Posted on 10/03/2003 7:10:26 PM PDT by EdReform
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A prominent Birmingham theologian said he was given documents that show a plan to stifle conservative dissent on homosexuality when the world's Anglican archbishops meet in London this month.
The Rev. Paul Zahl, dean of the 3,800-member Cathedral Church of the Advent, Birmingham's largest Episcopal church, has been an outspoken opponent of the U.S. Episcopal Church decision in August to approve its first gay bishop, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson.
Zahl said he was accidentally given an agenda and strategy memo by the staff of the Anglican Consultative Council of London that lays out a plan for dealing with conservatives who opposed approval of the U.S. Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop.
"They are circumventing and pre-empting a genuine exchange of fair opinion," Zahl said.
Zahl said the two secret documents were a tightly scripted agenda for the meeting and a memo to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, advising him how to avoid allowing conservatives to effectively voice their opinion about Robinson.
The memo to the archbishop of Canterbury argued that it was imperative to frustrate the will of archbishops from Third World countries who are generally conservative and strongly opposed to the U.S. church's stance on homosexuality, Zahl said.
The document expressed fear that conservatives would argue for a parallel jurisdiction set up for conservatives in the United States that would allow them to opt out of liberal dioceses. The memo urged that such an outcome would be disastrous and must be fought, according to Zahl.
Zahl said he was mistakenly handed the documents, intended for someone else, during a Sept. 8 meeting of the Inter-Anglican Theology and Doctrine Commission at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria. The person who gave him the documents later asked for them back and he returned them, he said.
"It was like out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie," Zahl said.
Zahl, who has a doctorate in theology from the University of Tubingen in Germany, said he read the documents and was stunned at how measures were being taken to prevent archbishops from Third World countries from controlling the meeting.
Zahl said the documents were prepared by church bureaucrats who organize meetings for the archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the world's 70 million Anglican Christians.
"It included a blow by blow, down to the 15-minute schedule of the meeting of the primates," Zahl said. "It was set up so there would not be any decision made or time for deliberation."
Zahl, appointed to the Inter-Anglican Theology and Doctrine Commission by his close friend, the previous Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, said he hoped Williams would be above such manipulation. "I feel that Archbishop Rowan Williams has the best interests of the whole Anglican communion at heart and I impute to him the highest motives," Zahl said.
Zahl will be in Dallas Oct. 7-9 attending a meeting of conservative Episcopalians who plan to forward recommendations to the international meeting in London, which will take place Oct. 15-16.
Zahl said he sent word to Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies that the meeting was being staged to prevent taking a stand on Robinson. Gomez, a leader of the Third World archbishops, will alert the others, he said.
"The Third world primates are alert to the tricks of this manipulation," Zahl said. "These documents have been seen for what they are."
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