If you don’t think Episcopal Church pansexualists are on the march, you would be wrong. They are and they are trumpeting it loudly across the country. During the spring and summer of 2010, Integrity USA is holding a series of workshops in every province of The Episcopal Church. They are calling them BELIEVE OUT LOUD. These workshops are designed to give local Episcopalians the knowledge and skills they need to help their parishes and dioceses become more welcoming and affirming of LGBT folk. So why are orthodox parishes not trumpeting ALPHA as an alternative?

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Arcus LGBT Program Grants 2009

131 grants totaling $19,486,037

By Kevin Eckstrom
Religion News Service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/17/foundation-donates-400k-f_n_649643.html
July 17, 2010

A Michigan-based gay rights foundation has given more than $400,000 to a California seminary to help craft formal liturgies for the Episcopal Church to bless gay and lesbian relationships.

The Episcopal Church still officially considers marriage between a man and a woman, reflected in the marriage rite of its Book of Common Prayer. Many dioceses, however, unofficially allow priests to bless same-sex relationships and even marriages.

Because the church puts a high value on scripted liturgies, many same-sex couples want their own marriage/blessing rite since many bishops are reluctant to use the traditional husband-wife marriage liturgy for same-sex unions.

The church’s 2009 General Convention gave the green light to collecting “theological and liturgical resources” that would form the basis of an official same-sex rite that could be added to the list of approved ceremonies.

Many observers expect the church, when it gathers again in 2012, to approve rites for same-sex unions, or at least give official approval to start the process, which can take several years.

The $404,000 grant from the Arcus Foundation to the Church Divinity School of the Pacific will help facilitate the process; the church’s official Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music has only $25,000 designated for the project. Story continues below

A major part of the grant will go to funding a conference next March where two representatives from each of the church’s 110 dioceses will be able to offer suggestions and share work that’s already been done.

“Developing liturgical resources for blessing same-sex unions is a once-in-a-lifetime generation change, and we want to do it well,” said the Rev. Ruth Myers, a professor of liturgy at the seminary in Berkeley, Calif.

Though ultimate decisions and recommendations will be left to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, the seminary hopes the grant will help keep the process going, with the necessary funds to match.

Tom Kam, the foundation’s deputy director of gay programming, said Arcus is committed to assisting the church in its “continued progress toward moral equality for (lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender) people.”

END

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
July 22, 2010

Embattled Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals in the Church of England, smarting from the recent Synod decision to consecrate women bishops, are licking their wounds and planning their exodus from the Mother Church.

Even though the Church of England prides itself on its inclusiveness and holding conflicting views together under one big tent, those policies failed when General Synod met in York recently and decided to ordain women to the episcopacy. A Rubicon was crossed.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York’s failure to cobble together a measure that would make special provision for those members opposed to women bishops only weakened Dr. Rowan Williams’ overall authority which is now see an all time low in the Anglican Communion.

Even though the resolution now goes back to the dioceses for consideration over the next 18 months, no one seriously believes it will be reversed. If the resolution is supported by a majority of the diocesan synods, it will be returned to the General Synod for ratification in 2012. The first women bishops could be ordained as early as 2014.

The gamble that some sort of consideration would be shown and that intervention by Drs. Rowan Williams and John Sentamu would swing the tide towards some compromise, failed. Williams’ considerable skill at holding things together failed. Flying bishops and a Third Province for Anglo-Catholics are off the table for good.

Synod’s decision to pass the draft legislation on the ordination of women bishops, virtually unamended, can only be viewed as the final straw for conservative Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals who oppose women’s ordination.

For them, it is the end of the road.

Forward in Faith, the largest Anglo-Catholic group in the Church of England is expecting an exodus of thousands of Anglicans to Catholicism. Forward in Faith director Stephen Parkinson - a group that has about 10,000 members, including more than 1,000 clergy - said that a large number of Anglo-Catholics are considering conversion to the Roman Catholic Church.

“This draft measure does nothing for us at all,” said Parkinson. “We explained very carefully why we could not accept women bishops theologically.

“We explained what would enable us to stay in the Church of England, but the General Synod has decided to get rid of us by giving us a provision that does not meet our needs,” he continued.

“They are saying either put up or shut up and accept innovations, however unscriptural or heretical, or get out.”

Parkinson said he expects thousands of members of Forward in Faith to consider accepting Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of a personal ordinariate, issued last November in the apostolic constitution “Anglicanorum coetibus,” in which a group of Anglicans can be received into the Catholic Church while retaining their distinctive patrimony and liturgical practices.

“Many, I expect, will be exploring the provisions of Pope Benedict’s apostolic constitution. We have got 10,000 members, so clearly we are talking about thousands,” he added.

Parkinson said Anglican traditionalists have a “couple of years” to think about what to do.

The Church of England first voted to ordain women as priests in 1992, a move that led to about 500 clergy defecting to the Catholic Church. Since 1994, when the changes came into force, more than 3,000 women have been ordained as Anglican priests.

It is not just Anglo-Catholics who feel dis-enfranchised. Church of England Evangelicals who are the driving force for growth in the British Isles through such vibrant ministries as ALPHA and Christianity Explored are weighing their options as well.

The largest group, REFORM lead by the Rev. Rod Thomas signaled a new Reform “Society” with its own Bishops. In his latest newsletter following the women bishops debate at General Synod, the Reform chairman sent the clearest signal yet that the movement is actively considering consecrating its own bishops. Recognizing the future for conservative evangelicals is still “uncertain”. Thomas said the Reform Council will be “actively exploring” the possibility of creating a “Society” focused on mission, “with its own bishops providing support and encouragement”. He suggested “the House of Bishops might recognize it as a place where separate episcopal oversight could operate when the Women Bishops Measure comes in”.

Reflecting on the rejection of his own amendment to enable parishes to opt for a “complementary bishop” and the sinking by the House of Clergy of the Archbishops’ compromise proposal, Thomas wrote: “If the draft measure is eventually approved in something like its present form, the clearest warning bells will be ringing for us. It may be that we will be able to make use of arrangements under the Code of Practice but at the very least it seems likely that some of our best young men will be put off offering themselves for the ordained ministry in the Church of England. If that happens - if the tap is turned off - then new incumbents for our churches will be harder and harder to come by and the future of our churches will be called into question.”

He offered a twofold response.

“Firstly, we must encourage people to keep offering themselves for the ordained ministry for as long as it is possible. Hopefully they will be able to have a lifetime of service in the Church of England. But if not, they will be no worse off when they make a move than if they had never entered. This will particularly be the case if we are able to use the time now available to us to forge closer links between our churches.

“Secondly, we must forge closer links with one another. As the future looks increasingly uncertain, we need to bring the issues to our congregations now and then get PCC backing to the idea of linking up with other like-minded churches in a close fellowship. If more difficult times lie ahead, we need to support one another. One way of doing this may be to create a ‘Society’ within the Church of England, focused on mission, with its own bishops providing support and encouragement.

“It could even be that if such a Society were to come into being, the House of Bishops might recognize it as a place where separate Episcopal oversight could operate when the Women Bishops Measure comes in. We will be actively exploring this possibility in the months ahead.” Serious issues, however, hang over the church in the eventuality of a formal schism.

Property

Because the Church of England is the Established Church, there is no question of any departing congregation holding on to its church buildings - the place of worship, or the churchyard, or the parsonage house. These all “belong” to the parish in question - the geographical area recognized by law in a system that came into being in the Middle Ages. Any priest or congregation leaving the CofE must leave the property. The State will enforce the law.

Pensions

Any pension rights already accrued by a priest are protected by law. The Church cannot take these away under any circumstances. A priest who leaves after 20 years’ service keeps those rights until he finally retires and he can then claim his pension.

Internal Dissent

The most likely scenario is that Evangelicals will continue to hold the property, but seek episcopal oversight elsewhere. (See above). In time, the Church of England will replace incumbents as they move the parish, retire or die. The Church of England wins in the end.

Alternative networks/provinces

It might look good to have the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) sweep into rescue evangelicals as some Anglo- Catholics are not interested in accepting Rome’s offer. This is also doomed to failure if they are unable to have access to the significant practical resources of the Church of England - property, endowments, etc. The other truth is that English people don’t look for another church - they just stop going to church when there is a problem.

Likely scenario in 20 years’ time

The Church of England will be very largely a homogeneous liberal body, like the Church of Sweden. It will have about 250,000 active members. The hierarchy will still be intact, but at the local level there will be many closed churches, and many more struggling to remain open. There will be no significant growth points, once Evangelicals and Catholics are gone. Former Anglo-Catholics will by now have been fully absorbed into the Roman Catholic Church with little trace remaining. There will be a number of large Evangelical churches around the country, but no longer in communion with the Church of England - congregational churches in all but name, with occasional visits from overseas prelates, in the tiny rump of the Anglican Communion that will have survived by 2030 - all those provinces which currently ordain women will have gone the same way as the Church of England.

The Church of England will have lost its identity. Church properties will be sold off just to pay the bills with disestablishment a real possibility. Prince Charles, now King, will be the “Defender of Faiths.” He has already said he wants to be crowned King in a multi-faith coronation.

At that point, Global South leaders who represent more than 80% of the Anglican Communion might well ask themselves if the historical attachment to Canterbury is worth the paper it is printed on.

HERNDON, Va. – It’s been three years since the Anglican Church of Nigeria “crossed borders” into the United States to establish a new home for conservatives who were unhappy with the liberal direction of the U.S. Episcopal Church.

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(Photo: The Christian Post)

Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, new primate of the Church of Nigeria, is in Herndon, Va., for the annual council meeting of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. This is Okoh’s first U.S. visit since succeeding Archbishop Peter Akinola.

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(Photo: The Christian Post)

Archbishop Nicholas Okoh (left of center), new primate of the Church of Nigeria, stands with Bishop Martyn Minns (center) of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, July 20, 2010. CANA is holding its annual council meeting in Herndon, Va., this week.

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And if the Nigerians didn’t step in, the global Anglican family would have lost a lot of people, said the new primate of the Church of Nigeria.

“We came because we love the Anglican church and we do not want the Anglican church to split,” Archbishop Nicholas Okoh told The Christian Post in an interview Tuesday. “That would’ve been the case if we didn’t come in.”

Though the Nigerian church, which is the largest regional body in the Anglican Communion with more than 18 million members, came to the U.S. with compassion, it was recently disciplined for violating a moratorium on cross-border intervention.

According to Okoh, the Church of Nigeria received the same sanctions as The Episcopal Church this year, which include removal from the Anglican Communion’s ecumenical dialogues and from a body that examines issues of doctrine and authority.

“The command of Scripture is that we should go everywhere and preach and teach. So we came here to help our brothers and sisters in the Lord. But instead of getting commendation, we are getting punishment or sanction,” said Okoh, who was elected as primate in September.

Criticizing the move, he commented, “To do so, to ban us … we believe they were not properly advised. So if you ask me whether there is justification for that, I will say no.”

Sanctions were proposed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, earlier this year for provinces that breach the three moratoria that leaders in the 77 million-member global body had agreed to since 2004. The moratoria include cross-border interventions, the ordination of partnered homosexuals and the blessing of same-sex unions.

Last month, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, said sanctions were carried out against The Episcopal Church – the U.S. arm of Anglicanism – following the ordination of a partnered lesbian in Los Angeles. The U.S. body consecrated its first openly gay bishop in 2003. Kearon sent letters to other provinces for possible breach but no announcement was made on whether they were disciplined.

Okoh commented in an address he made earlier that he rejects being placed in the same category with churches that are conducting gay ordination and same-sex marriage, and also opposes the equating of their “evangelical initiative with those who are doing things unbiblical.”

Okoh disagrees with the disciplinary actions against the Nigerian church, noting that without their help many faithful Anglicans would have exited the Anglican denomination or abandoned the faith completely. But he said with The Episcopal Church’s decision this year to ordain a lesbian, “maybe they asked for it.”

If the sanctions prompt the U.S. Episcopalians to rethink their policies, then he said he’s OK with it.

Still, he suggested that the sanctions overall do not necessarily solve the problem of theology and of leadership that Anglicans are facing.

Much like the staunchly conservative Archbishop Peter Akinola whom he succeeded, Okoh is vocal in his opposition to homosexual practice.

“Same-sex marriage, pedophilia and all sexual pervasions (sic) should be roundly condemned by all who accept the authority of Scripture over human life,” he said in an address last week from the Episcopal House in Abuja, Nigeria.

He made clear on Tuesday that the Church of Nigeria does not have a “personal quarrel” with anybody, namely, The Episcopal Church.

“Let us get it right. We are not fighting with anybody,” Okoh stressed. “The issues at stake are issues of personal conviction. If the church here is teaching things we don’t accept, we will strongly reject it and say no. But if they teach things that we accept from what we know of biblical interpretations, of plain sense of Scripture, we will accept. We will say we’ll work together.

“So it’s not a personal issue between us and the people in the West. The disagreement is something that has to do with theology and also aspects of ecclesiology.”

Okoh is in the Washington Metropolitan Area this week for the annual council meeting of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America – a missionary initiative of the Church of Nigeria which, along with other similar initiatives, Okoh believes solved the Anglican crisis at the time and prevented a split. CANA consists largely of Anglicans who broke from The Episcopal Church. This is Okoh’s first U.S. visit since becoming head of the Church of Nigeria.

Jeff Walton
July 20, 2010

A United Methodist congregation should conduct same-sex marriages despite the possibility of negative consequences, according to Bishop Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire.

“I’m here to tell you that when you speak about God’s limitless, boundless and unimaginable love, you will get into trouble: I promise you, I know this,” Robinson said to the congregation.

Foundry United Methodist Church Senior Pastor Dean Snyder (L) and Bishop Gene Robinson (R) greet congregants following Sunday morning services at the Washington, D.C. church.

Robinson, the first openly gay partnered bishop in the Episcopal Church, delivered the message during a visit to Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C. on Sunday. Robinson both gave a sermon at the invitation of Foundry’s Senior Pastor, Dean Snyder, as well as answered questions from church members during an informal session following the Sunday morning worship services. Robinson’s sermon was part of a month-long “outstanding preacher” series including United Methodist Bishops Woodie White, Hope Morgan Ward and John Schol.

Foundry, a large congregation that traces its roots back to 1814, sits on the prominent row of churches that line 16th Street northwest, leading to the White House. President Clinton and his family regularly attended services at Foundry during his presidency.

Snyder was a vocal advocate of the legalization of same-sex marriages in the District of Columbia, joining many other United Methodist clergy in Washington as part of a pro-same-sex marriage coalition. Since the enactment of same-sex marriage by the District’s council earlier this year, clergy are legally permitted to conduct such marriages in the Nation’s capital.

Foundry is currently engaged in a “Summer of Great Discernment” program as an inquiry about issues relating to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) members of the congregation. The discernment time will conclude with a congregational vote in September to determine a pastoral response to the legalization of same-sex marriage in the District.

Snyder introduced Robinson with brief words on the discernment program, noting that United Methodist policies do not allow clergy or buildings to host same-sex marriages.

“I believe this [policy] violates our constitution,” Snyder explained, adding that he believed it was “wrong to discriminate between couples in the church.”

The United Methodist Church does not permit clergy to officiate at same-sex marriages, or for United Methodist facilities to be used for them. In 2008, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church upheld language in the 7.9 million-member denomination’s Book of Discipline which calls homosexuality “incompatible” with Christian teaching.

Foundry states on its website that “We are conscious of positions that The United Methodist Church has taken that are opposed to same-gender marriage, but those aspects of church discipline are in conflict with the deeper emphasis of the church’s Book of Discipline upon the gospel of grace and pastoral care for all of God’s children.”

Robinson’s presence at Foundry and message to the congregation served to demonstrate the Washington church’s position as being at odds with that of the denomination.

“Our preacher of the morning is often introduced as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, but that is not particularly why we invited him here this Sunday,” Snyder said, explaining how he first heard Robinson via podcast preaching at Calvary Church in Memphis and exclaimed, “an Episcopalian who can preach!”

“We are so delighted that Gene Robinson has accepted our invitation,” Snyder said. Robinson, too, expressed delight at the invitation to speak at Foundry, which had appeared to have attendance that Sunday larger than half the attendance of his entire diocese.

“Don’t you just love change?” Robinson asked jokingly. “Isn’t it amazing that this president was elected on a theme of change when we all hate it so much… and yet, change is in the air.”

The New Hampshire Bishop explained that change happens when a person begins with a worldview that interprets the world and the things that happen in it.

“Then along comes an experience for which that world view is insufficient and inadequate to explain and incorporate this experience,” Robinson said, explaining that the person then enters into a kind of chaos. “Coming out on the other side you either have to deny the reality of that experience or you come out on the other side with a revised and transformed world view that now takes that experience into account. That is exactly what the church, the synagogue, the mosque all over the world is encountering now with homosexuality.”

Robinson connected his account of change and homosexuality with Acts chapter 3, where St. Peter heals the crippled beggar at the temple gate.

“If you are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, that is your story. That is my story. We know what it is like to be told you can only come so far,” Robinson said. “Do you know what it is like to sit at the door and beg, to be told that our affliction makes it not okay to come to the center of the church’s life? We know what it is like when someone in the name of Jesus tells us to stand up and walk, that we are loved beyond our loudest imagining, that we too are God’s children and that we too are beneficiaries, heirs of God’s creation. We run into the temple and we proclaim God’s love.”

“Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are coming into the temple and they are bringing their beloved partners and they’re saying it’s God that has done this,” Robinson continued. “What happened in the ancient temple was that the powers that be got really mad.”

Robinson asked the congregation if they were going to be “part of a revised and transformed understanding of what God wants” or instead opt for chaos.

The Episcopalian noted that Jesus and his disciples frequently got into trouble with the authorities for their actions.

“Don’t think that God’s blessing falls just on you,” Robinson said. “You start preaching God’s love for all of God’s children and you will get into trouble.”

Robinson then recounted how he charged those who he ordained to the deaconate to get into “Gospel trouble” and that if they’re not in trouble; it’s not the Gospel that they are preaching.

“In this moment of discernment, think about what you will do,” Robinson charged the congregation, recalling the story of his consecration as bishop, in which he wore a bulletproof vest.

“Death isn’t the worst thing – not living your life is the worst thing. We don’t have to be afraid, ever again.”

“During this period of discernment, are you going to be an admirer only of Jesus, or will you be a disciple?” Robinson asked. “You get to choose. Amen.”

Episcopal Church Bishop Gene Robinson preached at the historic Foundry United Methodist Church in downtown Washington, D.C. on July 18. Foundry and its clergy have been actively involved in the enactment of same-sex marriage in  the Nation’s capital and are now considering performing such unions at the church in contradiction to United Methodist teachings.

Following the service, Robinson met with the congregation for an hour-long question and answer session, in which church members inquired about how they should proceed, specifically on same-sex marriage.

“We belong to a living and breathing church that is better and better discerning God’s will,” Robinson said, outlining his belief that God was expanding the church’s understanding of inclusion.
“As soon as we get through this LGBT issue, there will be someone else,” the bishop posited.

Robinson suggested that if the church somehow lost its status in the denomination, that they continue preaching their message, certain of the end result of history. The bishop said that they would be welcomed back into the United Methodist Church with open arms when the denomination also reached that conclusion.

“It’ll all come tumbling down,” Robinson said, clarifying that he meant the church’s policy, not the United Methodist Church itself.

“You may have some people leave over this,” Robinson cautioned, naming the Falls Church, a large conservative Anglican parish in nearby suburban Virginia that departed the more liberal Episcopal Church along with other congregations. “I hate that, but people have to make their own decisions.”

The Episcopal bishop also explained his views on scriptural prohibitions on homosexual behavior. Episcopalians, Robinson explained, examined the meaning of scripture in its immediate context and only then asked if it applied to them in present day. Robinson claimed that the seven verses specifically prohibiting homosexual behavior were each addressing an understanding of what homosexuality was perceived to be: a disordered action of a heterosexual “behaving badly”, rather than a different orientation. In that context, Robinson said, scripture’s authors were not aware of monogamous committed homosexual partnerships, and thus those were not addressed in scripture.

The New Hampshire bishop did not speak to the wider themes in the Bible about husband and wife, marriage, or the traditions of the church and Hebrew people. He was insistent, however, that Foundry’s decisions in regards to same-sex marriage and homosexuality in general would lead the denomination in a new direction.

“When a church like Foundry stands up, do you think others around the country won’t notice?” Robinson asked. If the sought for changes in Methodism did not result, “you can always come home to the Anglican church,” the bishop said to laughter and clapping.

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org

If anyone had any doubt that the spiritual and ecclesiastical trajectory of the Church of England is towards The American Episcopal Church, their doubts were erased this past weekend in York.

The Synod of the Church of England voted to consecrate women to the episcopacy. They also voted summarily not to allow any sort of delegated episcopal pastoral oversight for Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics who in conscience do not want to have a woman bishop reign over them.

Wrote one orthodox Anglican blogger in the UK, “…The absolute refusal to compromise to the smallest degree signifies the rigidity with which women bishops will demand full recognition from everyone in the Church.” He is right.

The Church of England ought to think seriously about women bishops and look hard at what has happened in the American Episcopal Church over the last 20 years.

Women Priests and Bishops

In July 1974, The Episcopal Church in the person of two retired and one resigned bishops irregularly ordained the “Philadelphia Eleven” to the presbyterate. The event caused great consternation among the church hierarchy. Later, the House of Bishops called an emergency meeting, denounced the ordinations and declared them invalid. Charges were filed against the dissident bishops. Attempts were made to prevent the women from serving their priestly ministries.

In 1990, 20 years later, Barbara Harris was ordained Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts and the die was cast.

It was understood at that time that it would be optional for parishes and dioceses not to have a woman bishop and that no one would be coerced into having a woman bishop preach, confirm or celebrate communion. Consciences would be respected.

In July of 2000 at the 73rd General Convention, Harris successfully called for defeat of an amendment that would have allowed four dissenting bishops to continue denying ordination to women as long as they held office. She said, “The message such an amendment would send to the women of this church and those who support the ordained ministry of women in this church is that once again this house is engaged in a delaying tactic…To engage in further delay says to the women of this church, ‘We do not value your ministry, even though God has called you.’ ”

It was the end of the road for any kind of toleration for the Anglo-Catholic bishops of San Joaquin, Quincy and Ft. Worth. In time, all three dioceses would leave the Episcopal Church. For liberal and revisionist bishops, exclusion became the operative word in the name of a higher inclusion, of course.

Today, there are 17 women bishops ranging from Harris, the first female bishop, to Glasspool, the last. Harris, now 80 and divorced, once described her sexuality as “ambiguous”. Glasspool is an avowed lesbian. Only one, Bishop Geralyn Wolfe of Rhode Island, might be described as orthodox. It was she who deposed a black woman priest who declared she could be both an Episcopal priest and a Muslim at the same time. This took guts, as one doubts that a liberal or revisionist white male bishop would have had the temerity to dump her for fear of the Black Women’s Caucus coming down on top of him for lack of inclusion.

Today, TEC has a woman Presiding Bishop who many think is about the worst of the worst. Not only is she not remotely orthodox in faith and practice, she preaches “another gospel” (Gal.1:7) that is no gospel at all. She believes that social amelioration through Millennium Development Goals will bring about the Kingdom of Heaven on earth where, presumably, she will be made CEO alongside our Lord, if indeed He is necessary at all.

So the big question is this, what have women bishops achieved in The Episcopal Church for the last 20 years?

A review of the dioceses where they have “ministered” is instructive.

More………………

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
The US Presiding Bishop told a group of New Zealand Anglicans that a Covenant designed to draw the Anglican Communion together is nothing more than a type of “cheap grace” an “enlightenment response to postmodern” era disagreement. It is a legal move to avoid the harder “work of the heart”, of building relationships in the face of diversity, she said.

It will be interesting to see what Archbishop Rowan Williams has to say about Jefferts Schori’s attitude towards the Covenant that he and the Anglican Consultative Council have worked so assiduously and hard on, to try and achieve unity in the Anglican Communion.

It must doubly pain him since Archbishop Robert Duncan of the Anglican Church of North America, an orthodox Anglican province which Williams does not recognize, and cannot, till Duncan applies for membership through the ACC (and he won’t), thinks the Covenant is a good thing and has signed, while Schori pours cold water on the whole idea of a Covenant.

But then Jefferts Schori probably feels the same way about the Lambeth resolution 1:10, the Lambeth Quadrilateral and the 39 Articles of Religion, all of which she relegates to the junk heap of history as a lot of “legal” stuff that doesn’t meet with her post-modern worldview that “building relationships in the face of diversity” is the a higher order of things. One doesn’t need any theology to do that. Just practice niceness, tolerance and diversity - the buzzwords of the new world Anglican order.

What she means by this, and would like to see happen, of course, is that if we all would just sit down and “listen” to Gene Robinson, Mary Glasspool, Susan Russell and Louie Crew about how marginalized they feel because we don’t accept their homoerotic behavior and pansexual worldview, we would immediately warm to them and then rise up, denounce our homophobia like capitalists at a communist rally declaring our guilt for wanting to own a home and then beat our chests, pulverizing ourselves into the ground with new found humility.

In The Episcopal Church, homosexual acceptance comes through a process of desensitization (see my article here) http://tinyurl.com/yblk39k The idea is to keep everyone talking and talking and listening so the orthodox are simply worn down and agree. It’s the ecclesiastical equivalent of waterboarding…and it is working.

Jefferts Schori drew chuckles when she told how, in the face of pressure from some Global primates for the immediate adoption of the covenant, some of her younger bishops had urged her, “Let’s do it. Now.”

But if The Episcopal Church were to sign the covenant, she suggested, other once enthusiastic provinces might have second thoughts about it. The Episcopal Church will not examine or even vote for the Covenant till the 2012 General Convention, but of course by then, the Communion could be in a very different place and it won’t matter whether TEC signs or not. Interestingly enough, a number of orthodox Episcopal dioceses have signed the Covenant with the latest being the Diocese of Albany.

NEW ZEALAND

But she is in good, dare we say, a “safe space” country. The Anglican Church in Aotearoa (the Land of the long white cloud) also has reservations about the Covenant.

The General Synod of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia has affirmed three-fourths of the Anglican Covenant in principle and asked its “episcopal units” to discuss the Covenant for the next two years.

The Rt. Rev. Victoria Matthews, formerly of the Anglican Church in Canada and now Bishop of Christchurch, has spoken out in favor of the Covenant when the synod began discussing the matter.

“There are those who believe it is all about one or another explosive event in the life of the Communion. I prefer to think it has a bigger vision than that,” she said. The bishop described the Covenant as an effort to preserve Anglican unity.

MEXICO

The charge by the Guardian newspaper that the proposed Covenant is the culmination of a conservative and homophobic drive for power in the Anglican Communion is ludicrous and laughable bearing in mind that it was Rowan Williams himself who got the ball rolling on the idea of a Covenant. Just this week the ultra-liberal Province of Mexico became the first Communion Province to adopt the Anglican Communion Covenant following its VI General Synod in Mexico City.

This province which became an autonomous Province of the Anglican Communion in 1995 is made up of 120 parishes, with only 12 self supporting and is financially supported by TEC to the tune of nearly $800,000 for the 2010-2012 Triennium. The rest are missions or preaching stations.

Secretary General Kenneth Kearon said he was delighted at the decision and labeled The Anglican Church of Mexico’s decision as a “significant step” in the life of the Communion.

More……………..