3 posts tagged “primates”

I am writing in response to the Communique coming out of the primates meeting in Tanzania. While many are reacting to the words of the Communique, I would like to respond from an awareness of the foundation of the day-to-day ongoing commitment of Christians to the gospel of Jesus. As bishop to the Diocese of California, I make the following affirmations:

• The inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the full life of the Church is a matter of justice: as we are all part of the world, and the kindom of God is like a net laid over that same world. All on the earth are connected by this net, whether perceived or not. Actions of justice and injustice reverberate throughout the whole, promoting either integrity, remembering, and shalom, or diabolic isolation.
• Understood as expressed above, our task in the Church is not actually to include or exclude anyone, but to show forth an intrinsic co-inherence that simply is, created and sustained by God.
• Gay and lesbian people who come to the Church seeking the blessing of the Church for their unions are people seeking to lead holy lives, exactly like heterosexual couples. The Church must respond to gay and lesbian people seeking the blessing of counseling, community support, prayer, and sacrament in the same way it does to heterosexual couples.
• The Diocese of California is a place within the Church -- not alone, but prominently -- where gay and lesbian people have been freer to offer their gifts: Both professional gifts and those of lay and ordained ministry. As a result, the Diocese of California has been immeasurably enriched. As bishop of this diocese, I know very well that the Christian rights of gay and lesbian people are intrinsic and must be supported, and that without these gifts, this diocese would be as immeasurably impoverished as it is now enriched -- immeasurably, as the spiritual gifts of all God's people know no measure.
• The polity of The Episcopal Church requires the deliberation and consent of two bodies, the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies, to properly respond to the requests made by the primates in their Communique.
• The Episcopal Church should make every effort, including an extraordinary meeting of the two houses, and redoubled efforts to help the other provinces of the Communion understand both our theology relating to marriage and human sexuality and our polity. We should make these efforts, and at the same time not compromise the essentials of theology or our polity.
• I will call on the Diocese of California to come together at Grace Cathedral during the Easter Season (at a time and on a date to be determined) when we affirm the triumph of Christ over all that destroys the creatures of God, filling that great house of prayer for all people with the full diversity of the people of God: people who differ in mind but not heart; gay and straight people; men and women; the young with the old; the poor and the rich; people of every ethnicity, all together to show our understanding of Christ’s gift of new life in the Church.

+Marc Handley Andrus, Bishop of California
Shrove Tuesday, 2007

Shortly before any news regarding the content of the primates meeting being held in Tanzania came out, I was on BBC Radio 4 opposite the Rt. Rev. Michael Scott-Joynt, Bishop of Winchester in the Church of England, regarding the possible outcomes of the meeting. The brief statements I made were based entirely on Christian hope. Here are the central outcomes of the meeting thus far, which are strongly encouraging:

• The panel report on the Episcopal Church’s response to the Windsor Report as embodied in resolutions at the 2006 General Convention in Columbus said that we had in substance made adequate responses to the Windsor Report recommendations in most areas (noting that there is work to be done in the area of blessings of same-sex relationships).

Let me make two observations about this: First, the panel avoided what I call Windsor literalism; that is, the demand to adhere to the actual wording of the Report. Rather, the panel assessed the content of our responses, an intelligent way to analyze our response to a complex document.

Second, there will be, I think, immediate assertions that Resolution B033 of the 2006 General Convention has been proven to have been necessary, given the positive assessment of the panel at the primates meeting. B033 amounted to a moratorium, in the Episcopal Church, on the nomination, election, and consents to elections of partnered gay and lesbian people. On the contrary, it seems that, given the panel’s ability to analyze content and not merely check off if certain litmus test language has been used, alternatives to B033 might well have been acceptable.

• The overwhelming majority of primates showed their willingness to be in communion with our Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Shori. As I said on the BBC interview, such willingness, in the context of a world where women are greatly discriminated against, bearing the brunt of the AIDS pandemic, being denied equal access to education, being paid consistently less than men, etc., demonstrates the reality of Christ’s reconciling, healing presence in the Church.

What we see in the primates meeting in Tanzania is Christ drawing all things, all people to himself. Relationship is being brought foreword, replacing division and isolation – this is the dynamic of Christ’s healing of the world.

Finally, let me say that despite the distortions being put forward about the theology held in the Episcopal Church, and, less importantly, about the level of discord in the Episcopal Church, at this time our church is clearly standing on a threshold, a place of tremendous energy for the new. We are committing, under Bonnie Anderson and Katharine Jefferts Shori’s leadership, to the relief of global suffering. It is my belief that we shall do so in concert with a global communion, becoming what we are called to be, the Body of Christ.

Ontheair

I was on BBC Radio 4 this morning giving one American bishop's perspective on the commencement of the Primates meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. You can listen here, if you have RealPlayer.