The approved resolution resulted from the parish's repeatedly declining to pay its $16,000 apportionment for 2005. Parish leaders said their consciences no longer allow them to support the diocese because it favors ordaining gay clergy and blessing gay couples. For All Saints, these leaders said, it became a question of the authority Scripture has over the lives of Christians.
Read moreForward in Faith parishes and organizations and bodies that wish not to be in the Convocation must hold a vote by their governing bodies to leave the Convocation.
The FIF Convocation is the Anglo-Catholic deanery of the Anglican Communion Network. The vote by the assembly, thereby, makes all Forward in Faith parishes, organizations and bodies constituent bodies in the Anglican Communion Network.
Read moreThe church had refused to pay more than $16,000 it owed the diocese because it believes the diocese and the Episcopal Church of the USA shouldn't have supported the 2003 ordination of a gay bishop in New Hampshire and given individual dioceses the right to decide whether to bless same-sex unions.
Read more"If this letter is a contribution to that process of debate, then it is to be welcomed, however robust. If it is an attempt to foreclose that debate, it would seem to serve very little purpose indeed."
END
Read moreWe find it pitiable that the media spin is drawing attention away from the deep Biblical discussions contained in our response.
Read moreThe primates, headed by the Archbishop of Nigeria, Dr Peter Akinola, suggested that Dr Williams's "personal dissent" from the traditionalist line on homosexuality has prevented him from taking the " necessary steps" to confront the liberal churches of Canada and the US.
The two countries began the crisis that has brought the Church close to schism by authorising same-sex blessings in New Westminster, Canada, and ordaining the openly gay Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.
Read moreThe following is the unedited text of the Archbishop's Presidential Address
November 15, 2005
To begin by asking this audience, 'Why are you here?' may sound just a bit negative (shades of the wartime challenge, 'Was your journey really necessary?'). But it's meant as a serious and an open question. Why were you elected to this Synod? What do you and your electors hope for from your presence here?
Read moreWhile spokesmen stressed that there were no immediate plans to reorganise dioceses, the proposals were praised as "breathtaking" by the Bishop of Exeter, the Rt Rev Michael Langrish, who opened the debate.
Each of the 44 dioceses has its own costly bureaucracy and pressure is growing for some to be merged or scrapped to encourage the better use of Church resources for mission.
Read moreThough Akinola's meaning might seem straightforward, there were various interpretations of his challenge to the gathering, which was sponsored by the ACN and largely comprised of Network members, most of them still in ECUSA. Akinola himself did not add to his remarks in Pittsburgh, and efforts to elicit more from him since have not yet proved fruitful. .
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