CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA: Diocese renews one covenant, considers implications of others
Episcopal News Service. June 21, 2010 [062110-01]
ENS staff
Participants in the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania's 140th annual gathering June 11-12 renewed the Harrisburg-based diocese's companion diocese relationship with the Diocese of Sao Paulo in the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil.
According to a story posted on the diocese's website, Sao Paulo Bishop Roger Bird attended the convention at Bucknell University, where he and Central Pennsylvania officials signed the renewal agreement, which runs through October 2014. The covenant outlines priorities for the companion relationship, including shared and reciprocal education and training for clergy, seminarians and lay persons, emphasizing evangelism, parish and mission planting, as well as Scriptural study, the story said.
Bird was also the preacher at the ordination service that was part of the convention.
Twenty Central Pennsylvania congregations have companion relationships with their counterparts in the Sao Paulo region as part of the relationship that began in 2004.
During his convention address, Bishop Nathan Baxter asked whether an effective covenant is based on fate or faith, echoing a presentation made to the 2008 Lambeth Conference of Bishops by Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth.
Sacks said that a group bound in a covenant of fate suffers together, or faces a common enemy, while a covenant of faith "is made by people who share dreams, aspirations, ideals. They don't need a common enemy, because they have a common hope."
Baxter said that the diocese, the Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Communion are faced with a decision: "will we, going forward, live in the crucible of a covenant of fate or faith?"
He said that Central Pennsylvania would "continue to move forward as a truly inclusive diocese, to be prepared as our Episcopal Church moves towards full liturgical recognition of gay and lesbian Episcopalians."
"But our preparation must include how we honor those whose convictions limit their support for full inclusion," Baxter added. "They too are part of our church and their concerns will be honored, and they too are and will be part of the full inclusion of which we speak [which includes] full inclusion in our love, in our protection from disrespect for their beliefs and sincere convictions and full inclusion in our larger mission."
Baxter told the convention that he is "tired of substituting politeness for grace; and political agendas of the day being confused with spiritual liberation of the Gospel." Jesus, he said, welcomed both traditionalists and those on the margins. "I don't have to lose my soul to make it happen, the Holy Spirit is already working," Baxter added.