Open Letter to the
Archbishop of Canterbury
| Once the election of gay canon V. Gene Robinson as bishop coadjutor of New Hampshire was approved by the
Episcopal Church’s 74th General Convention on August 5, 2003 (see Positions
on the Election of V. Gene Robinson), the conservative American
Anglican Council began to implement its plan to take over the
Episcopal Church. Any objective analysis of the situation can only
conclude that, having failed in this and previous attempts to move this
mainline church sharply to the right through democratic means, a group
of Episcopal bishops has decided to stage a
coup d’état. According to the ACC,
a group of “bishops, clergy [sic] and lay leaders” will meet
in Plano, Texas, on October 7-9, 2003. (Plano is in the Diocese of
Dallas, headed by AAC founder, the Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton.) The
meeting is apparently designed to rally the troops and bring pressure on
the Anglican primates, who meet in an extraordinary session in London,
called by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams for October 15-16,
2003. Special diocesan conventions are being called in the dioceses of
bishops participating in this scheme. These conventions are being called
upon to pass resolutions repudiating the actions of General Convention
on Gene Robinson and on the blessing of same-sex unions. Additional
resolutions seem to vary by diocese, perhaps in response to their
differing compositions and canons. Reports on these special conventions
will be made at the Plano meeting. The
most radical set of resolutions seems to have been advanced in the
Diocese of Pittsburgh, headed by the Rt. Rev. Robert W. Duncan, who
spearheaded the effort to deny Gene Robinson his episcopate.
Bishop Duncan’s plans are being opposed by
an organization of Episcopalians from across the diocese called
Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP). PEP grew out of an ad-hoc
group that opposed the so-called Resolution
One of the November 2002 diocesan convention. That resolution seems
to have been intended as a warning to General Convention, but the latest
six resolutions, of questionable legality, seem designed to facilitate
the absconding with church property by conservative congregations. The
AAC has encouraged its supporters to write the Archbishop of Canterbury,
and PEP, in its multi-pronged plan to maintain church unity, has
encouraged its members and supporters to do the same. My letter to Rowan
Williams, which benefited from edits suggested by PEP members and
others, is reproduced below.
— LED, 8/31/2003
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August 28, 2003
The Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. Rowan D. Williams
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Old Palace
Canterbury, Kent CT1 2EE
UNITED KINGDOM
Most Reverend and Dear Sir:
I am a faithful Episcopalian, one who chose his church—I am a former
Presbyterian—for the beauty of its liturgy and music and for its lack
of obsession with dogma. The Episcopal Church, USA, is governed in a
most American way, one particularly suited to our national character and
one often seen by outsiders as especially courteous and respectful to
all persons and opinions. That polity and the inclusive nature of the
Episcopal Church is now threatened by a small dissident group of its
bishops who arrogantly assert special knowledge of God’s truth and
demand that their opinions prevail, even though those opinions have been
expressly rejected in scrupulously fair and regular votes by General
Convention, the deliberative body that governs the Episcopal Church,
USA.
The dissident bishops, including, sadly, my own bishop, the Rt. Rev.
Robert William Duncan, have repeatedly failed to assert successfully
their narrow view of scripture and revelation. They have increasingly
turned to both ecclesiastical and secular courts in their quest for
power, and they now seek to employ the Anglican Communion, not in its
traditional collegial and advisory role, but as a weapon to be wielded
against their theological opponents. In this plan, they have naïvely
joined forces with domestic political reactionaries whose goal is to
remove people of faith from the discussion in the public square of
issues of social, economic, and environmental justice; and they have
curried favor with foreign prelates and archbishops who, for their own
reasons, have encouraged these bishops in their heedless rush to schism.
Episcopalians now look to you, your Grace, to prevent a catastrophe from
befalling Anglicanism in America. We pray that you will counsel
tolerance, love, and fair play, and will not, through inadvertence,
encourage intolerance, rancor, and rebellion. Should the dissident
bishops gain through guile and flattery that which they have been unable
to earn through legislative action, the inevitably resulting internecine
warfare among American Anglicans will consume the wealth, energy,
property, and moral authority of those on both sides of the ensuing
divide.
Anglican provinces in the West have, I believe, a special role within
the Communion. They necessarily must formulate Christian responses to
the needs and challenges of diverse, technologically sophisticated, and
socially complex communities, providing, thereby, a beacon, not only to
those communities, but also to fellow Christians in cultures that, only
in the future, may themselves be confronted by similar necessity. This
process is guided, I believe, by the Holy Spirit, and, though subject to
missteps, will eventually find the path to which the Holy Spirit is
leading us. To fail to seek this path until all provinces are ready to
join us in the search or to deny that the Holy Spirit has anything more
to teach humanity would be to consign Anglicanism to a medievalist
museum of quaint historical artifacts. Unity within the Communion must
not prevent churches like the Episcopal Church, USA, from playing their
special role. Church unity requires neither mindless conformity nor
narrow legalism, a principle, I pray, that you would urge upon your
primate colleagues.
Trusting in your love and wisdom, I am ever
Yours in Christ,
[signed]
Lionel E. Deimel
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania
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