Why Stay

The Archbishop of Canterbury's Advent Letter to the Primates has generated a lot of discussion on a couple of my email lists (the Anglican-related ones, anyway). Louie Crew is a member of some of the same lists, and I was particularly struck by one of his responses in the ongoing conversation. He has since posted it on his website. He also gave me permission to share it here.

Peace,
Jeffri

Subject: Re: ABC's Advent Letter
From: Louie Crew <lcrew@ANDROMEDA.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 20:39:59 -0500

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 6:09 PM
Subject: Re: ABC's Advent Letter
> Let's at least not pay for the damn thing. [Lambeth Conference]
>
> I still think canon law to forbid Bishops gathering with
> extra-provincial bishops would be a good first step. Maybe let one or
> two non-TEC bishops come to them as guests, but that's it.
>
> Maybe GenCon can declare that the Councils of Lambeth have and do
> err, and that the Archbishop of Canterbury hath no jurisdiction in
> this Province of the Episcopal Church.
>
> Lambeth was thought a bad idea at the beginning, and it has proved to be so.

Some mornings I wake up agreeing with you, B*****. It certainly seems unhealthy to pay extensively to keep afloat an organization that batters people, an organization as filled with toxicity as the Anglican Communion appears to be right now.

However, by the time my coffee hits bottom and my prayers ascend, I usually come to the opposite conclusion: It is immature for me to play "I'm gonna pick up my paper dolls and go home" just because things are not going my way.

My commitment to the Communion is sealed by the fact that if The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Anglican Church of Canada do not stay at the table thousands of lgbts (lesbians, gays, bisexual and trangendered) elsewhere in the Communion will not have a voice at all for a very long time, if ever.

I learned long ago that if you leave a body, you forfeit your ability to influence that body. (The Anglican Communion Network will learn that hard lesson very soon.) And for what, the pleasure of hearing the door we slammed shut?

I believe TEC should never voluntarily drop out of the Anglican Communion. If others must expel us, force them to violate the integrity of their own constitution and canons to do so. Don't do their dirty work for them. Does that mean TEC has to fund and support every thing demanded of us? Certainly not. I believe that Executive Council and General Convention need to look much more closely at how the ACC uses the money contributed by the General Convention, but we need to do that as members at the table, not as people who have left. (There are major other contributions from dioceses, from parishes, from individual Episcopalians over which GC and Executive Council have no influence and should not control.)

I feel strongly that no funds from GC should be used to fund primates' meetings. When I was a guest of the Anglican Consultative Council at their offices in London during the week before the last General Convention, I was told that most primates pay their way out of funds provided by their provinces, and some individual primates subsidize the travel of other primates from provinces too poor to pay the full bill. There are no line items for primates' travel in the ACC budget. There is no central accounting system for this network of support outside their budget; nor would I be comfortable giving to the ACC oversight of funds not within its jurisdiction.

Successful collaboration depends on trust. The Anglican Communion now has a crisis of trust. Many don't trust us, and there are many bishops in the Communion -- including the Archbishop of Canterbury -- whom I do not trust. I hope that the conversations that Dr. Dubya plans for Lambeth 2008 will allow candor. I hope that the trained facilitators won't duck either the economic or the spiritual bonds of affection.

Many outside North America see TEC as like the US government -- throwing our weight around, insisting on having our own way or threatening to leave.

Look at the way the US has refused to commit to many international agreements -- regarding the environment, regarding military weapons, regarding torture. Many in the Anglican Communion think that TEC manifested the same mindset in the consecration of +NH and in GC's resolution that those who bless relationships are within the range of Christian response, albeit not a canonically authorized response. "Those Americans are at it again! Throwing their power and their money around!"

But in several major particulars, TEC is not behaving like the USA -- ways which we should emphasize again and again.

1) TEC has not thrown money around to get its own way. GC has continued to pay TEC's assessments. ERD has been on the scene immediately to help with disaster, and long-term in development projects. Dioceses and bishops have continued to support mission financially and with increasingly more face-to-face encounters with disciples around the world.

2) TEC has not insisted that other provinces do as we do. We are insisting instead that they live into the promises they have made repeatedly, that they listen to the experiences of local lgbt Christians.

3) In its affirmations of lgbts, TEC is not standing on the side of the powerful, as the USA does, but on the side of the vulnerable and the weak.

4) TEC is not getting more power by its support of lgbts. It is giving up power. Others have reviled us, invaded us, crippled some of our vital ministries to the poor in their own countries, have said all manner of evil against us falsely because of our stance for Jesus' unbounding love for all.

Jesus wrote the script for what our response should be: Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for so persecuted they the prophets who were before you.

Some lgbts live with the mind-set we had before GC 2003. Many lgbts have not noticed that we are not alone, that a majority of TEC now stands with us -- in most instances not to patronize us, but to be faithful disciples of Jesus in solidarity with us as faithful disciples.

God loves absolutely everybody! I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor Primates, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate tblgs, or anyone else, from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Blessed are those who in spite of all have the courage to be joyous!

They also serve who sit in the corner and lick their wounds.