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International Church Leaders Again Address Issues from Lambeth Conference

Episcopal News Service. May 7, 1999 [99-061]

(ENS) At an April meeting in Singapore, a group of international Anglican church leaders has once again issued a letter challenging the Episcopal Church's response to decisions from last summer's Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, especially on the issues of sexual morality.

The church leaders issued what they called a "preliminary report," based on the "testimony" of representatives of a number of conservative organizations related to the Episcopal Church which "believe that major sections of their church have deviated significantly from orthodox faith and practice. They represent those who wish to remain with their church and to see its illnesses healed." The primates and bishops said, "What we have heard concerns us deeply."

Three primates and an archbishop who attended the Singapore meeting signed an open letter to Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold and the American church in February, suggesting that "the continuance of action at variance with the Lambeth resolutions, within your own or any other province, would be a grievous wrong and a matter over which we could not be indifferent."

Griswold responded in March, reporting that the Episcopal Church was in a process of discernment, "testing the spirits" over issues such as homosexuality. He invited the church leaders "to visit those parts of our church which cause you concern so that you may inquire and learn directly what has animated certain responses" to the Lambeth resolutions. His letter was signed by his Council of Advice, bishops representing the nine provinces of the church.

The church leaders said that they "greatly appreciate" the "courteous tone" of the response from Griswold. "We seek to respond in the same spirit for, where we speak of problems in ECUSA, we do so with an awareness of our own particular difficulties and shortcomings."

Litany of concerns

After meeting with the representatives of the conservative alliance, the primates and bishops listed a number of major concerns:

  • Liturgical reform that includes use of liturgies to bless same-sex unions and an approach that "appears to abandon the Book of Common Prayer as the standard of doctrine for the church";
  • "Legislation favoring or determined by the gay-lesbian agenda," including repudiation of the Lambeth resolution stating that homosexual practice is contrary to Scripture, and condemning ordination of homosexuals without requiring celibacy;
  • Discrimination against postulants who "did not approve same-sex unions," also directly contrary to Lambeth resolutions;
  • "Mandatory sanctions against bishops who cannot in conscience ordain women," and "measures taken against parishes that cannot in conscience accept the ministry of a bishop who either ordains women or supports same-sex unions";
  • Public refutations in at least 18 dioceses of the Lambeth resolution condemning homosexual practice and an "increase in number of dioceses where active homosexuality is accepted."
Outside the tradition?

"Our first observation is that, over the past 30 years, ECUSA has undergone a process of change which, in important aspects, has carried it outside the historic Anglican tradition," the church leaders alleged. Its "innovations in teaching, practice and discipline" were introduced without consideration for implications in the rest of the Anglican Communion. By "unilaterally committing the church to a course of action with no sure basis in Scripture, Anglican tradition or even medical science," the Episcopal Church has made "a profound mistake" by not heeding "the Christian wisdom of earlier generations and more traditional contemporary cultures."

The letter was signed by Maurice Sinclair, primate of the Southern Cone; Moses Tay, primate of South East Asia; Emmanuel Kolini, primate of Rwanda; Harry Goodhew, archbishop of Sydney; Jonathan Onyemelukwe, archbishop of Nigeria representing the primate; and Evans Kisekka, a bishop representing the primate of Uganda.

In an April 15 letter to members of the First Promise Round Table, a coalition of the organizations that testified at the Singapore meeting, the church leaders said that they were "committed to action which in God's time will help in the reformation of the Episcopal Church in the USA and restore its biblical witness throughout your nation."

In response to a request for "intervention" in the Episcopal Church, they said that it should be considered by a meeting of primates scheduled for September. They also said that "vulnerable parishes in ECUSA should receive the episcopal visitation they need."

A parish formed in Little Rock, Arkansas, without support from the bishop, has sought oversight from a Rwandan bishop, and a new parish is now forming in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Charlotte mission, supported by the North American Missionary Society (NAMS), would probably not be related to the Episcopal Church, according to members of the planning committee. "I believe we are on a trajectory to plant a church under the episcopal oversight of the archbishop of Singapore, the Rt. Rev. Moses Tay," said Warren Smith.