Re: Welcome to 225, TEC!

[Louie Crew <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>]

>> The Episcopal Church as such was born today in Philadelphia in 1785
>> when we became autonomous from the Church of England.
>>
>> What a blessing! Happy New Birth Day!
>> 
>> Louie

> Was that at the first convention?
>
> Also, yes we became self-governing, self-supporting, and self-extending
> (which I celebrate), but not really autonomous.  Remember the Windsor
> Report's theological affirmation, that there is no unrelated
> "autonomous" Christian or church.
 
Alas, I don't remember my source when I added the date to my calendar.
Bishop  Marshall has informed me that there are rival claims to day and 
place.

I am sure that the Archbishop of Canterbury then was no more pleased with
our autonomy than is +++Rowan.

I do not agree with the Windsor report.  I believe that we are, and should
be, bound together by affection not by NOMOS (laws, as part of AUTOnomY)

Nor have provinces even been given an opportunity to buy into the so-called
"instruments of communion."  The primates have almost no credibility in
claiming that status.  The evidence much more forcefully reveals them as
instruments of disunity.

I rejoice that you have the talent and the will to stay at the table for
TEC.

I believe we should never leave unless others officially kick us out; and I
believe we should not violate our own consciences to accommodate what is
demonstrably some of the worst bigotry of our times. I have lost most of my
respect for +++Rowan, not because of his positions, but because of his
failure to be even-handed.

The Anglican diaspora will be here to connect us and nourish us when all of
the current political abuses are long past us.

Louie

P. S. 

I doubt that anyone will throw us out.  Nothing in the current polity
of the Anglican Communion gives that power to anyone.

I was much too far into my teens before I learned how to respond effectively
to an angry father:   just silently, lovingly wait for him to calm down.

Once I learned that lesson, he and  I both (though he more slowly) were
liberated from destructive patterns probably passed down for several
generations.  It was like a great rush of fresh air.

I pray that such peace will come to the primates and others who so furiously
rage together.

Joy!

Louie