JB,

From your comments in the final paragraph of this post, I assume you see efforts to keep people within TEC as negative? Would you suggest that the parish mentioned in the email completely reject their Bishop's authority and head over to ACNA, which seems to be what their rector hopes to prevent? That is the only alternative being left many of us. It does not help to misrepresent the purpose of the Communion Partners. Those of us who remain in TEC do so who support the Communion Partners often remain in TEC at tremendous cost and are seeking a way to remain that is consistent with our vows and conscience. Further antagonism or refusal to implement the pastoral arraignments proposed by the national church itself will only result in further departures of clergy and laity--not because they want to go, but because they will have been pushed out--and it will confirm the worst caricatures of TEC by those who have already left. This is hardly the work of reconciliation. TEC is on the fast track to becoming a radical sect, and with around 40,000 losses a year through deaths alone, we don't have a bright future ahead if this conflict is not at some point dealt with charitably with a big dose of reality.

Jody Howard

I have posted a longer comment on this at my blog. This "Bishops' Statement" is an absurdity, and contradicts the very notion of what it means to be a catholic church. I'm not sure which is worse, the backhandedness (and the whining and wounded dudgeon at exposure) or the statement itself. Appalling, all 'round.

Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't the following statement from the conclusion of the Bishops' Statement say, in effect, that the much vaunted Instruments of Communion have absolutely no authority or power over dioceses and therefore are not subject to B033, The Windsor Report, the Dar Es Salaam Communique, or any other pronouncement that constitutes hierarchical control? (or do they just mean KJS and the current GC?)

And if that is so, why all the sturm and drang of the last 30 odd years over orthodoxy, women's ordination, Prayer Book revisions, SSB, SSM, Robinson's ordination? I am boggled. . . .

I say let's have those darned autonomous "liberal" Bishops and standing committees and their dioceses go right ahead in the name of justice and Christian love and institute SSB and SSM and LGBT ordinations at will and AC, GC, Covenant be, well, ignored.

We've been given permission and been made to see the light by the most learned, pure, esteemed, holy, Christian, traditional, and orthodox of the Anglican Communion now.

From the Conclusion of the Bishops' Statement on the Polity of the Episcopal Church:

"For this reason, we emphasize that The Episcopal Church consists of autonomous, but interdependent, dioceses not subject to any metropolitical power or hierarchical control. The Ecclesiastical Authorities in our dioceses are the Bishops and Standing Committees; no one else may act in or speak on behalf of the dioceses or of The Episcopal Church within the dioceses."

There are perhaps two responses to this that would be helpful. The first would be a response from the attorney bishops within the House to critique the document. In a way it seems sad to say, "Bishops need to speak to bishops;" but it is precisely the prestige and authority of bishops that the ACI sabateurs want to apply in this case, and so it is with the prestige and authority of bishops that this needs to be met. Line up our scholars, too, to "support;" but let bishops speak to bishops.

The second is for us then to accept that we have lost the war, even if we win the battle. What I mean by this is that all this stress from within and without will ultimately end up with the Episcopal Church of necessity defining itself more than most of us want. Like Judaism in the face of those new Christians, or Christians in the face of Marcion, we will find ourselves losing our flexibility, our open structures, to meet the challenges of those who would mold us in accord with their preferences. We will, I fear, mold ourselves to our preferences, and we will be able to live with the result; but we will find ourselves molded and reshaped nonetheless.

Marshall Scott

Your second point is original and intriguing, Marshall. I had been thinking in a somewhat similar vein, but on a less profound level: I think the Episcopal Church needs to have a serious conversation about the covenant; but these developments coming to light will make that more difficult.