wfn.org | [ENS] From Nigeria,

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

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

[Continuing a series of reports on Anglican Listening & Learning,
www.anglicanlistening.org]

>From Nigeria, New Zealand: Voices on Windsor Report heard in U.S. forum
 
Two Lambeth Commission members address Province IV Synod
 
By Pat McCaughan

ENS 061505-1
 
[Episcopal News Service, Hendersonville, N.C., Kanuga Conference Center]
-
The Most Rev. Josiah Idowu-Fearon, Archbishop of Kaduna, told about 200
clergy and laity attending a Synod gathering of the Episcopal Church's
Province IV, held here June 8-10, that he is hopeful about the future
unity
of the Anglican Communion if Windsor Report recommendations are
unchallenged.

Fearon, of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, was a guest speaker along
with
Dr. Jenny Plane Te Paa, who is the "ahorangi" or dean of Te Rau
Kahikatea,
indigenous constituent of the College of St. John the Evangelist in
Auckland, New Zealand, and the first indigenous lay woman to serve as a
seminary dean in the Anglican Communion.

Fearon and Te Paa, as members of the Lambeth Commission on Communion,
were
asked to share their personal spiritual challenges while helping to
author
the Windsor Report. The widely publicized report was released in October
2004 with specific recommendations for maintaining unity within the
Anglican
Communion.

"The Windsor Report is the only realistic and realizable solution to the
current crisis in the communion," said Fearon as he cautioned that unity
will be preserved only if the Episcopal Church in the United States
accepts
it without qualifying conditions. "We can live with it, but be patient
with
us," he said.

Te Paa called the commission's work "a micro-exercise in effecting
reconciliation, through intentionally engaged, sheer human witness" and
expressed hopefulness for future unity. She praised the Episcopal Church
for
its willingness to attend the upcoming Anglican Consultative Council
(ACC)
meeting in Nottingham, England, later this month as observers only.

"The voluntary, temporary withdrawal of ECUSA [the Episcopal Church]
from
the ACC is symbolic of repentance, of the willingness to enable the
processes of healing to begin," she said.

"I bring a message of extreme sympathy to you," she told the gathering,
noting that the New Zealand church is poised to assist because of its
own
successful struggle to remain in communion while achieving
conflict-resolution and reconciliation.

"Your decision to be present as observers is one of magnanimous
proportion
and extraordinary grace and we acknowledge that with enormous pride and
gratitude."

Province IV Administrator Gene Willard, who coordinated the gathering,
said
Fearon and Te Paa were invited as a way to help fulfill one of the
Windsor
Report recommendations.

"We wanted to give everybody the opportunity to have their say if they
haven't had it in their diocese, about how they think the church should
respond to the Windsor Report," Willard said. "The report asked for us,
the
church, to talk about it so we're doing just that, we're giving people a
forum."

Fearon, who describes himself as an evangelical charismatic, recalled
preaching at the General Convention 2003, which affirmed the
consecration of
the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, as Bishop of New Hampshire. Robinson is
the
first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion.

"It is hoped that efforts made and contained in the Windsor Report will
bear
fruit and bring wholeness and healing to our communion," Fearon said.
"We
plead with the ECUSA [Episcopal Church] to act in such a way as not to
increase our pains to the point we are numb and walk away, to the point
we
give up."

He called for the Episcopal Church to exercise humility and "be with the
rest of the members of the communion," adding that the commission's
mandate
was to "find out what needs to be done to keep the family together."

Te Paa, the first Maori person to complete an academic degree in
theology
from the University of Auckland, noted that the understanding of family
in
indigenous culture implies deeper, more intimate relationships and
connections through blood ties which can never be removed.

Te Paa said that she and Fearon, though disagreeing with each other,
became
close friends while serving on the 17-member Lambeth Commission, chaired
by
the Primate of All Ireland, Archbishop Robin Eames.

The commission, established at the request of the primates of the
Anglican
Communion, was specifically asked to examine and report on ways in
which the
38 Anglican and Episcopal provinces can "relate to one another in
situations
where the ecclesiastical authorities of one province feel unable to
maintain
the fullness of communion with another part of the Anglican Communion."

The Windsor Report, named after the site southwest of London where the
Lambeth Commission has twice met, is published in four sections, dealing
with: the purposes and benefits of Communion; principles underlying how
the
communion lives its life and the importance of communion as a principle
of
church life. (The complete report is posted online at:
www.anglicancommunion.org.)

Remarks precede ACC meeting

The ACC, the Anglican Communion's chief consultative body, will receive
the
report later this month. The ACC is made up of bishops, clergy and lay
representatives -- numbering some 75 in all -- and is the only body with
legislative authority to act on the report recommendations.

Two of the Episcopal Church's three elected ACC members, Josephine
Hicks,
and The Rev. Bob Sessum, were also at Kanuga for the synod meeting and
said
they plan to attend the meeting to observe and to listen. The third
elected
U.S. member is Bishop Suffragan Catherine Roskam of New York.

"I feel it is very important to be there," said Hicks, an attorney from
Charlotte, N.C. "A lot of what's happening has to do with issues other
than
sexuality, with the very important mission and ministries happening
throughout the world."

New Zealand's Te Paa said that commission members concluded that the
Episcopal Church did nothing wrong in terms of its own canons in
electing
and consecrating Gene Robinson. "What was regrettable was that they did
so
knowing many people in the Anglican Communion would be distressed by it
and
would not accept it," she said.

She criticized elements of the Windsor Report, including the failure to
assign a time frame or accountability to the moratorium on future
consecrations.

She also commented on the "underside to the commission's work, the
invisible
agenda that caused deep and abiding hurt and affects us all."
Specifically,
she cited politicization of the issue at the expense of ministry and
mission, abuses of power, and bishops who interfered in dioceses beyond
their jurisdictions.

"I want to record my absolute outrage at the appalling examples of
brutish,
unkind, petulant, manipulative, dishonest and aggressively threatening
male
church leadership I have both been ashamed to bear witness to or have
had
recounted to me as a member of the Lambeth Commission," Te Paa said.

She said examples of the behavior, in her opinion, included the
"indecent
haste" with which some provincial leaders declared themselves to be in
"impaired communion" with others. She also cited content of submissions,
for
commission review, which employed the language of vitriol, intolerance
and
condemnation, and misrepresentation of the facts concerning the role of
the
commission and of the Archbishop.

Te Paa also cited her own "very serious concern" about "much loose talk
of
the transfer of large amounts of money and other resources usually from
wealthy and U.S.-based sources -- both individuals and foundations -- to
conservative African and erroneously grouped 'global south' church
leaders
to facilitate their meeting and organizing against the so-called liberal
agenda."

Te Paa added: "I am committed to working with anyone and everyone toward
the
vision of a restored Anglican Communion family, to a family whose
neighborhood is the whole world, a family whose mission is that of God,
to
do justice, to act kindly and to be reconciled to all that God created
so
perfectly for the benefit of us all."

Listeners offer responses

Province IV, the Episcopal Church's largest province, has 20 dioceses in
nine Southeastern states including: Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky,
North Carolina, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and part of
Louisiana.

"Province IV has the largest number of clergy, baptized members,
communicants, church school and day school pupils and is the largest
contributor to the General Convention budget of any church province,"
coordinator Willard said. He said the gathering is one of two regularly
scheduled meetings the province hosts yearly.

Last December, Province IV issued a statement saying that the Windsor
Report
recommendations were, among other things, "well-considered and
appropriate."

The Rt. Rev. John Howard, bishop of the Jacksonville-based Diocese of
Florida, said he agreed with the report and was encouraged by Fearon's
remarks.

"I came away from this morning's meeting very encouraged," Howard said.
"Archbishop Fearon states a theological position and a position
regarding
the unity of the church I am in agreement with." He said the diocese has
lost several clergy and churchgoers but retains the same number of
parishes
and missions it always had. "We are ready to move forward in mission and
ministry."

But Kendall Harmon, canon theologian of the Diocese of South Carolina,
said
that, while he was "impressed with Jenny Te Paa's honesty" he had
concerns
about future unity.

"I wondered if it was enough given the size of the challenge before
them,"
he said, referring to the commission's efforts. "It's a grievous
situation,
the way people have conducted themselves on both sides of the issue,
both
the actions of individual dioceses and bishops," he said, stating his
belief
that the report's recommendations have not been honored.

While the Synod also took up discussion of the Windsor Report as the
topic
of a legislative resolution, delegates voted to table that local
measure.

Bishop Michael Curry of North Carolina said the provincial meeting
served
the important purposes of allowing everyone's voice to be heard, and
providing a model -- through Fearon and Te Paa -- "of what we're all
called
to be."

"By following Jesus we will overcome our issues with each other. The
most
important thing they did was to model a way of being a faith community
with
profound differences," said Curry, who voted to consent to Robinson's
consecration.

"There are struggles and issues to be dealt with, sure, but the work of
bringing people to Jesus and going and serving in his name is
happening,"
Curry said. "The overwhelming majority of people are in church committed
to
worship God and do the work of the church. I'm convinced of it because
I'm
seeing it."

Fearon, who has been instrumental in reconciliation ministry with
Muslims in
Nigeria, said his commission experience revealed that "there are about
20
percent of the 70 million Anglicans worldwide who are vehemently opposed
to
what happened. And there are about 20 percent from the same family who
are
fully committed to what happened and in between are 60 percent who just
want
to worship our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. "We must address this
middle
ground."

-- The Rev. Patricia McCaughan is senior correspondent for the Episcopal
News Service. She is a former news editor of the Detroit News.

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