Exploring the Connections

House of Bishops response 'to questions and concerns raised by our Anglican Communion partners'

[Episcopal News Service]
House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church
New Orleans, Louisiana
September 25, 2007

A Response to Questions and Concerns Raised by our Anglican Communion Partners:
In accordance with Our Lord's high priestly prayer that we be one, and in the spirit of Resolution A159 of the 75th General Convention, and in obedience to his Great Commission to go into the world and make disciples, and in gratitude for the gift of the Anglican Communion as a sign of the Holy Spirit's ongoing work of reconciliation throughout the world, we offer the following to The Episcopal Church, the Primates, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), and the larger Communion, with the hope of "mending the tear in the fabric" of our common life in Christ.

"I do it all for the sake of the Gospel so that I might share in its blessings."
1 Corinthians 9:23.

Introduction
The House of Bishops expresses sincere and heartfelt thanks to the Archbishop of Canterbury and members of the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates for accepting our invitation to join us in New Orleans. By their presence they have both honored us and assisted us in our discernment. Their presence was a living reminder of the unity that is Christ's promised gift in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Much of our meeting time was spent in continuing discernment of our relationships within the Anglican Communion. We engaged in careful listening and straightforward dialogue with our guests. We expressed our passionate desire to remain in communion. It is our conviction that The Episcopal Church needs the Anglican Communion, and we heard from our guests that the Anglican Communion needs The Episcopal Church.

The House of Bishops offers the following responses to our Anglican Communion partners.  We believe they provide clarity and point toward next steps in an ongoing process of dialogue.  Within The Episcopal Church the common discernment of God's call is a lively partnership among laypersons, bishops, priests, and deacons, and therefore necessarily includes the Presiding Bishop, the Executive Council, and the General Convention.

Summary

• We reconfirm that resolution B033 of General Convention 2006 (The Election Of Bishops) calls upon bishops with jurisdiction and Standing Committees "to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion."
• We pledge as a body not to authorize public rites for the blessing of same-sex unions.
• We commend our Presiding Bishop's plan for episcopal visitors.
• We deplore incursions into our jurisdictions by uninvited bishops and call for them to end.
• We support the Presiding Bishop in seeking communion-wide consultation in a manner that is in accord with our Constitution and Canons.
• We call for increasing implementation of the listening process across the Communion and for a report on its progress to Lambeth 2008.
• We support the Archbishop of Canterbury in his expressed desire to explore ways for the Bishop of New Hampshire to participate in the Lambeth Conference.
• We call for unequivocal and active commitment to the civil rights, safety, and dignity of gay and lesbian persons.

Discussion
Resolution B033 of the 2006 General Convention
The House of Bishops concurs with Resolution EC011 of the Executive Council. This Resolution commends the Report of the Communion Sub-Group of the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates of the Anglican Communion as an accurate evaluation of Resolution B033 of the 2006 General Convention, calling upon bishops with jurisdiction and Standing Committees "to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion."  The House acknowledges that non-celibate gay and lesbian persons are included among those to whom B033 pertains.

Blessing of Same-Sex Unions
We, the members of the House of Bishops, pledge not to authorize for use in our dioceses any public rites of blessing of same-sex unions until a broader consensus emerges in the Communion, or until General Convention takes further action. In the near future we hope to be able to draw upon the benefits of the Communion-wide listening process. In the meantime, it is important to note that no rite of blessing for persons living in same-sex unions has been adopted or approved by our General Convention. In addition to not having authorized liturgies the majority of bishops do not make allowance for the blessing of same-sex unions. We do note that in May 2003 the Primates said we have a pastoral duty "to respond with love and understanding to people of all sexual orientations." They further stated, "…[I]t is necessary to maintain a breadth of private response to situations of individual pastoral care."

Episcopal Visitors
We affirm the Presiding Bishop's plan to appoint episcopal visitors for dioceses that request alternative oversight. Such oversight would be provided by bishops who are a part of and subject to the communal life of this province. We believe this plan is consistent with and analogous to Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight (DEPO) as affirmed by the Windsor Report (paragraph 152). We thank those bishops who have generously offered themselves for this ministry. We hope that dioceses will make use of this plan and that the Presiding Bishop will continue conversation with those dioceses that may feel the need for such ministries. We appreciate and need to hear all voices in The Episcopal Church.

Incursions by Uninvited Bishops
We call for an immediate end to diocesan incursions by uninvited bishops in accordance with the Windsor Report and consistent with the statements of past Lambeth Conferences and the Ecumenical Councils of the Church. Such incursions imperil common prayer and long-established ecclesial principles of our Communion. These principles include respect for local jurisdiction and recognition of the geographical boundaries of dioceses and provinces. As we continue to commit ourselves to honor both the spirit and the content of the Windsor Report, we call upon those provinces and bishops engaging in such incursions likewise to honor the Windsor Report by ending them. We offer assurance that delegated episcopal pastoral care is being provided for those who seek it.

Communion-wide Consultation
In their communique of February 2007, the Primates proposed a "pastoral scheme." At our meeting in March 2007, we expressed our deep concern that this scheme would compromise the authority of our own primate and place the autonomy of The Episcopal Church at risk. The Executive Council reiterated our concerns and declined to participate. Nevertheless we recognize a useful role for communion-wide consultation with respect to the pastoral needs of those seeking alternative oversight, as well as the pastoral needs of gay and lesbian persons in this and other provinces. We encourage our Presiding Bishop to continue to explore such consultation in a manner that is in accord with our Constitution and Canons.

The Listening Process
The 1998 Lambeth Conference called all the provinces of the Anglican Communion to engage in a "listening process" designed to bring gay and lesbian Anglicans fully into the church's conversation about sexuality. We look forward to receiving initial reports about this process at the 2008 Lambeth Conference, and to participating with others in this crucial enterprise. We are aware that in some cultural contexts, conversation concerning homosexuality is difficult. We see an important role for the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in this listening process, since it represents both the lay and ordained members of our constituent churches and so is well placed to engage every part of the body in this conversation. We encourage the ACC to identify the variety of resources needed to accomplish these conversations.

The Lambeth Conference
Invitations to the Lambeth Conference are extended by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Those among us who have received an invitation to attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference look forward to that gathering with hope and expectation. Many of us are engaged in mission partnerships with bishops and dioceses around the world and cherish these relationships. Lambeth offers a wonderful opportunity to build on such partnerships.

We are mindful that the Bishop of New Hampshire has not yet received an invitation to the conference. We also note that the Archbishop of Canterbury has expressed a desire to explore a way for him to participate. We share the Archbishop's desire and encourage our Presiding Bishop to offer our assistance as bishops in this endeavor. It is our fervent hope that a way can be found for his full participation.

Justice and Dignity for Gay and Lesbian Persons
It is of fundamental importance that, as we continue to seek consensus in matters of human sexuality, we also be clear and outspoken in our shared commitment to establish and protect the civil rights of gay and lesbian persons, and to name and oppose at every turn any action or policy that does violence to them, encourages violence towards them, or violates their dignity as children of God. We call all our partners in the Anglican Communion to recommit to this effort. As we stated at the conclusion of our meeting in March 2007: "We proclaim the Gospel of what God has done and is doing in Christ, of the dignity of every human being, and of justice, compassion and peace. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave or free. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God's children, including women, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ's Church. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God's children including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ's Church. We proclaim the Gospel that stands against any violence, including violence done to women and children as well as those who are persecuted because of their differences, often in the name of God."
________________________________
(1) The Communion Sub-Group noted that "the resolution uses the language of 'restraint', and the group noted that there has been considerable discussion since General Convention about the exact force of that word. By requiring that the restraint must be expressed in a particular way--'by not consenting...', however, the resolution is calling for a precise response, which complies with the force of the recommendation of the Windsor Report." The group also noted "that while the Windsor Report restricted its recommendation  to candidates for the episcopate who were living in a same gender union, the resolution at General Convention widened this stricture to apply to a range of lifestyles which present a wider challenge. The group welcomed this widening of the principle, which was also recommended by the Windsor Report, and commend it to the Communion."

Without gay priests Church would be lost claims Bishop Gene

by Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
The Times, July 27, 2007

The openly gay bishop whose ordination sparked the crisis in the Anglican Communion has claimed the Church of England would be close to shutting down if it was forced to manage without its gay clergy.

The Bishop of New Hampshire in the US, the Right Rev Gene Robinson, who is divorced and lives openly in partnership with a gay man, said he found it "mystifying" that the mother church of the Anglican Communion was unable to be honest about the number of gay clergy in its ranks.

He said many of the English church's clergy lived openly in their rectories with gay partners, with the full knowledge of their bishops. But he criticised the stance of bishops who threaten the clergy with emnity [sic] should their relationships become public.

Speaking in an interview in London, Bishop Gene said:

"I have met so many gay partnered clergy here and it is so troubling to hear them tell me that their bishop comes to their house for dinner, knows fully about their relationship, is wonderfully supportive but has also said if this ever becomes public then I’m your worst enemy.

"It’s a terrible way to live your life and I think it’s a terrible way to be a church. I think integrity is so important. What does it mean for a clergy person to be in a pulpit calling the parishioners to a life of integrity when they can’t even live a life of integrity with their own bishop and their own church? So I would feel better about the Church of England’s stance, its reluctance to support The Episcopal Church in what it has done if it would at least admit that this not an American problem and just an American challenge. If all the gay people stayed away from church on a given Sunday the Church of England would be close to shut down between its organists, its clergy, its wardens.....it just seems less than humble not to admit that."

Read the complete article here

Archbishop warns Anglican Conservatives

by Jonathan Petre
The Daily Telegraph, July 23, 2007

The Archbishop of York has warned conservative Anglican leaders that they will effectively expel themselves from the worldwide Church if they boycott next year's Lambeth Conference.

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, Dr John Sentamu pleaded with them to attend the conference despite their war with liberals over homosexuality.

But he told them that if they "voted with their feet" they risked severing their links with the Archbishop of Canterbury and with historic Anglicanism, a breach that could take centuries to heal.

"Anglicanism has its roots through Canterbury," he said. "If you sever that link you are severing yourself from the Communion. There is no doubt about it."

The archbishop's outspoken comments will dismay conservatives, who blame the liberals for bringing the Church to the brink of schism by consecrating Anglicanism's first openly gay bishop in 2003.

A handful of archbishops and hundreds of bishops from Africa and Asia, representing well over a third of the 70 million strong worldwide Church, are threatening to boycott the Lambeth Conference, the 10-yearly gathering of all Anglican bishops in Canterbury. They are angry that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has invited liberal American bishops.

Conservative leaders are now planning an alternative summit, which would destroy Dr Williams's efforts to hold the factions together.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Dr Sentamu told the conservatives that there could not be a meaningful alternative to the official conference.

He said that the primates - the archbishops and senior bishops who head the 38 self-governing provinces that make up the Anglican Communion - had always seen the Archbishop of Canterbury as "a primate among equals but nonetheless as primus inter pares [first among equals]".

"If that goes and they think they can then say they are Anglicans, that is very questionable," he said. "Whatever you set up, I don't think it could ever be called the Anglican Communion.

"So I am hoping that my brothers and sisters, whatever they are trying to set out, will come to the Lambeth Conference."

Dr Sentamu, a close ally of Dr Williams, said that as long as Anglican bishops did not deny the basic Christian doctrines they should all be able to remain within the same Church.

While liberal north Americans disagreed with conservatives over sexual ethics, these were not core issues, he said.

If the conservatives boycotted Lambeth "they would be the ones voting with their feet and saying, as far as we are concerned, we are the true Anglicans".

He added: "Whenever we break there is a lot of pain and the healing of it is very difficult. I want to warn people, don't spend the next century trying to find a way back."

But he also warned the American bishops that Dr Williams reserved the right to withdraw their invitations if they were not prepared to engage in the decision-making processes of the Communion in the future.

Read the complete article here

Talk about life, not church politics

by Giles Fraser
Church Times, July 13, 2007

 Reading Alastair Campbell’s diaries on the train back from another depressing General Synod made me wake up to the similarity between old Labour and the leadership of the Church of England: both are more concerned to please their own activists than to reach out to the country as a whole.

The reason why people like Messrs Campbell, Blair, and Mandelson will always be my political heroes is that they took a basket-case of a party, with zero chance of government, and turned it into an outfit that wrestled with the real problems that ordinary people thought important.

The New Labour project began by challenging the self-righteousness of its own party activists that kept them wedded to outdated statements of belief, such as clause four. We, too, are held back by self-righteous party activists, who are more concerned to transform church polity than to transform our mission.

The reality is that millions of people couldn’t care less what we say or think. They don’t care about covenants or gay vicars: they want the Church to speak about life and death, about love and grace, about justice and hope. And because we are not speaking about it, they will go elsewhere. Tragically, General Synod is as mission-shaped as a chocolate teapot.

My friend Stephen Bates, the religious-affairs correspondent of The Guardian is leaving his religious watch to be assigned new tasks on the paper. It was his last Synod, and he left with an overwhelming sense of relief. Steve Doughty of the Daily Mail used to go to Synod. He doesn’t see the point any more. Increasingly, the news desks of national newspapers don’t care what we say or do.

What would be funny — if it was not so sad — is that many Synod types act as though it is the centre of the universe, as if changing things at Synod actually changed anything real at all. But the truth is that people are increasingly no longer interested. In these circumstances, the only news stories that are going to make the headlines are those generated by the Bishop of Carlisle’s fascination with the weather, and such like.

I can no longer stand to stay on campus during Synod. The “Church” on the York campus feels like a sealed box, impervious to the outside world. It lacks the oxygen of reality. This is why it will not be long before we are no longer the national Church. We circulate reports that nobody reads, and pass resolutions that nobody cares about. Jesus came to bring us life in all its fullness. He certainly did not come to bring us this.

he Revd Dr Giles Fraser is Team Rector of Putney.

Covenant proposals and extra-Provincial Bishops

Press realease
Inclusive Church, July 5, 2007

Covenant as proposed and creation of extra-Provincial bishops at variance from spirit of Anglican engagement

The growing number of bishops created by African provinces for "pastoral oversight” in North America (and potentially in other provinces), the attempts to create a Covenant that defines Anglican doctrine and ethics, and the apparent intention to organise an alternative to the Lambeth Conference in London next year all point towards one thing. The strategy to destabilise the Anglican Communion is moving into another phase.

The creation by the provinces of Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria of extra-provincial Bishops is against the expressed wish of the Windsor Report and the post Lambeth '98 process of listening and reconciliation. It is more evidence that the Primates of those provinces and their supporters in the US and Britain profoundly misunderstand the nature of the Communion. We very much regret that the Chair of the Covenant Design Group, the Archbishop of the West Indies, has welcomed these appointments.

Inclusive Church's aim is to support and celebrate the traditional breadth and generosity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it has been received and passed on through Anglican history and lived out in the Communion. This creates challenges when there are fundamental disagreements. But the way to respond to disagreements is not to walk apart, nor to create separate structures, nor to seek to impose one particular point of view on the Communion. It is to engage, to communicate, to speak, to listen and to learn.

Clearly there are outstanding issues over how the Communion should respond to the reality that many Provinces include lesbian and gay Christians who live with partners in loving, faithful relationships. But the extraordinary way in which this issue has been allowed to dominate the life of the Communion over the past ten years is not coincidence.

There can be little doubt that the issue is being used by some, mainly conservative, Christians as a lever to try to change the Communion into something it is not; from a conciliar church into a confessional one. From a praxis-based Communion where the bonds between us are the bonds of fellowship and love to a codified Communion where exclusions are legally determined and legally enforced, and where the Communion defines itself not by who it includes but by who it excludes.

The Covenant process has been moved, by this group, away from its original intention which was to affirm the bonds of fellowship which exist. The way in which the draft was received by some at the Primates meeting in Tanzania is indication that, whatever the intention, it will be used to enforce a particular interpretation of the Scriptures to the detriment of the life of the Communion. We do not need a Curia, and the process of drafting a Covenant is already giving more power to the Primates than is justified by our history, by our life and by some of their actions to date.

Hard cases make bad laws. We wish to see, urgently, greater understanding between provinces, and we can see the value of a Covenant which enables this to happen . But the proposed draft before us is likely to be an instrument of further division, not unification. Some of our structures may need reform - but it is already clear that this Covenant process is unlikely to help.

The suggestion of an alternative "not the Lambeth Conference” is, simply, sad. Those who suggest it are walking away from the possibility of dialogue. The suggestion has little to do with dealing with our post-imperial past, and little to do with ensuring that particular voices are heard. It has a great deal to do with power; and with the location of power in the Communion.

We call on those supporting these actions to recognise that there is more than one answer to the questions which face us. Resolution will be achieved only through mutual respect and communication, and an acknowledgement that different views are sincerely held by faithful and loyal members of the Communion.

Inclusive Church is deeply committed to continuing the debate over these questions.

The Anglican Communion has faced problems before and moved through them. With God's help, we will again.

Giles Goddard

Chair, Inclusve Church

Cuba's First Woman Episcopal Bishop Ordained

padre mickey's dance party, June 10, 2007

The Episcopal Church broke new ground
in Cuba on Sunday by ordaining its first
woman bishop.

The Episcopal Church broke new ground in Cuba on Sunday by ordaining its first woman bishop in the developing world at a ceremony that mixed incense with rhythmic Caribbean music.

The Rev. Nerva Cot said she will bring a feminine touch to leadership of her church's small but growing congregation in communist Cuba, where religious worship was freed a decade ago.

A dozen bishops from North, Central and South America and Europe attended the consecration of Cot and Ulises Aguero as suffragan, or auxiliary, bishops at Havana's Episcopal Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. The Cuban church is part of the Worldwide Anglican Communion.

"This is an important date for the Anglican Communion because there are so few women bishops among us, only 11," said Canada's Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, who headed the ceremony.

"There is a vitality and a deep enthusiasm in Cuba that is an important gift to a church that has too often been very conservative," Hutchison told reporters.

Christian Cubans are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, and the Episcopal Church has only 5,000 baptized followers in the country.

Cot, who favors allowing gays to become priests, said she hopes her role will encourage other Latin American countries to broaden diversity in the Episcopal Church.

Gays "are children of God too. We should respect them and consider them," Cot said.

The Worldwide Anglican Communion has been deeply divided since 2003 when the U.S. Episcopal Church, its 2.4 million-member U.S. branch, consecrated the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican church history.

Government Official Attends

In a sign of religious tolerance in Cuba, the ruling Communist Party was represented at Sunday's ceremony in the front row pew by its official in charge of religious affairs, Caridad Diego.

Cuba changed its constitution and officially ceased to be an atheist state in 1992, allowing religious worship even among members of the Communist Party.

The Episcopal faith was brought to Cuba by American missionaries in the 19th century. Cuba was a diocese of the U.S. church until 1967, when hostility between the Cuban and U.S. governments caused a break, and is now affiliated with Canada's Anglican Church.

Cot, 69, joined a seminary in the town of Matanzas at the age of 18 thinking she would become a missionary.

Now as auxiliary bishop for the western half of Cuba, she says being a woman will help her in reconciling Cuba after a "period of polarization" when religious faith was persecuted.

Remember that manners makyth man

by Giles Fraser
Church Times, June 8, 2007

I have always felt a degree of ambivalence towards the whole idea of having good manners. I once outraged my mother by suggesting that manners were something posh people invented as a substitute for morality.

Forget the invasion of Iraq. Forget the fact that some people are struggling to bring up children on peanuts. What matters is how you hold your knife and fork, and that you write your thank-you letters quickly. It is telling that the Sitz im Leben of manners seems to be the dinner party. It makes the very idea of manners feel as relevant to the big issues of the day as prawn cocktail and Black Forest gateau.

So when the so-called Respect Tsar, Louise Casey, recently called for a campaign to bring back good manners, I wasn’t sure I would be rallying to her cause. We need morality, not manners. However, despite the fact that Ms Casey could sound like a buttoned-up colonial governess when she speaks of the need “to uphold certain standards of decency”, there is no doubting that her heart is in the right place.

It is clear that in seeking to eliminate a culture of deference, we have opened the door to all manner of oafish behaviour. Yes, I am in touch with my inner Daily Mail.

What is needed today is a reformation of manners, a concerted effort to re-think our p’s and q’s, so that they are founded on respect for others rather than on a self-interested expression of social class.

As the wise and kindly Henry Higgins put it in Pygmalion: “The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.”

At their best, manners are the training and practice of loving your neighbour as yourself. They take this fundamental principle, and cut it up into millions of minute social interactions: “Please,” “Thank you,” “Would you like this seat?” “Is my music too loud?” and so on.

The late, great Archbishop Trevor Huddleston once famously raised his hat to a black cleaning lady in South Africa. That lady was Mrs Tutu, and this small act of good manners was to have a profound effect on her eight-year-old son, Desmond. In it, he saw a gracious acknowledgement of shared humanity. It had nothing to do with a culture of deference. In South Africa under apartheid, it was a small act of revolution, hinting at a much larger one to come.

The Revd Dr Giles Fraser is Team Rector of Putney.

At last, bishops who value diversity

Church Times (U.K.), Editorial, June 8, 2007

IT IS with a degree of shame that we acknowledge the statement from the bishops in Central and South America who met in Costa Rica at the end of last month. After all, a declaration by a group of Anglican bishops which talks of “the plurality and diversity that are universal characteristics of Anglicanism” was once an obvious candidate for the news editor’s spike. Times have changed, however. Now it is a relief to report determined, if somewhat fluffy, pronouncements about the Anglican Communion and its “participative nature, diverse, ample, and inclusive”. The Bishops support the view, often rehearsed in this paper, that plurality and diversity are a “rich source of growth” rather than a cause of dissension.

The present debate in the Communion has been undermined by unsubstantiated claims about who represents whom. Individual dioceses and provinces have their own structures of decision-making and accountability. The Church of England’s understanding of episcopacy — that bishops operate in synods or councils together with representatives of the clergy and laity — is replicated in one form or another across the provinces. The rise of the Primates’ Meeting has disturbed this balance, and its coincidence with — some would say, contribution to — the disunity in the Communion leaves many ordinary Anglicans unconvinced that the innovation is to be welcomed.

The expectation behind episcopacy is that the Church is governed by individuals with theological understanding and a particular charism to keep the flock together. In the same way as MPs are supposed to represent all their constituents, regardless whether they share any political views, bishops are called to mediate for and between Christians of all flavours. The Costa Rica statement is a pleasant reminder that this has not been entirely forgotten.

Keeping the Faith

Interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury
Time Magazine (European Edition), June 7, 2007

A LONELY PATH
Williams, pictured at St. Paul's
Cathedral,has endured
criticism from all sides

TIME: Many in the Anglican Communion feel it's hurtling toward schism, with you trying in vain to hold it together.
Williams: I don't think schism is inevitable. The task I've got is to try and maintain as long as possible the space in which people can have constructive disagreements, learn from each other, and try and hold that within an agreed framework of discipline and practice. It feels very vulnerable. I can't, of course, deny that. It feels very vulnerable and very fragile, perhaps more so than it's been for a very long time.

You've issued invitations for next summer's once-a-decade Lambeth Conference, but left out Gene Robinson, the gay Episcopalian bishop of New Hampshire, and Martyn Minns, from the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. So you've excluded an emblematic liberal and an emblematic conservative.
Of course, exclusion is not particularly a Gospel idea. The election and ordination of Gene Robinson was an event which many in the Communion had warned would deepen our divisions. Similarly, with Martyn Minns, there had been warnings that [his missionary assignment in the U.S.] looked like a kind of aggression against another Anglican province. I felt we would run the risk of their attendance becoming the subject matter of the conference.

Surely as bishops they are entitled to attend?
The mode of their appointment in the face of substantial protest simply means their bishoping is going to be under question in large parts of the Anglican world. Regarding Robinson, one thing I've tried to make clear is that my worry about his election was that the Episcopal Church hadn't made a general principled decision about the blessing of same-sex unions or the ordination of people in public same-sex partnerships. I would think it better had the church actually taken a view on that before moving to the individual case. As it is, someone living in a relationship not theologically officially approved by the church is elected to a bishop — I find that bizarre and puzzling.

The Anglican primates met in Dar es Salaam in February and made three key recommendations to the American bishops: that they stop ordaining gay bishops and blessing gay unions and that they create a special bishop to serve the needs of conservatives. What happens if they refuse?
An absolute blanket no to all of this would pose a real problem. We've had indications of a cautious yes to part of it.

The Episcopal Church reacted angrily to the communiqué.
It was seen as interference and colonialism. I was a bit taken aback because I didn't see it as the primates trying to dictate terms, but to say, look, here is a scheme which we think you could work with. But I've occasionally thought — rather mischievously — that the issue could be described [to the Americans] in terms of a good American slogan: No taxation without representation. That is, in some parts of the world, the decisions of the Episcopal Church are [incorrectly] taken to be decisions that the local Anglican Church owns and agrees to, and the local church can suffer in reputation or worse because of that.

Can you give us an example?
In Egypt there have been denunciations of all Christian churches from the Friday pulpits for sanctioning same-sex relationships.

Isn't the Scripture straightforward on homosexuality?
It's impossible to get from Scripture anything straightforwardly positive about same-sex relationships. So if there were any other way of approaching it, you'd have to go back to the first principle of human relationships. Those theologians who've defended same-sex relationships from the Christian point of view in recent decades have said you've got to look at whether a same-sex relationship is capable of something at the level of neutral self-giving that a marriage ought to exemplify. And then ask, is that what Scripture is talking about? That's the area of dispute.

You yourself once thought it possible that same-sex relationships might be legitimate in God's eyes.
Yes, I argued that in 1987. I still think that the points I made there and the questions I raised were worth making as part of the ongoing discussion. I'm not recanting. But those were ideas put forward as part of a theological discussion. I'm now in a position where I'm bound to say the teaching of the Church is this, the consensus is this. We have not changed our minds corporately. It's not for me to exploit my position to push a change.

One gay activist said bitterly that he hoped you liked your newfound friends, but it strikes me that you don't have many. Your position seems very sad and lonely.
It feels burdensome, of course. And making decisions that will lose you friends, compromise people's perception of your integrity — that's very hard. On the other hand, that is only a part of the reality. First and foremost, I'm a priest and a bishop, and what I have to do is to celebrate sacraments, to pray, to try to convey the reality of God. I don't spend all my days in self-pity.

Do you see it as the taking up of a cross?
Well, of course. And anybody who expects to go through a Christian life without a cross is deluding themselves.

Last month, you signed onto a report by the Church of England citing a litany of errors in the War in Iraq. Why?
We proclaimed we were going into Iraq with the intention of creating a democracy, forgetting that democracies happen when certain conditions allow them to.

And you thought Britain was too subservient to the U.S.?
I was deeply saddened by the apparently uncritical way in which our government accepted the case for going around the U.N.

One of the things you also said was that perhaps if Blair and Bush had prayed together, they might have come to a different conclusion?
I believe good religion is good for people because it teaches you to be repentant, to believe your actions are always fallible and resting on mixed motives, that you need grace and mercy. Bad religion tries to persuade you that God is invariably and automatically on your side.

The Western world is struggling to come to terms with Islam. Where should we start?
We — Christians, Westerners, whatever — perceive the Muslim world as large, aggressive, successful, expanding. Muslims in the U.K. see themselves as small, vulnerable, under attack, suspected by everybody. When you have something like the Mohammed cartoons in the Danish papers, ask yourself what it feels like if you're a member of an economically depressed, rather isolated Muslim community, in a majority non-Muslim environment.

When you return from study leave, you'll focus once more on the problems within Anglicanism. Some people have already decided to stay away from the Lambeth Conference and possibly begin a process of division.
I don't particularly want to be — I wouldn't say blackmailed but pressured by either extreme on this. I think they'd lose by not coming. I think they need to talk to each other and listen to each other without prejudice.

Are you optimistic?
I'm hopeful. Not optimistic.

"Hopeful" is a safer word?
It's a safer word.

No clinging to the old ragged cloth

by Giles Fraser, Church Times, May 25, 2007

ASCENSIONTIDE is the period of the Church’s year when we, like the disciples, are called to grow up. Jesus returns to the Father and we are left without him.

Clearly, the disciples felt the post-ascension world to be a scarier and less certain place. Where would they find direction and comfort from now on? The comforter is, of course, another name for the Holy Spirit, whose presence has not yet been felt by the disciples. It is also another name for my son’s transitional object, or, in his words, his “noo-noo”.

The whole idea of transitional objects comes from the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott. Winnicott’s work is focused on the process by which a child disengages from its mother. At birth, a child is unable to distinguish itself as being a separate thing from the mother. After all, it’s only just come from the womb, where it was one with the mother.

The painful process of separation begins when the child starts to recognise that mother sometimes goes away and that its needs are not always met on demand. It’s the beginnings of coming to know a reality that is separate from you. It’s the beginnings of growing up.

Many children have, as comforters blankets, cuddly toys, or noo-noos that stand in for the mother in her absence. As confidence grows in the permanence of the mother’s love — a love that continues even when she is absent — the child learns to trust that love without the need for transitional objects.

The resurrected Jesus, in the period before his ascension, says to Mary: “Do not cling to me.” Yet the Church still continues to cling to its transitional objects. They take many forms. Some, for example, carry around big floppy Bibles wherever they go. It’s not at all unlike my son and his noo-noo. Others obsess about the exactitude of sacramental performance in ways that make the sacraments look very much like transitional objects.

There is real similarity here to the way in which no other square of material will do for my son, it just has to be this exact one. The immediate and panicky reaction you get from many Christians if you threaten their comforters is generated deep in the psyche. It’s like my son Felix when he cannot find his muslin sheet.

But he will grow up. He will trust that he is loved, and the need for the noo-noo will drop away. As Christians, we ought to do the same. Much of the in-fighting in the Church is between spiritual infants who find that their transitional objects are being threatened.

Jesus calls on us not to cling on; only then can our relationship with him become fully mature. What is required is to know that we are all truly and fully loved. And that, at Pentecost, God sends the only comforter we ever need.

The Revd Dr Giles Fraser is Team Rector of Putney, and lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford.