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Paul Bagshaw has published an essay entitled "End Game" that requires a response. Citing a report by George Conger, he agrees that we are at the "end of the Communion we once thought we knew;" and he has provided a very credible sketch of what Anglicanism will look like going forward. What he has not done is point out what a disaster this ending and this future are. Indeed, there is something almost surreal about his failure to make clear the true import of the likely course of events he presents. Hence the title of this response "It's Time to Get Real." The purpose behind this title is to...
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The following are questions we would want to see posed to and answered by the current candidates for Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church. We hope that our bishops will make sure that these, or questions like them, are put forward and engaged publicly by the candidates themselves. In general, the Presiding Bishop is defined as the "chief pastor", "primate", "leader", and "spokesperson" for the national church as it is ordered by General Convention. The Constitution gives the Presiding Bishop no "metropolitical" authority, in that the office has no jurisdiction over other bishops, and...
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The factual question Men, women and children are distinct and united in their living forms. As a man and a woman unite in sexual intercourse, a child is conceived and then given birth. The physical elements involved in this are obvious and particular. The bond between a mother and her child is among the deepest that is experienced, and goes beyond (but includes) hormones and breast-feeding. It is shaped through a range of physical elements still not well understood. The relationship of a father to this bonded unity has been socially prescribed and encouraged in a variety of ways over time...
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On the eve of a General Convention that will consider several important proposals to change the definition of marriage in the Church's doctrine, discipline and worship, much attention is directed, perhaps belatedly, to the question of good order. Several bishops generally sympathetic to the idea of same sex marriage have expressed concerns that the way in which that innovation is now being proposed violates "good order." Rejecting this charge, the Task Force on the Study of Marriage, also sympathetic to same sex marriage, has offered an amendment to the marriage canon that it claims will...
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The Anglican Communion Institute has followed with care and interest the decisions of The Episcopal Church's (TEC's) General Convention 2015. We have pondered key aspects of these decisions, and spoken to a range of participants and members of the broader Anglican Communion. In summarizing our reflections, we note that the following things are clear: A Trial Rite for same-sex marriage (A054) was passed in the House of Bishops a) without a roll call vote and b) without a majority of all the Bishops entitled to vote, as prescribed by the Constitution. By this action, the plain sense rules agreed...
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The full version of this report (including footnotes) can be downloaded here in PDF format. Introduction: the development of the Anglican debate about same-sex relationships since 2000. In my previous roles as the Theological Secretary of the Church of England's Council for Christian Unity and Theological Consultant to its House of Bishops and in my current role as the Academic Consultant to the Church of England Evangelical Council, I have been tracking the development of the Anglican debate about same-sex relationships over the past fifteen years. During that time the focus of the debate has...
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The hurt The sense of sorrow and sometimes indignation expressed by many TEC bishops over the Primates’ meeting and its decisions is understandable. The sentiment of grief comes in many forms. For some (e.g. Connecticut), “sadness” is marked by a warning against primatial overreach. For others (e.g. New Hampshire), TEC is experiencing pain because she is being persecuted like Jesus. For some (e.g. Western New York), the Primates gathering “fails” as an ecclesial council and is but a “clanging cymbal” in its understanding of communion. Some (e.g. California) went so far as to accuse the...
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