The consultation includes two Primates of the Anglican Communion -- Archbishop Martin de Jesus Barahona of Central America and Archbishop Carlos Touche-Porter of Mexico, who was unable to attend due to illness; 12 bishops from the Episcopal Church, including 10 diocesan bishops or bishops-elect; four members of the Church's Executive Council; numerous General Convention deputies, and representatives of groups such as Integrity USA, Claiming the Blessing and Inclusive Church.

It was a bold in-your-face consultation that highlights the deep polarity that now exists within The Episcopal Church, indeed throughout the whole Anglican Communion.

The consultation unapologetically argued that homosexual behavior is no longer unacceptable to God and that anyone who opposes the behavior is a homophobe who has no place in the [Anglican] branch of the communion.

Meeting at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, the 50-member group known as the Chicago Consultation, urged leaders of the Episcopal Church to permit the blessing of same-gender relationships and to remove barriers that keep gay candidates from being elected as bishops. That, in a nutshell, was their agenda. The main thrust of the consultation was to find "strategies of inclusion" which means, if necessary, the continual marginalizing of orthodox Episcopalians and Anglicans who don't share their views of homoerotic activity.

The Consultation also called on the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to invite New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson as a full participant to the 2008 Lambeth Conference. Robinson, a member of the Consultation, is the only diocesan bishop in the Anglican Communion living openly in a same-sex relationship. (The Episcopal Church has several other homosexual bishops who are not willing to come out publicly about their own personal same-sex attractions.)

To help realize this agenda, this much aggrieved group pulled in a heavy-weight theologian from England in the person of the Rev. Canon Marilyn McCord Adams, Regius Professor of Divinity at Christ Church, Oxford University. Her main point was that homophobia (personal and institutional) is a sin whose end time is now.

"When it comes to social and political arrangements, our institutions will always be riddled with systemic evils. Because it proves so difficult to uproot any one of them, because we can't dig out all of them at once, we are everywhere-and-always tempted to status-quo acquiescence. Our calling is to the exact opposite: to discern which ones are ripe for uprooting and to take the lead eradicating them, beginning in the garden behind our own house!" she said.

"Some people call it the gay agenda, but we call it the Gospel Agenda," the Rev. Bonnie Perry, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church, Chicago, co-convener of the Consultation. "We are asking our church and our communion to see what God has created and know that it is good." Really.

"We wanted to affirm Gene," said Diocese of Washington Bishop John Bryson Chane in the release, "but we also wanted to affirm all of the anonymous gay and lesbian Christians who have graced the church with their God-given gifts -- even when the church has been unwilling to receive them."

Human institutions are riddled with systemic evils, said Adams. "Our calling is to discern which ones are ripe for uprooting and to take the lead in eradicating them, beginning in the garden behind our own house."

Of course it was not in the least bit surprising that this illustrious group of leaders, while developing what they dubbed a "strategy of inclusion," also voiced opposition to the current draft of a proposed Anglican covenant. Such a covenant, if universally agreed upon, would become the standard for the Anglican Communion and would provide a uniform statement for the majority of Anglicans worldwide. It would not include pansexual options for North Americans, hence its unacceptability. A number of orthodox Anglicans have also expressed skepticism about a universal covenant embracing all.

Professor Adams' paper provides us with the latest in post-modern pansexual theological thought. It is a potpourri of post-pubescent outpourings, tough rhetoric and an uncompromising stand that brooks no opposition to the full and complete acceptance of homogenital sexual expression.

Here are the consultation's conclusions:

* To develop strategies to advance the cause of full inclusion (of homosexuals) at the Lambeth Conference in 2008.

* To develop strategies to advance the full inclusion (of homosexuals) at the Episcopal Church's General Convention in Anaheim, California, in 2009.

* To build international coalitions to work against what the Rev. Mpho Tutu, executive director of the Tutu Institute for Prayer and Pilgrimage in Alexandria, Virginia, called "interlocking oppressions."

* To [Identify] a web of economic, political and social factors that determine who has access to power, resources and social approval, and who does not.

* To publish several of the papers it received on the website Episcopal Cafe;

* To establish its own website;

* To hire a part-time coordinator; and

* To support working groups on communications, fundraising and organizational strategy, as well as a group to identify and produce theological resources.

It is clear from this consultation that further talk of compromise with orthodox Anglicans is over. It is off the table.

This flies totally in the face of the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent Advent letter in which he wrote, "I propose two different but related courses of action during the months ahead. I wish to pursue some professionally facilitated conversations between the leadership of The Episcopal Church and those with whom they are most in dispute, internally and externally, to see if we can generate any better level of mutual understanding. I also intend to convene a small group of primates and others, whose task will be, in close collaboration with the primates, the Joint Standing Committee, the Covenant Design Group and the Lambeth Conference Design Group, to work on the unanswered questions arising from the inconclusive evaluation of the primates to New Orleans and to take certain issues forward to Lambeth."

The Chicago Consultation, which includes overseas Primates, has no wish to enter into "professionally facilitated conversations." They are saying it is over for further discussion. Such "conversations", should they take place, should have one conclusion - full and total inclusion of homosexuals to all levels of the church.

Global South archbishops and bishops need to know this, and they need to know that Gene Robinson will attend Lambeth, with his new "bride" in the course of their honeymoon, to offer seminars on sodomite inclusion.

Orthodox Archbishops who have not bowed the knee to Mrs. Katharine Jefferts Schori will find cold comfort in any talks facilitated by people who have an agenda to change the received teaching of the church on sexual ethics. The Anglican Consultative Council is firmly in TEC's court and their leaders will brook no opposition from the Global South.

It is time for Archbishop Peter Akinola and his friends, who include Archbishops Orombi, Nzimbi, Kolini, Venables, Chew, Gomez, Malango et al assisted by such archbishops as Peter Jensen and hundreds of Network, Common Cause bishops and CAPA bishops, to step up to the plate and say they are done talking. More than enough primatial time and money has been spent over the years, bringing no resolution to this issue.

It is time to say "enough already" and move onto a separate Anglican Communion which, while not free of sin, will, at the very least not endorse it to the peril of peoples' souls.

END