The Acts of Convention

House of Bishops

Original Text of Resolution:

(A130)

Whereas, the 67th General Convention of ECUSA requested the Church to formulate plans to observe 1984 as the Bicentennial Year of the Consecration of Bishop Samuel Seabury, first bishop of the Episcopal Church and the first native-born missionary bishop of the Anglican Communion (Resolution D-91, 1979); and

Whereas, the Standing Commission on World Mission has developed a theological statement entitled "Mission in Global Perspective" for the study of the Church; and

Whereas, this statement is recommended for analysis, response, and propagation by all dioceses, seminaries, and other educational agencies of ECUSA, and through fraternal exchange of similar theological inquiries, to all other jurisdictions of the Anglican Communion; and

Whereas, it is the high purpose of the whole Church to seek for a consensus of mission theology for the Anglican Communion, and to take such steps as may be appropriate to this end; therefore be it

Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring, That, to provide a focus for ECUSA's celebration of the Seabury Bicentennial, the Standing Commission on World Mission be encouraged to support and cosponsor a Pan-Anglican Symposium in 1984 -- with the Dioceses of Connecticut (Convenor), Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney, and with cognizance of the Presiding Bishop's Special Committee for the Seabury Bicentennial -- to search for a shared theology of the Church as mission, of all churches as missions, and all Christians as Christ-commissioned missionaries.

The Bishop of Western Louisiana, Chairman of the Committee on Miscellaneous Resolutions, moved Resolution A-130A.

Seconded by the Bishop of Minnesota.

Motion carried

(Communicated to the House of Deputies in HB Message #25)