Two snaps!

A PASTORAL LETTER TO THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH FROM THE PRESIDING BISHOP
Pentecost continues!

Pentecost is most fundamentally a continuing gift of the Spirit, rather than a limitation or quenching of that Spirit.

The recent statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury about the struggles within the Anglican Communion seems to equate Pentecost with a single understanding of gospel realities. Those who received the gift of the Spirit on that day all heard good news. The crowd reported, “in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power” (Acts 2:11).

The Spirit does seem to be saying to many within The Episcopal Church that gay and lesbian persons are God’s good creation, that an aspect of good creation is the possibility of lifelong, faithful partnership, and that such persons may indeed be good and healthy exemplars of gifted leadership within the Church, as baptized leaders and ordained ones. The Spirit also seems to be saying the same thing in other parts of the Anglican Communion, and among some of our Christian partners, including Lutheran churches in North America and Europe, the Old Catholic churches of Europe, and a number of others.

That growing awareness does not deny the reality that many Anglicans and not a few Episcopalians still fervently hold traditional views about human sexuality. This Episcopal Church is a broad and inclusive enough tent to hold that variety. The willingness to live in tension is a hallmark of Anglicanism, beginning from its roots in Celtic Christianity pushing up against Roman Christianity in the centuries of the first millennium. That diversity in community was solidified in the Elizabethan Settlement, which really marks the beginning of Anglican Christianity as a distinct movement. Above all, it recognizes that the Spirit may be speaking to all of us, in ways that do not at present seem to cohere or agree. It also recognizes what Jesus says about the Spirit to his followers, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come” (John 16:12-13).

The Episcopal Church has spent nearly 50 years listening to and for the Spirit in these matters. While it is clear that not all within this Church have heard the same message, the current developments do represent a widening understanding. Our canons reflected this shift as long ago as 1985, when sexual orientation was first protected from discrimination in access to the ordination process. At the request of other bodies in the Anglican Communion, this Church held an effective moratorium on the election and consecration of a partnered gay or lesbian priest as bishop from 2003 to 2010. When a diocese elected such a person in late 2009, the ensuing consent process indicated that a majority of the laity, clergy, and bishops responsible for validating that election agreed that there was no substantive bar to the consecration.

The Episcopal Church recognizes that these decisions are problematic to a number of other Anglicans. We have not made these decisions lightly. We recognize that the Spirit has not been widely heard in the same way in other parts of the Communion. In all humility, we recognize that we may be wrong, yet we have proceeded in the belief that the Spirit permeates our decisions.

We also recognize that the attempts to impose a singular understanding in such matters represent the same kind of cultural excesses practiced by many of our colonial forebears in their missionizing activity. Native Hawaiians were forced to abandon their traditional dress in favor of missionaries’ standards of modesty. Native Americans were forced to abandon many of their cultural practices, even though they were fully congruent with orthodox Christianity, because the missionaries did not understand or consider those practices exemplary of the Spirit. The uniformity imposed at the Synod of Whitby did similar violence to a developing, contextual Christianity in the British Isles. In their search for uniformity, our forebears in the faith have repeatedly done much spiritual violence in the name of Christianity.

We do not seek to impose our understanding on others. We do earnestly hope for continued dialogue with those who disagree, for we believe that the Spirit is always calling us to greater understanding.

We live in great concern that colonial attitudes continue, particularly in attempts to impose a single understanding across widely varying contexts and cultures. We note that the cultural contexts in which The Episcopal Church’s decisions have generated the greatest objection and reaction are also often the same contexts where women are barred from full ordained leadership, including the Church of England.

As Episcopalians, we note the troubling push toward centralized authority exemplified in many of the statements of the recent Pentecost letter. Anglicanism as a body began in the repudiation of the control of the Bishop of Rome within an otherwise sovereign nation. Similar concerns over self-determination in the face of colonial control led the Church of Scotland to consecrate Samuel Seabury for The Episcopal Church in the nascent United States – and so began the Anglican Communion.

We have been repeatedly assured that the Anglican Covenant is not an instrument of control, yet we note that the fourth section seems to be just that to Anglicans in many parts of the Communion. So much so, that there are voices calling for stronger sanctions in that fourth section, as well as voices repudiating it as un-Anglican in nature. Unitary control does not characterize Anglicanism; rather, diversity in fellowship and communion does.

We are distressed at the apparent imposition of sanctions on some parts of the Communion. We note that these seem to be limited to those which “have formally, through their Synod or House of Bishops, adopted policies that breach any of the moratoria requested by the Instruments of Communion.” We are further distressed that such sanctions do not, apparently, apply to those parts of the Communion that continue to hold one view in public and exhibit other behaviors in private. Why is there no sanction on those who continue with a double standard? In our context bowing to anxiety by ignoring that sort of double-mindedness is usually termed a “failure of nerve.” Through many decades of wrestling with our own discomfort about recognizing the full humanity of persons who seem to differ from us, we continue to work at open and transparent communication as well as congruence between word and behavior. We openly admit our failure to achieve perfection!

The baptismal covenant prayed in this Church for more than 30 years calls us to respect the dignity of all other persons and charges us with ongoing labor toward a holy society of justice and peace. That fundamental understanding of Christian vocation underlies our hearing of the Spirit in this context and around these issues of human sexuality. That same understanding of Christian vocation encourages us to hold our convictions with sufficient humility that we can affirm the image of God in the person who disagrees with us. We believe that the Body of Christ is only found when such diversity is welcomed with abundant and radical hospitality.

As a Church of many nations, languages, and peoples, we will continue to seek every opportunity to increase our partnership in God’s mission for a healed creation and holy community. We look forward to the ongoing growth in partnership possible in the Listening Process, Continuing Indaba, Bible in the Life of the Church, Theological Education in the Anglican Communion, and the myriad of less formal and more local partnerships across the Communion – efforts in mission and ministry that inform and transform individuals and communities toward the vision of the Gospel – a healed world, loving God and neighbor, in the love and friendship shown us in God Incarnate.

May God’s peace dwell in your hearts,
The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Churh


Somebody needed to tell +Cantuar that he has drifted from the spirit of Anglicanism. Our Presiding Bishop had the ovaries to do it.

h/t to Mimi and to John Chilton at The Lead (where you can see the video of the message).

--the BB

Moral authority squandered

I have written extensively about genocide in the past years because for me it is personal. I grew up among survivors of the Armenian genocide during WWI. I lived among survivors of the Holocaust. I pastored Cambodians who survived Pol Pot. I cannot be silent about the threat of a new law in Uganda that would execute LGBT people and cast in prison those who do not denounce them. Rowan Williams thinks it is his duty to remain silent about this, at least in public. It is strange how quickly he jumps in to threaten some folks and remains silent about others.

Public silence on impending genocidal legislation in Uganda where human lives are at stake and not only silence but pressure for others to remain silent. Immediate public response to the election of a bishop suffragan in Los Angeles. +Rowan Cantuar has interesting priorities and they seem to be institutional.

I like Lois Keen's comment:

"...if our bonds of affection are to hold."

I must speak out. I can stand it no longer. Affection is not affection at all if it is conditional on anything. Affection has no prerequisites. It is not qualified.

Most of all, affection carries no thinly veiled threats of breaking affection.

Rowan has no affection for TEC, except we throw our LGBT brothers and sisters under the bus. Others in the Anglican Communion, for whom we still have affection, have no affection for us except we declare our LGBT brothers and sisters intransigent, disordered, unhealthy sinners. Subsequently, there is no bond of affection in the Anglican Communion.

But worst of all, to base communion on "bonds of affection" is a fallacy, if not a category mistake.

Communion is in and through Christ Jesus, and him alone. In him and through him our paltry, meager affections toward one another are unnecessary. We can never feel our way to loving one another. We can only do our way to loving one another, and that's hard work, because it holds up to judgment our refusals to work with another because in our judgment the other has "broken the bonds of affection".

Thank you, Lois. No human bond is sufficient; the Spirit's bond transcends our brokenness and, yes, our hatred (as you wrote elsewhere).

Jim Naughton added:

Lambeth Palace says it would be counterproducrive to speak out against a law that legalizes the murder of gays people and the imprisonment of their confidants, but thinks that inserting itself into the middle of the consent process of a duly elected Episcopal bishop is a good use of the Archbishop's moral authority. Do the clergy and people of the Church of England feel comfortable with this?

Look with pity, O heavenly Father, upon the people in every land who live with injustice, terror, disease and death as their constant companions. Have mercy upon us. Help us to eliminate our cruelty to these our neighbors. Strengthen those who spend their lives establishing equal protection of the law and equal opportunities for all. And grant that every one of us may enjoy a fair portion of the riches of this world, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

--the BB

Sorry, but I gave up years ago

When are we going to admit the party's over? That the marriage is already dead? That those who have not listened for the past four decades are highly unlikely to begin now?

Can we just put the Anglican Communion down as mercifully as we might a suffering animal and be done with it?

At some point one stops cooperating with those who do not recognize one as a full human being.

So, anent their opinions and delicate feelings...

...and haven't for quite some time

Now, having acknowledged that I gave up on the Anglican Communion (because, as I see it, it is more concerned for its own preservation than for the Gospel), I suppose I need to add that I have not given up on the Gospel, or the potential for surprise within the human heart and the unpredictable workings of the Spirit. I am therefore not without hope. I just no longer invest energy in worrying about the future of the communion. If it becomes a Church on the Roman model instead of a Communion on our historic Anglican model, then I really don't want any part in it.

I also think I will stick with my collective noun of a pestilence of primates.

Since I have, all my life, been someone who believed that our incarnate nature requires institutions as realities of social organization (in other words, I have not been inclined to an anti-institutional stance), this indicates how deeply disgusted I am with everything that has been going on in the AC since Lambeth 1998. Yes, there are the MDG but we aren't talking about them very much, are we?

Oh, an aside: Many have been saying that the Baptismal Covenant suffices. I agree, but what lots of folks do not realize is that it was developed in our BCP and is not commonly shared throughout Anglicanism. Despite its ancient roots and biblical foundations it is one of our modern innovation thingies. Shocking, I know.

--the B (how do you really feel?) B

Ah, it wasn't the Republicans in Congress

It's the Anglican Primates.

I really did not expect anything good to come from their gathering. Call me a pessimist, a realist, or someone bitter about church hierarchies. I will accept any and all of these labels without argument.

I am also a native of the United States with some rather strong views on government of, by, and for the People.

You may thus conclude that I don't think archbishops should even be allowed to gather without deacons, presbyters, and lots of the non-clerical laity also present. I see no reason that they should be able to deliberate or pontificate in not-very-splendid isolation.

I don't know if the Buddha really said this but I rather like something written on one of my refrigerator magnets:

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

To this I might add "obey no dictum unless it agrees with your understanding of justice."

Now, I will readily concede that my own understanding of justice, like my understanding of anything, is exceedingly limited. But frail a thing as it it, it is the light I must live by.

Note: I did not write the Light I must live by. That is Jesus, and I think he would kick the purple-dressed twits from here to next Tuesday.

This conversation will include continuing the Listening Process, and the "Bible in the Church" Project. It is urgent that we as primates, with the rest of the Communion, directly study the scriptures and explore the subject of human sexuality together in order to help us find a common understanding.

The "Listening Process" has hardly begun in most of the world and been roundly rejected by some primates. If they are going to take the Bible as a serious guide to sexual ethics we can start with reinstituting polygamy and concubinage and stoning adulterers tomorrow. I personally want to preside at the defrocking of the first primate with a chimere of blended fabrics or caught noshing on shrimp. You know some of these gits are not going to even consider scientific evidence on sexuality.

Yes, I have my own serious bigotry. I was not prepared to give any credence or obeisance to a word that might eventuate from the primates' meeting. Is it because I think they are always, by definition, in error? No. Is it because I do not think the Holy Spirit might surprise or challenge me through them? No. But it does have roots in their track record.

If a way forward is to be found and mutual trust to be re-established, it is imperative that further aggravation and acts which cause offence, misunderstanding or hostility cease. While we are aware of the depth of conscientious conviction involved, the position of the Communion defined by the Lambeth 1998 Resolution 1.10 in its entirety remains, and gracious restraint on all three fronts is urgently needed to open the way for transforming conversation.

["We are quite distressed that Jesus caused offence, misunderstanding, and hostility and we rather wish we could forget he did so. It is just so... un-English, and likely to startle the horses, you know."]

I just want to say, as someone who used to read Lambeth resolutions dating back to the beginning and is not unaware of the tradition, that a gathering of bishops at Lambeth is not the same as "the position of the Communion." You see, being a Communion and not a Church, there is no transnational body that can speak FOR us all. None. Never has been and, IMNSHO, nor should there be. The bishops may speak TO us all, but not FOR us all. It's not really that tricky a distinction. I wish these asshats could grasp it.

It might go a long way toward shoring up their credibility if they worked on speaking to us and profoundly realized they do not speak for us.

You may read more at OCICBW.

OK, Susan S., you're waiting for it, I know.

I really don't give a flying fuck what the primates say. I do value what could, and sometimes has, come from a gathering of bishops, but the introduction of expanded and glorified roles for archbishops just smacks too damn much of hierarchicalism à la Rome and I'm having none of it.

+Clumber was not amiss in selecting a quote from this tick on the Body of Christ.
--the BB

The Grand Tufti unsheathes his rapier

From Lambeth Palace:

"There are clear guidelines set out in the Anglican Consultative Council Reports, notably ACC 10 in 1996 (resolution 12), detailing the steps necessary for the amendments of existing provincial constitutions and the creation of new provinces. Once begun, any of these processes will take years to complete. In relation to the recent announcement from the meeting of the Common Cause Partnership in Chicago, the process has not yet begun."

The process has not yet begun. (Ouch.)

h/t to The Lead
--the BB

must. preserve. communion. at. all. costs.....

“There is something about the preservation of the global fellowship that is bigger than any of us.”

--Rowan Cantuar

"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me."

--God


I know I am naive and very parochial about all this but isn't our global fellowship a gift of God? Something we are blessed with and need to nurture, of course, but not really of our making? And isn't it guaranteed far more by God's goodness and inbreakings of grace and moments of shared humanity than by, oh, say, rules and structures?

My personal feeling is that far too many in Anglican land are trying to keep the ark from falling of the cart, as though God cannot take care of Godself or the grace of communion will not perdure without us MAKING it perdure. Perhaps they should all reread the story of Uzzah.

When did they stop trusting God? (Oh, when they stopped trusting each other. Right. I think there is a parallel discussion in 1 John.)
--the BB

Word from Myanmar

The Archbishop of Myanmar wrote a letter. You can read part of it at The Lead or all of it here.

...the Church of the Province of Myanmar formed a relief committee on Wednesday 7 April 2008 and immediately sent out 4 teams to survey the affected areas. 3 of these teams returned, reporting general damage but little loss of life. The full extent of the damage in the Delta region, however, is still emerging. The team that was sent to what appears to be the worst affected area has confirmed widespread damage and extensive loss of life. In some places, entire villages have been devastated, with few if any survivors. In other places, survivors have huddled together in makeshift shelters awaiting aid. Travel in that area is very difficult, and villages are often in very isolated and remote areas, accessible only by boat. We have already sent a medical team to some parts of the most affected area, meeting both medical needs and distributing relief supplies. We plan to send a second one in the next few days.

--the BB

Emmaus Sunday

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’ Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. (Luke 13:35)

They recognized Jesus when he did once more what he had done so many times with his friends.

At every Eucharist he still does the same.

And as my friend Helen always said, "Every meal is Eucharist."


I believe it is important that we come to table together to be fed by Christ. To say we will not eat together with certain persons is to cut ourselves off from the feast of grace.

It would not be easy for me to stand about the altar (or kneel at the altar rail) next to certain persons (and of course I could name names). That is all the more reason to come, broken and messed up as I am yet signed with the Cross, and be fed with my sisters and brothers in their brokenness, and behold the same Cross blazoned on their brow.

This is where we find forgiveness and healing, where we find nurture and renewal, where we are bound once more to God and to each other, where we feed on the divine life and are changed from glory into glory.

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
--the BB

Oh yes, I have some feelings about this

Clumber first pointed me toward the article in The Atlantic. It is about Nigeria and is titled "God's Country." The author is Eliza Griswold, daughter of former Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold.

Then I read more at Fr. Jake's.

I commend the larger original article for more context. These highlights are chilling.

One Tuesday at 7 a.m. in Yelwa, about 70 people were praying their morning devotions at the Church of Christ in Nigeria (founded by none other than the fiery Kumm himself). It was in February 2004, about a year after the elders had issued their edict that no Christian woman was to be seen with a Muslim man. As the worshippers finished their prayers, they heard gunshots and a call from the loudspeakers of the mosque next door: “Allahu Akhbar, let us go for jihad.” ... [P]eople fled toward the road behind the church. There, men dressed in military fatigues reassured them that they were safe and herded them back to the church. Then the men opened fire. ... The attackers—who were not, in fact, Nigerian soldiers—set the church on fire and killed everyone who tried to escape.

[snip]

Two months after the church was razed, Christian men and boys surrounded Yelwa. Many were bare-chested; others wore shirts on which they’d reportedly pinned white name tags identifying them as members of the Christian Association of Nigeria, an umbrella organization founded in the 1970s to give Christians a collective and unified voice as strong as that of Muslims. Each tag had a number instead of a name: a code, it seemed, for identification. They attacked the town. According to Human Rights Watch, 660 Muslims were massacred over the course of the next two days, including the patients in the Al-Amin clinic. Twelve mosques and 300 houses went up in flames. Young girls were marched to a nearby Christian town and forced to eat pork and drink alcohol. Many were raped, and 50 were killed.

[snip]

At the time of the massacre, Archbishop Peter Akinola was the president of the Christian Association of  Nigeria, whose membership was implicated in the killings. He has since lost his bid for another term but, as primate of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, he is still the leader of 18 million Anglicans. He is a colleague of my father, who was the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in America from 1997 to 2006. But the American Episcopals’ election of an openly homosexual bishop in 2003, which Archbishop Akinola denounced as “satanic,” created distance between them.

[snip]

When asked if those wearing name tags that read “Christian Association of Nigeria” had been sent to the Muslim part of Yelwa, the archbishop grinned. “No comment,” he said. “No Christian would pray for violence, but it would be utterly naive to sweep this issue of Islam under the carpet.” He went on, “I’m not out to combat anybody. I’m only doing what the Holy Spirit tells me to do. I’m living my faith, practicing and preaching that Jesus Christ is the one and only way to God, and they respect me for it. They know where we stand. I’ve said before: let no Muslim think they have the monopoly on violence.”

Perhaps Abp. Akinola had nothing to do with the massacre at Yelwa. I hope he did not.

Even so, that he could grin when discussing it is absolutely chilling.

I think about the repeated contrasts in the New Testament between the way of power (the way of dominion and empire and violence) and the way of love (the way of service and compassion). Who is Lord? Jesus or Caesar?

Where endless vendettas occur it seems clear enough to me that we are dealing with the way of Caesar, the way of power and violence, the way of Satan.

And Abp. Akinola then has the nerve to denounce those who celebrate forms of love that he disapproves as satanic.

As our evangelical friend Grace keeps saying at other blogs: Lord, have mercy.
--the BB

Another African voice

OCICBW points today to an article in the News & Record by Nancy McLaughlin where she writes of The Rt. Rev. Musonda Trevor Mwamba, Bishop of Botswana, who spoke at the convention of the Diocese of North Carolina yesterday.

He's not asking people to change their positions, necessarily, but an Anglican bishop says there can be middle ground in the lingering and angry debate over the ordination of an openly gay man as a bishop by U.S. Episcopalians.

"When I hear all these harsh tones being exchanged," said the Right Rev. Musonda Trevor Mwamba of Botswana, "... I ask if anybody is praying."
...
"The majority of African Anglicans," he said, "they have their minds focused on life and death issues, like AIDS, poverty ... and not what the church thinks about sex or the color of your pajama pants. Villagers who live on less than $1 a day aren't aware this is going on. The majority of Africans who can afford TVs and radios, they don't want to see the communion incinerate."
...
The core message among Christians should be enlarging the Kingdom of God, Mwamba said, and not looking for ways to make it smaller.

"So why do we keep thinking separately — us and them?" Mwamba asked. "Could it be because we have lost sight of the height and depth of the kingdom ... the infinity of God in us?"

Jane R of Acts of Hope was there and reports that she received communion from him. We hope to hear more from her soon.

On a separate topic, Jane reports "Wore bright red (blouse of stiff silk with fabulous collar and cuffs, a hand-me-down from Mother of Acts of Hope), silver earrings, black slacks." She had asked what to wear to convention and I had opined: "Something designed to break hearts, I should think. Every straight man and lesbian in the room should take note and the gay men should all admire how it's accessorized. Church business should not excuse dowdiness. Stun them, my dear. At the end of the weekend you should have at least half a dozen new phone numbers. Being a lady you won't call, of course, but they will still be pining for you." For that reason we include the fashion update. I am sure she, being a beautiful lady, dazzled them.

In other fashion news, a crown has been awarded to a very different bishop who wins the title of drama queen.

I have very fond memories of Bishop Mwamba's predecessor, Archbishop Khotso Makhulu. I had written to him just prior to Lambeth 1998, offering my prayers for him and all the bishops of the Province of Central Africa. A seminarian from Zimbabwe whom I knew was the link that led me to assure at least one African bishop that some of us American "liberals" were not their enemies. I received a very gracious reply (tinged with humor) from him after he returned from the conference.

Here is an excerpt of a sermon he preached at evensong Lambeth 1998. I saw it online at the time and it gave me a glimpse of what a great and good chief pastor he was.

So, as a people of encounter, coming to encounter the living God, and to encounter others who in faith are gathered here, we have done a variety of things through this encounter - through bible study, through meetings, through discussions. I remember hearing an Irish priest - I hope there are no Irish here... He was a member of the Community of the Congregation of the Sacred Passion and he was called to attend the Chapter of his Order and he sent a letter to his Superior saying 'Sorry, can't be present' and signed himself 'Holy Spirit'. Sometimes our deliberations have made me wonder if we have chased the Holy Spirit away.

Those we have encountered in the presence of God, those who encounter the presence of God, are invariably moved to repentance. I am not doing an 'evaluation form' from the pulpit of what this conference is about, but I am doing a number of things. First of all I thank God for the opportunity of having shared in the worship, of having been reminded that I belong to a wider community of believers and worshippers. But, equally, I am reminded that on this occasion a variety of things have happened, and if we are to be called to repentance, we have to be agents of reconciliation. The tenor of some of our discussions can only be described as 'frenzied'. The tone in which they were expressed was devoid of the love of God. We have had tyrants using the Bible as armour, and words spoken from this very spot that were aimed to wound and to win score debating points.
I do not believe that this is the economy of the community of the Trinity. I do not believe that this is the basis of our Lord Jesus Christ. In our confusion He comes in order that He may shed light upon us. In our perplexity He comes that we may have comfort. In our bewilderment He sheds a light, a comforting light, so that we may truly be representatives of His.

There were those in this conference who have power, those who want it and want it badly, those who want to use it - whether by being utterly articulate or experts at procedural devices - those who have the 'lollie' [money] and know exactly how to use it to best advantage.

Sadly, we have equally had those who have been marginalised in our midst - some are confused and others remain wounded. From my background, I want to say here and now, I have resisted tyranny all my life and nor will I ever tolerate it from those who claim the love of the Bible over everyone else. Let not the intolerance of a variety of contexts inexorably lead us to intolerance, which, if unchecked, will find us with a band of vigilantes and fundamentalists.

I pray to God that the spirit of Anglicanism will survive, that we shall come to engage each other and find the best way forward. May God forgive us our wrong doings and our failure to strengthen His fellowship. I heard the Cross mentioned, and at times one got the impression that that Cross was not the life-giving Cross but was almost some kind of whip to whip those who were sinners.

You may read it all here.

I thank God for the bishops of Botswana.
--the BB

Observations from the (near) outside

A friend who is a benevolent onlooker (and knows too much of church fights from the inside) wrote this in an e-mail to me:

I have little stomach for the ecclesiastical road kill that is littering up the Anglican Communion these days. I assume that there will be some kind of split, though the split will be a bit muddied in good Anglican fashion, at least as far as the world wide communion is concerned. The splits will be clearer in the US. The details are boring and painful. But I think my great grandfather was right. Church fights are like cat fights with the same results, more cats and more churches. The traditional folks can worship God using a traditional paradigm and the "post-traditional" folks can go about the important business of developing a more clearly articulated non-literal theology and "praxis" (Ouch, I didn't use that word did I?) Both are legitimate, but it is time to go on with the messy details of this divorce. The sooner, the cleaner, the quicker, the better.

The emphasis is mine.
--the BB

More on Cantuar

Portrait of +Rowan Williams by David Griffiths

Further responses to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury's Advent Letter to the Primates:

In comments at Thinking Anglicans, Charles William Allen writes:

I do question what may sound like the continued characterization of my and others' reading of Scripture as a "Radical change in the way we read." Is it so radical, or are we simply insisting on applying the same standards of responsible and faithful scholarship to the "clobber verses" that we apply to other, similarly tangential comments in the Bible?

Our readings may be PERCEIVED as radical, but if so, what does that say about those who are perceiving them in that way?

Furthermore, I find it very odd to say that these readings of the Bible are "determined by one group or tradition alone." Is there a way to isolate a group or tradition here that is not question-begging?

These readings are shared by faithful scholars from all sorts of traditions and confessions. It is no longer a radical innovation to view the Bible as a diverse collection of quite fallible human testimonies to a God who dares to come to us on our terms and draw us into a common life. It was a major shift in understanding at one time, but not now, and certainly not for the ABC.

And once that shift is made, no one should be surprised if some of us do not see a scattered assemblage of tangential remarks as especially binding when we are making sense of relationships rooted prayerfully in mutual love.

There is nothing radical here, only a perception of radicality.

To which I say, EXACTLY! Hear, hear!

Gõran Koch-Swahne writes:

"The Instruments of Communion have consistently and very strongly repeated that it is part of our Christian and Anglican discipleship to condemn homophobic prejudice and violence, to defend the human rights and civil liberties of homosexual people and to offer them the same pastoral care and loving service that we owe to all in Christ's name."

Yet not a word on the proposed Nigerian legislation, not a word on Uganda and Rwanda, not a word on Homophobia in Africa in general, and not a word on the situation in Central Africa and Kenya re Zimbabwe.

David Bayne writes:

If I understand the narrative it goes something like:
1. This is a beastly mess.
2. It's all the fault of the American liberals - and they haven't apologised nearly nicely enough.
3. Splitting TEC is OK, but not in an "uncontrolled" way.
4. Clergy and laity don't count. In all matters ecclesiological Bishops have the "decisive voice". (Subtext: And Primates trump Bishops.)
5. The sacred Book of Windsorreport (now to be found tucked into the flyleaf of the NT) decrees that our way to salvation lies through a covenant, and so a covenant we shall have.
6. Meanwhile, we must all continue to pretend to be nice to gays in public, while acknowledging quietly among ourselves that Leviticus 20.13 is still our "standard of faith" on the matter.
7. If we all pray very hard through Advent perhaps it will all have gone away by Christmas.

There's no English word that adequately describes how I feel: the Scots word is "scunnered".

Which to my eyes matches what Rowan wrote, even if it reads between the lines.

I really like this bit by Malcom+:

I've been convinced from the start that the proposal for a Covenant is a piece of well intentioned stupidity. If we can meet, no Covenant is necessary. If we cannot meet, no Covenant will help. [emphasis mine]

Matty H. says this in a comments thread at An Inch at a Time:

After over 200 years of a polity recognizing the charism of discerning doctrine imbued unto all the baptized by the Holy Spirit, TEC still threatens the imperialism of the Church of England! Give me a break. In effect, WE started the Anglican Communion as we sought a church non-encumbered by narrow English colonialism. Those Churches who decolonialized later should look to us as an example, rather than as a threat.

Tobias Haller comments:

The Archbishop still does not appear to grasp that the House of Bishops in the Episcopal Church is an equal partner with the House of Deputies in the General Convention. They do not have any "decisive" power to operate contrary to the decisions of that Convention; although as part of that Convention they do hold an absolute veto power over any decisions of that Convention (as, of course, do the Deputies). If this is what the Archbishop means (that the Bishops alone can hold the line at GC 2009) then he is spot on.

But if not, it appears the place of Bishops in our governance is one of those things that simply will not penetrate the Archbishop's psyche. They are not the primary theologians of the church; and in the Episcopal Church they are only one strand of its governance. At least the Archbishop has finally acknowledged that this may be a matter in which there is a difference between what TEC believes and what he thinks is believed "elsewhere in the Communion." And yes, it does need to be addressed. [emphasis mine]

Counterlight says this over at Fr. Jake's:

As far as I'm concerned, we were always on our own. To repeat the point made by finer minds than mine, The Episcopal Church is NOT the local franchise of the The Church of England. Our first bishops went to Scotland to be consecrated, not England. Our polity from the beginning aspired to be as different from the polity of the Cof E or of Rome as possible. Canterbury never played a large role in our Church affairs, until very recently.

Paul (A.), also at Jake's:

Abp. Williams: "How then should the Lambeth Conference be viewed? It is not a canonical tribunal, but neither is it merely a general consultation. It is a meeting of the chief pastors and teachers of the Communion, seeking an authoritative common voice."

"authoritative common voice"?

Where has this "scholar" been for the first hundred years or so of the Lambeth Conference?

And also this: "If their faith and practice are recognised by other churches in the Communion as representing the common mind of the Anglican Church, they are clearly in fellowship with the Communion."

Anglican Church?

There is no Anglican Church!

Did he completely sleep through Anglican Communion 101 in seminary?

Perhaps he did (sleep through class, that is). The ABC makes some statements and implies some assumptions in this letter addressed to his fellow primates that seem disingenuous at best and erroneous or fatuous at worst. There is clearly no place for the voices of lgbt persons to be heard in any process he outlines in spite of the long history of saying the church should listen to those affected, those victimized, those shunned, those oppressed.

I am one of the rare folks who actually has gone back (not recently, I admit) and read the results of previous Lambeth Conferences from the beginning to the present, so it can hardly be said that I have not taken them seriously. Not as canon law but as a guide to the thinking of bishops in the Communion, as some indication of where the Communion stands on things. As with other forms of guidance (moral, psychological, vocational, etc.) some counsel is better than others, some more apt than others, some more useful than others, and some perhaps belongs in the dustbin. Some is timely when given but outdated and no longer relevant later on. Some needs adaptation or rejection based on further information or later developments. But it is nonetheless wise to listen to counsel. One learns, whether one agrees with the advice or follows it or not.

I am a believer in organic development. This means I do not favor radical change with no, or little, continuity because I do not think we are meant to be rootless and unrelated to our context. Neither do I believe in stasis, in remaining the same and doing things the way we always have. While I believe the character and purposes of God are unchanging, our understanding of them is constantly evolving. As my namesake wrote: now we see in a glass, darkly. I do not believe everything new is good nor everything old to be irrelevant. Neither do I believe everything new to be evil or everything old to be of eternal value. It is all a mix, it is all in flux, it must all be constantly evaluated and re-evaluated. We cannot merely preserve. We cannot merely innovate. We can and must evolve. Or die. So with the Church. Its divine foundation and Christ's promises are our assurance of what lasts and our call into more than we can yet ask or imagine. Its human embodiment in space and time is our assurance that it is subject to all manner of limitations and errors and will always be groping toward that high call given us in Christ.

I think that to some extent I do understand how some folks think progressive approaches to Bible and ethics are "new" and discontinuous. It is because their focus is on the Torah and the Epistles. These are the folks I grew up with (different denomination, same mindset). The folks I run with now focus on the Prophets and the Gospels. You get very different emphases and trajectories, very different visions of holiness. Both are appealing to tradition. Both, when not sidelined with a desire for power or consumed with fear, seek to be faithful.

We who confess one God should also see this one God as the source of our yearnings for holiness and the goal of our journeying and might do well to trust God more and criticize our fellow humans less. (I preach to myself here, because I am as hurt and pissed and uncharitable as most these days.)

I think dialogue is a good thing. I don't see how Rowan's calling for it now will help much given how badly it has failed over the past thirty years. And if those most affected are not allowed to speak, then let's call it a bloody sham right now and not waste our time.

The former bishop here was definitely on the conservative side of things and his view of human sexuality, from what I heard him say, was definitely right out of the Vatican magisterium. Nonetheless, he spent an evening listening to lesbians and gays speak out of their experience, their pain, their hopes, and their journeys in Christ and in the community of faith. He did not agree with our positions but he remained our chief pastor and he did not shun, denounce, or excommunicate. He practices love and forbearance and provided pastoral care. At the beginning of this month he was received into the Roman Catholic Church. He did not take any congregation with him. He resigned and left on his own. Those of us who disagreed with him on just about everything were, and are, fond of him. +Jeffrey Steenson was a "Windsor Bishop," one who abided by the listening part of Windsor and Lambeth. Most of those denouncing TEC are choosing not to listen, which means they may call themselves Windsor bishops but are not; they may say they are upholding Lambeth, but they are not.

It is clear that I am quite pessimistic about the future of the AC as we know it. It is also clear that I really don't give a damn any more so long as Gospel is proclaimed, lived, and Christ can draw the world into God's boundless love and life. I found a home in the AC and wish to continue being a Christian in the Anglican tradition. I would prefer for us all to "get along" but I have to trust God for that to happen. I have no faith in the Primates, quite frankly (with a few personal exceptions) or, after 1998, in Lambeth, or, after the confirmation of this Advent letter, in the ABC. But then, my faith is not in them, nor should be. It is in God the Holy and Lifegiving Trinity.

POSTSCRIPT:
I keep a daily collection of electronic clippings, mostly political but also humorous, cultural, and ecclesiastical. I e-mail it to my best friend who skims as he feels led. He does not want to deal with church politics, so I put the following header on such items, which are currently quite frequent. It is his warning label. Thought y'all might be amused. General license to use it elsewhere hereby freely granted.


--the BB

It's not either/or. We all must come to the Cross.

The Cross by Kim Bu, Korea

Fr. Jake discusses excerpts of +Cantuar's Advent letter to the primates. At the end of the post he writes:

Dr. Williams has chosen to support those who would exclude others from the Church based on the questionable translation of seven verses from scripture. The concrete act which exemplifies his decision to support that position is his insistence on continuing to exclude Bp. Robinson from Lambeth. He seems to not recognize that by barring Bp. Robinson, he has silenced the most qualified representative of those being persecuted in the Church today. In so doing, it is Dr. Williams who has expressed a "refusal of the cross - and so of the resurrection." [emphasis mine]

I think Jake is right that Rowan is going with the majority position among primates. (Who knows what the majority position among the faithful is? Many of the primates, operating on an autocratic model, don't poll the baptized.) Jake also notes that the ABC still does not fully appreciate the seriousness with which our polity and ethos take the role of the laity and the House of Deputies.

Most of the Anglican Communion operates on a hierarchical model in which the traditional role of bishops to guard the unity of the faith does not include a role for the laity to have a say in what the faith they believe is. TEC is, we must acknowledge it, anomalous in that our doctrine (expressed in what we pray and sing in public) is determined not by the House of Bishops but by General Convention, both houses acting in tandem. The Anglican Church in Canada operates similarly. There may be other provinces with strong lay roles as well.

I suspect the aristocratic, colonial history of the British Empire has so colored the Anglican ethos that the unruly democracy we so cherish here in the U.S. is too much for the dear old chaps. (Was that a sufficient example of reverse patronization?)

I suggest we lay aside exclusive focus on sexuality or Biblical interpretation and go to the core: how are we faithful to the Gospel? By focusing on the (admittedly vague) concept of the Gospel we acknowledge that we must and do view the Scriptures through various lenses. Our history, language, worldview, experience, and community all affect how we hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches. We have criteria by which we evaluate and prioritize various parts of the Bible and we need to be aware of them and acknowledge them.

If Jesus is the Word incarnate then he must be our primary lens. The Bible is "the Word of God" only in the derivative sense that it preserves and presents for us the intentions of God known through the history that leads to and flows from the Incarnation, it tells us about the true Word that enlightens every person coming into the world. The Bible is NOT the fourth person of the Trinity (which underscores the mathematical and conceptual absurdity of elevating it beyond its role). I grew up amidst what I can only consider bibliolatry and, my friends, it is a distortion of faith and not its guarantee.

One thing I love about my roots was seeing the Bible through John 3:16 (about which I have posted at length). God loved the world and gave the Son so we might have life. There we have a core message of God and the world, a relationship of love, self-offering for the sake of life, seen in the Son, this Word incarnate. This is what we are to proclaim and to incarnate in our own lives.

How do we do that in our several contexts? How do we honor the vast differences in those contexts? What does Good News look like in those very different situations, locations, cultures, challenges? How does the Good News adapt and clothe itself while still remaining the Good News of Jesus? Niebuhr taught us about the tensions between Christ and culture. Good News is gibberish if it is not expressed within and through the culture in which we live. Note that the Word became incarnate in a very specific time, place, and culture. One may conclude that that specific time, place, and culture are normative OR one may conclude that time, place, and culture are necessary to incarnation and incarnation must always be situated in each time, place, and culture.

The Gospel should and does always critique, challenge, judge, and transform culture. This is why we cannot merely "ride with the tide and go with the flow" of the moment's trends. Where there is no judgment, no challenge, no questioning there is no Gospel. But I do not hear so-called liberals (including myself) calling for us to merely accept the world's values and do and believe what our culture or passing trend may do or believe.

The Gospel must thus be incarnate in specific circumstances, inculturated, but not captive to culture. Each culture must hear the challenge of the Cross and the call to turn around, be transformed, and follow Christ into a new possibility of life, truth, freedom, justice, mercy and all the other qualities of the reign of God--into the realm of divine love. We are made for being taken into the divine life and union with the Holy Trinity and with one another and with all creation. Nothing less. And that means radical transformation.

For those who see the Gospel calling us to full inclusion, to a vision that embraces not just queers but non-Christians (oh my, now he's gone too far), following Jesus means breaking with old traditions and taboos. To those who embrace the taboos it is rank apostasy. To us it is Gospel and the presence and Spirit of Christ at work transforming us and our world.

I see a table to which all are invited.

Some don't really want me at that table. Or if I'm there I'd better STFU. And take off my collar.

By God's grace I have come to the table and I don't plan on backing off. Nor do I plan to be part of chasing others away. I have had enough of Bad News in my life and I don't want to be part of propagating more of it.

I would love to see a happier outcome and I do believe in divine surprises and that time and chance happen to us all, but I anticipate TEC will pursue the Gospel where God is taking us in this place, others will be mad as hell, and we will not be part of the Anglican Communion some time in the not-too-distant future.

I can live with that.

What I cannot live with is abandoning Good News.

UPDATE: Sheila, in the comments thread at Jake's place, writes:

One of the may things I find troubling about the Advent letter is that the ABC is willing to pick apart the New Orleans conference and refer to positions taken afterwards and even poll members of the Anglican Communion about how they felt towards it and take their answers seriously, while at the same time he holds up Lambeth 1998 and Resolution 1.10 with no comment whatsoever on the deeply manipulative and flawed process which produced it nor on the regrets and resolutions subsequent to it.

And he does the same with The Windsor Report, ignoring the deep reservations many Provinces have about some of its parts.

His highly selective and prejudicial viewing of these processes and documents makes me distrust any resolutions or Covenant which may come from Lambeth 2008.

Charlotte, also in the comments thread, has this fine contribution:

I think I understand ++Rowan's First Epistle to the Central Floridians after this letter, and I'm going to try to articulate my thoughts:

1) The model of Communion in ++Rowan's mind includes a large dollop of what is known in British political theory as "the collective responsibility of the Cabinet." That principle holds that once the Cabinet has come to a decision on a matter, all members must agree to support and endorse it, even if they had been previously opposed. If a Cabinet Member feels s/he cannot support the decision publicly, s/he resigns from the Government.

++Rowan could understand our Church leadership disliking Lambeth 1.10 intensely, yet agreeing to implement it because it was a collective decision on the part of the Communion. (Even if corruptly arrived at, it is still on record as the collective decision of the Communion.) Likewise he thinks we should sign on for the process outlined in the Windsor Report, including the Covenant process. He can't understand why we might refuse to accede to something like Lambeth 1.10 yet refuse to "resign," as it were.

2) Any diocese that signals its willingness to continue to participate in the process ought to be able to continue to participate, in ++Rowan's view.

It is a very different model of authority from that shared by many of us in the United States, and I mean on both sides of the issue -- and it is also, I think, a very specific cultural model as well. Is it really Christian, or is it simply British-Establishment?

UPDATE II: Julian Long, in his response, writes:

It seems to me that the heart of the letter is its evocation of what the Archbishop asserts to be a common understanding of scriptural tradition against which The Episcopal Church has made “a decisive move that plainly implies a new understanding of Scripture that has not been received and agreed by the wider Church.” To this framing the Archbishop adds:
Where such a situation arises, it becomes important to clarify that the Communion as a whole is not committed to receiving the new interpretation and that there must be ways in which others can appropriately distance themselves from decisions and policies which they have not agreed.

In his final paragraph Julian says:

I wish I could think of something positive and uplifting to say here at the end, but I can’t. I think the ABC’s offering of this discourse as an Advent message is more than unfortunate. It makes me sick at heart, and it utterly contradicts and erases the inclusiveness of the ABC’s Christmas message I so loved yesterday. I feel tricked and betrayed.

I think this captures much of my feeling. I wish I could think of something positive and uplifting to say but all I can say is we all know, roughly, where this is going.

At Grandmère Mimi's I commented:

My take on the whole shared view of Scripture bit is that the last two centuries of biblical scholarship and conversation around the same must go on "pause" until everybody catches up. Just another version of you can't do Gospel justice until everyone agrees. It is the tyranny of consensus, something I have seen immobilize vestries.

There is also the issue of postmodern revocation of privileging sacred texts. I think those outside church confines can understand us saying we believe God is revealed in our Scriptures and that we have encountered God in and through Jesus, but to say OUR book is the one divinely given vessel of truth and all others are human, false, etc. just doesn't fly. It is one thing to say I have encountered Truth and quite another to say someone else has NOT. The churches, by and large, are still saying they have an exclusive and I find that a very paltry view of God.

There is a true division in the world on how the Bible is understood and interpreted. The more conservative fail to see how anyone can take it seriously while either not taking it literally or at least giving it privileged status. I had thought our oath of conformity, acknowledging it as the Word of God containing all things necessary for salvation would be quite sufficient. Evidently not. How we came up with the very different idea that all things it contains are necessary for salvation is beyond me.

--the BB

Collective Nouns

Swarming Locusts

I believe I saw the question raised of late (probably at OCICBW): what collective noun ought one to use of bishops? Some alliterative suggestions were made.

I thought about it while driving to work the other day and felt it might be nice to work through some of the subsets of Christians. Here is what I came up with:

An assembly of the faithful

A task force of deacons

An infestation of priests

A plague of bishops

A pestilence of primates

As a member of the first and third categories I feel qualified to be skeptical about presbyters. I must also confess that I know a number of bishops whom I greatly admire and respect (and in some cases even trust). There are godly individuals throughout the church, even in holy orders! I consider some primates to be, or have been, saints. ++Desmond and his newly-retired successor ++Njongonkulu come to mind, the late ++Khotso of Central Africa, and ++Michael (Ramsey) Cantuar. These days, however, I am inclined to stick with “pestilence.” They seem to descend like locusts and destroy everything in sight, then fly off again. Awful. Deplorable. Someone should be deploring this behavior. Heck, I hereby deplore it.

My admonition: Gather to tell stories and share bread and wine and practice loving each other. Beyond that, stay in your own diocese and mind your own bloody flock.

Growing up among evangelicals (and a fair number of outright fundamentalists in the most narrow and traditional sense of that term), I heard plenty of denunciations of sin. At some point I realized that we all know we’re broken, imperfect, and often quite willful. Nobody needs to tell us we’re sinners, for the most part. And it’s not good news. The good news is that God loves us and that forgiveness is possible, and grace is real, and that death can lead to new life.

Those who go about denouncing sinners are not proclaiming Gospel.

Mind you, I do believe in judgment and I do believe that there is a reason prophets delivered judgment and salvation oracles together. I don’t believe we get from A to B without transformation. This is why I believe so strongly in the work of the Holy Spirit. Having said that, however, I still maintain that if you stop at the judgment you have not yet proclaimed Gospel. The world needs hope, not harangues; people who model transformation, not scolds. Yes, I am talking to you, ++Peter Abuja.

My first theological and spiritual reformation on a personal level took place when I realized that all my life I had heard that Jesus saves us from sin, death, and hell, but that I was not hearing what he was saving us FOR. “Heaven” and “eternal life” are code words, not answers to that question. This is what moved me from my Protestant roots to more Catholic and Orthodox understandings of the mystery of what we are about and what God is up to in dealing with us. Sanctification and glorification became more meaningful. Marcus Borg’s discussions of a transformative journey in relationship with God gave words to what I was thinking about in my last years of college and through seminary and into grad school.

Hope and healing are needed. Yes, challenge too! But not scolding. It shames, it creates resentment, it does everything contrary to enabling us to love ourselves and one another. It is the devil’s work, the task of accusing, and it leads to slander. The primates who are so busy denouncing LGBT folk have, I must say it, no idea what they are talking about. They may know all manner of scripture but they don’t have a monopoly on that. (I was a Baptist, c’mon, get real. You think I don’t know all the passages you love to invoke? I majored in Biblical theology because I loved it, not because I had to.) But they don’t know gay folk. As friend Richard points out, when we have “virtual” enemies we don’t have to engage them or get to know them and we can demonize them from a safe distance. They have openly said they are not interested in a “listening process.” They have concluded a priori that they have nothing to learn from us. They are wrong.

And I would be wrong if I thought I had nothing to learn from them. But what I want to hear is not their conceptions of biblical righteousness. I want to hear their personal stories. I want to understand what life is like in their part of the world. What are their challenges, their blessings, their concerns, their fears, their hopes? What did Good News sound like and feel like when they heard it? What threats do they experience daily? What unique gifts do they bring to the feast? I don’t need them to theologize for me, but I need their witness. We all need each other’s witness. But we don’t need each other’s judgments. That is reserved for the One who made us, redeemed us, loves us, is at work in us, and is the sole assurance of our destiny.

Everyone is happy when the locusts are gone. But there is still the devastation of their visit. I shall be glad when the current unpleasantness is a memory. But it is going to be very messy and painful in the meantime.

Whether the Anglican Communion survives in any form whatsoever is God’s concern, not mine. The communion that seeks to save its life will lose it; the communion that loses its life for Christ’s sake will find it. Just saying. I believe the People of God will continue. I believe the Gospel will still be proclaimed. I believe local communities will worship and serve.

The Anglican Communion has been a great gift to the world and has been a gracious home for me. I like it here. I will continue to pursue what I understand to be an Anglican way of being Christian whether the Communion abides, mutates, or vanishes. Since I am enough of a Buddhist to believe all things are transient and enough of a Christian to believe that God and God’s love are exceptions to that, I can only assume that the Communion will mutate. To cease changing is to die.

I see flourishing congregations and people awakening to new life, so I do not despair. I am concerned about pestilent influences, however.

Anyone have some pestilence repellant handy?

--the BB