Posted on 10/12/2005 4:47:30 PM PDT by sionnsar
Face-to-face conversation at the local level continues during a time when the Church is living through a time of “dread and enmity,” according to the Very Rev. George L. Werner, president of the House of Deputies, who preached Oct. 9 at Christ Church, Las Vegas, Nev.
In the same way that God showed Saul of Tarsus that he was headed in the “wrong direction,” persecuting the new Christians, Dean Werner suggested that the current turmoil and division in the Church may be God’s way of letting all the combatants know that it is similarly misdirected.
The day before Dean Werner’s sermon, the national Executive Council, the legislative body responsible for the General Convention budget between sessions, received a multi-media report on the visit to the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Nottingham, England, made by Episcopal Church “observers:” Josephine Hicks of North Carolina; the Rev. Robert L. Sessum, rector of Church of the Good Shepherd in Lexington, Ky.; and the Rt. Rev. Catherine S. Roskam, Bishop Suffragan of New York.
Ms. Hicks elaborated with additional comments from Bishop Roskam and Fr. Sessum during a 45-minute slide presentation. She told council the group was received courteously and engaged in thoughtful conversation with representatives from a number of provinces after some initial awkwardness.
The presentation panel from the Episcopal Church, she said, “bent over backward” to make known that it was not trying to persuade other provinces to follow the lead of the 2003 General Convention, but she was disappointed to learn after the presentation that the reaction of many ACC representatives was that this was “a done deal, get on the bus or get left behind” situation for their province as well.
Bishop Roskam told council that if the ACC vote to maintain the observer status of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada had been conducted according to the rules of the General Convention, it would not have had the required majority before adding that “the voice of the baptized is not widely embraced in the rest of the [Anglican] Communion.”
Following the presentation, council questioned the observers during a 45-minute closed session.
Afterward, during international committee meeting time, the Very Rev. Titus Presler, sub-dean and vice president for academic affairs at The General Theological Seminary, introduced a resolution seeking to fund further local “face-to-face” encounters by reciprocal invitation. The committee decided not to forward the resolution on to the council, but to discuss it again in committee during the January meeting.
Steve Waring
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Her pointed-hattedness Roskam is indeed out of touch with her flock. When last I looked at church Canons, the Laity have equal voice with the clergy in ALL matters coming before the convention. Roskam needs to go back to seminary where whe can re-learn the basics. I would prefer she get off her throne and shut her mouth. She is a disgrace to the episcopate.
(Excerpt)In the same way that God showed Saul of Tarsus that he was headed in the “wrong direction,” persecuting the new Christians, Dean Werner suggested that the current turmoil and division in the Church may be God’s way of letting all the combatants know that it is similarly misdirected.
I would suggest the proper Biblical passage is Revelation 2:20-23 where Jesus says:
". . .I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds."
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