Late March, Early April, 2007

Random Thoughts

Boy are things heating up and getting interesting in Washington or what? First the Attorney General; It is becoming quite apparent as more and more emails are made available to the Congress that Alberto Gonzales either has a real bad memory or he is not being “forth coming”, as they say. Once he said something like he could not imagine why he said what he said in a Congressional hearing. Hmmmm. Now I am quite aware that AG jobs are political appointments but there ought to be some qualifications for the job other than being “loyal Bushies”, as Gonzales’ assistant wishes. And, now it is becoming more apparent that Gonzales himself may well have been in on the firings, using loyalty as the primary criteria. If that were the criteria for every government related job in the current atmosphere in our country there would be a lot of vacant positions. Second; the debate on withholding funds for additional troops in Iraq is unfolding. People throughout the media are calling the President and Vice President arrogant for refusing to listen to the vast majority of the American people saying they want us out of Iraq. Basically, the Pres. & VP are saying, “We are the deciders and we do not care what anyone else thinks or believes. We are going forward with our plan.” Sen. Chuck Hegel, R of Nebraska, has gone so far as to say that the President thinks he is accountable to no one. Hegel even threw out the word impeachment when suggesting that the President was indeed accountable. Third; we may be headed for a constitutional showdown over some White House staff being asked to testify under oath and on the record on the above mentioned Attorney General issue. This will be worth watching. The Pres. has drawn another line in the sand with Congress. Pretty soon he is going to be boxed in by all the lines he has drawn.

The Bishops of the Episcopal Church recently met for their spring gathering at Camp Allan, Texas. They made what I categorize as an unusually clear and straightforward statement of the position of the Church in response to the recent Communiqué from the Primates of the Anglican Communion. My paraphrase of what the Bishops said goes like this: We, the Episcopal Church, want to remain a part of the Anglican Communion. However, some of what the Primates have demanded we do, namely have a “pastoral scheme” as devised by the Primates in place immediately runs contrary to the polity of the Episcopal Church. The bishops have asked the Executive Committee to refuse to accept the terms of the Communiqué as it regards this issue. The bishops further say that we have acted, both at the 2003 & 2006 General Conventions, completely within our own polity and we therefore see no reason to do otherwise. If these actions cause us to remain outside of full communion with some Provinces of the Church we are very sorry. We will, however, continue to support ministries throughout the world with Anglican partners who wish to do so.

What I just offered is a very condensed and much abbreviated version of what the bishops said. I think I covered most of the highlights of their “Mind of the house” communication. I believe it is safe to say that what they have said to the Communion is that we are autonomous, we acted within our own constitution and canons and we do not apologize for doing so. We want to be an integral part of the Anglican Communion but we are not willing to have the Primates usurp so much power that they can determine our church polity. The bishops did, however, ask for an immediate meeting with the Standing Committee of the Primates and the Archbishop of Canterbury. We shall see whether or not that happens, and we shall see in the coming months how this all plays itself out.

All of the above is interesting, even fascinating but I’ll tell you what; if I took a poll of the people at St. Luke’s I would bet that fewer than 5% care anything at all about what is happening within the Anglican Communion. It simply does not affect their lives. I’ll bet that fewer than 5% could tell you anything the bishops said in the communication I just wrote about. And I am not taking any blame for this either. I have tried to teach the people about how important it is to live in community, how we can serve God more effectively in community than going it alone, but I am not being heard when it comes to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.