Episcopal leader wants media to report hope, not scandal
by Lillian Kwon, Christian Post
Posted: Thursday, December 18, 2008, 9:27 (GMT)
WASHINGTON – The world is hungry for hope and the head of The Episcopal Church has challenged the media to take the less travelled road of feeding the public with more stories of encouragement than of scandal and controversy.
"On two occasions in the last few days, leaders in my own Church have said to me that the Church only makes the front page if it’s about schism or sex – and in the current era, preferably both," said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who leads The Episcopal Church – the US arm of Anglicanism.
The Episcopal Church has made headlines over the last several years since it consecrated its first openly gay bishop in 2003. The move, which conservatives see as part of the national Church's departure from Anglican tradition and Scripture, created deeper rifts within the global Anglican Communion and forced a number of congregations to break from the main US body.
Now The Episcopal Church is prominently back in the spotlight over a rival Anglican church that conservatives are forming in North America. Conservative groups, representing 100,000 Anglicans who severed ties with The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, have expressed a desire to live out their faith separate from the current existing North American bodies yet remain aligned with the rest of the Anglican Communion.
"The steps taken to form the new Province are a necessary initiative," said five conservative Anglican archbishops from the Global South, as a "new Province will draw together in unity many of those who wish to remain faithful to the teaching of God’s word, and also create the highest level of fellowship possible with the wider Anglican Communion".
Commenting on the unprecedented situation of competing Anglican bodies in the same geographic area, Jefferts Schori called it an "oxymoron".
"We’ve said for hundreds of years that bishops are responsible for certain areas of geography and that the people in that area together with the bishop are evidence of the church. If there are some people in the same area that claim they’re of the same tradition (Anglicanism) but aren’t willing to be in relationship, that’s an oxymoron to us," she said Tuesday at the National Press Club.
"When there are two bodies in the same place that say they are not in communion with each other then functionally what you’ve got is two different religious traditions. It’s an ecumenical relationship rather than a communion relationship."
As controversy looms over the Anglican Communion and the new North American Anglican province that is expected to be up and running by the summer of 2009, Jefferts Schori said the Church is still pondering questions about gays and lesbians.
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Added: Saturday, December 20, 2008, 1:37 (GMT)
Good news for Anglicans in Virginia and an opportunity for KJS to show some grace and discression.
www.pwcweb.com/ecw
December 19, 2008
We received the Judgment today from Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows specifying that our three acre property in Gainesville, Virginia, falls under the reach of the Commonwealth of Virginia Code § 57-9(A) Division statute.
This law was originally enacted to provide a fair and neutral principled way for the State to decide Church property disputes brought before it. It is clear from this judgment that the congregation owns the property which it purchased 15 years ago and has subsequently invested over one million dollars into its purchase and maintenance. Church of the Word was part of a group of 20 or more congregations, some with property and some without property, who were given permission by the Diocese of Virginia to enter into a discernment process in the fall of 2006, culminating in a congregational vote in December 2006.
It is important to remember that the Diocese of Virginia set up the parameters for the discernment process in its ' Protocol for departing congregations'. The protocol was agreed to by the Standing committee and Executive board of the Diocese, published on the Diocesan website, and recommended to congregations. The Diocese provided study material for the discernment process, met with the vestry, and sent a delegation to speak to the congregation before the vote to separate. They promised in the protocol to work with the congregations to resolve all differences amicably and so avoid the disgrace of Christians taking other Christians to court.
It is our desire to live at peace with our friends and former colleagues in the Diocese of Virginia, and so we encourage their leadership to accept the judge’s ruling today and return to the spirit of the protocol by building working relationships with the CANA congregations and other Anglican bodies in Virginia.
Church of the Word is a congregation within the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) and through CANA is a part of the emerging province of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). ACNA has already been accepted as a legitimate Anglican body by primates representing a majority of Anglicans around the world.
We look forward to building the kingdom of God in our community and eventually expanding our facilities on this site or some other nearby property. Today's ruling clarifies some issues for us and allows us to move forward with much needed development.
We are thankful to all of our friends near and far who have supported us prayerfully and financially. In this we have felt much as David must have felt when facing Goliath; in a worldly sense seeming overwhelmed but walking in faith, believing that God was on our side.
Ephesians 1:13 'You also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel'.
Grace and Peace to you all, in Jesus Name,
www.pwcweb.com
The Rev. Robin T. Adams
Robin Adams, Virginia, USA
