wfn.org | [ENS] Windsor Report reflects more than one story, panelists say

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Windsor Report reflects more than one story, panelists say

New Jersey forum affirms value of cross-cultural conversations

By Mary Frances Schjonberg

ENS 092805-1

[Episcopal News Service] There is not one story in the Windsor Report,
one
presenter told a gathering of Province II members September 17, and that
assertion was borne out in the day's conversations.

Reactions to the report ranged from the opinion that its recommendations
are
best for the Episcopal Church to the opinion that, in the face of the
destruction in the Gulf Coast, a report such as this may receive less
attention.

Nearly 45 people, many of them deputies to the next General Convention,
met
at Christ Church New Brunswick, New Jersey, to discuss the report that
was
requested by the primates of the Anglican Communion at their meeting in
October 2003 and completed one year later.

The report was the result of a 17-member commission's examination of
interrelationships among Anglicans. It offered recommendations on ways
in
which the Anglican Communion could maintain unity amid strong
differences of
opinion.

The commission followed the consecration in New Hampshire of a bishop
who is
in a committed relationship with a person of the same sex, and the
Canadian
Diocese of New Westminster's adoption of rites for the blessing of
same-gender unions.

Saturday's conversations began with a taped presentation from the Very
Rev.
Paul Zahl, dean and president of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry
in
Ambridge, Pennsylvania, and in-person remarks from the Rev. Ian T.
Douglas,
of Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Zahl and Douglas
recently co-authored "Understanding the Windsor Report: Two Leaders in
the
American Church Speak Across the Divide."

The Rev. Titus Pressler, of General Theological Seminary in New York,
responded to their remarks. The day also included small-group and
plenary
discussions.

Zahl said he sees the Windsor Report as "true and good and what is best
for
the Episcopal Church." He said the report's recommendations create a
place
in the Church where a people like him, "theological traditionalist and
conservative," can stand and have a sense of support.
Douglas said that just as there isn't one story in the report, there
also
isn't one, static Anglican Communion. "The Anglican Communion is always
new
and we are always trying to discern our way forward as the Body of
Christ
globally," he said.

They both agree that the report's recommendations would centralize
authority
in the Anglican Communion in a way that Zahl said is not "broadband
enough"
to allow for the diversity of the Communion. Zahl said the report
focused
too much on discipline and not enough on the Gospel's commandment to
love
one another.

Douglas said that Anglican diversity is radically increasing and is
becoming
more and more visible. He called this a time of "new Pentecost" that the
report's "structuralist" approach can't handle. Such an approach assumes
that all the church has to do is get its structures "neat and clean" and
determine who is in charge so that it can say who is in and who is out,
both
in terms of church governance and biblical interpretation.

For instance, while some parts of the Communion might believe that the
Bible
is to be interpreted "within the believing context" of each community,
the
report assumes that the final interpretive word belongs to Anglican
bishops.
That assumption, Douglas said, represents only one stream of Anglicanism
and
is not the assumption in the United States.

The question given to the Lambeth Commission, Douglas said, was how to
live
together and share power in that diversity. He said the commission
rightly
considered questions of ecclesiology, the branch of theology concerned
with
the Church's nature, constitution, and functions.
Zahl disagreed, saying that the report is "long on process and weak on
substance" in terms of addressing the human-sexuality issue.

"I think there is an intellectual dishonesty or evasion there," he said.
"It's the truth question," he said, adding that "the search for truth
was
short-circuited and pushed to the side."

During his response time, Pressler said that everyone should understand
that
the sexuality issue is one of mission, and that all sides have a
different
view of what impact our disagreements have on the mission of the Church.
Some people say this debate is taking the Church away from its mission,
a
contention Pressler said is "profoundly wrong."

Those on the so-called Left see the issue of full inclusion of gay,
lesbian,
bi-sexual and transgendered persons as one that cuts to the root of the
Gospel's call to reach out to and love all people, he said. Those on the
Right see such inclusion as unfaithful because it embraces behavior it
deems
sinful. To embrace such unfaithfulness is to be unfaithful to the
Church's
mission.

"We need to remember that both sides have very strong feelings about
mission," Pressler said.
Pressler also suggested that the Anglican Communion needs more
conversations
of the kind that Zahl and Douglas had, and the one happening that day.
People of differing opinions need to listen to each other "and not
snigger
and disparage and roll their eyes at each other."

Pressler advocates a process he calls the Anglican Conversations
Initiative
that he said would allow people to experience the diversity of the
Communion. He hoped they would replicate experiences he and two
conservative
ECUSA bishops had last summer in the dioceses of Rwanda, Burundi and
Kenya.
The conversations were stressful in part because the three were often
scolded for the actions of General Convention 2003 but most of the time
people asked why they had not come to talk with them sooner, Pressler
said.

"I can't explain what it accomplished in terms of an agreement or a
statement," he said, "but it built relationships."

Additional information on the report is available from the Communion's
website: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/commission/index.cfm.

SIDEBAR

The Provincial Council of Province II will host a second "Conversations
About the Windsor Report" meeting on Saturday, October 1, St. Thomas'
Church, Rochester, New York.

The meeting begins at 10 a.m. and concludes by 3 p.m. Lunch will be
provided, as well as copies of "Understanding the Windsor Report" and
"To
Set Our Hope on Christ." To help offset the cost of lunch and materials,
there is a $15 registration fee, payable at the door.

For more information, email Chuck Perfater (chperfater@comcast.net).

-- The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for the
Episcopal News Service.

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