FROM THE RECTOR

April, 2005

Over the past few weeks, you have undoubtedly encountered media reports about various pronouncements from the Anglican Communion and the upper levels of our denomination, mostly with respect to the fall-out from the 2003 General Convention. The pace of events has indeed quickened, and I would like to bring you up-to-date on these, as I promised to do nearly two years ago.

The first occasion of import was our own Diocesan Council, held back in late January, and briefly reported upon in the February E-Post cover page and in last month’s Sr. Warden’s Report. Although Bp. Lee was kept from being physically present at the Council by then pending heart-surgery (he is, by the way, making a good recovery), his taped Pastoral Address set the conciliatory tone of the gathering.

In that address, Bp. Lee expressed his regret that General Convention acted without proper regard for the concerns of the worldwide Anglican Communion.“Americans are known throughout the world for our tendency towards unilateral action,” he stated. “In contrast to the unilateral proclivities of our secular culture, the Risen Christ calls us to a different pattern of behavior with one another that can model to the world at large how to live with differences... unilateralism has no place in the life of the church.”

As a consequence of this understanding, Bp. Lee pledged to “refrain from consenting to the consecration as bishop of any person living in a same gender relationship until there is wider consensus about the appropriateness of such a person for leadership in the church.”

Likewise, he also promised to continue our diocesan policy of prohibiting public rites of blessing of same gender unions. Such restraint, he added, “does not mean withholding pastoral care or denying full inclusion to gay and lesbian people in our midst.”

Bp. Lee’s focus on Paul’s teaching of “mutual submission in Christ” (Ephesians 5:21) led to the overwhelming adoption of a resolution (R-22) accepting the Windsor Report and expressing “regret for this diocese’s share of responsibility for actions of the 74th General Convention that breached the proper constraints of our bonds of affection with other parts of the Anglican Communion.” The language of this resolve was taken directly from the Windsor Report itself (see my Dec. 2004 column regarding this document).

Resolution 22 also formally requested that the next General Convention (2006) “effect a moratorium on the election of and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in same-gender union, until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges.” Lastly, it formally conveyed “the desire of the Diocese of Virginia to remain together and a part of the Anglican Communion.”

A few weeks after Diocesan Council, the Primates of the 38 Anglican Provinces, including our Presiding Bishop, met in Ireland to consider the findings of the Windsor Report. At the conclusion of their gathering, they released a Communiqué expressing their general acceptance of the Windsor Report.

In it, a sizeable majority of the Primates questioned the commitment of the Episcopal Church (and the Anglican Church of Canada) to the worldwide Anglican Communion: “Many primates have been deeply alarmed that the standard of Christian teaching on matters of human sexuality expressed in the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10, which should command respect as the position overwhelmingly adopted by the bishops of the Anglican Communion, has been seriously undermined by the recent developments in North America.”

Accordingly, they asked our church to withdraw its representatives from the Anglican Consultative Council, a larger representative body of the Anglican Communion, and instead to appear before it this coming June with an explanation of why it acted in contradiction to Anglican teaching upon human sexuality at our last General Convention.

In the meantime, the Communiqué asked all the Primates “to use their best influence to persuade their brothers and sisters to exercise a moratorium on public Rites of Blessing for Same-sex unions and on the consecration of any bishop living in a sexual relationship outside Christian marriage.”

Finally, the Primates called upon the Archbishop of Canterbury to create a commission to supervise the pastoral care of parishes whose bishops have aggressively dissented from the teachings of the Anglican Communion, while simultaneously committing themselves “neither to encourage nor to initiate cross-boundary interventions.”

The most recent development comes from our own House of Bishops, which met in Texas in the middle of March. Responding to the Primate’s Communiqué, the bishops issued a "Covenant Statement" wherein they expressed “deep regret for the pain that others have experienced with respect to our actions at the General Convention of 2003” and offered their “sincerest apology and repentance for having breached our bonds of affection by any failure to consult adequately with our Anglican partners before taking those actions.”

Accordingly, they promised “not to authorize any public rites for the blessing of same sex unions,” nor to themselves bless any such unions “at least until the General Convention of 2006.”

Most interestingly, they also pledged themselves to refrain from rendering their consent to the election of any bishops until the 2006 General Convention, at which time the larger matter would be considered. This last was clearly meant to gain the support of the more liberal bishops in the house, so that the statement could be adopted by a unanimous or near unanimous vote.

While both our own Bp. Jones and the Archbishop of Canterbury have called this statement a “constructive development,” it nevertheless defers the larger questions until summer of 2006. At that time, the bishops and deputies at General Convention will need to decide whether to fully conform to the teachings of the larger Anglican Communion, knowing that our status as a member of that Communion hangs in the balance.

Happily, our own diocese is now on record to that effect with the adoption of Resolution 22. Likewise, Pohick Church is also recognized as standing in solidarity with the Anglican Communion. And so, the former Primate of Uganda, Archbishop Livingstone Nkoyoyo, will again visit with us in May, renewing our friendship with that branch of the Communion.

At this juncture, my hopes are reflected in the words of Bp. Lee’s Pastoral Address: “My prayer is that in 2005, we can recover, through a disciplined acceptance of mutual submission to one another, more of our sense of unity and mission.”

In the weeks and months ahead, I ask you to join in that prayer and vision for our church as we continue to respond to Christ’s call to serve in our own little corner of the Anglican Communion.

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