Pastoral Letter
Episcopal News Service. September 23, 1976 [76302]
The House of Bishops, The General Convention Minneapolis, Minn.
"Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." (Phil. 1:2).
"Bear with one another charitably, in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience. Do all you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together.... One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all." (Eph. 4:2,3,6).
Our 65th General Convention in Minneapolis made some momentous decisions. Many of us Episcopalians are frustrated by uncertainty and fear as we seek to respond to the changes which result from these decisions. We your Bishops would speak a word of strength and challenge in the wake of what might well prove to be the most crucial General Convention of this century.
Change is everywhere. The familiar is threatened by the untried and strange. Some of us feel betrayed; many feel uncertain. Jesus, the Lord, however, calls us to walk together in faith and trust. His Spirit leads us into larger truth. The question each of us faces is whether we will respond to that call and be willing to risk all in love. We may discover thereby new experiences of His presence and redemptive power in a future hidden from our view.
Some of us will undertake this venture in joy and confidence. Others of us will set out on this journey with anxiety and serious doubt.
At Minneapolis we accepted the Proposed Book of Common Prayer as a companion to our present Prayer Book for the next three years. We also voted to open the priesthood and episcopate in the Episcopal Church to women. We cannot yet begin to see in all their far-reaching effects the consequences of these decisions. All we know is that the future belongs to the Lord as does the present and as does the past.
The action taken by the General Convention at Minneapolis -- and our response to them -- require that we look anew at the source of our unity. We plead that no hasty actions be taken by any person or group which would even appear to breach our oneness in Jesus Christ or our fellowship with one another in the Church.
We are members of the same household of faith. We are bound together in the love of God, a love so great that He gave His only Son to claim us as His children by adoption and grace. Our response to that love must be love of other persons, and such love must respect the conscience of each individual. The Lord asks us through Scripture, "How can a man say, 'I love God,' whom he has not seen, when he does not love his brother, whom he has seen?" The test of oneness in Christ is our continuity in love.
In our Anglican Communion we have a long experience of maintaining love while holding a diversity within the one body. Many times in our history differences have threatened our unity. We have, by God's grace, continued as one. New dimensions claimed for our tradition require us again to look to that oneness in Jesus Christ. We call upon all members of the Episcopal Church to follow His steps to a new unity in diversity.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, addressing the Convention, charged us to "love the brethren, preserve the unity of the Church, worship Almighty God and evangelize the unreached. " These "givens" of the Christian faith are rooted in what God has done in Christ Jesus, crucified, risen and ascended. We can mirror them and share them. We cannot destroy them.
It is in and through the act of worship that the Christian expresses his true being. It is no wonder that the question of Prayer Book revision provokes such deep feelings. The old familiar forms are comfortable and secure vehicles through which we approach the Holy. True worship, however, has God, not the form, as its focus. The Spirit fills the form and He enables it to be the avenue of access to Deity.
Any form is a fragile vehicle for worship at any time. Now by action of General Convention we have a Proposed Prayer Book authorized for use during the next triennium along with the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. The question each of us must answer in his own heart is: "Will I be open enough to the Spirit to let Him enliven and quicken any and all forms through which I approach my Creator and Redeemer?"
It is no new thing for Anglicans to find within the same Church household loyal people who differ widely over issues of doctrine, liturgy and church order. Ours is not so much the way of compromise, arriving at a pale middle ground. Ours, rather, is the ability to live together, each holding a cherished position, all the while striving to uncover the encompassing truth God intends for his people. Despite the tensions, what is meant to be catholic must never become chaotic. We allow God's Spirit to show us a wholeness of truth which is more than compromise. As Archbishop of York, Cyril Garbett, said: "The Anglican Communion is not a compromise for the sake of agreement but comprehensiveness for the sake of truth."
We respond to God's leading by trusting Him to show us what is good and acceptable, confident that He who is Lord and Guide wills to lead us into all truth. One day He will show us a perfected Church, the new Jerusalem, without spot or blemish. Until then we are a pilgrim Church of great diversity, stumbling and seeking. Our joy is to receive that Bread which is Christ, who alone gives us any claim to wholeness. Our mission is to offer that living Bread to the starving world for which He died. In absolute trust in Him we shall discover afresh that we are a catholic church, whole in the faith, universal in appeal, and responsive to His call.
The fellowship of the first apostolic band was in exciting measure present at Minneapolis. Members of our Church, in profound and radical disagreement over vital matters of church order, stayed in communication and in communion with each other. The General Convention was challenged by the clamorous needs of persons all around the world, near and far. The General Convention of 1973 charged this Church to enlist its human and financial resources to respond to these needs. This 65th Convention calls us all to "Venture in Mission." As we engage ourselves in these acts of love to our fellow human beings we are also sharing with them our greatest treasure, the Good News of God's reconciling us to Himself in Christ Jesus. We share of ourselves for their more abundant life. At the same time we tell them of Him who came to give us that more abundant life.
We arrived in Minneapolis beset by matters which seemed to separate this church of ours from its roots and traditions -- the role of women in priesthood and episcopacy and altered worship forms. These matters have plagued and absorbed us over the last several years. In our encounters over these matters in the Convention we dug more deeply into the issues, all of us, and found that changes could be made in our tradition, and yet to continue our heritage of "the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers."
Continuity in the apostolic church does not reside solely in a continuous repetition of customs unchanged, by they worship, order or service. Apostolic continuity is preserved in spirit and substance, not merely in forms and structures. Where love and unity, where worship and outreach are evident, there is the Spirit. That same Spirit activated the apostolic band of twelve and now activates us -- the Holy Spirit of Almighty God.
The members of the 65th General Convention are now back in their local parishes and dioceses. New possibilities of mission wait. Old ones still wait:
- the continuing struggle for peace;
- the decay of urban centers;
- the harsh grind of rural poverty;
- the turbulence of the emerging third world nations;
- the starving children;
- the repressive denial of human freedom and dignity.
We venture forth to take up these possibilities of mission to the Glory of God and for the benefit of the whole creation He has redeemed.
"Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."