Striving for Inclusion and Tolerance in the Episcopal Diocese of
The Reverend Canon Gregory Cameron
Commission Secretary
Lambeth Commission
Lambeth
Dear Most Reverend Sir and Members
of the Commission:
Introduction. The Episcopal Church USA is under attack by a determined minority
of conservative Episcopalians. Some parishes have lost members and money, and
some of our dioceses are torn by dissention and strife. Critics trumpet this
disarray as proof that Bishop Gene Robinson’s consecration is wrong and sinful.
Closer to the truth, the ecclesiastical damage is the result of a tactically
brilliant ecclesiastical warfare, waged in the name of Christ, by those
dissidents intent on victory.[1] Our church is
wounded.
The attempt to rally the worldwide
Anglican Communion to change, discipline or replace the Episcopal Church is a
violation of the Reformation principles by which we were founded. It is a
dangerous affront to the Anglican ethic which respects individual conscience.
To give Primates authority to meet and make decisions or pronouncements
to or for the rest of the Communion is without precedent in Anglicanism. It is
against the Reformation practice of allowing individual provinces to make
administrative, ethical and ecclesiastical decisions for themselves.
Some are forgetting the whole purpose of the founding of the Church of England
by Henry VIII and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.
The interpretation of Biblical
sexual ethics is the moral responsibility of individual Anglicans, who gather
in parishes and dioceses to live out faithful Christian lives. Provinces make
canonical provision for respecting the moral conscience of individual dioceses
and parishes within the culture of each independent province. Difference and
nuance are expected; new innovations are adopted slowly. Church ethical
innovations in divorce, gay marriage or gay ordination share process
similarities with the Reformation struggle for clerical marriage, so that, for
example, the innovative Archbishop Thomas Cranmer married Bishop Osiander’s
niece in
Therefore, the commission should not
make any recommendations that subvert the power of individual provinces to
interpret scripture and make moral decisions for their common life. The
primates as a group have no constitutional authority in the life of the
Anglican Communion beyond the authority each individual primate has in his own
province. The Anglican Communion already allows individual provinces to craft
canons respecting marriage, divorce, as well as moral behavior expected of
candidates for ordination. Conservative dissidents who break communion with
those with whom they disagree on these issues, function less like Anglicans and
more like the Roman Catholic Church we separated from almost five hundred years
ago. The church must not capitulate to threats of ecclesiastical violence.
The questions of the Archbishop of
Question 1. What are (a) the legal and (b) the theological implications
flowing from ECUSA decision to appoint a priest in a committed same sex
relationship as one of its bishops? (See LC 1998 Res. I.10)
The erroneous assumption of the
first question demonstrates the canonical diversity of various Provinces. No
diocesan bishop is “appointed” in the American system. Bishops are elected, and
such elections are not easily overturned in a diocese in the
Legally, in the
Question 3. What are the canonical understandings of (a) communion, (b)
impaired communion and (c) broken communion? (What is autonomy and how is it
related to communion?)
There is no legal means to impair
communion within the Anglican Communion, except when a Province chooses to
impair its own communion with
Question 4. How (do and) may provinces relate to one another in situations
where the ecclesiastical authorities of one province feel unable to maintain
the fullness of communion with another part of the Anglican Communion?
In the Anglican Communion, a
province or diocese that is convinced that another province has erred should
express its dissatisfaction, concern and the reasons thereto. It is the work of
the official meetings and groups of the Anglican Communion, such as the Lambeth
meeting of Bishops and the meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council to
provide such a forum.
If a province or some of its
ecclesiastical authorities believe they must impair communion with another
province or diocese, then the Anglican Communion has no mechanism to prevent
this. At that point, their relationship with the affected province exists only
by virtue of both province’s relationship with
Furthermore, in the current matter
too much authority and voice have been given Provincial Primates in their
individual protestations against actions of the American Episcopal Church. The
very fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth Commission will be
reporting to the Primates, as though they [the Primates] had authority, is a
concession to threats of schism and an affront to existing decision-making
structures in the Anglican Communion. The strategy of ECUSA dissidents to use
the Primates as a new power structure within the Anglican Communion is an
innovation that violates the very ethos of our founding.
In the English Reformation the
church in
Question 5. What practical solutions might there be to maintain the highest
degree of communion that may be possible, in the circumstances resulting from
these two decisions, within the individual churches involved? (eg [alternative] episcopal oversight when full communion is
threatened).
Alternate Episcopal Oversight can
only be allowed when it is managed by and agreed to within the province
affected, between the bishops concerned. There may be a limited role for
Lambeth to facilitate alternate Episcopal Oversight using Episcopal resources
within the province, with the consent of that Province.
Question 7. Under (a) what circumstances, (b) what conditions, and (c) by
what means, might it be appropriate for the Archbishop of
Since the Archbishop is already in
communion with the Provinces and their elected authorities, there is no
circumstance, condition or means by which the Archbishop could exercise
oversight in a province that does not seek his help. There is no legal
authority structure for a
Question 8. Under (a) what circumstances, (b) what conditions, and (c) by
what means, might it be appropriate for the Archbishop of
This question seems to assume that a
Primate of the rest of the Anglican
Communion has the authority to declare his entire province “out of
communion” with another province. We do not accept the notion that any single
bishop has this power in Anglicanism.
There is no circumstance, condition
or means by which the Archbishop of Canterbury would need to exercise oversight
to force communion between Provinces. Provincial members are such by heritage
and its members remain such by choice. Those Anglicans who wish to force
conformity by violence or threat of schism or by intervention in the matters of
another province – such as
We, the undersigned members of
Albany Via Media, thank the commission for the opportunity to present our
opinions in this matter.
The Very Rev. Dr. John T. Sorensen,
The Rev. Dr. James Brooks McDonald,
St. Stephen’s, Schenectady, Co-Presidents, Albany Via Media (New York); The
Rev. Charles W. Sheerin Jr, Albany, NY; The Rev. Christopher Smith, St. Ann’s,
Amsterdam; Jack Luscombe, Esq. and Hallett Luscombe, Sheila Rowland, Trinity
Plattsburgh; The Rev. George Easter, Lyon Mountain, NY; Gay Gamage, St.
Stephen’s, Schuylerville; Robert Dodd, PhD, James Rice, PhD, Saranac Lake, NY;
Claire and George Stahler, St.
James, Lake George, NY; Keith St. John, Esq., the Rev. Dr. David McSwain, St.
George’s, Schenectady; The Rev. Judson Pealer, St. Eustace, Lake Placid.
Formally endorsed by the
board of directors of Albany Via Media on