This week let me begin with a personal praise report. My grandson Palmer has this week passed his five year cancer-free date, and the doctors have pronounced him cured. It was a long battle and at several time we worried that we might lose him, but the prayers of thousands around the world and the Grace of God preserved and healed him. He has no cognitive damage, nor any physical impairment that we can ascertain. He is very intelligent, very loving, and a good soccer player. To God be the glory.

We note the letter of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to Archbishop and Primate Henry Orombi telling him to stay out of "her domain." She of course sent a copy to Bishop Henry Louttit, who is under pressure to continue litigation against Christ Church, Savannah, the Mother Church of all Georgia and the Rev. John Wesley's American parish. She also sent a copy to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The interesting thing is she waited to notify Orombi until he was already within a stone's throw of Georgia, leaving him to discover her letter posted on the Internet. It is clear that this was ninety percent theatrics on the part of Schori.

What is quite remarkable is the response from His Grace, Henry Orombi, to Jefferts Schori, pointing out that he is not visiting one of her churches, but rather one of his own! The problem is that TEC doesn't recognize anyone's ability to leave TEC. Like a pitcher plant, once you have alighted on the great blossom, you are stuck fast, never to be free again... except, in the real world of churches, anyone and everyone is able to vote with their voice, with their wallet, and finally, with their feet.

Continuing this theme of the "Hotel California" where "you can check out but you can never leave," Bishop Rob O'Neill has pulled a new dirty trick out of TEC's bag of scurrilous actions. According to journalist David Virtue, who is covering the story, seven years ago then-Bishop Winterrowd legally transferred clergy out of Colorado and into the Province of South East Asia by Letters Dimissory. This international transferability of Holy Orders has been a keystone of the Anglican Communion. Now seven years later, the current bishop, Rob O'Neill, has decided to void those legal transfers and canonically depose those clergy for "abandonment of communion of this Church."  Do you remember the book "Alice in Wonderland"? That is what it is like living either in the Episcopal Church, or even next door to it. The meanness and fear which these punitive actions show is evidence of how afraid TEC is of the growing orthodox Anglican presence around the nation. The Anglican Church of Canada, similarly fearful, is commencing like-minded retribution against those who have left or are trying to leave.

On the international scene, we remember that it was only a few weeks ago that the Rt. Rev. Tom Wright, was telling everyone that a "get tough" letter was coming from Lambeth Palace to the TEC bishops who didn't support the Covenant and were part of the group who consecrated Gene Robinson. Many of us wondered whether Tom Wright was going to be "wrong again" or whether, given his close contact with Lambeth, maybe he was onto something - or then again, maybe he was being used. The long-awaited Lambeth Letter has come out, and it is a "cream puff" of a letter. What went wrong? Why did Wright get it wrong?

Bishop Tom may have gotten it right to start with, but when a large number of liberal revisionist English bishops told Rowan Williams that if he excluded those Americans, they wouldn't come either, it appears that the Primate of Primates caved in and changed the letter. Tom Wright was left with the ground cut out from under him. Wright could have gotten it right if the left hadn't muscled in. Apparently, the revisionist English bishops are less afraid of pushing back than their orthodox colleagues; why is that?

Lastly, we have received word that the gay and lesbian advocacy groups are planning a major assault on the Lambeth Conference, and are raising money to finance it. Information can be found here. The stage is being set for a media and public relations battle at Canterbury as well as an attempt to sway the bishops present. Things do not look very pretty for Lambeth.

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we worship our God, three in one. Have a blessed Trinity Sunday and weekend.

The Rt. Rev. David C. Anderson, Sr.
President and CEO, American Anglican Council
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Jefferts Schori Asks Orombi not to visit Georgia

Source: Episcopal News Service 
May 12, 2008

The Most Revd Henry Luke Orombi
Archbishop of Uganda and Bishop of Kampala
PO Box 14123
Kampala
UGANDA
EAST AFRICA

My dear brother,

I understand from advertising here that you plan to visit a congregation in the Diocese of Georgia on 14 May of this year. The diocesan, Bishop Henry Louttit, has not given any invitation for you to do so, nor received any information from you about your planned visit. I must protest this unwarranted incursion into The Episcopal Church. I am concerned that you seem to feel it appropriate to visit, preach, and exercise episcopal ministry within the territory of this Church, and I wonder how you would receive similar behavior in Uganda. These actions violate the spirit and letter of the work of the Windsor Report, and only lead to heightened tensions. We are more than willing to receive you for conversation, dialogue, and reconciliation, yet you continue to act without speaking with us. I hope and pray that you might respond to our invitation and meet with representatives of this Church.

I remain

Your servant in Christ,

Katharine Jefferts Schori

cc: Bishop Louttit
Abp Rowan Williams
_________________________

Archbishop Orombi Replies

Source: StandFirm Blog
May 14, 2008

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
The Episcopal Church USA
815 Second Avenue
New York, NY

Dear Bishop Katharine,

I received word of your letter through a colleague who had seen it on the internet. Without the internet, I may never have known that you had written such a personal, yet sadly ironic, letter to me.

Unfortunately, you appear to have been misinformed about key matters, which I hope to clear up in this letter.

1. I am not visiting a church in the Diocese of Georgia. I am visiting a congregation that is part of the Church of Uganda. Were I to visit a congregation within TEC, I would certainly observe the courtesy of contacting the local bishop. Since, however, I am visiting a congregation that is part of the Church of Uganda, I feel very free to visit them and encourage them through the Word of God.

2. The reason this congregation separated from TEC and is now part of the Church of Uganda is that the actions of TEC's General Convention and statements of duly elected TEC leaders and representatives indicate that TEC has abandoned the historic Christian faith. Furthermore, as predicted by the Primates of the Anglican Communion in October 2003, TEC's actions have, in fact, torn the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level.

3. May I remind you that the initial reason the Lambeth Commission on Communion was appointed was because of unbiblical decisions taken by TEC in defiance of repeated warnings by all of the Anglican Instruments of Communion. The Windsor Report was produced and accepted in amended form by the Primates at our meeting in Dromantine, Northern Ireland, in February 2005. It is, therefore, quite ironic for you to be quoting the Windsor Report to me. Nowhere in the Windsor Report or in subsequent statements of the Instruments of Communion is there a moral equivalence between the unbiblical actions and decisions of TEC that have torn the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level and the pastoral response on our part to provide ecclesiastical oversight to American congregations who wish to continue to uphold the faith once delivered to the saints and remain a part of the Anglican Communion. Your selective quoting of the Windsor Report is stunning in its arrogance and condescension.

4. You and your House of Bishops rejected outright the Pastoral Scheme painstakingly devised in Dar es Salaam, and to which you agreed. You have, therefore, left us no choice but to continue to respond to the cries of God's faithful people in America for episcopal oversight that upholds and promotes historic, biblical Anglicanism.

5. An important element of the Dar es Salaam agreement was the plea by the Primates that "the representatives of The Episcopal Church and of those congregations in property disputes with it to suspend all actions in law arising in this situation." This was something to which you gave verbal assent and yet you have initiated more legal actions against congregations and clergy in your short tenure as Presiding Bishop than all of your predecessors combined. I urge you to rethink, suspend litigation and follow a more Christ-like approach to settling your differences.

Finally, I appeal to you to heed the advice of Gamaliel in Acts 5.38ff, "Leave these [churches] alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop [them]; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."

Yours, in Christ,

The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi
ARCHBISHOP OF CHURCH OF UGANDA.
_________________________

UK: Canterbury's Pentecost Letter

Source: Ruth Gledhill blog
May 12, 2008

The Feast of Pentecost is a time when we give thanks that God, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, makes us able to speak to each other and to the whole world of the wonderful things done in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It is a good moment to look forward prayerfully to the Lambeth Conference, asking God to pour out the Spirit on all of us as we make ready for this time together, so that we shall indeed be given grace to speak boldly in his Name.

I indicated in earlier letters that the shape of the Conference will be different from what many have been used to.  We have listened carefully to those who have expressed their difficulties with Western and parliamentary styles of meeting, and the Design Group has tried to find a new style - a style more reflective of that Pentecost moment when all received the gift of speaking freely about Christ.

At the heart of this will be the indaba groups.  Indaba is a Zulu word describing a meeting for purposeful discussion among equals.  Its aim is not to negotiate a formula that will keep everyone happy but to go to the heart of an issue and find what the true challenges are before seeking God’s way forward.  It is a method with parallels in many cultures, and it is close to what Benedictine monks and Quaker Meetings seek to achieve as they listen quietly together to God, in a community where all are committed to a fellowship of love and attention to each other and to the word of God.

Each day's work in this context will go forward with careful facilitation and preparation, to ensure that all voices are heard (and many languages also!).  The hope is that over the two weeks we spend together, these groups will build a level of trust that will help us break down the walls we have so often built against each other in the Communion.  And in combination with the intensive prayer and fellowship of the smaller Bible study groups, all this will result, by God's grace, in clearer vision and discernment of what needs to be done.

As I noted when I wrote to you in Advent, this makes it all the more essential that those who come to Lambeth will arrive genuinely willing to engage fully in that growth towards closer unity that the Windsor Report and the Covenant Process envisage. We hope that people will not come so wedded to  their own agenda  and their local  priorities that they cannot listen to those from other cultural backgrounds.  As you may have gathered, in circumstances where there has been divisive or controversial action, I have been discussing privately with some bishops the need to be wholeheartedly part of a shared vision and process in our time together. ...

The rest of the letter may be found at the link above. 
________________________

GAFCON Press Release

Source: GAFCON website
Contact: Ven. ‘Tunde Popoola, GAFCON Nigerian Press Officer
May 12, 2008

For Immediate Release

Over 1000 senior leaders from seventeen provinces in the Anglican Communion, representing 35 million church-going Anglicans, have registered for the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem at the close of the online registration process. They include 280 bishops, almost all accompanied by their wives. Final attendance figures will depend on smooth processing of requested visas, and other factors. 

GAFCON leaders have met in the period leading up to Pentecost with the leaders of Anglican, Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Eastern Catholic churches and Palestinian Christians and Messianic Jews in Jerusalem to brief them on the nature and purpose of GAFCON.  GAFCON is concerned to affirm the continuing presence of the Church in the Holy Land.

Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney, the chair of the Programme Committee reports that the programme is almost complete.  "Our programme will focus on the transforming love of Christ.  We will be drawing from the scriptures of the Old and New Testament in our pilgrimage, and their relevance to the challenges facing the church globally today. These include secularism, other religions, poverty and HIV/Aids as well as moral and theological issues."

Pilgrims will visit traditional sites in Jerusalem during the pilgrimage June 22 - 29, 2008 including Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane and the Ophel Gardens and Temple steps where at the first Pentecost Peter preached and people of all nations responded. The 1000 pilgrims will travel to Bethlehem to the Church of the Nativity and Shepherds' Field, and then to Galilee.

The goals of the GAFCON conference in Jerusalem are to:

1. Provide an opportunity for fellowship as well as to continue to experience and proclaim the transforming love of Christ.
2. Develop a renewed understanding of our identity as Anglican  Christians.
3. Prepare for an Anglican future in which the Gospel is uncompromised and Christ-centered mission a top priority.