Posted on 05/09/2006 5:28:02 PM PDT by sionnsar
Very few blogs have taken note that the announcement of nominees for the next bishop of Newark (ECUSA) will be days after General Convention.
See their timeline on the diocese website. Placed in relation to General Convention, two key items fit like this:
2006—February through June–Diocese of Newark begins screening candidates for next bishop.
April 7–Report of the Special Commission (ECUSA) on The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Key sample: Instead of a moratorium on further elections and consecrations of gay bishops, the Commission recommends "very considerable caution in the nomination, election, consent to, and consecration of bishops whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion." A suggestion of "refrain from" [such consecrations] is not adopted.
June 13-21–General Convention (ECUSA)
June 28–Newark to announce nominees for next bishop.
The timing is spectacular, given the long lead-up to the date.
One of the few blogs that has picked this up is Oasis California (a ministry to gays). A Google search (by relevance) did not show any other matches for all these words: diocese newark elect bishop. The last sentence of the Oasis news report on the bishop election in California has this:
In September, the Diocese of Newark will elect a new bishop. Candidates have not been announced, but given the traditions of the diocese, church experts said, one of the candidates could be openly gay or lesbian.
Question: Will the resolution adopted by General Convention bearing on consecrations of partnered homosexuals as bishops do anything to prevent a new, immediate, explosive situation in the Anglican Communion? And what about the next diocese to nominate a partnered gay person? This will certainly keep happening until there is another election.
Will General Convention give us any clarity? “Very considerable caution” gives us nothing beyond what all dioceses should have always exercised.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.
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