wfn.org | [ENS] Presiding Bishop's letter to bishops on Lambeth

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Sunday, September 19, 2004

Presiding Bishop's letter to bishops on Lambeth Commission report

ENS 091904-1

[ENS] Following is full text of Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold's September
17 letter to all bishops of the Episcopal Church:

September 17, 2004

For the bishops

Dear brothers and sisters:

As you will recall, following the meeting of the primates last October the
Archbishop of Canterbury appointed a Commission charged with exploring how
best the provinces of the Anglican Communion might live with the various
differences that exist among us. A presenting reason for the Commission's
appointment was the differences within the Communion on questions of
sexuality in relationship to the biblical witness, and different perceptions
of what constitutes faithfulness to what we have received.

The Commission, which has come to be called the Lambeth Commission, has now
completed its work.  Their report will be released in London on October 18
in conjunction with a joint meeting of the Standing Committee of the
Primates, of which I am a member, and the Standing Committee of the Anglican
Consultative Council. At that time I will be in communication with you, and
I will also make sure that you have whatever information you might need
regarding the report, and if it seems fitting, to arrange for further steps
for collegial reflection.

At this moment -- in the absence of clear information as to the contents of
the report -- speculation and rumors abound. With this in mind I am writing
to offer you some thoughts on how we might hold ourselves in ready patience
to receive the fruit of the Commission's work.

First of all, we need to keep in mind that the Commission, appointed by the
Archbishop of Canterbury and chaired by the Most Rev. Robin Eames, the
Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, was broadly representative
of our Communion. When I and others met with the Commission last June we
were deeply impressed by the care and thoughtfulness with which they put
their questions. In short, as a body, they should be considered trustworthy,
having as their concern the unity, faithfulness and wellbeing of the
Communion in the service of God's mission.

Second, we need to be clear about what the mandate of the Commission has
been. I have just read the presidential address which the Archbishop of
Wales, Barry Morgan, gave earlier this week to his church's governing body.
The Archbishop served as a member of the Lambeth Commission, and of the
report he says the following. "It is not a report giving definitive answers
to the issue of homosexuality in the church, as many people believe. The
Commission was not charged with that task. Rather, the Commission was asked
to find ways of keeping the Communion intact when some provinces had moved
ahead on particular issues (and those issues did not necessarily have to be
issues to do with human sexuality, although those were the presenting issues
at present), which other provinces regarded as controversial and
problematic. In short, how do we make decisions as a Communion? How do we
govern our common life? What means do we have for either consultation or
restraint?"

The Archbishop then goes on to ask why the Anglican Communion matters, and
gives this response. "It matters because Communion is God's gift to us, and
what God has given we should not, dare not spurn. God has given us in this
Communion people who are very different from ourselves. They are however His
gift to us, as we, hopefully, may be his gift to them. Gifts are means of
grace and as such are to be cherished and nourished, not rejected and cast
aside."

Regrounding ourselves in the knowledge that communion is a gift from God is
another way of living in ready patience during these days. It is important
for us in the Episcopal Church to remember that we are part of a reality
larger than our own experience of what it is to be a church, and that the
body of Christ embraces the whole world. There will always be the invitation
to deepen and renew our understanding of the gospel and God's ways, which
frequently exceed our immediate comprehension. In this way, the questions
that will always arise in this world (and that have the potential to divide
us) can be held open to the Holy Spirit who works through our struggles to
teach us more deeply the truth and goodness of God.

I note here that these differences and strains are made more acute because
of the current realities of globalization. In particular, communication is
immediate and far-reaching. Whatever transpires in one place in some sense
happens everywhere at once, and can have drastic and unintended consequences
which place heavy burdens on brothers and sisters in other parts of the
world.

At the end of the day, whatever word the Lambeth Commission has to give to
the Communion, I hope we will see in it an invitation to become more than
what we have been. As the churches of the Anglican Communion live and
proclaim the gospel -- in the midst of our different perspectives -- I
believe we are all called to see how the circumstances of our lives invite
us to become an authentic sign to a broken and divided world of Christ's
power to reconcile in the force of his deathless love.

I also believe the essential question, and the ever present invitation, has
to do with how we choose to live with one another as limbs and members of
Christ's body, in all our singularity and difference, together revealing the
fullness of the risen One. This does not come without a willingness to bear
one another's burdens and to enter into one another's realities in all their
unfamiliarity and complexity, which involves a very real cost on all sides.

At a meeting of the primates several years ago Professor David Ford of
Cambridge University, who was guiding our theological reflections, observed
that we are in the process of becoming a Communion, and that working through
our present strains and differences was the way in which communion would be
further revealed. Here it might be said that the Anglican Communion is in
some sense a vision of who we might become rather than a fully defined
ecclesial body. By God's grace, we discover through the Anglican Communion
the ever deeper communion that Christ has won for us. In this regard I think
of the words of 1 John "What we will be has yet to be revealed."

I look forward to our meeting in Spokane. Until then, we need to keep in our
prayers our brothers and sisters who are and have been in the path of the
terrible storms that have had such a devastating effect on several of our
dioceses.

Yours ever in Christ,

Frank T. Griswold
Presiding Bishop and Primate