Prior to the meeting of the House of Bishops, the presiding bishop made it known this meeting would be a time of prayer, conversation and reflection. This was not the time to either make decisions or respond to the primates' communique from their meeting in Tanzania. Unfortunately, the majority chose to move ahead with two resolutions and a pastoral letter having far-reaching consequences.

Japan prohibits handguns. Shotguns are strictly regulated, and rifles can be bought only after owning a shotgun for 10 years. Result: only 35 murders and 47 gun suicides in a nation of 127 million.

By contrast, in the U.S. 11,344 were shot and killed, plus 16,750 by suicide. That's 343 times Japan's rate! America's easy availability of guns has made death far more likely. Life expectancy is 82 in Japan vs. 78 here.

Wilberforce and his circle believed that if a sinful system existed and its sinfulness implicated them as well as others, they were under an obligation to end it. There is no simple gulf between personal and public morality; and Christian morality is not about "keeping yourself unspotted from the world" in any sense that implies withdrawing or ignoring public wrongs.

We gather also to drink deeply of the religious streams which have refreshed parched peoples for many generations. We gather together, weeping. Yes, we weep with an agony too deep for words and sighs that are inexpressible. But also we gather affirming the sovereignty of life over death.