contact:  Rebecca Wilson, 330-524-2067, rebeccaswilson@sbcglobal.net

CHICAGO CONSULTATION URGES COMMITMENT
TO EPISCOPAL CHURCH POLITY AND TRADITION

CHICAGO--April 23—The Chicago Consultation issued this statement from its co-convener Ruth Meyers in response to the recent statement of a group of bishops associated with the Anglican Communion Institute:

“The Chicago Consultation is saddened and dismayed to learn that our brothers and sisters in Christ who are members of the Anglican Communion Institute seek to abandon the historical polity of the Episcopal Church and provide support to lawsuits that drain the church’s resources for mission and spirit for ministry,” said Meyers, who is professor of liturgics at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, and a deputy from the Diocese of Chicago.

“The Episcopal Church was founded shortly after the American Revolution. In keeping with that democratic tradition, the Church’s constitution and canons and its historical polity provide us with both the strength and stability of the General Convention’s governing and legislative processes as well as the local ability for dioceses to discern and elect the bishops who can best serve them and make other decisions about their common life. We believe that these canons have served us well, are essential to the Church’s continued health and bind together the strongest elements of our common spiritual heritage and tradition of democracy.

 “Our Anglican tradition is blessed by the ability to share common prayer and sacraments while holding different interpretations of scripture and different opinions and practices. Our diversity reflects God’s creation and allows us to proclaim the Gospel in many forms to people in many settings.

“We are especially dismayed that this attempt to undermine the Church’s governance involves leaders who have held positions on the Communion-wide body that produced the proposed Anglican Covenant. The various drafts of the Covenant have each created impediments to the full inclusion of all baptized Christians in the Communion and thereby undermine God’s gift of unity. Regrettably, we must now question the full intent of these documents.

“We pray that our brothers and sisters in the Anglican Communion Institute will return to embrace our common tradition and polity and recognize the reconciling power of the Spirit to make all things new.”

 The Chicago Consultation, a group of Episcopal and Anglican bishops, clergy and lay people, supports the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Christians in the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion. We believe that our baptismal covenant requires this.

The Chicago Consultation believes that, like the church’s historic discrimination against people of color and women, excluding GLBT people from the sacramental life of the church is a sin. Through study, prayer and conversation, we seek to provide clergy and laypeople across The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion with biblical and theological perspectives that will rid the church of this sin.

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