I’ve transcribed the questions that I think readers may find interesting. Also edited for clarity
Q: What is your reaction to the decision made public by the Secretary General to remove TEC members from the ecumenical council
KJS: I wrote to the ABC before that decision was promulgated expressing my concern. I don’t think it helps dialogue to remove some people from the conversation.
Q: In Dar es Salaam there was a call for a fourth moratorium for a cessation of litigation. We now have only three moratoria but both TEC and the ACoC claim to be missional churches; how does the spectacle of lawsuits look to the unchurched?
KJS: the reality is that sometimes the church does need to resort to civil courts to assert its rights. It’s not just TEC and the ACoC, the church in Jerusalem is in court with a former bishop who absconded with assets belonging to the Diocese of Jerusalem. Similar things have happened in Sudan, in Mexico, in Columbia, Ecuador, it’s not unique to North America. (me: it seems to be worse in North America – KJS shrugs)
Q: In your speech you named the 16 countries that TEC covers. Since you have received the letter asking members to stand down from important international committees, do you see a point at which your status in the Anglican Communion could be so diminished, that you would consider the formation of a rival communion of like-minded churches?
KJS: We share a common passion across the communion for engagement in God’s mission. When we focus on that, we tend not to get so excited about the few things that we disagree about.
Q: On the sanction imposed by the ABC on TEC for the ecumenism committee, the argument was that because of what has happened TEC doesn’t represent the faith and order of the communion. Is that fair? Secondly, how is it going to effect the work of TEC since you have a very strong interest in ecumenism?
KJS: Certainly our bilateral conversations will continue. I think it’s very unfortunate because it misrepresents who the Anglican communion is: we have a variety of opinions on these issues of human sexuality. People act as though one resolution from the 1998 Lambeth conference decided this for all time. If you look at the history of the Lambeth conference, they have gone back and forth: one in the 20s said that contraception was inappropriate and the next one said, yes it was appropriate and by the time you got 2 or 3 further down the road, it was the duty of families to plan. So our understanding about ethical issues evolves as it needs to, because our context evolves. For the Anglican communion to say to the Methodists or the Lutherans that we only have one position is inaccurate. We have a variety of understandings and, no we don’t have consensus on the hot-button issues of the moment.
Q: Are you going along with canon Kearon’s suggestion that you are not invited to send representatives. Will you send them anyway?
KJS: It’s not a matter of a suggestion, these people have been removed from the commissions with the one exception of eascufo; that person has been demoted to a consultant role.
Q: You talked about moving beyond buildings. The ACoC is currently struggling with that; can you share anything about the TEC experience?
KJS: I think that’s been one of the great gifts of the 4 dioceses whose bishops left TEC. Those renewing dioceses, particularly in those congregations that have been excluded from their former buildings have discovered the freedom, as well as the onerous nature of setting up for worship every Sunday , of not being tied to a particular place. It has enlivened them in ways that they really didn’t expect. They would love to go back to their historic buildings, but they’ve discovered something about lightness in a room that has been very important. (I may not have heard that last sentence correctly. I don’t think she was talking about the Unbearable Lightness of Being). The other piece I point to is that emerging communities that are not tied to a particular location also discover something important about how community gathers on the road. When Jesus said, “the Son of man has no place to lay his head”, there’s an important teaching in that. We get so attached to our favourite pew that we can’t see God except through that particular perspective. When we move across the room or to the local coffee shop or to the athletic field to gather for worship, we discover something quite different.
Q: Has the ABC responded adequately to cross border interventions?
KJS: I don’t think he understands how difficult, painful and destructive it’s been, both in the ACoC and TEC. When bishops come from overseas and say, well, we’ll take care of you, you don’t have to pay attention to your bishop, it destroys pastoral relationships. It’s like an affair in a marriage: it destroys trust and I believe it does spiritual violence to vowed relationships. It is a very ancient teaching of the church that a bishop is supposed to stay home and tend to the flock to which he was originally assigned.
Q: you mentioned in your Pentecost letter – from the duelling Pentecost letters – “we note the troubling push towards centralised authority “ in response to Rowan Williams. Is not the resistance to cross-border interventions a similar push towards central authority on a smaller scale?
KJS: The resistance to cross-border interventions is for the reasons I’ve pointed out: it destroys pastoral relationships. It prevents any possibility of reconciliation; it prevents growth in understanding among people who disagree. The idea that one person in one location in the world can adequately understand contexts across the globe and decide policy across the globe, I think contravenes traditional Anglican understanding of local worship in a language understood by the people. This is what we were arguing about 500 years ago.
Do you think she really believes what she is saying? “Growth in understanding amongst those who disagree”? She didn’t seem to be interested in understanding +Bob Duncan.
You could hardly expect her to be interested in understanding +Bob Duncan or any other orthodox persons including bishops. As an apostate she has come to believe the authority of Scripture is subject to her authority and she no longer serves our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The same can be said of Michael Ingham, Michael Bird and other apostate so-called bishops.
Kate [#1],
In the sense that she wishes her opposition to grow in understanding (agreement, really) of her, yes. I think the liberal crowd honestly think they are right and that conservatives will eventually see the light, too.
I suspect she sees Duncan as something of a traitor who has caused mayhem.
I am finally getting a handle on this woman – she thinks she’s 500 years old.
David,
I wish you would’ve asked her, “In light of your recognition and commendation of the freedom that is found in not being tied down to existing properties, why is it you still maintain an office building called “815″ in New York?”
In reality, the people in those dioceses desperately want their buildings back, and are thwarted only by the litigation that continues. If and when the litigation ends in their favor, they will resolutely reclaim those facilities without looking back, except to remember fondly the extra effort necessary to create worship space in a place other than “their own”, and how they successfully suffered through in order to return to being “tied down.”
Those are ingenious remarks on her part.
David:
I really appreciate the interview you conducted with KJS. The answers she gave are as predictable as the mayhem that liberalism has caused throughout the North american Anglican Churches.
She believes she is right, she believes that the agenda she is promoting is right and she believes that where they are going is unstoppable. In this last statement, she is, again, very likely correct: However ~ those who can see and those who can hear do not have to follow her and Hiltz. Thanks be to God.
Nothing new here really. Just a bunch of scripted and rehersed answers.
What is interesting is her comments about contraception. They give the impression (at least at first) that we Anglicans went back and forth on that issue, until we ended up where we are today. In reality there was not going back and forth. Just a relentless movement always in the same direction. A direction which, by the way, took us further and further away from the two largest Christian denominations (RC and EO). And for what purpose? To perhpas not offend or upset some people? Seems that here again, the devises and desires of our own hearts (and again on an issue of sex) were followed instead of respecting the Will of God, which in the case of contraceptives (some of which are actually chemical abortions i.e. “the pill”) interferes with God’s gift of life.
KJS, don’t be deceived, before cross-border “interventions”, there were local Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic, etc churches that welcomed the dispossessed Episcopalians. The cross border saviors enabled many of those to reunite under Orthodox Anglican leadership. Don’t think for one moment that the transition of the Protestant Episcopal into the Prodigal Episcopal Church would have allowed you to keep true Christians in bondage. Many other churches were more than willing to be places of refuge until Christianity was returned in Anglican form.
I for one, found refuge in the Methodist Church until a good shepherd showed up in our community form Bolivia. You may call him a pirate but in reality he was one who cared for the sheep.
So many priests and flock left in the Prodigal Episcopal Church are like the Syrian Naaman who prayed in 2 Kings 5:18 “But may the LORD forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I bow there also—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the LORD forgive your servant for this.”
The cross-border shepherds have relieved us from such conflicts of conscience.
“Those renewing dioceses, particularly in those congregations that have been excluded from their former buildings have discovered the freedom, as well as the onerous nature of setting up for worship every Sunday , of not being tied to a particular place. It has enlivened them in ways that they really didn’t expect.”
This is the very definition of Sour Grapes. I can’t believe she expects this to be taken seriously.
Hi, David,
Do you have a whole name? Many real journalists do.
Mine is Doug Kerr.
You have a problem with bloggers, Doug? If you are that curious, you could click through to David’s National Post article, his byline is on it.
The PB complains of a trend to centralization in the Anglican Communion. She ignores her arrogation of authority and power not given her by the constitution and canons of TEC, and has centralized power in her office which has not to date been legally vested in her office. She consistently violates the canons with blithe disregard for the legal implications as well as tradition. She embraces and promulgates a heretical doctrine, which has alienated thousands of Episcopalians. “He who troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind”.
David –
I was sorry you didn’t follow up on her blather about the congregations that lost their buildings being liberated to worship (blah, blah, blah) w/ a question about why the offers of some of those congregations to buy their bldg from the diocese/TEC were declined, yet those same bldgs have been sold to Islamic congregations to become mosques. So much for the remnants of the congregations keeping the goodies of the bldg and contents…..
Hi, Kate,
I have no trouble with bloggers conceptually (certainly I do with numerous of them individually). I just worry about “journalists” who feel a need for anonymity.
Yes, I see David’s (whole) name in his byline.
Best regards,
Doug Kerr