Since the Episcopal Church is “episcopally led” but “synodically governed” (meaning that not only bishops make decisions for this church, but councils comprised of clergy and laity) it was important to see how the Executive Council would react to the recent Primates’ Meeting and the requests made of our church.
Meeting in Portland, Oregon, March 2-4, Council did a number of things: created a Millenium Development Goals “Inspiration Fund;” raised continuing concern about the peace process in the Middle East; urged an end to secret military detention centers and “extraordinary rendition;” passed a balanced budget for 2007; and a number of other things.
Among them was to state that:
“We wish to clearly affirm that our position as a church is to welcome all persons, particularly those perceived to be the least among us. We wish to reaffirm to our lesbian and gay members that they remain a welcome and integral part of the Episcopal Church.”
“Further, we offer our prayerful affirmation to all who struggle with the issues that concern us: those who are deeply concerned about the future of their Church and its place within the wider Communion, and those who are not reconciled to certain actions of General Convention. We wish to reaffirm tht they too remain a welcome and integral part of the Episcopal Church.”
The Executive Council also created a process to allow for the full participation of all Episcopalians in the response to a draft text for a Covenant in the Anglican Communion. We will give this our best effort. But we will do so, as we have always done, with the full participation of all the baptized members of this church — lay persons, bishops, priests, and deacons.
And the context in which we will do all this is as a Church With No Outcasts!
That We All May Be One 
March 5, 2007 at 11:05 pm |
The Archbishop of Wales, who missed the Primate’s meeting, delivered a very good talk about Lambeth Conferences, Biblical exegesis, cultural factors and the state of the Anglican Communion. Here is the link: Lecture by Given by Archbishop Barry Morgan, Bishop of Llandaff, Archbishop of Wales and Member of the Lambeth Commission
March 6, 2007 at 12:45 pm |
I’ll look forward to reading this. Thanks!