Chinnis Elected to ACC Standing Committee
Episcopal News Service. May 14, 1987 [87108]
SINGAPORE (DPS, May 14) -- U.S. delegate Pamela Chinnis has been elected to the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative council, meeting here April 26-May 9. Also elected were Archbishop. Robert Fames of Ireland, Juilio Lonzano of South America and Edgar Bradley of New Zealand.
Chinnis, who is vice president of the House of Deputies of the General Convention, served an earlier term as a delegate to ACC-4 in Ontario, Canada, in 1979. Noting changes she had observed here at ACC-7, Chinnis said that the Council has become a "much more sophisticated body" since that time. All parts of the Communion seemed to be taking the Council much more seriously, Chinnis said. "It has become a real factor in the life of the Churches."
Referring to this meeting's extensive discussions on authority in the Anglican Communion, Chinnis said she believed the authority of the ACC would be enhanced by these and continuing discussions at the 1988 Lambeth Conference, because it is the one body which includes all three orders -- "People look to it as the representative body," she said, although she expressed disappointment that there are not more women delegates. She will be the only woman on the Standing Committee.
Chinnis is one of the three U.S. delegates to ACC, the others being the Very Rev. Frederick Borsch, dean of the Chapel at Princeton University, and Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning.
Borsch, completing his term at this meeting, commented, "Probably the greatest value of the ACC is found in people. From all over the world, from their many cultures, in which they experienced God, they bring different perspectives to the theological and societal issues we face. Meeting together is a kind of partial fulfillment of the biblical prophecy that people shall come from the East and West and sit at table in the Kingdom of God."
Borsch served in the section on Dogmatic and Pastoral Affairs. His voice has been heard frequently in plenary sessions, particularly in an effort to keep before Council the importance of laity in the Church's life and decision making and to remind them of justice issues regarding women.