Archbishop Peter Akinola
Archbishop Drexel Gomez
Archbishop Gregory Venables
Your Graces:
We are writing to you concerning your suggestion that the Rev. Canon V.
Gene Robinson decline consecration as Bishop-coadjutor of New Hampshire.
This suggestion was made earlier this year, but it is now receiving national
attention in the wake of last week's London meeting of the Anglican Primates.
We are requesting that you publicly withdraw your request to Canon Robinson,
since that request is contrary to the spirit of that meeting, to your and
your fellow Primates' efforts to support each other's ministries, and to
your shared desire to respect the integrity and authority of each other's
provinces.
In our view, your request was an attempt to interfere with the
Democratic and collegial workings of our Anglican province, and was therefore
inappropriate. Your advice to Canon Robinson that he should reject his diocese's
and province's prayerful and considered decision to consecrate him as Bishop-coadjutor
of New Hampshire on November 2nd, while no doubt made in good faith and not
lightly, exacerbates the divisions between us instead of attempting to heal
them. We respectfully request that you desist from seeking to dissuade this
man from respecting God's (and his church's)call to him in this matter.
We know that this is no easy time for you or for the church in your
provinces, and we are profoundly grateful for your witness to our
common faith, as you understand it. But the mutual respect to which we are
all called, as members of a worldwide fellowship and each in a particular
province responsible for the pastoral needs of a part of that fellowship,
means that we must do our utmost to honor the authority and integrity of
the existing provinces in the Communion. Would you not yourselves be similarly
outraged if other Primates were to ask a candidate for the episcopate in
one of your dioceses to reject God's and the church's choice of him for this
ministry?
We believe that our province of the Anglican Communion, the Episcopal
Church, USA (ECUSA), like your provinces and like the Communion as a
whole, will emerge from this current crisis with a faith made stronger than
our fears. Nonetheless, it is clear to us that no crisis in this church or
in the wider Communion will be averted if Canon Robinson's consecration is
delayed or canceled, or even if he voluntarily steps aside. Issues concerning
the inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church and of
the validity of their ministries in it, and the larger issues concerning
human sexuality, scriptural authority, and ECUSA and Anglican polity, will
not be settled for quite some time.
If, however, you feel compelled to give considered counsel to bishops
In provinces other than your own, we would encourage you, in the strongest
terms possible, to rebuke those few bishops in the ECUSA who are using this
struggle and, in no small measure, the pain and regret it causes in your
provinces, as weapons in their struggle to divide and destroy the Episcopal
Church in this country, and thereby threaten our common Anglican witness
and heritage. Judging from what we have seen, particularly in Pittsburgh,
South Carolina, and Dallas of late, this vocal minority plans to proceed
with its schismatic actions whether or not Canon Robinson is consecrated
bishop. In fact, this group will be much encouraged by any "victory" handed
to it, even if it were handled with the utmost grace and support for homosexual
persons and their ministries, as you and the other Primates have counseled.
The long-term view is perhaps even more worrisome. The increased
responsibilities that some Primates are seeking to claim for themselves
threaten to make fundamental changes in the collegial nature of the
Communion and to interfere with the longstanding democratic traditions
In the ECUSA. We believe that this is unfortunate, un-Anglican, and
un-Christian, and that it should cease. Furthermore, we believe that,
as you and your colleague Primates counseled last week, no province is to
act precipitately at this time. It is vital to the work of the Communion
that each province in it be able to witness to its respective society in
the most effective and pastoral ways open to it. Encouraging the ECUSA to
in any way diminish its support of New Hampshire's prayerful choice of its
next bishop, which would encourage those who seek to make fundamental and
destructive changes to our province and to the Communion, we consider to
be precipitate action.
As much as we value the unity of the Anglican Communion, we, like you,
Value more the cause of Jesus Christ. In this province, that cause is
Intimately bound up with support for democracy, tolerance, and the careful
attention to the considered choices of each diocese in selecting its bishops.
Continuing to interfere with the consecration of the next Bishop of New Hampshire
can only encourage a trend that threatens the ECUSA from within and without,
and that diminishes its unique and faithful witness to Christ before the
world.
Please be assured that our prayers and our deepest respect are with you
And your churches in these difficult times.
Faithfully,
Lionel E. Deimel
Susan J. Boulden
Co-conveners, Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh
