Church of the Word
DEEPENING THE INCOHERENCE OF ANGLICANISM

Bishops' Appeal Seeks to Prevent Further Incoherence and Fracturing
09/08/2006

For the next several years, while negotiated settlements or court proceedings run their course and while development of an Anglican Communion Covenant inches forward among the provinces, the seven diocesan bishops who have requested alternate primatial oversight from the Archbishop of Canterbury propose to function separately from the majority faction within The Episcopal Church, “but under the Constitution and Canons” of the General Convention, according to their consolidated appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury made on July 20.

The appeal described in the document is believed to be one of several items on the agenda of a Sept. 11-13 meeting that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams asked the Rt. Rev. Peter J. Lee, Bishop of Virginia, and the Rt. Rev. John B. Lipscomb, Bishop of Southwest Florida, to convene.

“The minority ECUSA church needs protection,” the bishops said in their appeal. “The request is not a request to enter into the legal affairs of The Episcopal Church, except that the Constitution of The Episcopal Church and of the several dioceses require ‘constituent membership’ in the Anglican Communion and ‘communion with the See of Canterbury.’ These are matters determined not by us in the United States, but by Canterbury and the rest of the world, so it is to Canterbury and the rest of the world that we must turn.”

The bishops of Central Florida, Dallas, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, San Joaquin, South Carolina and Springfield believe protection is needed because significant parts of the majority faction within The Episcopal Church “seek elimination of its conserving minority and confiscation of that minority’s patrimony,” the document states. “The other church would gladly negotiate fair and graceful terms of co-existence, or in a worst-case scenario, disengagement.”

The bishops in the 14-page document state that this is a kairos moment for The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. “Too much energy continues to be spent on the fight,” they said. “The comprehensive picture emerging from General Convention actions and inactions, as concerns the Windsor Report in particular, is more than sufficient for a judgment that it is continuing to ‘walk apart’.”

A number of the strongest congregations in the seven dioceses requesting alternate primatial oversight no longer wish to be associated with The Episcopal Church and are contemplating leaving their diocese. For congregations which are members of the Anglican Communion Network and located in non-Network dioceses “the conclusion is that it is time to negotiate separation from ECUSA.”

Invariably when congregations depart, they seek affiliation with other Anglican jurisdictions. “Departure to the Global South by these congregations will have the dual effect of deepening the incoherence of Anglicanism in the United States and weakening, perhaps fatally, the Network dioceses,” the bishops concluded.

This article comes from The Living Church Foundation
http://www.livingchurch.org/

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