Bishop of Exeter Urges ECUSA to Abide by Windsor Report

Source: Christian Today
Posted: Friday, March 24 , 2006, 10:45 (GMT)
Maria Mackay

The Bishop of Exeter attended the recent spring retreat of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America where he urged the U.S. bishops to embrace the recommendations of the Windsor Report.

The call came from the Rt Rev Michael Langrish Wednesday when he offered an analysis of how the Episcopal Church is viewed in the wider Anglican Communion as part of a presentation that sources say received a standing ovation.

“Whatever the future holds, the many friendships made this week will, I am sure, go on,” Bishop Langrish was quoted as saying in The Living Church magazine.

“If we find ways of continuing and deepening our journey together the joy will be all the sweeter. And if, God forbid, that is not to be, then the tears will be more bitter and the sorrow so much deeper, too.”

Bishop Langrish is expected to attend a meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace next month to discuss the future of the Anglican Communion in light of the potential actions of the 75th General Convention.

The meeting is also to be attended by the Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, who criticised ECUSA earlier in the month for continuing on its independent path.

In an interview with Australia’s World Today, Bishop Wright conceded the distinct possibility that the U.S. church would not be at the next Lambeth Conference.

“And we’ve never been in this position before, so there is no roadmap,” he said. “And if anyone out there listening to this ever says their prayers, please pray for Rowan Williams because he needs prayers right now. He’s got some very difficult decisions to make.”

Bishop Wright went on to compare the strategy of ECUSA to the pursuit by the US government of “imperial sovereignty where we do what we want, we drop bombs on who we want and who cares”.

“And most of the American Anglicans are very cross with their own government for behaving like that. And then there’s a danger that they’re doing exactly the same ecclesially. That is a problem,” he said.

(Also more here of Bishop Tom Wright’s comments at Church Times.)

    Comments & Responses

  1. “In an interview with Australia’s World Today, Bishop Wright conceded the distinct possibility that the U.S. church would not be at the next Lambeth Conference.” Please, help me to understand this comment. Isn’t it the Archbishop of Canterbury that hosts the event and issues the invitations?

    Posted by  on  03/30  at  12:33 PM

  2. Yes mccabe; the Archbishop issues the invitations and host the event. But if the ECUSA doesn’t honor the Windsor Report and decides to “walk apart” then the invitation won’t come. It all hangs on the upcomming general conference.

    Bishop Duncan of the Pittsburg Diocese has said in the recient meeting of the House of Bishops that he seemd to get the impression that many of those in attendance were possibly reconcidering their stand. Check to Pittsburg Diocese website for more detail.

    Mick

    Posted by  on  03/31  at  01:54 AM

  3. I have a great deal of respect for Bishop Tom Wright and appreciate his strong stand for the orthodox position but he, like so many British gentlemen, seems neither to understand nor appreciate the seeming impatience of Archbishop Akinola and other Anglican leaders from the Global South. Despite Bishop Wright’s heroic efforts to rescussitate the Windsor Report, it is now what it always has been: a bureaucratic attempt to wiggle out of a situation which is an embarrassment for the Anglican Communion and a serious obstacle to ecumenical progress. Well over a year after its initial publication, apologists for Windsor have yet to provide a credible explanation for why the document attempted to draw a moral equivalence between the blatantly unbiblical act of consecrating an openly homosexual bishop and the emergency pastoral interventions of Global South primates on behalf of beleaguered orthodox Anglicans in North America.

    The Anglo/American insistence on drawing out the “process” begun with the Windsor Report borders on idolatry. What Archbishop Akinola and other Global South leaders are expecting is decisive action to be taken against the two North American provinces which have demonstrated a keen ability to drag their feet, stall for time, and obfuscate in an attempt to reframe the issue.

    Posted by James Gibson  on  04/01  at  03:42 AM

  4. This comes first hand from a discussion on the Windsor Report held at my church.

    The Bishop conducting the discussion openly admited his “side” at the start as well as admitting to blessing a same sex relationship in his prior position in Washington DC. He gave the impression, in a great deal of double talk, that the Windsor Report didn’t amount to any thing important. When I quried him on Article 7 and Lv. 18:22 he responded to the effect that in the light of modern secular views that the Bible was no longer valid.

    Their not dragging their feet. Their ignoring the issues altogether.

    Mick

    Posted by  on  04/01  at  03:57 AM

  5. By “dragging their feet,” I was referring to their endless attempts to avoid being called to account for precisely that kind of unbiblical behavior.

    Posted by James Gibson  on  04/01  at  04:20 AM

  6. James

    We are on the same track then. There is an item on Virtue Online, http://www.virtueonline.org , that talks of the plans of the pansexuals to flood the General Convention with “trained people” to pander their view. You might want to take a peek.

    Mick

    Posted by  on  04/03  at  11:01 PM

  7. Mick,

    I’ve seen that story already. I was a Methodist minister for 13 years and we had to deal with the same kind of garbage every four years at General Conference. Get ready for a real circus.

    Posted by James Gibson  on  04/04  at  01:21 AM

  8. I only wish that personal circumstances didn’t prevent me from being there. I live within 50 mi. of Columbus. I’m the type that would face down Griswold himself (shaking in my shoes all the while). I already faced Bishop Frank Wade, the co-chair of the conference.

    Mick

    Posted by  on  04/04  at  02:07 AM

  9. Is turning Bishop Griswold into a demon part of that ‘good old fashion’ Anglican ‘biblical based’ tradition of witch burning? I thought more then three centuries of that practice was enough to show us it was ‘un-christian’.

    Posted by  on  04/04  at  03:52 AM

  10. mccabe. My favorite person.

    Do we accept and approve sin?
    Do we accept and approve false doctrine?

    That is what Griswold would have us do.

    The Bible tells us to rebuke such things.

    Check for one 2 Tim. 4:

    Mick

    Posted by  on  04/04  at  04:04 AM

  11. We are commanded by Christ Jesus to love one another. Bishop Griswold is only a man. He can’t make you do anything that you don’t want to do using your own God given gift of free will.

    You alone are responsible for your preaching hate against of hate directed towards Bishop Griswold. Is hate a Christian virtue?

    If Christ loved us in our sinful state so greatly that he gave his life for our salvation then how can you hate your brother in Christ and still claim to be Christian? When Christ Jesus was asked about forgiving our brothers he said we should forgive ‘seven times seven times’ if needed? Practice the words of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. Let us approach the Cross of Christ with tears of thanksgiving that we are all made new in Him that saved us.

    Posted by  on  04/05  at  05:22 AM

  12. That sounds a lot like “Have you stopped beating your wife?” You have imposed a false motive on Mick and passed judgment on him based on that imposition. I think Jesus said something about the hypocrisy of trying to remove the speck in your brother’s eye while there is a log in your own eye.

    Posted by James Gibson  on  04/05  at  10:32 AM

  13. mccabe

    Has he recanted and repented of his sin? We are warned of false prophets and false doctrine. We also are told to rebuke those who hold to such doctrines. Jesus never said that we should accept or overlook sin. Those who are termed “revisionists” in the church are leading many astray. That was addresed in the Bible as well. Griswold leads those who are leading many down the path to the lake of fire. What of the salvation of those who blindly follow this false doctrine. God’s paitience is long but it dose have it’s limits and the Church is standing on the line. If the general convention decides to continue along this path the God will turn his face from us. The ECUSA will be destroyed. Who, may I ask, will be to blame for this?

    Mick

    Posted by  on  04/05  at  06:12 PM

  14. Sin is to knowingly remove yourself from God and his saving grace. I don’t believe for a second that the Presiding Bishop and the majority of ECUSA members fall into that category.

    I still find it disturbing that your focus is on the Presiding Bishop as if he were the source of all that you see as evil in ECUSA. He is simply one man, called by God, to lead his church in a difficult period of change. I think he is doing a wonderful job as Presiding Bishop and deserves our thanks for his excellent leadership and his wisdom. I believe that ECUSA’s resistance to the subtle form of idolatry now disturbing the Body of Christ is a good thing.

    Posted by  on  04/05  at  09:57 PM

  15. Griswold is Bishop Primate. He is pushing a doctrine that is against scripture and God’s law. This is false doctrine and if he is called to promote this doctrine it’s not God that is calling him.

    As Primate he could reject this doctrine and stand with the rest of the Anglican Communion but he as much as thumbs his nose at them. He is also deaf and blind to what is happning to the ECUSA as a whole (just as you are). If he is aware (how could he not be) then he doesn’t care as long as his perverted doctrine is shoved down the throats of the rest of us to the detriment of the whole ECUSA.

    This is not something I can respect, and that goes for the rest of the revisionists as well. The Church as a whole should wake up to what is going on instead of, like my Uncle, taking a wait and see attitude while the Griswold’s destroy everything.

    Posted by  on  04/05  at  10:17 PM

  16. Give me a break! Is making a bishop out of a man who divorced his wife and is now living with his homosexual lover in a relationship Scripture calls “an abomination” one example of “ECUSA’s resistance to the subtle form of idolatry now disturbing the Body of Christ?” Are you saying this is “a good thing?”

    “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).

    Posted by James Gibson  on  04/05  at  10:32 PM

  17. Hear, Hear…

    The revisionist bishops would have us believe they are being guided by the Holy Spirit. But would God break his own Laws. Thats the realm of secular man. “You have to follow my law but I don’t have to”.

    I’ll do my best and with God’s help walk in the light of God’s laws. The Bible says that is the way to show your love for him. If you reject the Father you reject his Son and there is no salvation.

    Mick

    Posted by  on  04/05  at  11:08 PM

  18. It is a common tactic of the revisionists to turn the language of faith on its head so that liscentiousness becomes “obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit” and biblical faithfulness becomes “idolatry.”

    The revisionists also like to cast themselves in the role of the “tax collector” while criticizing the faithful as somehow behaving like the “Pharisee.” But it was the tax collector who said, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.” When was the last time you heard Griswold, Robinson, et al. admit even perfunctorily that they are sinners, much less repent of the very grave sins for which even the wimpy Windsor Report calls them to account? All we hear from them is “Thank you, Lord, that I am not like other men.”

    Posted by James Gibson  on  04/05  at  11:24 PM

  19. As I have said before, I would prefer being the Good Samaritan to the Temple Priest or the Levite. I will walk in the steps of my Lord and Savior and spend my life preaching hope to the outcast and condemn those that put The Law above love and forgiveness. Worship what god pleases you, I will worship the Lord that is both gracious and kind.

    Posted by  on  04/06  at  04:27 AM

  20. James

    Griswold, Robenson and the rest never will admit that they are wrong. Even in the light that it looks like the General Convention may table the issues for now they don’t seem to be planning to recant Robenson’s election or to honestly repent their ways. The seem to be wanting to give lip service to the AC to maintain the communion with the rest of the world without doing anything to change the direction in which the church is headed.

    The rest of the Anglican Communion isn’t going to buy this, especially the Global South. There is already concern about the wording of the ECUSA’s responces. More of the spin and doubletalk their so famous for.

    If you don’t know about this site already, check it out.

    http://www.virtueonline.org

    Mick

    Posted by  on  04/06  at  08:57 PM

  21. mccabe,

    Thank you for proving my point. To wit:

    “I will walk in the steps of my Lord and Savior and spend my life preaching hope to the outcast and condemn those that put The Law above love and forgiveness.” (mccabe, post #19)

    “The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.’” (Luke 18:11, ESV)

    “Worship what god pleases you, I will worship the Lord that is both gracious and kind.” (mccabe, post #19)

    “[The Pharisee said,] ‘I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’” (Luke 18:12, ESV)

    If you are reading the Scriptures under the illusion that you are the Good Samaritan, you are reading them for all the wrong reasons. If you do not hear the voice of the Pharisee in your every word, you will not get it even when someone lays it out for you to see with your own eyes.

    Mick,

    I met David Virtue in Birmingham a few months ago at the AMiA Winter Conference. I visit his site regularly.

    Posted by James Gibson  on  04/07  at  04:35 AM

  22. How long will we be beguiled by a book?

    “1 Corinthians 13: 1-8

    Love

    1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

    2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

    3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

    4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

    5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

    6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

    7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

    8 Love never fails.”

    Posted by  on  04/07  at  05:21 AM

  23. mccabe

    Let us continue:(Standard King James)

    8. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowlege, it shall vanish away.

    9. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

    10. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

    Posted by  on  04/07  at  09:59 PM
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