“It’s something that I like to point out,” said the Bishop Eugene Sutton,the first black Episcopal bishop in Maryland, “the historical anomaly of dioceses that have nothing to do with the black community going all the way to Africa to make these relationships.”
As for whether he would follow up on his earlier intention to push for ending the moratorium on gay bishops and allowing church recognition of same-sex marriage when the Episcopal Church meets at its General Convention next year, Shaw said he would now wait until he meets with all the American bishops next month to decide how he will proceed.
I was encouraged by what both bishops had to say about the future of the proposed Anglican Covenant. The appendix of the St. Andrew’s Draft of the covenant, which provides detailed and convoluted procedures by which one province might prosecute and eventually marginalize another, appears to be dead in the water.
There seems little chance that all Canadian Anglican clergy will honor the moratorium on blessing same-sex unions requested by the worldwide Anglican communion. Archbishop Fred Hiltz, the Primate of Canada pointed out that the decision-making synods of four more Canadian dioceses have in the past year asked their bishops to authorize same-sex blessings.
While homosexuality has come under attack in many cultures at different points in history, the irony is that this particularly immoveable form of hate and intolerance, expressed by Orombi in the name of Christian love, was institutionalised by colonial law.
Jim Mathes, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, had a meeting over breakfast with Bishop Gregory Venables, Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone. After an apology was offered on the part of Bishop Venables, both bishops have committed themselves to trying to find a way to resolve the tensions over “incursions” in the Diocese of San Diego.
The Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Orombi, writing in The Times today describes the deep sense of “betrayal” that he and like minded Anglicans have felt because of the actions of The Episcopal Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Orombi additionally criticizes the vestiges of colonialism that he sees in the ways the Anglican Communion is governed and makes its decisions.
It’s been hard – as both as a communicator whose salary is paid by people putting money in the plate week after week and as a person of faith – to put into words the conflicted-ness I feel about the “big” doings of the Church like General Convention and Lambeth and the “big” doings of sitting at the bedside of a dying loved one. Which is bigger? Which is more important? Which is of greater consequence? Which is the greater story to tell?
There’s a pattern developing at Lambeth, and it’s not a pretty one. On the day which was to focus on poverty and violence in Sudan,
In this brief space between GAFCON and the heart of Lambeth, I have been indulging in word play. It can be a vice. It can be seen as silly. But, here’s the thing: we are people of a faith in which words have meaning. God created by speaking. God came among us in the Word; and it is in the written Word that we in our generation know of these things