Another letter from our bishop

[photo: Bishop Nathaniel Garang of the Diocese of Bor, Sudan with Bishop Ely]

Monday, July 28, 2008

Dear people of Vermont,

We have entered the final week of the Lambeth Conference and the schedule continues to be challenging to body and spirit. Thank goodness for the times of Eucharist and prayer that punctuates our time! And thank goodness for Sunday, which offered a time of Sabbath rest, worship and recreation (yes, I did manage to arrange a game of golf in the afternoon!).

The conference themes last Friday and Saturday focused on ecumenism and the environment. It is important to remember that despite attempts by the media and some within and outside the conference to focus our agenda on the issues of human sexuality, the reality is that there is a much broader and more significant agenda on the hearts and minds of many of us. In Bible Study, Indaba and self select groups, as well as in plenary presentations, concerns about issues like poverty, HIV/AIDS, evangelism, the environment, and ecumenical and interfaith matters are all very much on the hearts and minds of conference members. I am learning so much about the challenges of mission and ministry in places in the Anglican Communion that I knew nothing about, and I am grateful for each new encounter. There will be much to share about these Communion Partners around the world, most of whom are eager to talk with me about our diocese and about how we might move forward in mission together.

In my last missive I wrote about the statements from the Episcopal Church in Sudan and commended them to you, particularly the statement regarding the urgency with which we are asked to help work for peace in all of Sudan and especially in Darfur. The other statement addressing the subject of human sexuality and especially the matter of homosexuality was a difficult word for me to hear, although it is a word I have heard before, including a similar statement issued in 2006. I worried how this statement might affect our relationship with the Diocese of Bor and my relationships with Bishop Nathaniel Garang and Ezekiel Diing. I have now had the opportunity to talk at length with both of them, and they assure me that they want to continue in relationship with me and the people of Vermont. They both send their greetings back to the people of Vermont and especially to the Sudanese living in Vermont. Despite our disagreements regarding homosexuality, there is a shared bond of affection for our mission work in helping the people of Southern Sudan and in our learning from them about mission and ministry in a vastly difference context. I will have more to say about this relationship when I return to Vermont, but for now I want to signal that I very much want to continue this relationship for our mutual benefit and ask that the people of Vermont walk with me in that regard, remembering that there are many Sudanese living in Vermont who look to the Episcopal Church for their spiritual home.

As the conference moves into this last week, we are also moving more fully towards those thorny issues of human sexuality and the draft Anglican Covenant that all of us recognize to be of critical importance to the future of the Anglican Communion. My sense is that there is far more good will among the bishops present at Lambeth to stay in relationship despite our differences than there is to move quickly to “settle” matters in a way that creates unprecedented and potentially damaging structures within the Anglican Communion. I don’t know what the best way forward through all this will be, but I am fairly certain that this Lambeth Conference is but one step along the way—and by no means the final step.

The Indaba process offered to us by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the conference design team has been challenging, and for many reasons we are not able to fully live into that model. Nonetheless, most of us are trying to do so, believing that structuring our time together around debate and resolutions would be far less productive in service to the purpose of building trusting relationships. It remains to be seen how the Indaba process will play out and how the “Reflection” document that is being prepared as a result of the Indaba process will be received. We received a first and very preliminary draft of this document today [download pdf] and I have yet to review it in any depth. It comes to us in outline form and not as “polished text.” It is likely to be a document of some substance in both length and content and will require thoughtful review, reading and understanding if it is to be of value within the Communion.

Along with and connected to the Indaba process have been presentations of the “observations” from the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) and subsequent comments offered in plenary sessions by those bishops able to get to the microphone in the allotted timeframe. [The document may be viewed here, or download a pdf - 53kb. Note that an additional page in the hard copy given to the bishops has been added to the end of those versions. It is also at the bottom of this page.] Today we received part three of these observations, which among other things offered for consideration the creation of a “Pastoral Forum” at the Communion level to “engage theologically and practically with situations of controversy as they arise or divisive actions that may be taken around the Communion.” At first glance, this seems to me a far too highly structured addition to our “Anglican Way.” Some are already calling it a “fifth instrument of communion,” and the WCG suggests that it might be incorporated into the Anglican Covenant for which many are hoping but about which many (myself included) remain quite cautious. I’m sure this will be a matter of considerable discussion in our Indaba Groups over the course of the next few days.

The report from the WCG also sets forth the strongest (to date) recommendation that the moratoria spoken of in the Windsor Report (public Rites of Blessing of same sex unions, the consecration of those living in partnered gay relationships, and the cessation of cross border interventions) need to be adhered to without compromise and without delay. The document interprets and understands moratorium in the broadest possible fashion as applying both to future actions and in retrospect: “…that is that it requires the cessation of activity. This necessarily applies to practices that may have already been authorised as well as proposed for authorisation in the future.” Despite the responses of the General Convention to the Windsor Report and subsequent responses from the Executive Council and the House of Bishops of our Province, there continues to be a sense that what was once the Windsor Process has now become the Windsor Commandant and that there is only one acceptable response—namely compliance. The report does include a page about “Ministering pastorally and sensitively to all,” but there seems to be a huge disconnect between those words and the rest of the report. I have asked Anne Brown to post the testimony of two bishops for whom I have deep respect and whose comments at the hearing were among the most clear and helpful to me. [See comments by Bishop Michael Ingham and Duncan Gray below.] Again, all this will be a matter for continued discussion in our Indaba Groups.

Let me end this rather long missive by saying that my commitment and that of many at this conference to the full honoring and inclusion of GLBT persons in the full life and ministry of the Episcopal Church remains steadfast. There was talk at the hearing today from the WCG inviting us to consider what personal sacrifices each of us needs to make in order to restore a sense of trust, fellowship and communion within the Anglican Communion. Once again, I believe that is asking the wrong people the wrong question. The significant sacrifice being asked for and offered up in this report (yet again) is that of GLBT members of our communion and not that of any bishop at this conference, except in so far as our pastoral ministry among GLBT members will be compromised if not downright injured. If indeed we are bishops for the whole church, as we are being reminded over and over again at this conference, then we must be bishops for all the people of the whole church and not diminish the personhood and ministry of some in order to serve the goal of unity. At the end of the day, the facade of unity bought with price of the exclusion of some is not the Gospel I have come to know and believe, and which I try to live. My colleague, Bishop Marc Andrus of California, got it absolutely right I think when in the hearing today he reminded us of the words of Jesus in Matthew 9:13, “Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy not sacrifice.” What if we were to reframe the whole conversation in terms of compassion? Perhaps it is still not too late to do so.

I’ll try to write again soon. Please continue your prayers for all of us here at Lambeth and pray that the Holy Spirit will inspire us to a find a way forward that allows us to celebrate both the unity and diversity of our church in service to God’s mission.

Faithfully,
+Thomas