wfn.org | ACNS3610 No welcome for observers at Texas meeting of

["Anglican Communion News Service" <acnslist@anglicancommunion.org>]

ACNS 3610     |     USA     |	  7 OCTOBER 2003 

No welcome for observers at Texas meeting of conservatives

by James Solheim

[ACNS source: Episcopal News Service] An attempt by Presiding Bishop
Frank T Griswold and Dean George Werner, president of the House of
Deputies, to send four observers to the American Anglican Council
meeting in Texas has been rebuffed.

Bishop Griswold said that the four: Bishop Christopher Epting, deputy
for ecumenical and interfaith relations; Bishop Stacy Sauls of
Lexington; Dean Titus Presler of Seminary of the Southwest in Austin,
Texas; and the Revd Brian Prior of Spokane, Washington; had been asked
to "bring a greeting and to listen with care and the ear of the heart to
the voices of those present. Their presence was to be a visible sign of
the fact that, in the midst of disagreement, we are nonetheless fellow
members of Christ's risen body and that we are called to bear one
another's burdens and to acknowledge that when one member suffers the
whole body must bear that suffering."

In a letter to Bishop Griswold, the Revd David Anderson, president of
the AAC, said that there is no category for observers and that all must
register as participants, signing the document, "A Place to Stand," that
gives the AAC's theological perspective on the current state of the
church. He said that those who are gathering for the meeting feel a
sense of betrayal and abandonment by the leadership of the Episcopal
Church and feel that those who voted to confirm Gene Robinson's election
as the church's first openly gay bishop have shattered and shipwrecked
the church.

"When teachings and practices contrary to Scripture and to this orthodox
Anglican perspective are permitted within the Church - or even
authorized by the General Convention - in obedience to God we will
disassociate ourselves from those specific teachings and practices and
will resist them in every way possible," warns the "A Place to Stand"
statement.

James Solheim is director of Episcopal News Service

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