wfn.org | UNASHAMED, ANGLICAN INSTITUTE PARTICIPANTS FAVOR BOLD EVA

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TITLE:UNASHAMED, ANGLICAN INSTITUTE PARTI
June 26, 1996
Episcopal News Service
James Solheim, Director
(212) 922-5385
ens@ecunet.org

96-1506
UNASHAMED, ANGLICAN INSTITUTE PARTICIPANTS FAVOR BOLD EVANGELISM

BY TIMOTHY J. KRUEGER
           (ENS) "To be `unashamed of Anglicanism' is to invite a certain
ridicule in our culture," suggested Bishop Stephen Sykes of Ely,
England, "but it is a particular way of being Christian that has much to offer
those who claim it."
           What the 200 clergy and laity who gathered in Colorado Springs,
April 10-13, for a conference called "Unashamed
Anglicanism," were invited to claim was a bold stance of unashamed
proclamation of the resurrection.
           "Easter must be more to us than the horticultural imagery involved
in a change
of seasons," said the Rev. Fleming Rutledge of New York City in the
conference's opening sermon. "There are many things about ourselves
of which we ought to be ashamed, but ashamed of the Gospel of Christ? God
forbid. It is the power of God for salvation."
           Co-sponsored by the ANGLICAN DIGEST magazine and the Anglican
Institute, an organization dedicated to the renewal of the
church, the annual conference drew a battery of speakers, including former
archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie who stressed the
plurality and diversity of the Anglican tradition in his presentation entitled
"Unashamed in Conflict."
           "Wanting everyone else to look like yourself is a sign of
immaturity," he said, adding that it is conflict which enables us to grow
into maturity.
           Asked for his reflections on the charges brought against Bishop
Walter Righter as the most visible current example of conflict,
Runcie said that "the legacy of heresy hunts has never been good in the
Christian Church. We should be cautious in starting test trials in
deciding this very serious moral question; it needs thoughtful holiness rather
than legal action."
           An ecclesiastical court recently dismissed charges that Righter
violated his ordination vows and church teaching when he ordained
a non-celibate homosexual as a deacon.

BOOK PRESENTS CONFERENCE THEME
           Sykes, whose book of the same name inspired the conference,
described a five-point model for the "ecumenical potential of
Anglicanism," which was meant, in his own words, "to cheer us up a bit."
           His motive in writing the book, he said, "was to make my own
convictions clear, and my love for the traditions handed down to
me." He emphasized the openness and plurality of Anglican spirituality, its
governmental structure "which is neither democratic nor
despotic," and the inclusion of women in the ordained ministry as among these
ecumenical strengths.
           The presentation of Dean Paul Zahl of the Cathedral Church of the
Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, returned to a central
Anglican theme of Sykes and Runcie when he summed up his talk with a quote by
Queen Elizabeth I: "In essentials: unity. In inessentials:
diversity. In all things: charity."
           In the address of Bishop William Frey, former dean and president of
Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, the conference took a
definite turn from head to heart, from intellect to emotion. Speaking on the
topic, "Unashamed in Proclamation," Frey declared that "the
church that doesn't evangelize will find itself evangelized by the culture.
Renewal is the only alternative to decay."
           When asked, like Lord Runcie, for his reactions to the Righter
trial, as he
was one of the 76 who voted for the presentment against Righter to go to
trial, Frey replied that he saw it as an issue of discipline and
accountability. "Can we live by our covenants?" he asked.
           Runcie's address at the conference banquet, titled "Unashamed in
Conviviality," was clearly the high point of the conference for
many. 
           Anglicans must not lose our sense of humor, Runcie stressed.
"Anyone who lacks a sense of humor also lacks a sense of
proportion and really ought not to be put in charge of anything."
           Next year's conference on the theme, "The Truth about Jesus," will
be held at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in
Birmingham, Alabama, April 9-12.

--BASED ON AN ARTICLE THAT APPEARED IN THE COLORADO EPISCOPALIAN, THE
NEWSPAPER OF THE DIOCESE OF
COLORADO, WHERE TIMOTHY J. KRUEGER IS ASSISTANT EDITOR. THE REV. DONALD
ARMSTRONG, RECTOR OF
GRACE CHURCH, COLORADO SPRINGS, CONTRIBUTED TO THIS ARTICLE.