Luminous Darkness

I’m sure many of you heard on the news yesterday about the recent report released by the Anglican Communion in response to, among other things, the election of a gay bishop in New Hampshire last year. This is my initial response to the report, as posted recently to a mailing list of the members of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church USA (the church’s governing and legislative body). More comments will follow at a later date.

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18 October 2004

I would like to make a brief report on the press conference which took place today at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London for the release of the Windsor Report 2004 by the Lambeth Commission on Communion. I will say first that the full text of the report is available here: Windsor Report. Also, a video of the press conference itself is available online here: Episcopal News Service.

I attended the event in order to help the staff of the Anglican Communion Office distribute the Report to the media. I arrived at the entrance to the crypt below the cathedral where the press conference was to take place around 11:00 am, British Standard Time. There were already a number of reporters present waiting to be allowed inside, as well as a few people holding up signs about some of the issues expected to be raised in the report. These people were not protesting but simply expressing various points of view in a calm and civil manner.

As I was helping a woman put together the press packs I discovered that she was the new Press Officer for St. Paul’s Cathedral, and that this was her first day on the job! Around 11:15 am the press began to enter the crypt itself and the small room quickly filled up with over one hundred reporters and camera crews. A few other non-media people were also allowed in to stand at the back and watch the proceedings.

At 12:00 pm the press conference began and Archbishop Robin Eames, Primate of All Ireland and the Chairman of the Commission, was introduced. He spoke for about fifteen minutes summarizing the Report itself and the process by which it had been created over the last year, as well as his hope for its reception and implementation by the member churches of the Anglican Communion. Next, Archbishop Drexel Gomez, Primate of the West Indies and a member of the Commission, made a brief statement expressing similar sentiments.

Both men expressed first and foremost that the Report came unanimously from the commission members, despite there being strong differences of opinion in that group about many matters dealt with in the Report. They also stressed the overwhelming support among the members of the Commission, and in almost all of the materials received by the Commission, for maintaining the integrity of the Anglican Communion. Archbishop Eames then took a few questions from the media, covering issues as diverse as the timeframe for the recommendations in the Report to be implemented to the ecumenical dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church.

As the media filed out we gave them copies of three letters written in reaction to the Report, one by Archbishop Eames, one by Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, and one by Frank Griswold, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA. A number of other groups were also handing out leaflets to the media expressing a variety of points of view about the Report. Some members of the media stayed around for a few minutes looking for people to interview while others rushed off to file their stories, and the rest of us headed home to start reading the report.

I do not want to express any particular sentiments about the report itself at this time as I am still in the process of reading it all the way through. However, on first glance it does seem to me that the commission has spent a great deal of time thinking about the nature and structure of the Anglican Communion, and has come up with a piece of work that can be helpful in a number of different ways for thinking about these issues. This is a document unlike anything ever produced before by our church, and hopefully it can serve as a starting point to help us as to try and discern “the will of God for the Anglican Communion,” as Archbishop Eames puts it in the opening sentence of his foreword to the Report. I am also heartened by his words further on in that same section: “Perhaps the greatest tragedy of our current difficulties is the negative consequence it could have on the mission of the Church to a suffering and bewildered world. Even as the Commission prepared for its final meeting the cries of children in a school in southern Russia reminded us of our real witness and ministry in a world already confronted by poverty, violence, HIV/AIDS, famine and injustice.” Hopefully sentiments like this can eventually prevail and the church will not lose sight of its wider responsibilities in the world.

I’m sure many of you heard on the news yesterday about the recent report released by the Anglican Communion in response to, among other things, the election of a gay bishop in New Hampshire last year. This is my initial response to the report, as posted recently to a mailing list of the members of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church USA (the church’s governing and legislative body). More comments will follow at a later date.

——————–
18 October 2004

I would like to make a brief report on the press conference which took place today at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London for the release of the Windsor Report 2004 by the Lambeth Commission on Communion. I will say first that the full text of the report is available here: Windsor Report. Also, a video of the press conference itself is available online here: Episcopal News Service.

I attended the event in order to help the staff of the Anglican Communion Office distribute the Report to the media. I arrived at the entrance to the crypt below the cathedral where the press conference was to take place around 11:00 am, British Standard Time. There were already a number of reporters present waiting to be allowed inside, as well as a few people holding up signs about some of the issues expected to be raised in the report. These people were not protesting but simply expressing various points of view in a calm and civil manner.

As I was helping a woman put together the press packs I discovered that she was the new Press Officer for St. Paul’s Cathedral, and that this was her first day on the job! Around 11:15 am the press began to enter the crypt itself and the small room quickly filled up with over one hundred reporters and camera crews. A few other non-media people were also allowed in to stand at the back and watch the proceedings.

At 12:00 pm the press conference began and Archbishop Robin Eames, Primate of All Ireland and the Chairman of the Commission, was introduced. He spoke for about fifteen minutes summarizing the Report itself and the process by which it had been created over the last year, as well as his hope for its reception and implementation by the member churches of the Anglican Communion. Next, Archbishop Drexel Gomez, Primate of the West Indies and a member of the Commission, made a brief statement expressing similar sentiments.

Both men expressed first and foremost that the Report came unanimously from the commission members, despite there being strong differences of opinion in that group about many matters dealt with in the Report. They also stressed the overwhelming support among the members of the Commission, and in almost all of the materials received by the Commission, for maintaining the integrity of the Anglican Communion. Archbishop Eames then took a few questions from the media, covering issues as diverse as the timeframe for the recommendations in the Report to be implemented to the ecumenical dialogue between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church.

As the media filed out we gave them copies of three letters written in reaction to the Report, one by Archbishop Eames, one by Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, and one by Frank Griswold, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA. A number of other groups were also handing out leaflets to the media expressing a variety of points of view about the Report. Some members of the media stayed around for a few minutes looking for people to interview while others rushed off to file their stories, and the rest of us headed home to start reading the report.

I do not want to express any particular sentiments about the report itself at this time as I am still in the process of reading it all the way through. However, on first glance it does seem to me that the commission has spent a great deal of time thinking about the nature and structure of the Anglican Communion, and has come up with a piece of work that can be helpful in a number of different ways for thinking about these issues. This is a document unlike anything ever produced before by our church, and hopefully it can serve as a starting point to help us as to try and discern “the will of God for the Anglican Communion,” as Archbishop Eames puts it in the opening sentence of his foreword to the Report. I am also heartened by his words further on in that same section: “Perhaps the greatest tragedy of our current difficulties is the negative consequence it could have on the mission of the Church to a suffering and bewildered world. Even as the Commission prepared for its final meeting the cries of children in a school in southern Russia reminded us of our real witness and ministry in a world already confronted by poverty, violence, HIV/AIDS, famine and injustice.” Hopefully sentiments like this can eventually prevail and the church will not lose sight of its wider responsibilities in the world.