As I posted earlier, Anglican primates met last week in Tanzania in closed session. Perhaps the major issue to be addressed was the actions of the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of Anglicanism. Most Anglicans are now from the Third-World and are much more conservative than the U.S. denomination. Monday they issued a statement, from Fox News. Opening paragraph:

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — Anglican leaders demanded Monday that the U.S. Episcopal Church unequivocally bar official prayers for gay couples and the consecration of more gay bishops to undo the damage that North Americans have caused the Anglican family. In a statement ending a tense six-day meeting, the leaders said that past pledges by Episcopalians for a moratorium on gay unions and consecrations have been so ambiguous that they have failed to fully mend "broken relationships" in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church, the U.S. wing of world Anglicanism, must clarify its position by Sept. 30 or its relations with other Anglicans will remain "damaged at best."

The American Anglican Council has the full text here. (More below.)


Some relevant paragraphs:

17. At the heart of our tensions is the belief that The Episcopal Church [5] has departed from the standard of teaching on human sexuality accepted by the Communion in the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10 by consenting to the episcopal election of a candidate living in a committed same-sex relationship, and by permitting Rites of Blessing for same-sex unions. The episcopal ministry of a person living in a same-sex relationship is not acceptable to the majority of the Communion.

21. However, secondly, we believe that there remains a lack of clarity about the stance of The Episcopal Church, especially its position on the authorisation of Rites of Blessing for persons living in same-sex unions. There appears to us to be an inconsistency between the position of General Convention and local pastoral provision. We recognise that the General Convention made no explicit resolution about such Rites and in fact declined to pursue resolutions which, if passed, could have led to the development and authorisation of them. However, we understand that local pastoral provision is made in some places for such blessings. It is the ambiguous stance of The Episcopal Church which causes concern among us.

24. The response of The Episcopal Church to the requests made at Dromantine has not persuaded this meeting that we are yet in a position to recognise that The Episcopal Church has mended its broken relationships.

25. It is also clear that a significant number of bishops, clergy and lay people in The Episcopal Church are committed to the proposals of the Windsor Report and the standard of teaching presupposed in it (cf paragraph 11). These faithful people feel great pain at what they perceive to be the failure of The Episcopal Church to adopt the Windsor proposals in full. They desire to find a way to remain in faithful fellowship with the Anglican Communion. They believe that they should have the liberty to practice and live by that expression of Anglican faith which they believe to be true. We are deeply concerned that so great has been the estrangement between some of the faithful and The Episcopal Church that this has led to recrimination, hostility and even to disputes in the civil courts.


It will be interesting to see how First-World white Episcopalians react to rebuke from world primates.

Next, earlier I posted on the actions of the North Texas Association of the United Church of Christ in admitting the largest same-sex-practice affirming congregation in the U.S. Since the admission two congregations of the association have withdrawn from the UCC--Zion in Waco, and Ben Arnold.

Finally, The Layman online reports on the statement made by the Santa Barbara Presbytery of the PCUSA as it stands against the liberal tide in the mainline Presbyterian denomination. (The link goes to the front page of the website. To read the article scroll down a bit and look on the right for the article on the Santa Barbara Presbytery.) In the article is a link to the statement itself; well worth a read.