Meeting on primatial oversight ends in stalemate

[angli_fan]

[from the Episcopal News Service]

Despite "honest and frank conversations," a group of bishops with differing perspectives, meeting in New York September 11-13, was unable to reach an agreement on how to meet the needs of seven dioceses that have asked for oversight with a primate other than the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.
"We're hoping to call another meeting later this fall to continue to wrestle with the issues," Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori said after the meeting concluded, adding that there is a "general commitment" among those present at this week's meeting to attend a subsequent meeting.

"It has occurred to me that it might be helpful to expand the group slightly so that it's not too large but includes the variety of perspectives" that exist, Jefferts Schori added.

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and Jefferts Schori both said after the meeting ended that the conversations that took place were valuable. "According to some of the participants, it was for them the most fruitful exchange they've been able to have," Griswold said.

Jefferts Schori called them "open and frank, sometimes challenging conversations, but very healthy ones."

www.dfms.org/3577_77725_ENG_HTM.htm

Bishop Duncan said the following in his press release:

“It was an honest meeting. It became clear that the division in the American church is so great that we are incapable of addressing the divide which has two distinctly different groups both claiming to be the Episcopal Church,” said Bishop Duncan, “Our request for Alternative Primatial Oversight (APO) still stands. We wait on the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates of the Anglican Communion to answer our request."

www.acn-us.org/archive/2006/09/statement-on-the-new-york-bishops-meeting.html

Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams stated:

“It’s a positive sign that these difficult conversations have been taking place in a frank and honest way. There is clearly a process at work and although it hasn’t yet come to fruition, the openness and charity in which views are being shared and options discussed are nevertheless signs of hope for the future. Our prayers continue.”

www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/releases/060913.htm

Mark Harris offers this um, "pungent" commentary:

Well the Skunk is on the Table: ACN claims to be the Episcopal Church.

Here is what the Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network is quoted to have said today, September 13th, 2006 about the meeting of Bishops in New York:

“It became clear that the division in the American church is so great that we are incapable of addressing the divide which has two distinctly different groups both claiming to be the Episcopal Church.” This is a quote from a news item posted on the ANC web site, so we can assume that is really what he said.

The bishop is wrong. The one “group” IS the Episcopal Church, to which all the bishops at this meeting are members. There is no “claim” here, there is the fact - the Episcopal Church. The other group, it would appear, are those Network bishops who claim, separately from the whole, to be the Episcopal Church. It is the Church confronted with a contentious group working for a coup d’eglise.

anglicanfuture.blogspot.com/2006/09/well-skunk-is-on-table-acn-claims-to.html

[NELib]

When Duncan said “it became clear that the division in the American church is so great that we are incapable of addressing the divide which has two distinctly different groups both claiming to be the Episcopal Church”, I thought he was referring to the Episcopal Church that wants to be a part of the Anglican Communion. I think that he sees a future with part of the church recognized by the ABC and part not, and he means that the part that is recognized by the ABC will be the true Episcopal Church. I don't think the was saying that the Network owns the whole kit and caboodle. That explanation would also be more consistent with his past statements. But who knows. I suspect we will get more information as time passes, and maybe after the next meeting in Texas.

But while we are parsing Duncan's words, note this: “Our request for Alternative Primatial Oversight (APO) still stands. We wait on the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates of the Anglican Communion to answer our request." I have a hunch that that reference to the Primates is meaningful. The global south primates may be ready to hold the ABC's feet to the fire. ECUSA seems quite ready to emphasize what the ABC cannot do here, but it cannot stop the global south primates from working to drop ECUSA from the communion. Though that will also entail forcing the ABC to choose between the global south and ECUSA, and this point I would not bet that he would choose ECUSA. Even though it would cause problems with part of the CofE, to do otherwise would cause problems with another part. And I am not certain the liberals in the CofE are all willing to fall on their swords for ECUSA's American-style intransigence.

[NELib]

Here is how Duncan explains the two churches:

"To a certain degree there have always been two Episcopal Churches, or at least two very distinct characters within one body. For most of our history in the New World, these two churches (or characters) have informed and shaped one another. Sometimes one Church has dominated, sometimes the other.

"Let neither side say the other does not have a legitimate claim to be the Episcopal Church. Both surely do. What is less clear is that both characters, both Episcopal Churches, will continue to be able to legitimately claim to be recognizable Anglicans or mainstream Christians."

In the strictest sense, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America was the product of a revolution. It was a “revolutionary church,” the product of revolutionary ideas and decisions and a revolutionary age. This character is unmistakable: democratic in its governance, giving the laity a voice in decisions and elections to an extent never known in the Church of England or historic Christianity. More than this, there emerged some sense of vocation that “the Episcopal Church should always be about showing the rest of the Christian world the way” not only in governance, but in matters from liturgy to ministry to theology.

Of course, there was an “older” Church (an older character) that was carried forward through the Revolution. The older Church (and character) was reflected in the name the Church chose for itself, Protestant Episcopal, literally “reformed and having bishops.” This was the enduring Church of the via media of the English Reformation, squarely planted at the center of Christian Truth: evangelical and universal, reformed and catholic. In this enduring character, revolution, no matter how culturally attractive, is always ultimately governed by God’s revelation, a revelation made sure for us in Scripture and witnessed to by tradition. When there is conflict between revolution and revelation, it is the firm conviction of the “endurers” that it is revolution that must give way.

For the last forty years the Revolutionary (or “Innovating”) portion of the Episcopal Church has dominated the Received (or “Enduring”) portion of the Episcopal Church. During that time, it has increasingly insisted on the primacy of its revolution over God’s stable revelation. It has so strongly sought to eliminate signs of the priorites and values of the enduring character from our shared life (the matters of Prayerbook, Women’s Ordination and sexual morality immediately spring to mind) that we are hard-pressed not to speak now of two churches, not just two characters. (Many in the Enduring Church, myself included, supported, and continue to support, reformation in Prayerbook and the extention of ordained ministry to women, but as Scriptural freedoms, never as Revolutionary mandates.)

As your Bishop, baptized, confirmed, married and ordained in the Episcopal Church – and admittedly raised and formed and embracing the “received” character of this Church far more than its “revolutionary” or “innovating” character – I continue to be amazed at those who suggest it is our side, our character or our Church that is “leaving.” We are not going anywhere. That is the point. It is the Revolutionary or Innovating Episcopal Church that is moving, as always this Church does. What I object to is having our place and our character eliminated, and in the same breath being told that we are the ones who are the problem. It may be great “spin” – and history is written by the “winners” – but it hardly represents the truth or the majority’s rightful claim in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh to be the Episcopal Church we have always been.

So let’s be clear about who are the ones doing the separating. Let us also be clear that it is the endurers who have the rightful claim to via media, not the revolutionaries. As the Windsor Report, and the response of the recently concluded General Convention have made so clear, it is the “innovators,” not the “endurers” who are “walking apart.”"