The wind(sor report) blows where it will...

Greetings all,

It seems that the Windsor report is generating much response from all over the globe. Daily we hear reponses from Anglican leaders of every theological shade and hue. What I am amazed by is the fact that so many are patently unhappy with it. In a church where there is so much polarization on several key issues it seems that the extreme wings of each side of these issues don't really like the Windsor Report.

V. Gene Robinson considers it "unfair" and "deficient" in that there was no homosexual representative on the Commission and that he was not allowed to appear before the commission.

[This seems pretty brash to me. He is quoted as saying "There wouldn't even be a commission without my ordination." That reminds me of when I was kicked out of a band I had started as a teenager. I just moped about saying "without me they wouldn't have ever had a band!]

Forward in Faith doesn't like it because it seems to consider the issue of ordination of women as settled and the period of "reception" successfully ended.

The American Anglican Council and the Anglican Communion Network doesn't like it because it makes no acknowledgement of the Network's existence and deems the ECUSA House of Bishops' DEPO proposal to be adequate to address pastoral needs.

Archbishop Peter Akinola doesn't like because he thinks it patronizing and insulting to those who are trying to uphold biblical faith and "sentimental and warm" toward those who have pushed the innovations ahead.

David Kalveledge of The Living Church magazine said the Report lacked teeth. (My favorite section of his editorial was when he was lambasting the commission's recommendation to invite ECUSA to express regret: "Is an RSVP necessary?"

The point of all this is that I think many of us have looked for something that simply wasn't coming. A commission with a mandate to study communion, not sexuality, to make recommendations, not a judgement, to report to an Archbishop who has no real authority except in his own province...what were we expecting?

The truth is, I think, that many of us were desperately hoping for what could not be given by this particular report by this particular commission: A judgement on sexuality issues once and for all.

Where do we go from here? Well, I know people are tired of hearing it, but I will say it again: We wait and we pray. And we pray some more. For me personally, it has been easy to get sucked into the vortex of commenting and pontificating on the Report, praising the parts that make me happy and lamenting the parts that don't. What I haven't really done is gotten on my knees before the Blessed Sacrament and plead for God's will to be done in His Church.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that everything will just magically get better if we all say our Aves and jiggle our rosary beads enough. Our communion is in trouble, serious trouble. But what I am suggesting is that the best thing any of us can do, the best all of us can do, is constantly lift up our Communion to the only one who in the final analysis can effect any lasting change...namely God. And repent for any actions of our own which hurt the Body. I realize after studying (and preaching on) this past Sunday's gospel, that I am a little like that Pharisee:

"I thank Thee, O God, that I am not like other men; liberals, revisionists, muddy moderates, or even like this homosexual Bishop. I say my Office, go to Mass every day, abstain from meat on Fridays, and read Touchstone magazine."

Shame on me if I ever give up one inch of the ground of the Catholic Faith for revisionist drivel. But shame on me even more if I forget that it is ONLY by God's mercy and grace that a miserable sinner like me finds himself within the embrace of the Faith of our fathers.

Can't we all just get along? No, of course not. It's just the way this sinful world works. But can't we all realize that the ground at Calvary is level and we all stand in the same need of the same grace? Yes we can, and we must if we are ever to get anywhere remotely similar to a solution to this mess.

Perhaps some juevos on the part of leadership would help too;-)

The Windsor Report is unfortunately not the savior we all hoped it would be. It says some good things. It says some bad things. Like any other good Anglican document of recent history it all depends on interpretation (if you know me, you'll know how much I HATE to admit that...). That's what we wait on for the time being. Several more groups have yet to process that report before anything is even done about it.

So Oremus.


Peace to you all,

RED+