epiScope

Responses to responses to responses

Anglican provinces divided on adequacy of Episcopal Church response on gay bishops
The Associated Press
November 22, 2007

LONDON: Anglican churches worldwide were divided on whether the U.S. Episcopal Church had responded adequately to concerns about gay bishops, church authorities said Thursday.

Twelve leaders of national churches informed the Archbishop of Canterbury that they accepted the Episcopal Church's response. Ten primates — all part of the conservative Global South alliance — rejected the response, and a dozen have yet to give a stance.

Three other primates reported mixed views, and another promised to respond after further consultation, according to a statement from Lambeth Palace, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' office in London.

Williams indicated he would respond to the survey in his annual Advent letter next month.

It’s all here …

Covenant controversy

Synod agrees deal over discipline to head off church rift over gay clergy
Stephen Bates
The Guardian
July 9, 2007

The Church of England yesterday bowed to pleas from two archbishops to help draw up a disciplinary covenant for the worldwide Anglican communion, despite fears that it will lead to the expulsion of liberal believers.

The church's general synod, meeting in York, voted to give its leaders, the archbishops of Canterbury and York, authority to agree a formal draft of the proposed code of belief, even though it will not be presented to the synod until next February.

The move - described by one speaker as "the most important development in the church since the Reformation" - was carried after bishops headed off concerns of some lay and clergy members by giving assurances that nothing will ultimately be adopted until it has been agreed by the synod, which is the church's parliament. Even so, approximately a third of the synod voted against the plan.

It’s all here …

Gay clergy to be banned in Synod deal
By Jonathan Petre
Daily Telegraph
09/07/2007

The Church of England yesterday agreed to draw up a disciplinary code that could result in the expulsion of liberals from worldwide Anglicanism after it heard that the alternative was disintegration.

In an emotive debate at the General Synod in York, liberal speakers criticised the idea of such a covenant, saying it could be used like a "blunt instrument" against them.

But conservatives said that if the Church failed to define boundaries of belief, worldwide Anglicanism could never rebuild the trust destroyed during the conflict over homosexuality that has brought it to the brink of schism.

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Covenant Design Group report

ACNS 4252     |     ACO     |     19 FEBRUARY 2007
Report of the Covenant Design Group

The Covenant Design Group, appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury on behalf of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, held its first meeting in Nassau, the Bahamas, between Monday, 15th and Thursday, 18th January, 2007.  The Archbishop of the West Indies, the Most Revd Drexel Gomez, chaired the group.

The meeting discussed four major areas of work related to the development of an Anglican Covenant:  its content, the process by which it would be received into the life of the Communion, the foundations on which a covenant might be built, and its own methods of working.

It's all here ...

Editors Note: The Report and the Covenant Draft text are also available to download as a PDF Document here: http://www.aco.org/commission/d_covenant/downloads.cfm

Before the spin begins: please note what the introduction to the text says in no uncertain terms.

1. "There was a wide range of support for the concept of covenant in the life of the Communion."
2. "All the members of the group spoke of the value and importance of the continued life of the Anglican Communion."
3. "The proposal for a covenant was born out of a specific context."
4. It is the "clarification of a process of discernment which was embodied in the Windsor Report and in the recent reality of the life of the Instruments of Communion."
5. "A definitive text ... might take time to develop."
6. But there is "an urgent need to re-establish trust between the churches of the Communion."
7. Therefore the design group takes "a dual track approach" involving provincial debate and adoption of a text while at the same time asking a provincial commitment to the "fundamental shape" of a covenant "in time for there to be the preparation of a revised draft which could receive initial consideration at the Lambeth Conference."
8. Primates are "not being asked to commit their churches at this stage" and there is "nothing which is commended in the draft text of the Covenant can be said to be 'new.'"

In other words: Patience. Patience with each other. Patience with ourselves. Patience with God.

But you knew that anyway, didn't you?

Radner profiled

Local priest on high-power panel to ease rift among Episcopalians

By MARVIN READ

THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

A Pueblo pastor has been asked to bring his considerable talents and insights into play to find a way to bring a sense of harmony and unity to the worldwide Anglican church.

The Rev. Ephraim Radner, rector of Ascension Episcopal Church, is one of but two Americans on an international panel charged with designing a covenant to be proposed to the heads of all Anglican churches throughout the world - known as "primates" - that would serve as a vehicle to retain their communion in the face of disagreements, some of them extensive.

It's all here...