This is not LIVEblog yet. It’s still pre-LIVE. Here are some personal reflections arising out of my preparation.

I’ve been slogging through the General Synod Convening circular…introduction, resolutions, reports and memorials. I don’t know how many pages there are. They say delegates should bring a 4-inch binder in which to put it all—at least.

What I’ve read represents an enormous amount of work; much of it good work. It is an amazing feat of organization. I wish I could be more optimistic about what the fruit of it all will be.

I was a delegate at General Synod 2004. I came home shaken by how entrenched is the liberal agenda at this level of the church. My reading of the General Synod 2007 material has not reassured me.

First, the thing that’s getting all the press and blogtime, the homosexual issue. The bias in the circular in favour of the push towards marriage for homosexual couples is clear. An example; twice I read that the 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution 1.10 on Human Sexuality calls us to “listen to the experience of homosexual persons” as if that is the main point of the resolution. In neither case, nor anywhere else, is the context of that phrase acknowledged. The resolution’s preceding paragraph states that the conference also:

in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage

The paragraph after states clearly that the conference also rejected homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture.

The nearest thing to an acknowledgement of even the possibility that blessings may be premature, let along wrong, I’ve read is from The Statement of the National House of Bishops (October 26, 2006):

Our assessment of the current situation is that, doctrinally, there is no common mind in the church concerning the grounds for giving or withholding the blessing of same sex unions.

But the Statement is merely the Explanatory Note/Background Information for the actual Resolution,  Number A 224, which reads:

BE IT RESOLVED:

That this General Synod welcome the statement of the House of Bishops of October, 2006 urging the church to show pastoral understanding and sensitivity to all same-sex couples, including those civilly married, and committing the House to develop pastoral strategies to give effect to the acceptance of gays and lesbians to whom we are already committed by previous General Synod and CoGS resolutions, House of Bishops guidelines, and Lambeth Conference statements.

Since General Synod has already affirmed the “sanctity” of homosexual relationships, what better pastoral strategy to give effect to the acceptance of homosexual people, the resolution invites us to think, than to bless their relationships or even marry them? 

Reading the Memorials was a happier experience: disagreements with the “sanctity” amendment, calls for the conclusion of the St Michael Report to be accepted and calls for this General Synod not to jeopardize our full and visible communion with the Worldwide Anglican Communion. Amen.