wfn.org | Episcopal Church leader responds to sexuality issue

[Daphne Mack <dmack@dfms.org>]

99-019
Griswold responds to international church leaders on sexuality 
issue

by James Solheim
(ENS) Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold responded March 10 
to an open letter from six active primates, a retired primate and 
an archbishop which challenged what they perceived as a trend by 
some bishops in the Episcopal Church to ignore resolutions on 
sexuality passed at last summer's Lambeth Conference.

The church leaders said in their February 26 letter that they were 
obliged to point out 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." It asked the presiding bishop to "examine the
directions 
apparently proposed by some in your province and take whatever 
steps may be necessary to uphold the moral teaching and Christian 
faith the Anglican Communion has received."

The church leaders said that "each province is accountable 
to the whole Communion. True Christian freedom lies within the 
compass of truth and love and not in the satisfaction of mere 
autonomous desire."

The letter was signed by David Gitari of Kenya, Richard 
Goodhew of Sydney, Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, Ghais Malik of 
Jerusalem and the Middle East, Donald Mtetemela of Tanzania, 
Maurice Sinclair of the Southern Cone of America, Moses Tay of 
Southeast Asia, joined by Colin Bazley, retired primate of the 
Southern Cone. Griswold, joined by nine bishops who form his 
Council of Advice, wrote to the primates, "The bonds of communion 
which we enjoy with other provinces are precious to us, and the 
mutual sharing of the gifts between us is both a privilege and a 
blessing." 

The letter emphasized the "divergent opinions on the question 
of homosexuality" in many provinces of the Anglican Communion. 
It quoted from the four understandings that emerged from the Lambeth 
Conference report on human sexuality, ranging from those who believe 
homosexual orientation is "a disorder" that might be changed to "those 
who believe that the church should accept and support or bless
monogamous 
covenant relationships between homosexual people and that they may be 
ordained." 

Griswold said that the Episcopal Church is in a process of 
discernment, "testing the spirits," and he quoted from a letter 
of Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey to another primate. In 
the letter Carey pointed out that the issue was discussed at 
Lambeth for "the very first time" and the resolution stating that 
homosexual activity is contrary to Scripture  "indicates where 
bishops stand now on the issue; it does not indicate that we shall 
ever rest there."

Carey said in the letter that the debate at Lambeth "showed 
me more powerfully than I had ever seen before that argument and 
controversy solves nothing." He called for a new kind of 
conversation," one that begins with respect for the integrity of 
another and a willingness to study the scriptures together, to 
reflect on our experience-including the experience of 
homosexuals-and to share in a process" of moral discourse.

Griswold ended the letter by inviting 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. "Such visits will afford 
you the opportunity not only to query some of our bishops and 
representatives of their dioceses but also to listen to the 
experience of homosexual persons, which is mandated by the Lambeth 
resolution on human sexuality."

Bishops from the Council of Advice who signed the letter 
are: J. Clark Grew II of Ohio; Robert H. Johnson of Western North 
Carolina; James Krotz of Nebraska; Julio Holuguin of the Dominican 
Republic; Jack McKelvey of Newark; Robert Rowley, Jr. of 
Northwestern Pennsylvania; Richard Shimpfky of El Camino Real; 
William Smalley of Kansas; and Douglas Theuner of New Hampshire.

--James Solheim is director of the Episcopal Church's Office of 
News and Information.