Second Camp Allen meeting described as time of 'listening to one another'
Episcopal News Service. January 8, 2007 [010807-01]
The bishop who hosted a second meeting of some of the self-identified "Windsor Bishops" January 3-5 at Camp Allen Conference and Retreat Center, northwest of Houston, Texas, issued a statement January 7 saying the group "did a great deal of listening to one another about the situations that face our diverse dioceses, provinces and Communion."
Texas Bishop Don Wimberly said in the statement emailed to Episcopal News Service that the meeting "provided a further opportunity for a group of bishops to sit, pray and listen together about issues facing the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion."
His statement confirmed that West Indies Archbishop Drexel Gomez, chair of Archbishop Rowan Williams' Covenant Design Group, and Tanzania Archbishop Donald Mtetamela met with the bishops.
"Archbishop Gomez spoke to us about the development process for the proposed covenant. Archbishop Mtetamela spoke to us about the upcoming primates meeting in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania," Wimberly said.
Tanzania is due to host the February meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, including Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, in Dar Es Salaam. The House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Tanzania issued a statement December 7 declaring "that its communion with the Episcopal Church (USA) is severely impaired" because of the 75th General Convention's "failure" to respond to the Windsor Report by expressing "honest repentance for their actions that were contrary to the dictates of the Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Anglican Church as expressed in Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference."
The statement said that "the Anglican Church of Tanzania remains in communion with those who are faithful to Biblical Christianity and authority of Scripture who remain in the Episcopal Church (USA) or have left or are considering leaving that church body for the same reasons."
Church of England Bishop Michael Scott-Joynt of the Diocese of Winchester also attended the meeting, Wimberly said. Scott-Joynt and his Church of England colleague Bishop N.T. Wright of Durham were at the original meeting of some of the same bishops September 19-22 at Camp Allen.
"The meeting was grounded in Bible study and we did a great deal of listening to one another about the situations that face our diverse dioceses, provinces and Communion," he said. "We discussed our hopes and dreams for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion and we prayed for the Church as a whole. We remain hopeful and resolve to support the Windsor Report initiatives, especially Archbishop Gomez's work on the Anglican Covenant."
No list of those attending last week's meeting has been made available, despite requests made by ENS for such a list. Some unverified lists of attendees are circulating on the Internet.
The January issue of the Texas Episcopalian reported that "in addition to the nearly two dozen bishops who attended in September, a growing number of bishops from across the United States plan to attend the meeting in January."
A group of 21 "Windsor Bishops" that met at Camp Allen in September agreed to gather again early in 2007, inviting "others who share our concern and position to join us in our common work on behalf of the church."
In a letter issued to their colleagues in the House of Bishops at the end of the September meeting, the bishops said that they support the Windsor Report, believe that the 75th General Convention "did not adequately respond" to the report and subsequent statements, but they pledged to "care for all God's children in our dioceses."
The bishops who signed the letter are Mark L. MacDonald (Alaska), William H. Love (Albany), John W. Howe (Central Florida), James M. Stanton (Dallas), Jack L. Iker (Fort Worth), Michael G. Smith (North Dakota), Edward S. Little (Northern Indiana), C. Wallis Ohl, Jr. (Northwest Texas), Robert W. Duncan (Pittsburgh), Keith L. Ackerman (Quincy), Geralyn Wolf (Rhode Island), Jeffrey N. Steenson (Rio Grande), John-David Schofield (San Joaquin), Edward L. Salmon (South Carolina), John B. Lipscomb (Southwest Florida), Peter H. Beckwith (Springfield), Bertram N. Herlong (Tennessee), Don A. Wimberly (Texas), James M. Adams (Western Kansas), D. Bruce MacPherson (Western Louisiana) and Gary R. Lillibridge (West Texas).