Bishop Lee and New Coadjutor Agree on Vision of Big Tent Church

Douglas LeBlanc
01/28/2007

After electing the Very Rev. Shannon Johnston as Bishop Coadjutor of Virginia the day before, the annual council meeting mostly followed a path of genteel centrism in the resolutions it approved in the business portion. During a Jan. 27 press conference at the end of the two-day council meeting, Virginia Bishop Peter James Lee and Fr. Johnston shared a "big tent" vision of the diocese and The Episcopal Church.

Earlier in the day, delegates and visitors to the business portion heard Colonel Jean Reed, president of the standing committee report that it has declined to consent to the election of the Rev. Mark Lawrence as Bishop of South Carolina.

In a news conference afterward, Bishop Lee said that he, unlike the standing committee, had given consent to Fr. Lawrence’s election.

“My hope is that he will be confirmed as a sign that The Episcopal Church is a big tent, and that we have room for people of his theological convictions,” Bishop Lee said.

Fr. Johnston agreed with Bishop Lee regarding consent to Fr. Lawrence’s election, saying he was pleased to be part of the Mississippi standing committee’s decision to grant its consent.

After electing Fr. Johnston, who describes himself as a vocal centrist, the resolutions most likely to divide the council were softened into substitutes by committee, and the council approved most of them in nearly unanimous numbers.

The resolutions approved by the council:

• Affirmed “establishing sites at which day laborers are treated fairly and in a manner which benefits their communities.”

• Affirmed the Millennium Development Goals.

• Designated Oct. 30 as a memorial for James Markham Ambler, a lifelong Episcopalian who died as part of an Arctic exploration crew in 1881.

• Expressed its support of Bishop Lee in supporting Episcopalians in several northern Virginia parishes who have not joined the majority of their congregations in separating from the diocese.

• Approved a study of establishing companion relationships with up to four other dioceses.

One resolution called for Bishop Lee to return to the negotiating table with departing Episcopalians, but the resolution’s authors withdrew it.

Another resolution called for an immediate local option approach to pastoral blessings for same-sex couples. A substitute resolution called on Bishop Lee to “appoint a commission to discern a possible ‘emerging consensus’” on such blessings.

The council sent back to committee proposals that would have authorized absentee voting in parish meetings and an elaborate method of screening resolutions in advance, using a “sliding scale” voting system that ranges from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.”

The council approved a balanced budget for 2007 of $4.5 million, an increase of more than $239,000 over last year.

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

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