US Anglican executive council honors primates' request

[realFedUp]

(ugh...how unChristian a decision this is. I recommend
an immediate withdrawal of monies to Episcopal churches
overseas.)

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL HONORS PRIMATES’ REQUEST

National church council agrees to temporarily withdraw official participation in Anglican Consultative Council:

Members from USA church will attend June meeting of ACC as observers, consultants

The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, meeting today at the University of St. Mary's in Mundelein, Illinois, has issued the following letter to the Rt. Rev. John C. Paterson, Chair of the Anglican Consultative Council, in response to the recent Communiqué from the Anglican Primates following the Windsor Report:

The Executive Council met in special session at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois, to consider the request of the Primates to "voluntarily withdraw" our members for a time from participation in the Anglican Consultative Council. This is a weighty matter for the Episcopal Church since the ACC is the primary instrument of communion in which the fullness of the Body of Christ is represented. Representative consultation is an essential component of our life as a church. We struggled to discern how best to respond to the request.

We are acutely aware that we meet in a time of great distress and need in the wider world. War, famine and disease stalk the earth. We express our passionate commitment to the mission of the church and especially to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals endorsed by our General Convention.

We are unanimous in our desire to do all that we can to preserve and further the bonds of affection in the "new humanity" created by Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:15). This in our view constitutes the very essence of our life together as Anglican Christians. We firmly believe that the only way to address the things that divide us is for "Christians of good will ... to engage honestly and frankly with each other" (Windsor Report, paragraph 146). We are therefore heartened by the decision of the Chair of the ACC, responding to the Primates' communiqué to include in the program for the upcoming meeting in Nottingham an opportunity for a consultation at which major contributions will come from the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.

We are mindful that Christ has made us members of one body, and that no part can say to any other "I have no need of you." At the same time we wish to express our openness to the concerns and beliefs of others. In the spirit of the Covenant Statement recently adopted by our House of Bishops, we voluntarily withdraw our members from official participation in the ACC as it meets in Nottingham. As an expression of our desire "to bear one another's burdens" (Galatians 6:2), we are asking our members to be present at the meeting to listen to reports on the life and ministry we share across the Communion and to be available for conversation and consultation.

Please be assured of our prayers and continuing support for the mission we share in the Risen Christ.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Two words:

Ahmenson. Scaife. Know it.

[realFedUp]

2. how are Ahmanson and Scaife in this decision?

Neither are Episcopalians as far as I know...
I don't have a list of the people inside
this executive committee...although if anyone
does, I'd be interested.

[realFedUp]

4. a reply from Rev. Susan

from

http://www.everyvoice.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index&catid=&topic=29

Every Voice Network

The Cost of Discipleship
The April 13th letter written on behalf of ECUSA's Executive Council offers the kind of creative and grace-filled compromise that gives one hope that the spirit of Anglican comprehensiveness may, after all, prove strong enough to survive the barrage of partisan polemic and polarizing rhetoric that sadly seems to dominate our ecclesial discourse.

By voluntarily withdrawing our representatives to the June ACC gathering from "official participation" ECUSA has once-and-for-all demonstrated to the larger Communion that we take seriously the cost of discipleship -- that we are willing to pay a price for the prophetic ministry to which we have been called: the high calling of striving to include all of the baptized in the Body of Christ.

At the same time, by "asking our members to be present at the meeting to listen to reports on the life and ministry we share across the Communion and to be available for conversation and consultation" the Executive Council reasserts both the right and responsibility of ECUSA representatives to be incarnationally present in the deliberations of the only representative Anglican body including all orders of ministry.

It is a decision that will leave some feeling that in forgoing our voting privilege we have gone too far to appease the larger communion. It is a decision that will leave others feeling that in insisting on sending our representatives to be present at the table in Nottingham we have stopped short of the recommendations of the Primates. On reflection, I believe this considered response has found a true via media: not only complying with the "letter" of the Primates' requests but leaving room for the Spirit to move in conversation and consultation.

There is no question that there is cost to this discipleship to which we have been called but there is also promise -- promise in the potential that the listening process to which the Communion has committed itself for nearly 30 years may actually begin to happen in these conversations and consultations -- and hope that the spirit of reconciliation might draw us to recognize that the Gospel that ultimately unites us is stronger than the differences that currently divide us.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. Ahmenson and Scaife...

Have been funding "Alternative" or "Conservative" Episcopal communions, or so they call themselves. Frankly, they read like itenerant tent preachers who have donned the vestments and trappings but are really frothers.

The information is out there. You just need to find it. I do not have it at my fingertips at this moment.

Story goes that they are funneling money to the african dioceses that are at the center of this thing.

[BOHICA06]

3. Certainly

share the misery ... the EUSA is hemorrhaging at home .... let's not suffer alone.

[JerseygirlCT]

7. You know, I don't believe the ECUSA is hemorraging at all

there are a small number of churches unhappy about the situation with Bishop Robinson. They're being encouraged by a very conservative sect within the Episcopal church. Just like the fundamentalists across the US, they're loud, but they're not many.

[BOHICA06]

8. Don't Believe ..... know

Here's Dr. Crew's crunching of the numbers!

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/communicants93_03.html
& more data here http://tens.org/ from Tom Gossen. Yikes - what will 2004 numbers look like?

[JerseygirlCT]

9. Well, perhaps this is one of those things that

depends on perspective. I'm in CT, and we've not seen anything dramatic here.

[BOHICA06]

12. In Conn - its down 6.2% in attendance over the decade ...

and a 4.3% decline between 2002-03 according to Crew and Gossen has the number of baptized membership down over 10% for the 10-year period.

And say goodbye to the largest congregation in Kansas - Christ Church vote to "walk apart" yesterday.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Hmm, my Episcopal church is taking in 38 new members on Pentecost

I've encountered a lot of ex-Episcopalians in my day, and not one of them said that they left becase it was "too liberal." Not a single one.

Almost all of them said that it was because the church failed to engage them when they were younger and they got out of the habit. I think the mainline denominations thought the 1950s would last forever, so they "coasted" on the assumption that people who were raised Episcopalian would continue to go without any special effort on the part of the churches. They didn't count on the loss of social pressures to be a church member.

They let Sunday School slide and put no money into campus ministries, expecting each campus ministry to raise its own funds. Many baby boomers and younger people drifted away because they had no reason to stay.

Another factor is that the Episcopal church is perhaps the denomination most friendly to single people, the only one that doesn't organize every blessed thing the church does around Mom, Dad, and the Two Kids. (Nothing wrong with being in such a family unit--I would have been delighted to be in one if my life had worked out differently.) The high number of singles inevitably keeps the "natural increase" below that of, say, the Mormons.

I see two positive trends. First, the church is becoming serious about getting the youth involved. My own parish puts a lot of effort into making youth feel an important part of the church, everything from making it "cool" to be an acolyte to organizing community service trips to Episcopal parishes in poverty areas.

The other positive trend is that I see a lot of people coming into the Episcopal church precisely to escape the conservative churches. I've been in my current parish for about 18 months, and I know 3 families who joined after I did, in search of a variety of Christianity that wasn't all about consigning everyone to hell.

[JerseygirlCT]

13. Oh, I agree.

You can't look at any given pew on Sunday without running into at least a former RC at my church.

In the past two years, we've lost about 3 families (to disatisfaction over Gene Robinson), and gained more than that.

I think there's a bit of movement happening, as our churches find ways to keep a traditional liturgy (or enough of it!) while making the churches themselves (people, not building)more interesting and appealing to younger people and more modern sensibilities. It's an interesting adjustment, but I think will bring positive things.

[kwassa]

11. Most of the percentages gained or lost are quite small, and

there is no telling why these gains or losses have taken place. Many mainline denominations have been struggling with declines in membership.

Hardly a hemorrhage.

I think the approach that the ECUSA leadership is taking is excellent. They are aware of the great upset among a large minority of Episcopalians over Robinson's election as Bishop. At the same time, they are not backing down from that action.

How sizable that minority is can be seen from the vote figures below.

http://www.edsd.org/dcr84.html

quote:
Sunday, August 3, was a day of decision for the Episcopal Church. It was the day that the House of Deputies voted to confirm the election of Canon Gene Robinson as the next diocesan bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire. The vote was by orders, that is, each diocese had one lay and one ordained vote. The totals were 128 in favor and 63 against with 25 deputations divided. The matter will go the House of Bishops today.

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/130/story_13072_1.html
quote:
Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold announced the bishops had voted 62-45 to to confirm Robinson's election.

So, it is a clear majority in favor, with a sizable minority opposed.

I'm from a church where the rector is gay, and so have been a number of the seminarians, so the idea of a gay bishop seems only logical and correct, to me. It is a reflection of the membership of the church.

[JerseygirlCT]

6. Very sad

Such a completely counter-productive request to make of the Episcopal Church...

We need to keep talking, and asking one side to not participate isn't going to help the process at all.