The Advocate May-June 2006
Secial Commission on Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion issues report, resolutions
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Posted: Jun 10, 2006, 20:21

ENS – The Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion has issued its report, including 11 resolutions to be debated by the 75th General Convention at its meeting June 13-21 in Columbus, Ohio.

In a joint cover letter, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and the Rev. George Werner, President of the House of Deputies, observed that the report is “first and foremost…a theological document” focusing on “our understanding of our participation as members of the Anglican Communion in God’s Trinitarian life and God’s mission to which we are called.” The letter stressed that the report is “intended to start the conversation” and not conclude the discussion about the Windsor Report’s recommendations, and to be an invitation into “the Windsor Process and the further unfolding of our common life together in the Anglican Communion.”

The Special Commission’s charge was to assist the 75th general Convention in “considering how to maintain the highest degree of communion within the Anglican Communion given the different perspectives held with regard to the place of homosexual persons in the life of the church.”

The report will be considered first at the convention by the Special Legislative Committee on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Bishop Griswold has said he anticipates the committee would craft a response during the convention’s first week to the process set in motion by the Lambeth Commission on Communion, which issued the Windsor Report in October 2004.

The Special Commission’s report, “One Baptism, One Hope in God’s Call,” has six sections plus a brief conclusion. Key documents from the Anglican Communion, the House of Bishops and the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church are appended to the report.

Section I – describes the commission’s biblical and theological basis for its understanding of communion.

Section II – a brief history of events in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion since the 2003 General Convention.

Section III – a theological and ecclesiological discussion of the nature of interdependence in the Anglican Communion.

Section IV – expressions of regret and repentance by the Episcopal Church.

Section V – surveys five “invitations” to the Episcopal Church as ways by which it can live more fully into its common life in the Anglican Communion.

Section VI – traces precedents of covenants in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as a response to its unity in God’s mission.

The 11 resolutions are:

1. Resolution A159, Commitment to Interdependence in the Anglican Communion, which would have the convention “reaffirm the abiding commitment of the EC to the fellowship of churches that constitute the Anglican Communion” in specific ways and ask the Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons to make provision for people from other provinces of the Communion to serve with voice, but not vote, on each of the convention’s standing commissions.

2. Resolution A160 would have the convention join the House of Bishops’ March 2005 “Covenant Statement” in expressing “our own deep regret for the pain that others have experienced with respect to our actions at the General Convention 2003 and offer “our sincerest apology and repentance.”

3. Resolution A161, Election of Bishops, would have the convention state that it “regrets the extent to which we have, by action and inaction, contributed to strains on the communion” and “urge nominating committees, electing conventions, Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise very considerable caution in the nomination, election, consent to and consecration of bishops whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church.”

4. A162, Public Rites of Blessing for Same-sex Unions, which would have the Convention “affirm the need to maintain a breadth of private responses to situations of individual pastoral care for gay and lesbian Christians in the Church,” but concur with the Windsor Report’s request that it not authorize public rites of blessing “until some broader consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges.”

5. A163, Pastoral Care and Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight, which would have the Convention affirm the need for “effective and appropriate pastoral care for all,” including using when necessary the Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight process, and urge “continued attention” to diocesan boundaries and the authority of diocesan bishops.

6. A164, Continued Attention to the Millennium Development Goals, which would have the convention urge continued participation in and advocacy for the Millennium Development Goals, and the giving of at least 0.7 percent of diocesan, parish and individual financial resources to international development work.

7. A165, Commitment to Windsor and Listening Processes, which would have the convention commend the Windsor Report as “an important contribution to the process of living into communion,” and commit the church to the “Windsor Process” of discernment on church nature and unity.

8. A166, Anglican Covenant Development Process, which would have the convention demonstrate its commitment to mutual responsibility and interdependence in the Anglican Communion through development of an Anglican Covenant “that underscores our unity in faith, order and common life in the service of God’s mission.”

9. A167, Full and Equal Claim for All the Baptized, which would have the convention reaffirm a number of resolutions passed by previous conventions in support of gay and lesbian persons.

10. A168, Human Rights for Homosexual Persons, which would have the convention reaffirm “its conviction that homosexual persons are entitled to equal protection of the laws,” affirm Windsor paragraph 146 and ask the Standing Commission on Anglican and International Peace with Justice Concerns to seek ways to address this concern through the Anglican Communion Office.

11. A169 Amend Canon 111.1 Quadrilateral and Exercise of Ministry, which would have the convention add the following section to Canon 111.1:Sec. 3: “No person shall be denied access to any discernment process under these canons or to the exercise of any ministry in this Church on account of theological opinions consistent with (a) the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as containing all things necessary to salvation, and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith (b) the Apostles’ Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith, (c) the two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself — Baptism and the Supper of the Lord — ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution, and the elements ordained by Him, and (d) the historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church.”