Newsbriefs

Episcopal and Methodist Bishops Hold a First Dialogue

An historic meeting of United Methodist and Episcopal bishops--the first between the two groups--convened in Evanston, Illinois in October.

Both churches selected a group of 10-15 bishops, representing a cross-section of each communion to discuss common mission and common concern. Bishop Ann Sherer, president of the United Methodist General Commission on Christian Unity , spoke of her "deep appreciation for the opportunity to build relationships with Episcopal colleagues."

In the United States, United Methodists and Episcopalians have been in a church-to-church dialogue since 2002. Internationally, in 1996 the two global communions produced an important theological statement, Sharing in the Apostolic Communion. Methodists and Anglicans have also been in dialogue for over fifty years in Great Britain, and entered into a 10-year covenantal relationship in 2002.

The bishops' meeting was followed by the regular meeting of the United Methodist-Episcopal bilateral dialogue, hosted by Seabury-Western and Garrett Evangelical Seminary. The team worked on producing a draft of a study guide designed to help prepare bishops and deputies to discuss a resolution on Interim Eucharistic Sharing, which the Standing Commission on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations will be sending to the 2006 General Convention.

South Africa Becomes Fifth Nation to Legalize Gay Marriage

According to a story in The Times (UK), the Constitutional Court, the highest court of South Africa, has ruled that the current law, which defines marriage as "a union between a man and a woman" is discrim-initory and ordered that the wording be changed to "a union between two persons." The Court, by a vote of 10 to 1, ordered the Parliament of South Africa to change the marriage laws within 12 months.

The Court also added a warning to its ruling, stating that if the South African government did not act within the stated time, the legal definition of marriage would be changed automatically.

Despite the country's highly liberal Constitution, there were expected protests from conservative churches and other groups, some calling for a referendum or even an amendment to the Constitution.

The move makes South Africa the fifth nation to legalize gay marriages, joining the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Canada.

Gay Anglicans Hold Meeting, Speak Out in Nigeria

The first meeting of Changing Attitude:Nigeria was held Noverber 25-27 in Abuja; expected to draw several hundred the meeting drew a surprising 1000.

The meeting featured presentations by Davis Mac-Iyalia and the Rev. Colin Coward, director of Changing Attitude: England. During a celebration of the Eucharist, the group prayed for gay and lesbian people in all parts of the world, for Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, and for Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

In special sessions the attendees began to plan ways in which the Nigerian group can make their voices heard. "We want our message about the place of gay and lesbian people in the Anglican Church to be carried to our bishops and other church leaders," Mac-Iyalia said.

In Case You Were Wondering....

According to a report issued by Americans for Religious Liberty. the Congress of the United States of America comprises:

Greek Orthodox Church Moves to Restore Diaconate for Women

ECUSA Plans for 50th Anniversary Gathering of UNCSW in New York

Next March the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding, and planning is underway to send delegates from the Episcopal Church as well as from all Provinces of the Anglican Communion.

This annual meeting, held at UN headquarters in New York City and nearby locations. HE GATHERING will begin on February 24 and run through March 8.

Under the auspices of the Office of Women's Ministries of the Episcopal Church and the Office on the Anglican Observer to the UN, Anglican and Episcopal delegates have attended this annual event for the past three years. The 2006 event will be the largest gathering of women from around the Communion thus far. Each year since the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing, the UNCSW annual meeting has focused on two different questions from the Beijing Platform for Action and explored how well--or how poorly-- the member states have fulfilled their obligations.

This year the focus will be on "enhanced participation of women in development, in achieving gender equality and in the advancement of women in the fields of education, health and work" as well as the "equal participation of women and men in decisionmaking processes at all levels." To meet these challenging goals, the Episcopal Church planning committee seeks to have, among the delegation, women who work or have a passion for these goals in their own spheres of action.

The networks that have evolved among women because of the connections made during the UNCSW have proved invaluable to their work. Additional information may be obtained by contacting Kim Robey at krobey@episcopalchurch.org or on-line: www.episcopalchurch.org/uncsw.htm.

Planning for Lambeth 2008

The shape of the next Lambeth Conference might be decided at a key meeting in London. A group of eight Primates, bishops, and lay people from across the Communion make up the Lambeth design group. With Dr Williams, they will consider radical changes to the conference that could lower the chances of conflict.

ArchbishopWilliams is on record as saying that he wants a "Lambeth-lite," with fewer resolutions, Sue Parks, manager of the conference, said recently. She also thought it likely that the design group would drop the idea of preliminary regional meetings. Meetings were held before the 1998 Lambeth Conference to air agenda issues, but were not seen as effective.

If the regional meetings are dropped, and with no further meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council until after the conference, the 2007 Primates' Meeting will be one of the last chances to affect the agenda.

One way for people to air their views will be on the new website www.lambethconference.org. It goes live for the new conference during December 2005. "People can make any comments they want to about the conference there," Ms Parks said.

Archbishop Tutu Calls for Anglican Unity and Inclusion

In an All Saints' Sunday sermon stating that God's people "are meant to be family," Archbishop Desmond Tutu called Anglicans everywhere to remember the "comprehensiveness" of their tradition.

"Jesus did not say, `I if I be lifted up I will draw some,'" Tutu said, preaching in two morning festival services at All Saints' Church in Pasadena, California. "Jesus said, `I if I be lifted up I will draw all, all, all, all, all. Black, white, yellow, rich, poor, clever, not so clever, beautiful, not so beautiful. It's one of the most radical things. All, all, all, all, all, all, all, all.

"All belong. Gay, lesbian, so-called straight.

All, all are meant to be held in this incredible embrace that will not let us go. All.

"Isn't it sad, that in a time when we face so many devastating problems--poverty, HIV/AIDS, war and conflict--that in our Communion we should be investing so much time and energy on disagreement about sexual orientation?" asked Tutu, the Nobel laureate and Archbishop Emeritus of Southern Africa.

Pointing to the Anglican tradition of tolerance, Tutu said the Communion, which "used to be known for embodying the attribute of comprehensiveness, of inclusiveness, where we were meant to accommodate all and diverse views, saying we may differ in our theology but we belong together as sisters and brothers" now seems "hell-bent on excommunicating one another. God must look on and God must weep." Emphasizing the connectedness of the human family, Tutu further asked: "How could we then -- we who are family -- go on spending obscene amounts on budgets of death and destruction, knowing full well that a minute fraction of these would insure that children everywhere would have clean water to drink, would have enough food to eat, would have adequate, affordable health care, would have decent homes.

"How could we if we really are those who pray as our Lord has taught us? How can we be willing to drop bombs on those who are our sisters and brothers, children of God, members of our family? God's family. How could we?" Yet when Christians are found to be "caring, gentle, compassionate, sharing, embracing everyone ... God is smiling," Tutu said.

[ENS]

Latin American Bishops Call for a Return to Anglicanism's `Via Media'

A majority of the bishops attending the Latin America Anglican Theological Congress meeting in Panama have signed a statement calling for the Anglican Communion to regain what they call the participatory and tolerant character that Anglicanism has always offered as the middle way within Christianity. The statement was developed at the congress' meeting in Panama City October 5-10.

In the statement, "DeclaraciÛn de Panama," the bishops criticized what they see as an effort to polarize biblical and theological discussions with labels that assign people to the Global North or the Global South. They said they feel they are being pressured to choose sides when, in fact, neither alternative fits their views. The bishops who signed the statement instead suggest a Global Center that is rooted in the middle way of Anglican inclusion and tolerance.

The statement also laments the exclusion of the Province of Brazil from the conference of Global South Anglicans held in Egypt. The statement also criticizes the reception by the Primate of the Province of the Southern Cone of the deposed bishop and clergy from the Brazilian diocese of Recife.

John Kater, retired professor of ministry development at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, attended the meetings that produced the statement. He said the gathering was characterized by a solidarity across many potential dividing lines, including culture, race, nationality, and language.

"I'm excited about this statement because it represents a rejection of the incredible polarization of the Anglican Communion," said Kater, who provided a paraphrase translation of parts of the statement. "It represents a common affirmation by people who have different opinions about specific issues and it affirms that communion goes beyond shared opinions." The statement was signed by the primates of Brazil, Mexico and Central America, six other Brazilian bishops, the majority of the bishops of Central America, all the bishops of Mexico, plus Western Ecuador, Venezuela, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

The theological conference is a new initiative coordinated by a sub-commission of the Commission on Theological Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (CETALC).

"The Latin America Theological Congress came out of the commission's concern about theological education in Latin America," the Most Rev. Martin Barahona-Pascasio, Primate of IARCA and Bishop of El Salvador recently told ENS.

"We know that there are good seminaries in the United States but the theological education in Latin America is more difficult. We have experienced that when we send students from Latin America to the United States to study, they don't want to come back. So we need to develop our own vision of theology in Latin America. This vision is of the viewpoint of globalization of the world," he said.

An English translation of the Declaracion de Panama is now available at www.anglican communion.org/acns/articles/40/50/acns4054.cfm

One Woman Play to be Presented at GC06

Barbara Schlachter in costume as Elizabeth Cady Stanton One Woman Play to be Presented at GC06 A one-woman play, written and performed by the Rev. Barbara Schlachter, will be presented at General Convention 2006. Based on both Elizabeth Cady Stanton's own words and on known biographical data, the play tells of the women's movement in the 19th century, beginning with the first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls NY.

The play will be presented on the evening of June 19th at Trinity Episcopal Church on Capitol Square in Columbus. The church will also feature a timeline of women's work in the church, sponsored by the Episcopal Women's Caucus, the Committee on the Status of Women, and the Episcopal Women's History Project.

Barbara Schlachter is a founding member of EWC and served as the Caucus' Angel in Fort Worth in 2002. She is an associate rector at Christ Episcopal Church in Cedar Rapids and a pastoral councelor in Iowa City. She is completing a six-year appointment to the Executive Council's Committee on the Status of Women.

Anglican Church of Nigeria Enters into Covenant with Two Churches Outside Anglican Communion

The Church of Nigeria has issued press statements announcing a Covenant between The Church of Nigeria and the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Anglican Province of America.

Neither of these two churches is currently in communion with the See of Canterbury.

Calling the Covenant "an historic moment" and "part of the realignment of global Anglicanism," on November 12, 2005 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the Most Rev. Peter J. Akinola, Primate of the Church of Nigeria, the Most Rev. Leonard W. Riches, Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church, and the Most Rev. Walter H. Grundorf, Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Province of America, entered on behalf of their three Churches a Covenant Union of Anglican Churches in Concordat.

It was agreed that ministers of these Churches, subject to the respective regulations within the jurisdictions, may be eligible to exercise pastoral ministry in each Church, and that the three Churches have united specifically for joint mission in North America.

The final Article of the Covenant states: "It is also our declared intention to initiate a process that will permit us, in due course to enter into an agreement of full communion with a clear and common understanding of all of its implications."

A second release stated the mission of the previously announced CANA initiative as a "creative way to provide pastoral and episcopal care for those alienated by the actions of ECUSA.

"As we said in our letter of April 7th, 2005, `Our intention is not to challenge or intervene in the churches of ECUSA or the Anglican Church of Canada but to provide safe harbor for all those who can no longer find their spiritual home in those churches.' While CANA is an initiative of the Church of Nigeria it is our desire is to welcome all those who share our faith and vision for the Church.

"In September 2005 at its 8th General Synod of the Church of Nigeria made the necessary constitutional changes to permit the formal establishment of the Convocation in the USA and we have completed the necessary legal framework to establish CANA as a recognized Anglican Church structure in the USA.

The release went on to say:"We are beginning a process of formally incorporating clergy and congregations into CANA and we will shortly be selecting and consecrating episcopal leadership to oversee further growth and development and enable us to more effectively respond to the pressing needs within the USA.

"We are working closely and cooperatively with the Anglican Communion Network and others who are committed to orthodox Anglican faith and practice. It is our hope to find more creative ways to strengthen our common witness as we seek to remain faithful to our Gospel mission. One example is our recently adopted Covenant agreement with the Reformed Episcopal Church and the Anglican Province of America."

[ACNS]

Archbishop of Canterbury Meets with Bishop Gene Robinson; Listening Process Set in Motion

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, held a November meeting in London with Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, Lambeth Palace officials have reported.

In a news release, Lambeth sources said that "The private meeting, described as 'friendly but candid,' involved the two discussing the range of problems that have arisen following Robinson's consecration. The release noted that the meeting ended with prayer." The release said that the encounter came as part of the Archbishop's strong commitment to listening to the voices of all concerned in the current challenges facing the Anglican Communion.

In related news, the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, has appointed the Rev. Canon Philip Groves as the facilitator of the "Listening Process" for the Communion.

The task, as defined by the 1998 Lambeth Conference, is setting up "a means of monitoring the work done on the subject of human sexuality in the Communion."

Groves is currently Team Vicar in Melton Mowbray, a Trustee of the Church Mission Society, a Council Member at St John's College, Nottingham and a Canon of All Saints Cathedral, Mpwapwa, Tanzania.

The Primates Meeting at Dromantine,Ireland last February requested "the Anglican Consultative Council in June 2005 to take positive steps to initiate the listening and study process which has been the subject of resolutions not only at the Lambeth Conference in 1998, but in earlier Conferences as well." There have been many calls throught the Communion for this process to be implemented.

In a letter to the Primates of the Anglican Communion, Kearon said, "I am pleased that this Listening Process, which has been requested on many occasions, can now begin in earnest. Canon Groves has wide experience and excellent gifts to take this process forward. I am sure he will wish to contact each of you shortly." Groves will begin work shortly and will take up the post full time from January 1, 2006, as part of the Anglican Communion Office in Westbourne Park, London.