DALLAS: Special convention affirms Anglican covenant, rejects same-gender liturgies
Episcopal News Service. March 11, 2010 [031110-03]
Pat McCaughan
A majority of delegates attending a special March 6 convention meeting of the Diocese of Dallas at St. Michael and All Angels Church endorsed the Anglican covenant and rejected same-gender liturgies.
Delegates approved two resolutions, including one by voice vote that the diocese "endorses, adopts and enters into the Anglican covenant and thereby affirms our full membership and participation in the Episcopal Church and the world wide Anglican Communion."
The resolution, 2010 SCR-01, urged other dioceses, along with the Executive Council and General Convention, to do likewise. It directed "the Executive Council to form an Anglican Communion Commission to promote closer relationships with churches, dioceses and congregations of the wider Anglican Communion for mutual sharing of the fellowship we have in Christ, for expanding our common mission and ministry as a worldwide communion and for promoting active participation in the Anglican Covenant."
Bishop James Stanton had called for the additional gathering during the October 15-16, 2009 regular convention meeting, at which the Anglican covenant was studied and discussed. The second gathering was planned so delegates would have a chance to consider the covenant, he said during a March 11 telephone interview from his Dallas office.
"The gathering had nothing to do with separation from the Episcopal Church," Stanton added. He said the resolutions would be forwarded to the Executive Council and General Convention "in the hope, as we always hope, that the Episcopal Church as a whole will enter into the Anglican covenant."
The covenant was first cited in the 2004 Windsor Report (paragraphs 113-120) and has been supported by all the instruments of communion as a way for the Anglican Communion to maintain unity amid differing viewpoints, especially on human sexuality issues and biblical interpretation.
Another resolution, 2009 R-01, adopted 185-101, dissociated the convention from several clauses in 76th General Convention Resolution D025 and Resolution C056, which called for development of liturgies for blessings and pastoral generosity in addressing civil marriage.
The delegates dissociated the 114th diocesan convention from "the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Resolved clauses of Resolution D025", which included affirming the value of listening to the experiences of gays and lesbians, the openness of the ordination process to all baptized persons and acknowledged that Christians of good conscience disagree about such matters.
The full text of the Dallas resolutions may be found here.
But Bob Button, a lay delegate to the convention, said there was significant opposition to both resolutions.
Button, a member of the Dallas Via Media Steering Committee, said he had hoped for "a more balanced approach" to discussions about the covenant during the October regular diocesan convention that laid the groundwork for last Saturday's gathering.
"We had three speakers, each of them pro-covenant," Button said during a March 11 telephone interview. "It would have been nice to hear some differing views, rather than just one viewpoint."
A parishioner of the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration in Dallas, Button said he voted against both resolutions.
"The General Convention asked dioceses to study and comment on the merits of the covenant but this resolution goes way beyond that," Button said. "I just do not see where a diocese has the right or authority to endorse, or reject for that matter, the Anglican covenant. The General Convention of the Episcopal Church is the body that speaks for the Episcopal Church," he added.
He said the resolution was amended to include the Episcopal Church because the original measure referred to "full and active participation" only in the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Button disagreed with the second resolution, because its "rationale said the General Convention resolution from which we were dissociating ourselves indicated the Episcopal Church's intention to walk apart from the Anglican Communion. I don't see that as the case at all. Part of that resolution from General Convention reaffirmed the continued participation of the Episcopal Church as a constituent member of the Anglican Communion.
"The same resolution the Diocese of Dallas is dissociating itself from reaffirmed the financial commitment of the Episcopal Church to the Anglican Communion," Button added. "To me, that statement stands in contrast to Dallas's rejection of a diocesan financial commitment to the Episcopal Church."
Button said the special convention left him and many other Dallas-area Episcopalians feeling torn between loyalties to the diocese and to the wider Episcopal Church.
"We feel caught in the middle. We are loyal to the Episcopal Church and we try to be faithful members of the diocese and our own parishes. Bishop Stanton has said he has no intention of removing us from the Episcopal Church, but then we go on with these kinds of actions," he said, referring to the special convention.
"There is not by any means a unanimous opinion that the covenant be endorsed by the diocese," he added. "There's another viewpoint. I will remain loyal to this diocese as long as it stays in the Episcopal Church. My loyalties are to both, and I just don't see the need or the reason why anyone would have to choose between the two. It's sad, if it ever came to that."