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By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent, The London Times The Episcopal Church in the United States faces exclusion from the worldwide Anglican communion as punishment for ordaining a gay bishop, The Times has learnt. The draconian disciplinary measure is expected to be recommended by a commission set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to resolve the crisis over homosexuality. The suspension of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America, known as ECUSA, from the 75-million strong Anglican Church is expected to be recommended at the final meeting of the Lambeth Commission in Windsor next week. It comes after an outcry by evangelicals and Anglican churches in Africa at the ordination of a divorced gay father of two, the Right Rev Gene Robinson, as Bishop of New Hampshire. The commission's findings, which will not be published officially until October, will cause widespread dismay among liberals and Anglican-Catholics in the West, who will regard it as a sign of capitulation to the conservative evangelical lobby. But the alternative, an Anglican fudge, would alienate further the fast-growing churches in Africa and Asia, the Global South, leading inevitably to schism. A senior source last night told The Times: "This will not be a fudge. This report will have teeth." The exclusion of the American Church would not necessarily be permanent but would last until the province, which is financially powerful but numerically weak, "repented" of its actions in the election of Bishop Robinson, who lives with his male partner. It would be allowed back in when Bishop Robinson retired, or in the unlikely event that he was removed from his post, as long as ECUSA did not consecrate any more similar bishops, or commit the other "sin" of sanctioning rites for the blessings of gay unions. The Anglican Church in Canada, where the diocese of New Westminster has authorised the Church's first same-sex blessings rite, is also likely to face disciplinary action, although not as severe as America. The General Synod in Canada agreed this summer to hold off on universal sanction of same-sex blessings. But if the Canadian Church were to pursue this, it too could find itself in the exclusion zone. The disciplinary measures are expected to be made possible as part of a "radical" restructuring of the Anglican Church in response to the crisis over gays. The Church of England was pulled back from the brink last year when Dr Williams persuaded Dr Jeffrey John to stand down as Bishop of Reading for the sake of church unity. Dr John was subsequently made Dean of St Albans. The commission, chaired by Dr Robin Eames, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, is made up of representatives of both the conservative, liberal and catholic wings of the Anglican Church from both the West and the Global South. There is certain to be a bitter fight between the different factions before any recommendations are enacted. America is financially powerful and the commission's recommendations must go first to the primates next February and then to the Anglican Consultative Council, the representative body of the Anglican Communion, before they can be enforced. Sources at the highest level of the Church are understood to consider the whole situation a disaster for the lesbian and gay community in particular. But disciplinary action against America is thought to be the only way to preserve what little unity remains of the Anglican Church. Already, some church leaders and provinces have declared themselves "out of communion" with America and Canada. The Nigerian Church is "planting" or founding new evangelical Anglican churches in America in response to the crisis, and bishops in Uganda have taken three parishes in America into their "care". The restructuring is the most radical of a number of options that have been considered by the commission. Another way forward would have been to persuade all provinces to agree a joint code of canon law, but it would have taken many years for all the separate synods to agree. This would also have turned the Anglican Communion into a pale shadow of the Roman Catholic Church, with the Archbishop of Canterbury an Anglican pope in all but name. Instead, it is expected that the Anglican Communion will be reformed into a federation similar to that of the worldwide Lutheran Church. — END —

By Izama Angelo & Rosebell Kagumire, The Monitor Sept. 1, 2004, KAMPALA The Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Luke Orombi, has said the Anglican community will not turn away dissident churches who wish to abandon the Episcopal Church of America for supporting gay marriages. In an interview with The Monitor at All Saints Church yesterday, Orombi said the US churches were in distress and were reaching out for help from the conservative, anti-gay Anglican world, to which Uganda belongs. Three US parishes last week defected from their community in Los Angeles to Luweero Diocese headed by the Rt. Rev. Evans Kisseka, when their Bishop, Jon Bruno, pledged support for homosexual unions. "It is a distress call from those parishes which did not support homosexuality. They were literally desperate. It's like when someone's house catches fire and they are screaming for help, you just can't turn away. We are not asking for administrative jurisdiction. Those breakaway parishes need our fellowship," Orombi said, adding that Uganda had been approached for help and not the other way round. His comments come after the head of ECUSA, Bishop Frank Griswold, asked Uganda to back off from the row that has split the Los Angeles community. However, Orombi said the American Episcopal Church's support to gays had betrayed the position of the global Anglican community during the Lambeth Conference in 1998 when 800 bishops voted against the practice of homosexuality. "We all agreed to keep the traditional view of marriage. Afterwards they went ahead to approve the election of a gay bishop, Gene Robinson," Orombi said. Asked about financial cooperation between the Church of Uganda and US churches, Orombi said some Orthodox parishes were still willing to provide Uganda help. "We, however, feel we can look to Uganda to raise enough resources for aid and to do God's work," he added. He said homosexuality, which has become a global controversy, is similar to polygamy, which, though is still practiced, was rejected by the Anglican community. He wondered why the Americans were reluctant to accept the Anglican position on homosexuality. "Our view is that homosexuality is a moral issue and a sin. The Americans do not see it like that. I was with the President yesterday and he said HIV/Aids is not only a medical problem, but also a moral one. We can defeat homosexuality just like Aids," he added. Earlier, Bishop Evans Kisekka, who now oversees the US parishes of Newport Beach, Long Beach and North Hollywood, said the American position would be challenged spiritually, even though lawyers for the Los Angeles Bishop gave a deadline this week for the dissident churches to hand over church property. — END —

By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent, The London Times The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, yesterday described his sense of failure at "not living up to people's expectations" since he moved from Wales nearly two years ago. He also criticised the different factions in the Church of England who have been warring over homosexuality, describing the fighting parties as "the enemy" because, he said, "that's what it feels like." Dr Williams allowed churchgoers a rare glimpse into his anger and frustration at the way different interest groups have attempted to capture the moral high ground over gay debate during a question and answer session at the Greenbelt Christian arts festivals at Cheltenham racecourse. The Archbishop, who has been dismayed by the vitriol of the email correspondence being generated, said the debate lacked grace and patience and called for a theology of email to be worked out. In acknowledging the disappointment felt by some since his appointment, he was talking generally. He has said before that, as a bishop, he had to learn how to disappoint people. But it is widely acknowledged that the main area many people, especially the liberal Catholic wing from which he himself emerged, feel let down was in his capitulation to the evangelical lobby over the appointment of Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading. Dr John, a fellow speaker at the Greenbelt festival, is a celibate gay who was persuaded by Dr Williams to stand down from the Reading appointment because of evangelical protests and fears over church unity. He has subsequently been appointed Dean of St Albans. Dr Williams was being interviewed by Martin Wroe, an ordinand or trainee priest in North London, in front of an audience of 1500. Asked what was the most depressing thing about being Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Williams said: "There is the dispiriting fact, to be honest, of not living up to people's expectations. We know we never can." He said this was a personal reflection but admitted: "It impacts on the institution." Among the most dispiriting aspects of the job was the tone in which debate was conducted. "It is not so much that we have disagreement in the Church - that happens. It is more to do with the way those disagreements are conducted." Referring to "the dismissiveness, the rawness of anger" he said: "Somebody some day ought to write a thesis on the spirituality of email because that has something to do with all this. That is what most dispirits me." Dr Williams continued: "While we may disagree, we have need to learn how to do it with a bit more grace." The Archbishop then went on to refer directly to the debate over homosexuality, which culminates this October with the report of his commission into the crisis. He said: "On both sides of the debate as it evolved, quite a lot of people had to learn that the Church of England wasn't just them because what I heard a lot of, on both sides of the controversy, was 'we thought the Church of England was us and people like us and maybe one or two others who don't matter very much'. "And I was intrigued by the mirror imaging that went on there. There was a sense on both sides, therefore, of shock and dispossession. It's not full of faithful evangelicals, it's not full of enlightened liberals. Now have we digested that yet, and what do we do with it when we have. I am not sure I know but that is the kind of work that remains." He added: "Very very quickly pressure groups can form and settle and decide where they stand and invest in where they stand. We haven't had an effective forum in which that process can be slowed, not just for the sake of putting things off but for the sake of mutual understanding. We haven't found that forum yet. It is not the General Synod, it is certainly not the trading of websites. Where is it? Perhaps where it is or should be is much more at the local rather than the national level." Dr Williams was also asked about Christian Muslim relations and in particular whether Muslims can go to Heaven. He said: "Yes, in so far as neither I nor any other Christian controls access to Heaven. It is possible for God's spirit to cross boundaries. I say this as someone who is quite happy to say that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and no-one comes to the father except by Jesus. But how God leads people through Jesus to heaven - that can be quite varied I think." — END —

By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent, The Telegraph 8/30/2004 The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, yesterday vented his frustrations with the Church factions warring over homosexuality and also reminded Christians that they did not have a monopoly on the afterlife. In a rare glimpse of his anger over the row that has overshadowed his first two years at Canterbury, Dr Williams said the debate had lacked grace and patience. He said that this had been aggravated by pressure groups with entrenched positions who posted instant reactions to events on their websites. The Archbishop also admitted to failing to live up to people's expectations, a reference to the disappointment many felt that he had not been more radical over his opposition to the war in Iraq. He surprised some at the three-day Greenbelt festival in Cheltenham, Glos, by declaring that Muslims can go to heaven. Dr Williams said that neither he nor any Christian could control access to heaven. "It is possible for God's spirit to cross boundaries," he said. "I say this as someone who is quite happy to say that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except by Jesus. But how God leads people through Jesus to heaven, that can be quite varied, I think." During a wide-ranging discussion, Dr Williams reflected his disappointment at the tone of the debate on homosexuality, and his dismay at the vitriol of many of the e-mails he had received. "It is not so much that we have disagreement in the Church - that happens," he said. "It is more to do with how those disagreements are conducted. The dismissiveness, the rawness of the anger . . . need to be worked with." Speaking about the furore that followed the appointment of the gay cleric Dr Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading, a post from which Dr John later withdrew, Dr Williams said that both sides had suffered shock. Dr John, who was recently installed as Dean of St Albans, was also a speaker at the festival yesterday. The Archbishop said: "On both sides of the debate as it evolved, quite a lot of people had to learn that the Church of England wasn't just them, because what I heard a lot of on both sides of the controversy was 'we thought the Church of England was us and people like us and maybe one or two others who don't matter very much'. "I was intrigued by the mirror imaging that went on there. There was a sense on both sides, therefore, of shock and dispossession, that it is not all ours after all. It is not full of faithful evangelicals, it is not full of enlightened liberals. "Very quickly pressure groups can form and settle and decide where they stand and invest in where they stand. "We haven't had an effective forum in which that process can be slowed, not just for the sake of putting things off but for the sake of mutual understanding. We haven't quite found that forum yet. It is not the General Synod. It is certainly not the trading of websites." — END —

Episcopal panel suggests taking a breather from fight over gay blessings By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News August 31, 2004 The Episcopal Diocese of Colorado is deeply divided over same-sex issues, but compromise between liberals and traditionalists is still possible, a task force has told Bishop Rob O'Neill, who will issue his final directive today. The group's report suggests the diocese embark on a "season of restraint," with two main compromises for each side of the debate: First, liberals should put the idea of same-sex blessings on hold until the church's general convention re-examines the issue in two years. They also should agree that the diocese won't add any new same-sex clergy partners from outside Colorado during that time period, though gay clergy partners already here may continue their parish work. Traditionalists are asked to lift their financial boycott of the diocese, which is believed to be at least partially responsible for a $500,000 drop in pledges this year. Traditionalists should also agree not to seek what's called "episcopal oversight," a process in which a parish can remove itself from O'Neill's authority in favor of a bishop more to their liking. "It calls on clergy and laity to reclaim a common discipline," said the Rev. John Huffman, who agreed Monday to share details of the plan. He worked for six months on a 10-member task force appointed by O'Neill, who wanted to assess the impact of same-sex blessings on the divided diocese. The group, which included liberals, traditionalists and a gay representative, struggled and sometimes clashed, but in the end, "I really felt the Holy Spirit broke through and what we produced really came out of our struggle with one another and our prayerfulness and attentiveness," said Huffman, pastor of Ascension Episcopal Church in Salida. But the recommendations outraged the Rev. Don Armstrong of Colorado Springs. He is a member of the standing committee, the bishop's advisory body, and pastor of one of the largest parishes in Colorado. He called the suggested compromises "a ploy." "So Rob O'Neill gets his money, conservative clergy fund him and the gay clergy get to do what they want," Armstrong said Monday. "He's trying to get us to sit still while everybody gets used to having practicing gay clergy in the diocese. This will push us to redouble our efforts to get others to restrict giving and seek episcopal oversight." Although he's free to alter the task force report, it's likely that O'Neill will support it as diocesan policy. He personally favors extending gay rights in the church but has already said he wants to hold off on implementing same-sex policies until the wider church can address the explosive issues at its next general convention, which meets in Columbus, Ohio, in 2006. What's not clear is whether O'Neill could force the warring factions to accept their parts of the compromise. Even the task force cites the tension, alluding to factions in the diocese and disruptive clergy. "Everybody has to buy into it" for the report to work, Huffman acknowledged. Last summer at its general convention, the Episcopal Church USA gave first, limited approval to same-sex policies. It passed resolutions allowing an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, to take office in New Hampshire. It also agreed that individual dioceses could decide whether to develop same-sex blessings - liturgies that officially acknowledge a gay couple's relationship. Those decisions sparked an uproar across the country, with traditionalists saying homosexual behavior contradicts scripture, and liberals arguing that the church should reflect the world around it. In Colorado, the controversy was further inflamed in April. That's when a lesbian pastor, the Rev. Bonnie Spencer, disregarded O'Neill's call to wait and held a same-sex ceremony - though she insisted it was not a full liturgical blessing - with her partner at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Centennial. Spencer declined to comment Monday on the task force recommendations. The task force includes other recommendations. Among them, it asks that the concept of same sex blessings be submitted to "solid theological work" by church experts and not be considered only as a "social justice" issue, Huffman said. He said O'Neill also insisted that the task force include one bedrock principle in its report: that the Colorado diocese would never be "separated from Canterbury," a reference to the London headquarters of the Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church USA is one of 38 provinces. However, the wider Anglican Communion rejects homosexual behavior - and even now is considering whether to censure the far more liberal American church. Its report is expected in October. "As we discussed all these things, we found ourselves driven up a wall," Huffman said. "What if the next convention of the Episcopal Church USA approves same-sex blessings? What will happen at Canterbury? We couldn't answer what would happen then in Colorado. We could not answer all the what ifs. We had to deal with what's on the ground now." — END —

By Brian Martinez, The Orange County Register Praveen Bunyan, 42, has gone from being addicted to drugs and alcohol to living under a tree for 15 months while shepherding Christians in rural India to leading an affluent Newport Beach church in a high-profile secession from Episcopal oversight. As a teenager and college student, Bunyan rejected the faith of his father and grandfather -- both influential clergymen in the Anglican Church of South India. He instead focused on school, sports, socializing and sin. But at age 20, Bunyan had a "conversion experience." While searching through a drawer, a needle he had been using to shoot drugs accidentally pricked his finger. Blood dripped onto an old brown Bible collecting dust. He opened it and read that an innocent Jesus had died for him. "I fell to my knees and gave my life to Christ," he said. Bunyan finished his graduate studies in public administration at Madras Christian College in India and became a college professor. He accompanied his parents on a short summer mission to a poor Indian village, where one family was converted. Bunyan volunteered to stay and care for the new Christians' spiritual needs, despite his parents' worries that he had no place to live and didn't know how to cook. He stayed in the village for 15 months, sleeping under a tree, eating wild fruit or food provided by the villagers, and learning to work on a farm. "I had incredible culture shock," he said. Bunyan established churches in 12 surrounding villages, prompting friends and family to declare that he was destined to become a minister, he said. They urged him to attend seminary. He met Grace Veena Samson while earning a master's degree in divinity at Union Biblical Seminary in India and married her in 1987. The couple, both ordained Anglican priests, traveled to the United States in 1993 to study theology at Biola University. Bunyan worked with various Episcopal congregations -- assisting at parishes in Los Angeles and Philadelphia and leading two small churches in Colorado. When the former rector of the 1,200-person St. James Episcopal Church in Newport Beach announced his retirement, the parish's vestry began a seven-month search for the next leader of the congregation. The board of 12 lay leaders started with about 40 names referred to them. When St. James called Bunyan and asked for a resume, he refused. "We didn't want to move anymore," he said. "After almost moving back to India, we decided to establish our lives in Colorado." St. James e-mailed him. He again declined to send his resume. They called again, and asked him to at least pray about it. He refused even that but later changed his mind. Then he reluctantly sent his resume and prayed often for God's direction. "We had Praveen come for a weekend, and there was an extraordinary sense of God's presence in him and his family," said Jim Dale, a St. James director. The search crew was impressed by Bunyan's leadership and counseling skills, mission-oriented mind-set, family, love for people and sense of humor, Dale said. After much prayer, the board voted unanimously to offer Bunyan the job, and had him on speaker phone when he accepted in November 2002. "There was applause, shouting, crying and joy in that room," Dale said. "And everything has worked better than we ever expected." When the church's lay leaders indicated several months ago a desire to secede from the oversight of the Episcopal Church -- the U.S. branch of the international Anglican community -- Bunyan was in full agreement. "We need to protect the integrity of our own faith journey," he said. — END —

By Uwe Siemon-Netto, UPI Religious Affairs Editor PARIS, Aug. 31 (UPI) Should the so-called Islamic Army kill the two French reporters it has kidnapped in Iraq, it will do so under false religious premises -- given that there is nothing in the Koran that allows for such action. This terrorist group has threatened to "execute" Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot unless the French government revokes a law banning "ostentatious" display of religious symbols in French public schools. This includes wearing or displaying the Jewish skullcap or large crosses, as well as the Muslim headscarf. This law will take effect at the beginning of the new school year Thursday. Jews and Christians affected by the new law have not complained. Neither are all that many French Muslims, for that matter. The few thousand veiled women demonstrating against the new law several months ago were by no means representative of the country's Islamic community of five to six million. Talk to any Parisian female of North African origin you meet in restaurants, cafes or at the workplace, and chances are she will tell you quite adamantly, "No, I do not want the scarf!" "The law's the law," said Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the "Grande Mosquee" in Paris and president of the French Council of Muslim Faith. And most other leaders of the Islamic establishment in the country -- though not the radical imams in the ghettos -- agree. In neighboring Germany where some states have laws against head scarves worn by teachers in class, Sevim Ozdemir, a prominent Turkish-born activist for the integration of Muslim children, insists: "The Koran does not command us to wear a scarf or a veil. This is something scribes have read into the two surahs counseling modesty." Surah 24:31 counsels the faithful: "And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments ... and let them wear their head-coverings over their bosoms." According to Ursula Spuler-Stegemann, an Islamic studies professor at the University of Marburg, many Muslim scholars interpret this text as an admonition to keep one's decollete bedecked when leaving the home. Ozdemir regards the opposite interpretation of this text -- insisting on a headscarf, veil or chador -- as a "political statement of oppression and misogyny, a relic of feudalism and slavery." Those who take this line dream of returning to a Taliban-style society. "This is the reason that when Turkey instituted the full equality of men and women, it prohibited schoolgirls from wearing the headscarf in class," she says. "Political statement" is the keyword here. This is precisely what the French government tried to prevent when it drafted the law forbidding the wearing of religious -- and, lest we forget, political -- symbols at school. Exercising "laicite," or total neutrality in religious matters, the French state is not trying to oppress religion or political opinions. In fact, it protects all "practice of faith -- but within the limits required by public order," explained Daniel Amson, a professor of public law, in the national daily, Le Figaro. Public order would be endangered by "ostentatious" displays of religious or ideological convictions in places where everyone should be focused on one thing alone -- getting an education. This is of course a totally different philosophy of state than that of, say, Saudi Arabia or Iran, where Muslim garbs are also imposed on Christian, Buddhist or Hindu women. The difference is that in those countries all women must look like Muslims outside their homes -- that is to say, they must live in a state of oppression. In France, on the other hand, any woman can walk about town dressed as she wishes, while schoolgirls must look neither like Muslims, nor like Christians or Jews but simply like, well, schoolgirls learning biology, history and mathematics. "Down with the veil!" reads the title of a recent book by Chahdortt Djavann, an Iranian woman writer living in exile in Paris. Djavann never ceases to warn her readers of the menace of an Islamist infiltration of Western Europe, the peril that was very much on the French government's mind when it promulgated the headscarf ban. When the French newsmagazine, Le Point, asked Djavann if she discerned an acceleration of the "clash of the civilizations" predicted by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington, she replied, "I prefer to speak of a sickness of the civilizations." This malady, it seems, is aggravated by a specifically European variant Raymond Williams, the father of cultural studies, observed two decades ago in the United States: Immigrants become more religious than they were before they left their homeland. In the European-Muslim context this means, according to Djavann, that the "second and third generation of immigrant families develop the zeal and religious dynamism they found lacking with their parents." Hence Djavann's troubling insight: "Islamists know how to convert the frustrations of the young into religious energy. This explains why Islamism has a greater impact on the youth in Europe than, for example, in Iran, where young people ridicule faith." — END —

By Monte Morin, Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times 8/31/2004 Three breakaway Episcopal parishes refused to surrender their churches, hymnals and financial records to the Diocese of Los Angeles on Monday, despite threats of a lawsuit by the Episcopal Church. A lawyer for the parishes said Episcopal Bishop J. Jon Bruno lacked the legal authority to make such a demand. "Your demand that hundreds of families and children immediately cease worshipping God in the buildings they alone have erected and supported defies belief," wrote Eric C. Sohlgren, the secessionist parishes' attorney. Over the past weeks, All Saints' in Long Beach, St. James in Newport Beach and St. David's in North Hollywood renounced their membership in the national Episcopal Church and refused to recognize Bruno as their leader. The break involved issues such as the national church's decision to ordain an openly gay priest as a bishop. The parishes now claim to be under the jurisdiction of Anglican Bishop Evans Kisekka of the Diocese of Luweero in Uganda, which adheres to more orthodox biblical interpretations of homosexuality. On Friday, Los Angeles diocesan attorney John R. Shiner of Morrison & Foerster said the congregations were in violation of church canons and California civil law and gave them five days to surrender financial statements, copies of bank accounts, investment portfolios and member registries. In a one-page response, Sohlgren wrote that "your clients have no authority or grounds to dictate or interfere with religious worship, instruction, oversight, communications, employment, and property use at these three churches." The bishop said Sunday that if the three parishes rejected the diocese's demand, he would meet with his assistant bishops and attorneys to decide the next step. — END —

By David W. Virtue, in Ottawa OTTAWA, ON (8/31/2004) Leaders of 700 orthodox Canadian Anglicans meeting under the banner of ESSENTIALS, announced yesterday the formation of two new organizations - a Federation and a Network - to allow beleaguered Anglicans a safe place from revisionist diocesan bishops. The formation of these organizations arose as a result of recent actions of the General Synod in its passing of an amendment declaring the integrity and sanctity of committed, adult, same-sex relationships. The Federation will act as an umbrella for all orthodox Canadian Anglicans, bishops, clergy and laity in the Anglican Church of Canada who see themselves as being in impaired communion with their diocese and the national church, said the Rev. Dr. Brett Cane, who sits on the council of ESSENTIALS, a national organization for orthodox Canadian Anglicans. A second organization, The Network, modeled along the lines of the Anglican Communion Network in the U.S. was also launched to provide an alternative structure with a national task force for parishes and their clergy but not for individuals. Bishop Don Harvey of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador will act as Episcopal Moderator for the new Network. "The Federation is for those who want to stand firm in the gospel and remain in the Anglican Church of Canada, at least for the moment until a report comes out of the Lambeth/Eames Commission," said Dr. Cane. "The Federation is a first step," said Cane. "We want to be prepared in the eventuality that the Primates act against the Anglican Church of Canada over its voting for the blessing of same sex relationships at the recent General Synod." The Anglican Communion Network in Canada (ACNC) was the name chosen to identify with Anglican Communion worldwide. "We also want to identify with The Network in the Episcopal Church USA who have similarly been abandoned by the church over matters of catholic faith and order." The Network will hopefully embrace such organizations as the Anglican Communion in New Westminster (ACiNW) consisting of six parishes and the Anglican Communion in Canada (ACIC) of four parishes who recently broke away from Bishop Michael Ingham and the Diocese of New Westminster as well as other orthodox affiliates who may want to distance themselves from the decision of the ACC and from their present episcopal oversight. "The Federation is an umbrella. The network is to be a thoroughly Anglican expression of First Century Christianity. The way forward is a church that thinks with an apostolic mind, a church in submission to the Holy Scriptures and to the ancient formularies. The way forward pulsates with an apostolic heart; it is a church that reaches beyond its own walls," said Cane. "The way forward is a church that has apostolic focus whose first love must be Jesus. He alone is seen as our outward focus. Whether Anglicans choose the pathway of the Federation or the Network, it all flows out from the Federation. We are one great company of believers." — END —

By Douglas Todd, Sun Religion Reporter VANCOUVER (8/28/2004) Two B.C. priests at breakaway Anglican parishes are defying their former bishop's request to vacate their church properties, which are together worth more than $1.2 million. The two Vancouver-area conservative priests — who recently left the Anglican Church of Canada because they vehemently oppose same-sex blessings — say their congregations have no intention of saying goodbye to the buildings in which they have worshipped for years. "We own the premises and we're carrying on as usual," said Rev. Ed Hird of the North Vancouver parish of St. Simon's which has about 200 members. "We're not going to leave," said Rev. Barclay Mayo of the newly renamed Christ the Redeemer Church in Pender Harbour. It has about 120 members. Both priests say their lawyer, a prominent evangelical Christian named Bob Kuhn, believes the conservative parish members have legal title to the properties and predicts they would win their cases in court. Hird and Mayo said they will leave their long-time church buildings only if forced out by legal means. "Of course, we'd follow the law," Hird says. A spokesman for the Vancouver-area diocese of New Westminster said he hopes the dispute with the two parishes doesn't have to end up in court. He criticized the protesting clergy for being 'confrontational'. "I think it's unfortunate. It's not of our choosing," Chancellor George Cadman said in an interview. Although Cadman 'respects' the parishes' decision to opt out of the Canadian Church and operate under the authority of an Anglican Archbishop in Rwanda, he said there is no legal precedent for the congregations to take control of church property since they were asked in July by the diocese to find somewhere else to worship. The two activist priests are more than a dozen in southwestern BC who have grown furious over the past few years as Vancouver-area Bishop Michael Ingham and a majority of members in his diocese began favouring rites to bless committed homosexual relationships. Cadman, legal advisor to Ingham, says he has not seen a single case in North America in the past five years in which a congregation that has broken away from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Episcopal churches has been able to take its property with it. Mayo and Hird were among at least four BC priests who recently joined their congregations in leaving the Anglican Church of Canada, whose governing body, at the urging of Ingham and others, passed a controversial motion in June "affirming the integrity and sanctity of committed adult same-sex relationships." On Thursday, Mayo condemned the national church as 'apostate'. He said in an interview he and like-minded Anglicans are tired of "suffering under the oppression it's foisted on us." Hird said he believes conservative activists in BC will gain international backing for their cause from two major events scheduled in the next month. More than 700 conservative Christian activists are gathering Tuesday in Ottawa for a conference called Anglican Essentials, where delegates will try to sway Canada's bishops to censure Ingham. And next month, a top prelate in the 70-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion, Irish Archbishop Robin Eames, will release a report on how to hold together a church that threatens to break apart over the issue of homosexual rights. Hird hopes Eames' panel, called the Lambeth Commission, will lead to Ingham either 'repenting' his support for same-sex blessings or being disciplined by the international Anglican Communion. — END —

Two parishes that have separated from the Episcopal Church will mark fresh starts by rewriting their articles of incorporation. By Larry B. Stammer Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 23, 2004 Two breakaway Episcopal parishes in Long Beach and Newport Beach said Sunday that they will amend their articles of incorporation tonight, underscoring their breach with the national Episcopal Church. All Saints Church in Long Beach and St. James Church in Newport Beach left the Episcopal Church last week because of differences over homosexuality and the role of Scripture. The parishes placed themselves under the jurisdiction of a conservative Anglican bishop in Uganda. "It's a new day, a new life here at St. James," Father Praveen Bunyan told his congregation Sunday, meeting for worship for the first time since the dramatic departure. Despite the parish's new affiliation, Bunyan exhorted his parishioners to "stand by the word of God that is never changing." At All Saints, the Rev. Donald K. White Jr., the associate rector, drew on the Gospel of St. Luke to speak about "who is in and who is out" in God's kingdom. Without mentioning the split from the Episcopal Church directly, he drew knowing applause when he declared, "I believe Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life!" The parishes' decisions to break away were the latest flashpoints in an ongoing crisis within the 2.3-million member Episcopal Church, and the 77-million member worldwide Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch. Since the national church's highest lawmaking body, the General Convention, consented a year ago to the election of an openly gay priest as bishop of New Hampshire, 22 of the 38 Anglican provinces or national churches worldwide - most of them in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America - have either downgraded or severed official relations with the U.S. Episcopal Church, according to Cynthia Brust, a spokeswoman for the conservative American Anglican Council in Washington. But within the U.S., Bob Williams, a national church spokesman in New York, said he had been informed that fewer than 10 of the more than 7,300 Episcopal parishes had left the church since Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson was consecrated. In addition, a number of dioceses have aligned themselves with a new alternative, the Anglican Communion Network, which hopes to be recognized by the worldwide Anglican Communion. For members of the two Southland breakaway parishes, the worship services Sunday were both familiar and different. They sang Episcopal hymns. They recited prayers from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. They participated in Episcopal rites to celebrate Holy Communion. Yet parishioners and priests considered themselves anything but Episcopalians. St. James' decision to leave the Episcopal Church prompted at least one man who had earlier left the church to return to the Newport Beach parish. "I quit this church when they got so liberal. I'm back. Finally, someone has returned to the tenets of God," said Ben Carlson, 58, of Newport Beach, who had not regularly attended the church for 12 years. In Newport Beach, police stationed four patrol cars around St. James. In Long Beach, parishioner Kristie Kuehnast, an elementary school teacher, said the decision to leave the Episcopal Church was right. "It's just going to keep us straight in what the path we've all chosen is," she said. "I'm happy to have a passionate pastor who's willing to follow up on what his beliefs are." In amending their articles of incorporation, the two parishes intend to remove references on their ties to the Episcopal Church. Last week, they removed such references on their parish websites. But at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, among the most liberal Episcopal parishes in the nation, most parishioners were "saddened" by the turn of events, the Rev. Susan Russell said in an interview. Russell, who heads a national gay and lesbian ministry and is in a committed lesbian relationship, added, "It's hard for me to understand why my inclusion at the table means they have to leave." The dividing issues touch on theology, church governance and how accommodating the church should be to popular culture, particularly to views about homosexuality. Combined, the three factors have converged into a vortex of controversy that could eventually result in a historic realignment within the Anglican Communion, the world's third largest Christian church after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Although conservatives have insisted that homosexuality is not the only issue, it was seen Sunday by All Saints Rector William A. Thompson as perhaps the most obvious example of what he called the Episcopal Church's departure from biblical orthodoxy and historical Christianity. "I think [Robinson's election] wasn't so much the straw that broke the camel's back," Thompson told reporters Sunday. "I think it was one more thing. For some it was such a visible way to way to see that the Episcopal Church had made an official decision that seemed to many of us to be counter to the authority of Scripture." St. James' Bunyan said in an interview: "Our loyalties as Christians primarily lie with God and Jesus Christ, and not a particular institution. When an institution no longer represents our understanding of God's word and his will, if it does not uphold the most basic, important tenets - the centrality of Jesus Christ and the authority of the word of God - we must have the courage and faith to stand by our convictions. That's what St. James as a church and the clergy here decided to do." When religious schisms arise, such views have followed a historical pattern, according to the Very Rev. Mary June Nestler, dean of the Episcopal Theological School at Claremont. "This is religious anarchy and anarchists always say that 'the structure betrays us' and that 'we are not beholden to them when truth and higher virtues matter,'" she said. In his pastoral letter, Los Angeles Episcopal Bishop J. Jon Bruno also challenged the claim of "biblically orthodox" believers that the Episcopal Church has fallen from the faith. "How wrong they are," Bruno declared in a letter that was to have been read or made available in all Episcopal parishes on Sunday. "I want you to know as your bishop that I continue to uphold the vows I made on the day of my consecration 'to guard the faith, unity and discipline of the church.' I believe today as I did when I was first ordained that the Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation. Yet I will not let the Holy Scriptures be compromised by those who seek to make their literalist and simplistic interpretation the only legitimate one." The issue became volatile in August last year after the General Convention consented to Robinson's ordination. Then, in May, Bruno officiated the same-sex blessing of one of his senior priests, the Rev. Canon Malcolm Boyd and Boyd's partner of 20 years. Mindful that the worldwide Anglican Communion was careening toward schism, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, appointed a high-ranking panel last year, known as the Lambeth Commission. One proposal believed to be under consideration by the Lambeth Commission calls for a separate conservative Anglican network or province with its own bishops operating within the United States, and perhaps Canada. That would mean the existing Episcopal Church and its bishops would have no authority over such a parish, even though it was geographically within the Episcopal Church's province. The Lambeth Commission is due to report its finding to Archbishop Williams sometime this fall, possibly in October. Whatever the changes, it may take time to adjust completely. As Thompson made announcements during the Sunday service at All Saints in Long Beach, he invited all present to participate in Holy Communion "even if you're not an Episcopalian." Chagrined, Thompson corrected himself and substituted the word Anglican. "Ah," he said smiling, "force of habit." Times staff writers Erika Hayasaki and Jennifer Mena contributed to this report. ---

A statement from the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles August 24, 2004 This morning, the rector and senior warden of St. David's Episcopal Church, North Hollywood, hand-delivered to me a letter similar to those issued to me on August 17 by St. James' Church, Newport Beach, and All Saints' Church, Long Beach. The text of that letter follows: This is to inform you that the Rector, Wardens and Vestrymen of St. David's Parish in North Hollywood, California by vote of its vestry and members has disassociated itself from the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and the Diocese of Los Angeles, and has aligned itself with the Diocese of Luweero, Anglican Province of Uganda. The Rt. Rev. Evans M. Kisekka of the Diocese of Luweero had also accepted The Rev. Jose A. Poch under his ecclesiastical authority. We have delivered this letter to you personally in order to honor you by having you learn of these actions from us instead of from any other source. [Signed by] The Rev. Jose Poch, Rector, St. David's Church [Signed by] Primi Esparza, Senior Warden, St. David's Church As with the Long Beach and Newport Beach congregations, I have worked hard in the past for reconciliation with this parish. It was one of four to which I offered pastoral oversight by an Episcopal bishop with whom they are in agreement. The Rev. William Thompson, rector of All Saints', Long Beach, declined that offer two weeks ago on behalf of all four parishes, and assured me of their continued loyalty to me and to this diocese. The Rev. Jose Poch, rector of St. David's, has been temporarily inhibited from exercising the ministry of a priest. I have offered him and the people of St. David's Church the opportunity to rescind this decision and be reconciled to me, to the Diocese, and to the Episcopal Church. J. Jon Bruno Bishop of Los Angeles