Presiding Bishop Piece in the Times (UK)

by the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts-Schori

The recently-concluded Lambeth Conference provided an opportunity for bishops from around the Anglican communion to discover the deeper realities of the contexts in which each seeks to spread the gospel.

One bishop from India reported a legislative requirement to obtain a magistrate's certificate before baptising a convert, with a prison term of several years and a significant fine as the penalty for proceeding without legal sanction.

A bishop's spouse from Africa reported the church's difficulty in supporting widows who are pressured to marry the dead husband's brother (even if already married), or else forfeit their children and property.

Bishops from Madagascar told of cyclones that destroy their people's homes and crops, often several times a year, and how they seek to build strong church buildings that can be havens from the storms as well as seats of learning.

Western bishops spoke of the church's pastoral role in seeking to provide sacred support for same-sex couples living in monogamous, life-long relationships.

Bishops from Africa and Asia told of the difficulty of evangelism in majority Muslim societies. Sudanese bishops sought partnerships as they seek to resettle returning refugees and rebuild a devastated church structure. A Tanzanian bishop lamented the difficulty of biblical study without libraries or access to the scholarly tools Westerners take for granted. Japanese bishops spoke of the church's inability to address social change when Christianity is such a small part of society. And bishops from countless places spoke of their gratitude for the support of others as they struggle with natural disasters, corruption, war, disease, hunger, climate change and counterproductive social pressures.

Given divergences that look interplanetary in degree and scale, what does this diverse body have in common? Certainly a recognisably common framework of worship, descended from the Church of England. A reliance on sacred scripture, in common with tradition and reason, also characteristic of roots in British Christianity. And a passion for caring for their flocks – the hungry, the sick, the aged and infirm, widows and orphans, and the forgotten, as well as those who know no good news.

But the forms and structures of the various provinces of the Anglican communion have diverged significantly, in ways that challenge those ancient ties to England and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Those provinces are the result of evangelism tied to colonial structures, whether of Britain or her former colonies, and that colonial history has still to be unpacked and assessed. The present attempts to manage conflict in the communion through a renewed focus on structural ties to old or new authorities have generated significant resistance, both from provinces who largely absented themselves from Lambeth and from dissenting voices among the attending bishops.

The Anglican communion's present reality reflects a struggle to grow into a new level of maturity, like that of adult siblings in a much-conflicted family. As we continue to wrestle, sufficient space and respect for the differing gifts of the siblings just might lead to greater maturity in relationship. This will require greater self-definition as well as decreased reactivity. Jesus' own example in relationships with his opponents and with his disciples will be instructive.

Nathan Humphrey Post

This provocative post comes from Fr. Nathan Humphrey, a priest in D.C. who blogs at Communion in Conflict. I find much here that resonates with my feelings. Though he admits to venting here - and is speaking from the heart - he raises an often neglected point: leaders in the Church do have power, (and not merely clergy,) and it is a certain kind of power - and we mustn't fritter it, waste it, or (what's worse) misuse it. It is not the kind which many seek (political, commercial, military, etc.), but it is a kind of authority, influence and stewardship of resources. The power we have as leaders in the Church is intended by God, I believe, for the mission of God -- and that mission includes, among other things, reconciliation in the name of the Holy Trinity, and toward the end of finding our lives in Christly mutual submission and love. While it is indeed a mark of mission that we seek a transformed and just world - we so often see our own private, sub-corporate, national, sub-cultural ethical priorities as "Truth" or "Justice" - and then use our powers toward those perceived goods, being willing in that pursuit to forgo reconciliation, wider unity, mutual submission, etc. In other words, we very often abuse our power (generally self-righteously) for the sake of an end we have become convinced is 'The' end, and thus further states of antagonism and division.

... I think I've pinpointed the nexus of my ecclesiological anger, however, in the underwhelming lack of authentic generous initiatives I've been able to find on the blogosphere. (Admittedly, the blogosphere is perhaps the wrong forum in which to seek such initiatives.)

For instance, I read this post by Mark Harris, a left-leaning Episcopal priest whose analysis is often quite insightful and whom I think tries to take a common-sense, even-handed approach to controversial questions. But in this case, all he can offer up by way of "generous initiatives" are carping about the proposed covenant and a prescription for what I've characterized elsewhere as separatism. Where's his own generosity? This is nothing new, and I'm disappointed. Of all liberals I should think capable of generosity and initiative, it would be Mark Harris.

I was equally disappointed by Leander Harding's response to my question, because again it was about "them" and not "us." Again, of all conservatives I should think capable of generosity and initiative, it would be Leander Harding.

Our leaders, yet again, are failing us. Not because they are failing to stop same-sex blessings and gay bishops, or because they are pushing same-sex blessings and gay bishops in the face of clear moratoria, not because they are boundary-crossing or failing to observe that moratoria, not because they are pro or con the proposed Covenant, but because they seem to be incapable of acting Christianly in the midst of conflict. Rowan Williams is (for the most part) succeeding in this. And I know many liberals and conservatives who want to move us forward, but I get frustrated when I hear that my friends think the best way to move forward is to avoid or ignore the conflict and focus instead on other "more pressing" issues, such as the Millennium Development Goals or world missions. What I want is for us all to continue to fight the good fight within our own contexts, to stand up for what we believe is right, but to stay committed to each other in so doing.

A decade or so ago, I had hope that my generation, Generation X, and perhaps also the Millennials, would not repeat the mistakes of the Baby Boomers, that when we were entrusted with power we would not abuse it in the same ways. Specifically, I hoped that we would live into the third core value of Gathering The NeXt Generation: "We value our relationships in Christ over issues that divide us." This pragmatic statement recognizes that issues do divide us idealogically and in many practical areas, but they need not separate us from each other in Christ, that is, in Christ's one Church. I used to think that the fissiparousness of my Boomer elders was due to the relational dislocation of the 1960s, but that the children (and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren) of divorce such as I might carry our woundedness into the Church in a redeemed way, rather than a tired old recapitulatory way. But when I see young, bright leaders such as the star bloggers on the left and the right using their newfound power to break apart the family of the Church, I think that the sins of the fathers are being visited upon the sons of the latter generations.

How discouraging to behold my peers, more interested in winning their battles for control over the direction of the Church than in bringing people into relationship with God and each other in Christ. I do not question the integrity or sincerety of the convictions that lead them to abuse their power. Each side believes that what they are doing is serving the heart of the Gospel, and that people's souls are at stake, either in that if they fail, people will be damned for eternity, or that people will live the rest of their earthly lives oppressed and marginalized and denied the justice that Christ longed to usher in with the Kingdom of Heaven. I understand your agendas, folks. I just don't think they're the right ones.

The sad thing is that I agree with parts of each agenda, not in a wishy-washy way that's seeking to stand "in the middle of the road." There's no inherent virtue in being idealogically moderate. I agree that salvation and justice are part of the Gospel. I just think each side is idolatrous in how they have used political tactics to try to move their versions of the Gospel forward. I'm with Rowan Williams when it comes to searching for a truly Christlike way forward, and I'm with those who worry about what kind of "sacrifice" we're really talking about when that rhetoric comes up: sacrifice-as-kenosis or sacrifice-as-scapegoating? (More on that in a separate post.)

My point here is to beg all communion-minded people not to let the liberal and concervative activists get the upper hand, because if they do, they're going to strangle the life out of the Church, despite their best intentions to renew it....

A Fool For Christ

By Eric Von Salzen

In this post, I’m going to criticize the teachings of a bishop of the Episcopal Church. If you think it’s foolish for a mere mentor in Education for Ministry to take issue with a bishop, you’re undoubtedly correct. Still, remember Paul’s words: “If you think you are wise in this age you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.”

Several years ago, a friend suggested to me that learning about the scriptures, the history of the Christian church, theology, philosophy, and so forth in EFM – however interesting it might be – was worthless in terms of developing or increasing religious faith. In fact, he said, if you want a model of Christian faith, don’t seek out a theologian; instead, find an ignorant, uneducated Bolivian peasant. The peasant will have more faith than all the professors in a school of theology put together.

My friend may well be right. I can’t endorse his idea based on observations, because I’ve never actually met a Bolivian peasant. But I can imagine that a strong religious faith would be found in a community where religion and culture are strongly interwoven, where the same messages of faith have been heard generation after generation, where arguments against the faith are rarely heard and never heeded. In that community, my friend’s peasant would have no need of EFM, or any other kind of academic religious study.

That, however, isn’t the world I live in. I live in a world in which religion is often compartmentalized off from daily life, where the “real world” is the secular world, where the proponent of religion is often regarded as a naïf if not a scoundrel, and it’s sophisticated to be an atheist. And for better or worse, I’m part of that world. For me, religious education has been an essential element in the development of my religious faith.

And this brings me to Bishop John Shelby Spong. I’ve heard about Spong for years. His is one of those names that have become part of the popular consciousness. If you ask the man or woman on the street to name a contemporary religious figure, Spong’s name is likely to come up – it won’t be the first one mentioned, or the second, but after the Pope, and Billy Graham, and some televangelists, by the time they get to number 10 or 15, they’ll certainly mention Bishop Spong.

I also knew that Bishop Spong was regarded as unorthodox by people whose views on religious matters I respect. I’ve noticed that when “conservative” or “centrist” Episcopalians want to give examples of where the “left wing” of our church goes off the rails, they usually complain about “people like Spong”. I’m not sure who else there is in our church who is “like Spong”, but certainly Spong himself is a familiar symbol.

On the other hand, I have friends who seem to me to be good Christians, God-fearing folk, regular church attendees, who like and admire Bishop Spong, and regard him as a good influence on the church. (This admiration may mainly be due to Bishop Spong’s opposition to discrimination against women and gays. If so, I honor him for that, but it isn’t the subject of this post.)

So here I was, holding myself out as being knowledgeable about religious matters, an EFM mentor, a blogger on Anglican Centrist, yet I’d never read any of Bishop Spong’s books.

Therefore, I went to Barnes & Noble last week and bought a Spong book. There were quite a few to choose from, but I picked A New Christianity For A New World, for several reasons. First, it was one of the few Spong books that didn’t have the word “Bishop” in the title or subtitle (“A Bishop Rethinks” this or that, “A Bishop Speaks”, etc.); second, it seemed to deal with large, general issues (unlike his books dealing with specific issues like human sexuality, or the role of women, etc.); and third it was the most recent Spong paperback on the shelf. And now I’ve read it.

It seems that I picked the right book. Although I can’t certify that it’s typical of his oeuvre (in his preface he suggests that it represents a further evolution in his thinking, beyond his earlier books), he describes this work as “a final Spong book” to “spell out the future shape of Christianity.” Just what I was looking for. Sort of the Spongian equivalent of The City of God or the Augsburg Confession.

Bishop Spong’s thesis in this book is that “theism” is dead, but that religion generally and Christianity specifically can survive in the post-theistic world, if they follow his recommendations.

Bishop Spong doesn’t define what he means by “theism”. (I’ve always understood that word to be a kind of generic heading under which to list all the different notions about the divine – except the notion that there is no divine, which is put under the separate heading of “atheism”.) The closest Spong comes to explaining “theism” is to say that “I do not define God as a supernatural being”. The key word in that statement seems to be “being”. Depending on what you mean by “a being”, a lot of orthodox Christians could agree that God isn’t a “being”, yet not think that they have thereby declared the death of theism.

Bishop Spong doesn’t try to disprove the Christian (or Judaeo-Christian) concept of God; he simply declares that “we” can’t believe in it anymore. “God, understood theistically, is no longer operative in our belief systems, no matter how hard we try to hold on to this premodern deity”, he says.

Other “death of God” advocates have argued that religion was invented to explain the mysteries of the natural world, and science has now rendered religion unnecessary by explaining those mysteries. Bishop Spong does mention the “gap-filler” function of religion and the increasing irrelevance of God for that purpose, but this is a secondary point. The main function of theism for him is to ease our existential anxiety.

Bishop Spong tells us that God is the result of human evolution. He explains that when human beings evolved to the point that they became “self-conscious”, they realized, as no animal does nor any pre-human ancestor did, that they were mortal, and it scared them. They found themselves in a chronic state of danger, where mortality was inevitable, and the world was so vast “that they were reduced to a sense of themselves as almost totally insignificant.” To cope with this anxiety, they invented politics, fire, and – “the most powerful coping device of all” – “the theistic concept of God”. This “insight”, Spong assures us, must be believed because it came originally from Sigmund Freud.

I confess that I have trouble reconciling what seem to me to be two conflicting ideas. If theism is the device whereby we human beings cope with mortality, and we are still mortal, how can we have abandoned theism without having first found a satisfactory substitute coping mechanism? Spong doesn’t address this problem; he doesn’t really seem to be aware of it.

When he turns from theism in general to Christianity, Bishop Spong gets a bit more specific, and I think we can begin to see what he means when he says that theism is “no longer operative.” To show that Christianity is no longer operative, he asserts that both the story of Jesus’ “miraculous entry” into the world, and the story of his “miraculous exit”, have “been rendered literally meaningless by new knowledge”. Bishop Spong asserts that the “deepest problem” with the birth story is that it “reflects a premodern understanding of the human birth process” that we can no longer accept. Back in the First Century, he explains, “people did not understand the woman’s role in reproduction”, but now, thanks to “our expanded knowledge of genetics, biology, and reproduction”, we do. Because both parents contribute to the child’s genetic makeup, the result of Mary’s encounter with the Holy Spirit could not be a “divine child in human form”, but a half human and half divine “monster”. I wonder if Bishop Spong has ever heard of Francis Collins, formerly the head of the Human Genome Project, and a committed Christian. Dr. Collins’ book, The Language Of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence For Belief, is proof that you can understand modern genetics and still find theism “operative”.

As for the “exit” story, Bishop Spong asserts that astronomy disproves the Ascension. First Century Christians, he explains, imagined a three-tiered universe, in which Heaven was located just above the sky, so “to get to heaven, where God dwelt, one simply had to rise, as Jesus did in the ascension story, into the sky. But when Copernicus and Galileo challenged the accuracy of the three-tiered universe, they rendered this possibility null and void.” Can Bishop Spong really suppose that any serious Christian would find her faith rendered “inoperative” by the discovery of the stratosphere? To the best of my knowledge, even Biblical literalists who insist that the Earth was created in seven days in 4004 BC because “that’s what the Bible says” don’t deny the existence of the upper atmosphere, or even interplanetary space, on the basis of the Ascension story.

What Bishop Spong is refuting is not Christianity, but some weird parody of Christianity that he has created in his own imagination. This is a simplistic, village atheist performance that isn’t even challenging enough to be interesting.

But what is interesting is that, having asserted that theism is dead, Bishop Spong can’t stop talking about God. He proclaims that “the reality of the God-experience overwhelms me every day of my life.” “I have walked beyond theism,” he says, “but not beyond God”. The reader may be perplexed – I am perplexed – about what the heck he is talking about when he speaks of a “post-theistic God, the God who is not a person but the source of that power that nurtures personhood”, a God that is “nebulous and yet as real as a holy presence”, “a symbol of that which is immortal, invisible, timeless”, “the reality underlying everything that is”, “the ultimate source of life”. Go figure.

Bishop Spong even argues that the death of theism needn’t deprive us of our Jesus. He asserts that “I cannot remember a time when Jesus was not important to me”. For him, he says, Christ “is the source of godly empowerment who calls me beyond my boundaries”; he is “not an example to follow”, but “a vision that compels”, “the doorway through which I enter the holiness of God”. This may not make much sense, but give Spong credit for one thing: Unlike some modern “followers of Jesus”, he avoids the cop-out of claiming that Jesus was a great moral teacher who we should follow but not deify. “The content of Jesus’ teaching,” Bishop Spong concedes, “was not terribly original.”

So, if Christ is not the Son of God (because there is no “theistic God” to be his Father), and if he was just run-of-the-mill as a moral teacher, how does Christ become a compelling vision, a doorway into the holiness of the post-theistic God? Bishop Spong’s answer seems to be simply that in our western culture, we’ve inherited “Jesus, who is called Christ” as “the primary symbol in our faith-story”, and the “Christ-figure will continue to be our central icon, the gift we have to offer the world.”

I puzzled over these assertions for several days after I finished this book, and I went back and re-read several parts of it to be sure I hadn’t missed something. I’ve concluded that Bishop Spong really means what he says. He really does feel a “God-experience” while he nevertheless denies the reality of a (theistic) God; he really does find that a First Century rabbi with nothing original to say is his “doorway” into “the holiness of [the non-theistic] God.” He’s apparently able to do this because he’s been steeped in religion – and particularly the Christian religion – his whole life. He finds that he can still enjoy the feeling of being Christian, can use the name of “Christian”, even though he’s rejected the substance of Christianity. I understand that a person who has had a limb amputated may continues to feel a phantom sensation as though the missing limb were still there. This may be something like what Bishop Spong feels about God and Christ.

Phantom religious faith may work for Bishop Spong, and it may work for some others, but I don’t think it can work for the church, not for long. I’m typing this post on my laptop. If I pull out the power plug, I can still continue to type for some period of time on battery power. But after a while, I must either plug back in, or my screen will go dark. You may be able to enjoy the God-experience for a while without God, but if you don’t plug back into the source of that experience, your screen will go dark.

Bishop Spong thinks that in the modern, secular era, “we” can no longer believe in a (theistic) God and a Christ who is the Son of that God. If Christianity is to survive, he claims, it must radically transform itself into the non-theistic faith he advocates. Yet when I look around, I find thriving churches that unapologetically worship the theistic God that Spong says is no longer viable in this age. If Spong were right, shouldn’t we see people flocking to “non-theistic” churches? Have I missed that? Try a little thought experiment with me. Suppose a new church were opened in your community, and the pastor announced that its services would “celebrate the long human journey from the first form of life in a single cell to the complexity of our modern, fearful, human self-consciousness.” (This is the liturgy of the future, according to Bishop Spong.) How many congregants do you think that church would have after six months?

I don’t dispute that Christian churches face a modernity challenge today. We sometimes use archaic language that fails to convey the true meaning of our faith to contemporary listeners. We sometimes hang on to practices and traditions that no longer make sense in today’s world. Some of our churches still revel in the glories of the Middle Ages, while others embrace the modern world up to, but not including, 1859. We do have to change, but we don’t have to give up God and we don’t have to give up Christ. Spong is wrong about that.

On the contrary. Rather than water down the Christian message to a mere “icon”, as Bishop Spong would have us do, we need to proclaim it with confidence. But we need to proclaim it in language that modern listeners can understand. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit gave the first Christians the gift of languages, so they could speak the word of God to those around them, each in his own tongue. The language changed, but not the message.

Bishop Spong says that “we Christians today know that we possess neither certainty nor eternal truth.” A mission for Christian education, it seems to me, is to prove him wrong.

Times of London Editorial on Rowan Williams

When the Archbishop of Canterbury delivers his final address tomorrow to more than 650 bishops attending the Lambeth Conference, he can allow himself a note of joy and quiet pride. The conference has gone far better than he or even the most optimistic Anglicans could have imagined. There has been no formal schism. No one made a show of walking out. There have been no angry public speeches, accusations or defiant votes. Those attending have found in their hearts a way to remain in communion with each other, whatever the divisions on doctrine, biblical literalism and the ordination of gay priests.

Credit for much of this must go to Rowan Williams. By focusing on the Anglican Communion as a Christian community and not as a political organisation, he has ensured that the bulk of the discussion has been on those issues where Christians believe their message to be vital: poverty, global harmony, faith, prayer and charity.

Raw politics has been avoided, and the most contentious issue - Anglican attitudes to homosexuality - has, rightly, not been allowed to monopolise episcopal time and attention but kept in the context of beliefs, and commitments seen as core to the 38 self-governing provinces.

Dr Williams wanted to use this core, summed up in the proposed covenant, to keep a balance between a unitary structure, as in the Roman Catholic Church, or a loose grouping of independent churches akin to the Lutheran federation. This would allow a degree of latitude to each Church while giving the others a right to expect common standards and practices. The covenant was not agreed at the Canterbury gathering, and may not be formalised for another ten years. But it is a vehicle for preventing politicised issues, such as gay bishops, from defining the positions of the provinces.

Whether by design or by accident, the Archbishop was helped by the absence of the traditionalists who decided before their earlier meeting in Jerusalem to boycott Lambeth. By doing so, they avoided confrontation, but also removed the elements of grievance and contention. Indeed, the sharp criticism of Dr Williams's leadership and the provocative claim that his office was a “remnant of British colonialism”, voiced in The Times by the Archbishop of Uganda, were blunted by coming from outside the mainstream.

The other inspired innovation was to avoid contentious votes and adopt instead the African indaba, a way of resolving conflicts in small groups around a metaphorical campfire. The cameradie, however, should not mask the fact that divisions remain, and not only within the Church. On issues such as gender and sexuality, the Anglican Church remains, in this country, still at odds with the generally accepted social climate. Dr Williams should not allow the Lambeth truce to impede those seeking a more liberal and open approach. Time may change attitudes, but he needs still to point the way.

The outcome has, admittedly, been a setback to convergence with Roman Catholicism. But this was always less urgent than preventing acrimonious splits within Anglicanism. By concentrating on the spiritual, his forte, Dr Williams - albeit a wilier politician than realised - has lifted the sights of a Church in trouble. He may even have led it into calmer times: no small achievement for a much maligned primate.

Bishop Terry Brown, Melanesia

Bishop Terry Brown of Malaita in the Province of Melanesia works in a church founded just a century and a half ago. Some 200,000 members strong now, there have been numerous martyrs for the faith there, including the missionary bishop John Coleridge Patteson in 1871, and seven in just the past few years.

Bishop Brown writes:

I was confirmed in The Episcopal Church, by a black bishop of Massachusetts. I was made deacon and ordained a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada, in the diocese of Fredericton, a Loyalist diocese, by a bishop whose ancestors ran away from the American Revolution because they distrusted liberalism, political and otherwise.

I was consecrated a bishop in the Church of the Province of Melanesia, a global south diocese, where all the Millennium Development Goals score about 3 out of 10, even though we are great dancers.

And to make matters worse, my own sexuality is "dodgy". I live in and am a part of all four worlds -- The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Church of Melanesia and the pained world of gay and lesbian laity, deacons, priests and bishops.

Yet I am a bishop of a diocese that is full of life and has had much growth. In my last 12 years as bishop, I have confirmed 10,000 candidates. The diocese is deeply involved in evangelism, education, medical work, liturgy and peace and reconciliation.

My life as a bishop in all four worlds is possible only because of my faith in Jesus Christ. I had a conversion experience in which I felt deeply loved by God. That, the Eucharist, the life of Christian friendship and community, and Scripture, have sustained me through thick and thin.

From my perspective, do I have any suggestions for the text of the final Reflection?

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.” There are many other competing kingdoms, do not bow to them.

As much as is in you, try to maintain communion and friendship with all, whether inside or outside the church, however deep the disagreement.

Reject the Puritan option. We are Anglicans, not Puritans.

Exercise restraint and urge others to do so, whether locally or globally. Not everything has to be said or written about.

Be very careful in using typologies to classify people, theologies and churches. We are all the children of God, redeemed, with all of creation, by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If you have not done so, accept all the gay and lesbian people in your midst, in all their complexity, pain and celebration.

Finally, let the conversations (even debate) continue. Television has finally come to the Solomon Islands, so we now have the privilege of seeing BBC interview both Gene Robinson and Greg Venables. In our case, I do not think the church will thereby collapse. But in other situations, that may not be the case, and the endless talking to the media of both may be destructive. That is my final suggestion -- remember that whatever you say publicly in this wired age, will go to every corner of the world. Honesty and prudence are both Christian virtues. We need to learn to balance them.

Thank you.

Bishop George Packard

Bishop George Packard has served as the Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies for seven years. His tenure has been notable for his leadership in support of those deployed in the Iraq War, the response to September 11th, and Hurricane Katrina. He is the bishop for all Episcopal federal chaplains serving in the military, federal prisons, and Veteran's Affairs facilities. He also supports the care for all other chaplains by coordinating the training and advocacy for diocesan healthcare, prison, emergency responder, and maritime chaplains in the life of the Church. Because of extensive travel he also serves as the bishop-in-charge for Micronesia in the southwest Pacific.

Beakthrough

If the Anglican Communion would just turn over their troubles to my 40 member indaba group everything would be fine. We had a break through as an American female bishop likened our church to siblings arguing in the back seat of the family car. There was a murmur of final understanding since there had been a wonder if those Episcopalians were coming unglued. No, just poking each other the way kids do. "But we stay together and that's what makes unwanted boundary crossings by South American and African bishops so confusing." She said.

I was re-playing that fateful day in Minneapolis in 2003 in my mind when we confirmed Gene Robinson's consecration and how no one gave much of a passing thought to how this news would impact anyone in this room. Some have been beaten and called members of "the gay church" in cultures where sympathizers like that were stoned, others have died...not because of Gene but because dioceses have rejected the HIV-AIDS assistance from the American church's tainted money.

The conversation--for the Americans and the Canadians--had real remorse in it: we acted without care for the greater family and we were deeply sorry. I'm not saying the consecration wouldn't have happened but the hurt of disregard for them--which was plain and evident--would not have been there.

Then Bishop Michael of Sudan continued as he said that his church was only getting used to thinking about homosexuals now with that he composed a prayer right on the spot emphasizing his point. After the entreaty to "Our dear Lord" it was as sensitive a summary of their uncertain lives in his land that I had ever heard. We were silent. (I wonder if this Lambeth is about where had hoped the 1998 meeting would have been in the appreciation of basic gay lives and rights.)

The bishop went on to say that we had to give he and his people some time; elevating gay persons into leadership positions of authority was confusing to him and his congregations. "Can't a baptized person get into heaven without you making him a bishop for awhile?" He had us there. As he was speaking I wasn't sure if the nods were in sympathy or agreement. It seemed like both and it came about as there was an acceptance of North American remorse.

The atmosphere in the room had changed. Said our facilitator, "We seem to arrived at a special level of trust." And that seemed to hold true for the heretofore stilted conversations about the Covenant too, that code of conduct we have all been dreading. Now, there was a growing consensus around the things which make us an affirmed, communion of churches in search of a grace-filled process which would come to the rescue when we get out of sorts with each other. It had been the meanderings in recent years for the right venue to discuss this which has been so maddening.

If we could only come up with a process of soft intention, setting our minds and hearts in the way Christ would want us to behave when things get enflamed...sort of a compact indaba.

Why Not This Covenant?

Over twenty years ago, in 1984, the Anglican Consultative Council put forward a basic notion of the Christian mission in general. The 'five marks of mission' formula has become the basis for Anglican discussion of mission since then.

The five marks of mission are:

• To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
• To teach, baptise and nurture new believers
• To respond to human need by loving service
• To seek to transform unjust structures of society
• To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

Now, it occurred to the the Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Mission and Evangelism a few years ago that perhaps this was the best basis for the Covenant suggested by the Windsor Report. The notion that we need to come together in self-giving and self-restraint for the sake of the mission of God is very compelling I think.

Here is what they put forward in 2005:

A Covenant For Communion In Mission

...God’s work through Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit, is to seek to heal [the world's] hurts and reconcile its brokenness. The preamble reminds us that as Christians we are called to share our relationships in the mission of God to the wider world, bearing witness to the kingdom of love, justice and joy that Jesus inaugurated...

Nourished by Scripture and Sacrament, we pledge ourselves to:

1. Recognise Jesus in each other’s contexts and lives
   The nine points begin with Jesus Christ, the source and inspiration of our faith and calls for those covenanting for mission to look for, recognise, learn from and rejoice in the presence of Christ at work in the lives and situations of the other.
2. Support one another in our participation in God’s mission
   Point two acknowledges that we cannot serve God’s mission in isolation and calls for mutual support and encouragement in our efforts.
3. Encourage expressions of our new life in Christ
   Point three asks those who enter into the covenant to encourage one another as we develop new understandings of our identities in Christ.
4. Meet to share common purpose and explore differences and disagreements
   Point four provides for face-to-face meetings at which insights and learnings can be shared and difficulties worked through.
5. Be willing to change in response to critique and challenge from others
   Point five recognises that as challenges arise changes will be needed as discipleship in Christ is deepened as a result of both experience in mission and encounters with those with whom we are in covenant.
6. Celebrate our strengths and mourn over our failures
   Point six calls for honouring and celebrating our successes and acknowledging and naming our sadness and failures in the hopes of restitution and reconciliation.
7. Share equitably our God-given resources
   Point seven emphasises that there are resources to share – not just money and people, but ideas, prayers, excitement, challenge, enthusiasm. It calls for a move to an equitable sharing of such resources particularly when one participant in the Covenant has more than the other.
8. Work together for the sustainability of God’s creation
   Point eight underscores that God’s concern is for the whole of life – not just people, but the whole created order – and so we are called to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and to sustain and renew the life of the earth.
9. Live into the promise of God’s reconciliation for ourselves and for the world
   This last point speaks of the future hope towards which we are living, the hope of a reconciled universe – in which ‘God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ for which Jesus taught us to pray.

We make this covenant in the promise of our mutual responsibility and interdependence in the Body of Christ.