O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus our Lord. Amen

Allow me to begin with a parable. It is taken from the Rev. Canon Marilyn McCord Adams,

Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. The parable appears in a recent collection of essays about the Windsor Report:

What happens, writes Adams, if some of the adult children of a family come to have values and lifestyles of which the others vehemently disapprove? What if some tell the parents, “we will not come to Christmas dinner, if you invite those others”? It is appropriate for the parents to try to mediate, to reason with all their children to try to restore relationships. It is fitting for the parents to express their own views on the issues, to have honest discussions, to exert themselves to convince, to open themselves to being persuaded. But it is undignified for the parents to capitulate to the demands by some of their adult children to excommunicate the others. Their response should rather be, “you are ALL welcome in my house, even if you are not willing to come at the same time.”1

Perhaps Adams intends for us to understand that the parent is of England, the so- called “mother church” of the . More to the point, perhaps the parent is also , the . He alone issues invitations to the

Lambeth Conference, the Anglican equivalent of Christmas dinner. By one definition at least, being a member of the Anglican Communion means that the Archbishop of Canterbury invites your to this conference. Being Anglican means being in communion with Canterbury.

Now, I bristle a bit at being compared with a child. But note that in the parable, we are all adult children. There is no place in the Church for “Father knows best,” or “Mother knows best,” at least with respect to any parent less than God. Nevertheless, in the parable, none of the

1 Marilyn McCord Adams, “Faithfulness in Crisis,” in Gays and the Future of : Responses to the Windsor Report (Winchester, UK and New York, NY: O Books, 2005), p. 80

1 of 7 member churches is a dependent child, who must do what the parent tells us to do. Each of us is an adult child, who must make his or her own decisions and choices. And yet, just as adult children have respect for our parents, we have a certain reverence for our mother church, and for the Archbishop of Canterbury as a sign of our unity and common history as Anglican Christians.

To some extent, it falls to him to attempt to mediate this family dispute. We also have—or used to have—respect and reverence for one another. We share the same spiritual ancestry and a common history.

I’ve met Rowan Williams. I’ve studied his writings for a decade or so. And I have to say that he doesn’t strike me as the kind of parent who would disinvite anybody from Christmas dinner. He is an amazingly gentle, spiritual, pastoral, and scholarly man. He would have made a good monk. If anything, he is biased too far toward unity. Like our Lord Jesus, Rowan

Williams will eat with just about anyone. His table is wide open. He has bent over backwards to preserve the unity of the Church, perhaps to the point of appeasement, some of his left wing critics would urge. I must say I find myself mystified and frustrated by his many concessions to the evangelical wing of our church. His own strong views on the inclusion of gay and lesbian

Christians notwithstanding, he has sought to uphold what he takes to be the teaching of the

Church. He has also sought to include even his loudest and fiercest critics. He has been steadfast in his defense of the unity and mission of the Church as he understands it. But he is not prone to exclude. There isn’t an exclusive bone in his body.

Williams is a close personal friend of our presiding bishop, Frank Griswold. Williams has written that the only basis for excommunication is a threat to the “unconditionality of the

Gospel’s offer.” In other words, we only disinvite people from communion, when they exclude others in a way that compromises the Gospel of God’s sovereign love and forgiveness. So long

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1998 , we have an obligation to remain together within the Body of Christ, even if we strongly disagree about questions of sexual morality. For Williams, all Christians— conservative, liberal, what have you— must sacrifice any notion of our purity, any self-serving sense of our own righteousness. We must do so to be faithful to the New Testament’s Catholic vision of “One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One God and Father of All.” The unity we share in Jesus Christ is more important than anything that might divide us.

If Rowan Williams will not disinvite us, how much less would God exclude any of his children from his table. This is the Lord’s table. All are welcome here.

I tell this parable for three reasons.

First, I believe that the Anglican Communion Network and some of its allies have a very different view of the Church. They are much more like those in the parable who want to exclude their brothers and sisters. The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion have always been held together by a common history and a common commitment to what C.S. Lewis called “mere .” We do not require confessions beyond the ancient creeds of the

Church. The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral specifically calls the Nicene Creed “The sufficient statement of the Christian faith.” The implication: beyond this, no further statement of faith is necessary. We have always been a Church that is willing to agree to disagree. At the end of the day, we come to the Lord’s table as forgiven sinners. Nothing that divides us is more important than our common need for God.

By elevating confessional statements, including teaching about human sexuality, to the level of dogma, the Anglican Network is in danger of idolatry. In my view, they have already

3 of 7 compromised the Gospel. The Network also risks abandoning our priceless Anglican tradition of a diverse Church united by baptism, Common Prayer, and common faith in Jesus.

This is not about liberal vs. conservative. I imagine that many members of the Continuing

Episcopalians of Tennessee do not agree with the controversial actions of our most recent

General Convention. This is about how we do God’s business as Anglican Christians. It is about what kind of Church we want to become. Can we live with those with whom we disagree, or do we need a pure Church, where only the righteous and likeminded may gather together?

Second, I want to underscore how unlikely it is that we would ever be excluded from the

Anglican Communion. The Network folks like to pretend that we will be. They are playing to our fears. The is not monolithic. There are internal disagreements. The and primates who are screaming the loudest do not necessarily speak for their own people, let alone their fellow bishops.

Robin Eames, the chair of the committee that produced the Windsor Report, said this week that the Episcopal Church has done everything that it was asked to do so far. The Windsor

Report itself is only one set of recommendations for how to deal with a conflict in the Church.

It was never intended to be a litmus test for inclusion in or exclusion from the Anglican

Communion. Network attempts to secure “submission” to the Windsor Report are premature.

Moreover, they misunderstand the character of the document, which presents itself as a proposal for study, which will have to be taken up by each of the self-governing churches of the Anglican

Communion. The only way to be an Anglican in the United States is to belong to the Episcopal

Church. All of our bishops, priests, and deacons have sworn to uphold the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church. The proper place to formulate a response to Windsor is in the General Convention, at which Tennessee Episcopalians will be represented by our elected

4 of 7 deputies and bishop. This is the process that Windsor itself envisions, noting that its proposals would have no force until adopted by each provincial synod or General Convention. You can bet it will be on the agenda of our General Convention this summer.

Third, I want to talk about how important it is to resist any attempt to affiliate the Diocese of

Tennessee with the Anglican Communion Network. I’m as tired of this fight as the next person.

It has consumed the last three years of my life. Almost all of my ministry since ordination has dealt with this conflict one way or another. I am convinced, however, that the struggle is worth it. This is about people we love. It is about what kind of Church we are. It is about what kind of Church we want to become. It is about what kind of Church we will leave to our children.

Ultimately, it is about our faithfulness to the Gospel of Christ.

Many of us are Episcopalians because we value openness, liberty of conscience, and democratic structures of Church government. We believe our Lord when he tells us not to lord it over each other. We believe that his table is open to ALL.

The Network will try to tell us that they are just an advocacy group within the Church, that they are fully committed to working within the Episcopal Church. I hope that’s true. But I don’t believe it. Actions speak louder than words. To name only one example, many of the

Network’s friends among Global South bishops have been sending missionaries into the

Episcopal Church, without the approval of our diocesan bishops. Windsor itself denounced this practice, yet it continues to grow. Some of these same bishops are involved with the Anglican

Mission in America, a schismatic group that undermines the authority of the Episcopal Church.

The Network itself is involved in an alliance with several Anglican Splinter groups, all of them save one opposed to the ordination of women, including the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC), the Anglican Mission in America (AMIA), North American (FiFNA), the

5 of 7 Anglican Province in America (APA) and the American Anglican Council (AAC). Together these groups have pledged “to make common cause for the gospel of Jesus Christ and common cause for a united, missionary and orthodox Anglicanism in North America.” That sounds nice, until you understand what the words mean and who gets to define what is orthodox. They do not mean mere Christianity but a narrow, sectarian and confessional vision.

It seems to me that Network affiliation on the part of a diocese is either irrelevant or pernicious. In either case, why join? If the Network is intended to be just advocacy organization, why should Tennessee affiliate? That would be needlessly divisive at best and would contribute to an ongoing sense of hostility and disunity. Many of us could not affiliate in good conscience with an an organization allied with Forward in Faith, which is devoted to a male-only priesthood and anti-democratic Church government. Many able candidates for bishop would immediately withdraw their name from the Tennessee election if we affiliated.

The option of affiliation is always open for individuals, who wish to distance themselves from actions they disagree with. Let those who wish to, seek membership. But to bring a whole diocese into the Network would either be an empty gesture or part of a sinister attempt to divide this diocese from the Episcopal Church.

These are dark days, but there is much to give us hope. Today, I hope we will consider what we might do. No human effort, however, can destroy the Church of Jesus Christ. It is built upon the rock of the apostles’ faith. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Nothing can separate us from God love. Jesus is risen from the dead. Whether we win or lose in any human struggle, he is victorious. And his God reigns, forever and ever.

To this God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.

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