[received via email]
Dear Bishop O’Neill,
The purpose of this letter is to once again share with you the current mind of the Communion Laity and Clergy of Colorado (CLC). The CLC met on March 24, 2007 to discuss recent developments in the Anglican Communion; the proposed Anglican Covenant, the Primates Communiqué, and recent House of Bishops Resolutions in response to that Communiqué. We reviewed your Pastoral Letter in response to the House of Bishops Resolutions, and noted that you fully support the actions taken there. We also understand from that same letter that you are fully committed to the life and ministry of the Anglican Communion. Unfortunately, the contradictions in these two positions are painfully obvious to all.
We know you have asked the Diocesan Task Force “to find some ways to maintain the essential unity of the body by identifying practical means by which different groups can hold and exercise their convictions with integrity without needing either to act out or to split off completely and to identify some way in which the two polarizing elements of the diocese can continue to work together.” While the goal of the Task Force is noble, we do not see any solution to the dilemma facing either group, short of a miracle. The dilemma is not based on issues of sexuality. Rather, the primary source of our differences is two interpretations of scripture and of the Gospel itself.
CLC stands committed to the Primates’ Communiqué and to whatever Primate endorsed alternate national pastoral scheme may be developed—with or without the cooperation of the House of Bishops. Further, we are committed to work cooperatively with you through any practical matters if such a scheme is determined in a manner that reflects a Christian witness.
As the CLC goes forward, we are taking several actions:
· The CLC as an organization is in conversation with the Anglican Communion Network about affiliate membership as a body, and will work cooperatively with the ACN. Each parish will continue in their own individual discernment regarding ACN membership.
· We are writing letters of support to the Primates, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Network/Camp Allen/Windsor Bishops. We will continue to provide prayers and encouragement to these orthodox leaders, and we will offer to work with them in any way we can.
· Each CLC parish will provide education regarding these letters to their members so that everyone is able to make an informed decision on choosing to go with any developing alternate national pastoral scheme. Everyone will be given an opportunity to sign his or her name in support of the Network/Camp Allen /Windsor Bishops’ letter.
· We will provide a statement of our position to the Diocesan Task Force as they requested through our CLC representative to that group, the Rev. John Wengrovius.
We have sought throughout these past three plus years to work together with you with honesty and transparency. We appreciate your joining with us on a number of occasions and the time you have spent meeting with CLC representatives. The Episcopal Church is walking away from the call of the Primates, The Windsor Report, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and from Communion. By continuing to support the House of Bishops rejection of the Primates’ requests of the pastoral scheme, you too are poised to “walk apart” from Communion.We ask you to reconsider your position, knowing that you gravely risk causing our beloved Episcopal Church to “walk apart” from the vast majority of the Anglican Communion in a formal way. We desire to remain faithful to the Gospel in its fullness, and to live within the polity and rich heritage of the Anglican Communion. Yet if the Episcopal Church does not hear the seriousness of the pleas made by the Instruments of Unity and provide for the request of Windsor and the Primates, it will have shown it prefers its own way over the expressed clear requests of this church’s councils, is willing to break relationship with our Sisters and Brothers, and is willing to throw the Anglican Communion’s gift of catholicity to the side.
Our prayers are ever with you, for our diocese, and for the Communion: that we might abide in truth, and be one, even as the Father and the Son are one.
Faithfully in Christ,
The Communion Laity and Clergy Steering Committee:
The Rev. Theron Walker, CLC Clergy Co-Chair
Debra Tenney, CLC Laity Co-Chair
The Rev. Jim Paul, Northern Region Representative
The Rev. Scott Campbell, Southern Region Representative
The Rev. David Henderson, Mountain Region Representative
The Rev. Charles Larry Day, Western Region Representative
The Rev. Stace Tafoya, Central Region Representative
The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner
The Rev. Andrew Kline
The Rev. Martin Pearsall
Jane Henninger
Ray Howard
Dr. Robert McLean
Verlene White
29 Comments •
Well, it appears to me that the good people and clergy of Colorado are extending a hand to Bp. O’Neil that he may not extend back. Well done clergy and laity of Colorado! I hope that Bp. O’Neil re-thinks his decisions re-steps his actions. I give his clergy and laity applause for at the most they are trying to work with him, not something we conservative orthodox have had reciprocated back to us.