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THE Episcopal Church in the United States should slow but not halt its push for gay bishops and blessings, a report from a special commission recommends. The report prepared by the Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion offered 11 resolutions for consideration in response to the recommendations of the Windsor Report and the Primates’ Dromantine Communiqué.It recommended the Church “exercise very considerable caution” in electing bishops “whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church,” but stopped short of the moratorium on gay bishops demanded by overseas and traditionalist church leaders. The Commission also...

Maundy Thursday, 2006 An Open Letter To The Delegates To General Convention From The Diocese Of Connecticut. Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I write to you as a member of the Convention of the Diocese of Connecticut. This Pentecost I will be celebrating twenty- five years as a priest in the Episcopal Church. I have been canonically resident in our diocese for the last sixteen years and for fifteen years was a parish rector in Stamford. I have served the diocese in a number of ways, including a term as president of the Standing Committee. I am gravely concerned...

Be very afraid: The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music (SCLM) will present the 75th General Convention with a series of prayers and liturgies for life transitions, alternative rites for celebrating new ministries, and alternative burial rites. The commission will ask the convention for permission and money to continue to develop resources for multi-sensory worship compatible with Anglican liturgy. ECUSA's going to have "rites" for practically everything. The collection of rites of passage was developed in response to Resolution 2003-A092 which, among other things, called for such rites. The SCLM’s Blue Book report offers an explanation of the theology and...

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ: As your Presiding Officers we appointed the Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion late in 2005. The Special Commission was asked to prepare the way for a consideration by the 75th General Convention of recent developments in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion with a view to maintaining the highest degree of communion possible. They have admirably discharged this very weighty task. With our deep thanks to them we commend their report to you. Here we would like to make three observations. First, though this document is a beginning...

NEW YORK — An Episcopal Church panel studying the furor over the denomination's first openly gay bishop proposed Friday that dioceses use "very considerable caution" from now on in electing bishops with same-sex partners, but stopped short of the moratorium critics demanded. The commission also recommended that the American church offer "apology and repentance" for the turmoil its actions caused within the global Anglican Communion, and said dioceses should stop creating blessing ceremonies for same-gender couples, at least temporarily. (Snip) On May 6, the Diocese of California is scheduled to elect a new bishop and three of the seven candidates...

A discussion and Prayer starter…. Thousands wait with baited breath to see what will occur at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in mid-June 2006. Within the small but active Anglican Communion Network of ECUSA-based dioceses and parishes, it is commonly asserted that, if there is no real and obvious U-turn on matters relating to sexuality by the General Convention in June 2006, then the plan of the Network is certainly NOT to depart (and become, for example, like the AMiA) but to stay in place with the claim, “We have not left the ECUSA, the ECUSA [as an...

More and more, it appears that the long-awaited Anglican tipping point will arrive this June: The Bishop of Exeter, Michael Langrish, has delivered an extraordinary speech to ECUSA bishops which makes me believe for the first time that schism might actually be a possibility. Fundamentally, he has told the US bishops that if they consecrate another gay bishop or authorise same-sex relations, the Anglican Communion will break apart, ARCIC will be finished and inter-faith dialogue with the Muslims will be at an end. Two things give this speech added weight. One is that Langrish was speaking at the episcopal retreat...

General Convention Outlook - by Auburn Faber Traycik Liberal Factions Compete, Second Gay BishopAmong Possible Convention Wild Cards Report/Analysis By The Editor The Christian Challengehttp://www.challengeonline.org WASHINGTON, DC (March 6, 2006)--IF ONE BELIEVES the most common wisdom about it, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and his liberal allies will seek to avoid losing their place in the Anglican Communion or deserting their pro-gay agenda when they gather at the June 13-21 Episcopal General Convention in Columbus, Ohio. Of course, the Episcopal Church (ECUSA) cannot have it both ways, if conservative Anglican primates have anything to say about it. Their patience has already...

The Episcopal Diocese of Washington voted yesterday to approve same-sex blessing ceremonies at its annual convention at the Washington National Cathedral, while the Diocese of Virginia, meeting in Richmond, passed an omnibus resolution that touted unity.     The Washington diocese has unofficially allowed same-sex ceremonies for years, and it has had a same-sex rite on the books since June 2004.     However, that rite has been put on hold until a meeting of the Episcopal General Convention in June in Ohio, when the denomination's future stance on homosexual clergy and same-sex blessings will be decided.     The Virginia diocese's resolution, passed in the...

Too many Episcopalians are being purposefully kept in the dark about what is going on in ECUSA and the Anglican Communion. Too many clergy, revisionist and orthodox alike, feel like it is better to keep their parishioners in the dark about what is really going on for fear of dividing their parishes and losing members and contributions. Well, that is not true for three parishes in the Diocese of Southern Virginia! The clergy and vestries at Messiah, Chesapeake; Christ Church, Emporia; and Grace Church, Purdy not only keep their own people well informed, they want to get the word out...

Average Sunday attendance at Episcopal churches declined for the third consecutive year, a situation which Kirk Hadaway, director of research in the mission program office at the Episcopal Church Center, described as “worrisome and troubling.” Average attendance declined from 823,017 in 2003 to 795,765, a 3.4 percent decline. Active membership also declined by 2 percent to 2.25 million. Although there was encouraging news that almost one third of all Episcopal churches grew by 10 percent or more during the past five years, and that the average annual pledge increased church wide by nearly 5 percent to $1,881, Dr. Hadaway said...

Contact: The Rev. Phil Ashey (o)703-961-1983 (M) 703-963-3185Mr. Paul Branch(H) 703-327-3318South Riding Church Disaffiliates from the Episcopal Church, Joins Anglican Province of Uganda South Riding Church, established in 2000 as a new church plant in Fairfax, Virginia, has ended its affiliation with the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) and the Diocese of Virginia. The church is now under the jurisdictional authority of Bishop Kisembo in the Diocese of Rwenzori, Anglican Province of Uganda.South Riding is a biblically faithful church committed to the authority of Scripture, traditional Christian teaching and the historic faith and practice of Anglicanism. The decision to disaffiliate with...

An Episcopal group has a doomsday plan that calls for ousting conservative bishops and seizing church property if they attempt to break from the denomination over its increasingly liberal position on homosexuality. The so-called "Day After" plan could kick in as early as June, when the Episcopal Church USA holds its General Convention in Columbus, Ohio, according to minutes from a closed steering committee meeting of the group Via Media. Joan Gunderson of Aspinwall, who served as recording secretary for committee meeting in late September, said nothing from the strategy session has been approved by the group's leadership. "The minutes...

Why are we getting thrown out of the Anglican Communion? It is a night to remember. We celebrate ours as the most advanced of cultures. We speed across time as through uncharted waters. But it is dark, and the air of the Anglican Communion is chilled. We are the Titanic. Only 100 feet ahead is the twin-peaked iceberg – General Convention 2006 and Lambeth 2008. In charity, may I tell you why we’re getting thrown out of the Anglican Communion, so long our home? The framework of love and truth that is that Communion requires our expulsion. In America, someone...

In February of this year, the Primates of the Anglican Communion suggested that the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) ask “representatives” of ECUSA to “set out the thinking behind the recent actions of their Province”, “in accordance with paragraph 141 of the Windsor Report”.   This paragraph, in turn, had asked that ECUSA “demonstrate to the rest of the Communion why [proposed rites for same-sex blessings] meet the criteria of scripture, tradition and reason” and “how public Rites of Blessing for same sex unions would constitute growth in harmony with the apostolic tradition as it has been received”.  Kenneth Kearon, whose office...

ECUSA's Executive Council appears to have agreed to the Anglican primates' request that it withdraw its members from the Anglican Consultative Council:We are unanimous in our desire to do all that we can to preserve and further the bonds of affection in the "new humanity" created by Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:15). This in our view constitutes the very essence of our life together as Anglican Christians. We firmly believe that the only way to address the things that divide us is for "Christians of good will ... to engage honestly and frankly with each other" (Windsor Report, paragraph 146). We are therefore heartened...

Judging from the following press release in response to the House of Bishops' statement, Integrity is pretty clear about a couple of things: 1. If everyone can't get on board with its agenda, then everyone should be made to suffer.2. There will be no moratorium on same-sex blessings.In other words, they no longer wish to remain part of the Anglican Commuinion.The Windsor Report and the Dromantine Communique make it crystal clear: The Anglican Communion requests that ECUSA, in the interest of maintaining unity in the communion, cease developing or performing same-sex blessings. It's unlikely that a lady as smart as...

Virginia Episcopalians, who at 89,000 make up the country's largest Episcopal diocese, will meet tomorrow and Saturday in Reston to discuss finances and whether the denomination needs to stop ordaining homosexual clergy. [snip]However, several of the diocese's largest — and most conservative parishes — are withholding contributions to the diocese because of the Episcopal Church's decision in August 2003 to ordain a homosexual bishop.     A majority of the Diocese of Virginia's delegates agreed with that vote when it was taken at the church's General Convention.     "The decisions that will be made in the next couple of months will determine...

[I think I need to issue a caution on this, particularly if you click on through to the comments which are clearly from "across the aisle." I will also note that this does not take into account those who have already left ECUSA, and that the poll of "leaders" is assumed to reflect the opinions of the "led." --sionnsar] The Christian Century magazine published an article last August, written by Bill Sachs of the Episcopal Church Foundation entitled The Episcopal middle: listening to congregations and subsequent correspondence was published in November under the heading Episcopal decisions … The article makes...

When I first saw this, I thought it was a joke. Alas, no. Though I'm sure it has no chance to pass, a resolution that's been submitted to the 210th Annual Council of the ECUSA's Diocese of Virginia speaks volumes about the far left of that denomination: R-1 Affirmation of General Convention 2003 Whereas, General Convention 2003 affirmed the right of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgenderpersons to be ordained and/or consecrated; and Whereas, Justice demands a fair and open society; and Whereas, The Episcopal Church has always been a discovering community appreciate of new learning; and Whereas, Individuals have no...