You are here
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 18, 2004
Contact:
Cynthia P. Brust
202-412-8721
07795 308621 (UK)
The Anglican Communion Network and American Anglican Council Respond to the Windsor Report 2004
We are grateful to the Lambeth Commission for their hard work and dedication to this difficult task. We have strong concerns, however, about the fact that they call only for the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) to “express regret” and fail to recommend direct discipline of ECUSA. We commend the Windsor Report’s strong affirmation of Lambeth 1.10 with its biblical doctrine of sexuality. We also echo the Commission’s deep concerns with the unilateral decisions and actions of the Episcopal Church as well as the Anglican Church in Canada that have fractured the Anglican Communion and brought us to this crisis. We see a critical need for a Core Covenant and applaud this recommendation by the Commission. In addition, we support the recommendation of a moratorium on the ordination and consecration of practicing homosexuals and the blessing of same sex unions as well as the invitation to those who participated in the consecration of V. Gene Robinson “to withdraw themselves from representative functions in the Anglican Communion.”
We understand and embrace the justifiable concern for the unity of the communion, and we treasure real unity. We cannot in good conscience, however, support such unity at the expense of truth. We must not allow a desire to hold the church family together to allow us to maintain the fatal disease that grips ECUSA and by association, the Anglican Communion.
In addition, Section 155 of the Windsor Report presents a false parallel between permanent and willful changes to Christian doctrine and temporary pastoral measures provided in emergency situations. We reject this concept and once again call for permanent structural relief. We are grateful to those Primates who have provided temporary pastoral accommodation, at great cost, for faithful Anglicans in America who have been persecuted for upholding the apostolic faith.
We are deeply saddened that within minutes of the Windsor Report’s release, the Presiding Bishop has already rejected its core presupposition that is the church’s traditional teaching on human sexuality. We call upon Bishop Griswold to express godly sorrow, immediately implement a moratorium on ordinations and consecrations of practicing homosexuals as well as the blessing of same sex unions, and we call on all bishops who have supported the consecration to withdraw from the councils of the church, as the report suggests. The Episcopal Church is now faced with serious and difficult choices. They can follow the lead of Bishop Griswold which will ultimately lead to the demise of the Episcopal Church or they can choose to embrace the core covenant recommended by the commission, reject false doctrine and preserve faithful unity.
###
