Executive Council Meets In Pittsburgh
Episcopal News Service. June 22, 1989 [89112D]
PITTSBURGH (DPS, June 22) -- "Most of my life in the Church we have been polarized about something. I think God is calling us to go beyond that. And how you grow out of that polarization and begin to really listen, one to another -- I think that is what God is calling us to do."
Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning made his first public remarks about the recent meeting of the Evangelical and Catholic Mission (ECM) in Fort Worth, Texas, when he addressed the Executive Council meeting in Pittsburgh (June 12-16).
In a carefully worded three-page statement, the Presiding Bishop renewed his call for a climate of openness, understanding, and care for those in the Church who have differences over the ordination of women. [Note to editors: See DPS 89117 for full text.]
At the same time, Browning emphatically renewed his support of the ordination of women as priests and bishops.
Members of the ECM met in Fort Worth in early June to form what they call the "Episcopal Synod of America." Denying they are schismatic, the group members say they are seeking ways in which their voices can be heard within the Episcopal Church.
During discussions following his prepared statement, the Presiding Bishop said, "My hope is that through the House of Bishops meeting in September, these issues can be talked about and reasoned." The House of Bishops will meet in Philadelphia (September 23-29).
Browning continued, "It is extremely important in ECUSA [Episcopal Church U.S.A.] to keep this in perspective. How we live this out and work this out for ourselves has tremendous importance to the Anglican Communion. They [the member Churches] want to see that this can be done.
"For all of us, and for the Archbishop of Canterbury, this is important. The Archbishop of Canterbury is very clear where he stands. He is very careful to support this Church in the way it lives out its life."
In his address from the chair at the opening of the Executive Council, meeting Browning had said:
"I have heard the pain of ordained women in our Church, whose ministries are yet the subject of debate and equivocation. This is not right! The gifts of ordained women in ministry are too precious, too tempered and true, to be questioned and derided. Their pain is our pain until God's gift of ministry in baptism is recognized as natural and efficacious, blowing where the Spirit wills it, calling forth prophets, priests, and pastors from the rich treasure house of God's people.
"But I know the pain, too, of many in Fort Worth a few days ago. Unhappy and bewildered over the changes of the last decade, they have reached the point of crying, Stop! Listen to us! You have ignored us, cut out from under us our faith, taken our Church from us! Their pain, alienation, and anger at times have seemed irredeemable.
"How foolish and to be pitied we are who think that our tiny part of the Body is the whole.... A repeated affirmation of the Eames Report was that we need each other; without each other, without each other's gifts, we are weaker and impoverished, less than whole.
"In our beloved Anglican Communion, the search for koinonia is made more difficult by that great divide in consciousness that is the hallmark of our times. I would describe the divide as that between those who tend to see tradition as a dynamic reality and who, therefore, accept the possibility of continuing revelation, as over against those who tend to see a once-for-all-ness in the divine dispensation.... The divide in consciousness threatens our Communion most severely today over issues of authority, sexuality, and ordination of women. And yet I maintain -- as have the Primates -- that we need each other for the integrity of the whole Church's unity, witness, and mission. For it is a sad but very human fact that those on one side of the divide run the risk of being too caught up in the deceptive and shifting winds of the times; while their brothers and sisters on the opposing side run an equal danger of being so caught up in attending to internal ecclesiastical order that they miss God's hand in the movement of history."
Responding to questions from the Executive Council about property and pensions if the Episcopal Synod of America were to become a breakaway church, Browning said, "This needs to be stretched out for as long as we can possibly stretch it out. When you get to canonical and legal matters, you get beyond the point of seeking unity."
David Beers, chancellor of the Diocese of Washington and a member of the Executive Council, noted that at this time, the issue is not a canonical one, and that a group is free to form a voluntary association.
Both Beers and Hugh Jones, a retired judge and the Presiding Bishop's chancellor, noted that although the Church may eventually come to legal and canonical matters, the questions before the Church at present are not canonical but at a deeper level of our unity.
Referring to the Eames Commission report presented at the Primates Conference on Cyprus in April, Browning noted that "provisionality is the key to the Eames Report. Provisionality is the hole way we consider revelation as Anglicans. If either one of us. goes into provisionality not in good faith, then we are in trouble. We must consider that new revelation may be being received. Both camps need to do that. If we narrow provisionality to only the ordination of women, then we're in real trouble. Provisionality is about all ministry and the nature of the Church."
Ending the session on a hopeful note, Browning said in a brief press conference, "If we approach koinonia (as discussed in the Eames Commission report), that will provide the clarity in which we can speak to each other. I hear that. Other bishops are hearing it."