this week urging him to make it clear that he opposes the American position.  The Rev. Rod Thomas, the chairman elect of Reform, said: "The situation in the Anglican Communion is so serious now that we have to plan for an inevitable split in the Church of England from top to bottom."

Rudy Schenken, REC Lay Representative to Common Cause Partners