Bishops' Blog

Rogationtide, 2021

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Greetings in the risen Christ. In a time with many other preoccupations and stressors around us and within us, the past few weeks saw the departure of Bishop Bill Love, retired of Albany, to the ACNA.  This was a sad event, not least because he is a person of faith and a personal friend.  I am not sure that a canonical post-mortem serves much purpose.  But I do believe that now is a fitting moment to articulate anew the particular vision which animates those of us who are members of the Communion Partners, the fellowship of bishops and clergy within the Episcopal Church who hold a more traditional view of Christian marriage.  As I offer this concise summary, I hope that you will hold together the different elements, for only then does the vision come into focus.

First of all, we believe that we have a vocation, a calling, within the Episcopal Church, though we are a minority therein.  We are full and loyal members of our Church. We have a more traditional reading of Scripture on the nature of marriage, as we seek to maintain friendship with our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in Christ.  We appreciate our Presiding Bishop’s call for a ‘big tent’ Church within which we find a place.  More generally, part of our calling is to support the renewal of theology in our Church, to recall and articulate anew the creedal foundations of our faith, the incarnation, atonement, and the resurrection of Jesus, as they are conveyed to us by the Word of God.  We aim to be active in the proclamation of the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. Across entrenched political animosities, we seek to live out Matthew 25, especially as we have suffered together in this time of pandemic. We  want to be deliberate in our witness to the oneness of His Church across all lines of race, class, or background. In both evangelism and social witness we have something to offer to and share with our own denomination, of which these have been the two main emphases.

We all find ourselves in a culture more and more distant from things religious, and thus we come to rediscover the uniqueness, and the ecumenical unity, of our shared life in Christ.  We cleave all the more to the worldwide nature of our own Communion, and realize that we must be global Anglicans together, in ‘mutual responsibility and interdependence in the Body of Christ’ (as the great call to all Anglicans went out a half century ago).  We are not alone in this desire, but have long-standing connections which can be of value. Indeed, this global nature of Anglicanism may be found right here within our Diocese, where Sunday by Sunday we also pray in Spanish, Igbo, Dinka, Urdu, Farsi, and other languages as well. 

We have all been shaken, and seen our plans go awry, in this hard season.  But in this coming time of re-opening we seek a re-opening to what the Holy Spirit in calling us to together. While most of such work goes on in congregations, the raising up, by the grace of God, of young ordinands who are grounded theologically and evangelistically, and the encouraging of global and ecumenical connections are ministries that the Diocese should pursue on behalf of all.  Amidst trauma, there will be in this moment an hunger for the Gospel, and offering the bread come down from heaven must, throughout everything, be our main concern.

Peace,

+GRS

An Island of Convivencia

The history between Islam and Christianity is a long, sad tale with more than its share of misunderstanding, hardness of heart, and, sometimes, violence, be it of Crusade or Jihad.  But there have also been islands, interludes, intermezzos, of peace and conversation. I do not mean periods of pluralism, as the modern age often understands it, in which their respective truth claims would be blunted or obscured; on the contrary these provided the grounds for lively debate..  In several cases the respite for speaking and hearing included Judaism as well. One such as the Abbasid Caliphate centered in Baghdad in the 9^th century, with its ‘House of Wisdom’. Another was the medieval period of what was in al- Andalus (Spain) called ‘la convivencia’, ‘the common life,’ where, for example, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars rediscovered the philosophy of Aristotle.  Convivencia has not been the norm, but it has offered a shining vision of what the relationship could be on the way to the Last Day, on which all three traditions believe that God will have His final say.

So what is newsworthy? In our time especially, the loudest, and the most shocking or conflictual wins.  But sometimes the truly newsworthy manages a paragraph or two amidst the rest.  A few days ago, down a dark side street in Baghdad, with a perimeter set by a militia, an old man in a white cassock approaches the door of a modest home and knocks.  Another old man, in a black gown and turban, greets him at the door. They then sit in a bare room, drink tea together, and talk.  They were Pope Francis and the Shiite Ayatollah al-Sistani.  Painful history ancient and recent, deep theological difference, and fraught political implications swirled around them both. Still, they honored each other- Francis by coming to his house, al-Sistani by standing to greet him, both by sharing the repast, all of it a kind of sacrament of convivencia.  (When I heard of the meeting, I wondered if the Pope had in mind the meeting of Saint Francis and Saladin in Cairo in the early 13^th century, also a surprisingly irenic conversation).  Francis advocated for the beleaguered Iraqi Christian community, and the Ayatollah set out the traditional Islamic grounds for their protection and right to worship. At the conclusion, the accompanying risks and tensions had not evaporated magically, but, something remarkable had taken place. Those two old men had articulated what was best in the historic relation of their community of faith to its neighbor. 

You and I do not live with the same level of tragedy and volatility as those two spiritual leaders. But I believe that the way of convivencia is the road God is laying out ahead of us in so many moments and places near as well as far.  We hold to the Creed with conviction and reasoned appeal.  We are also ready to sit and drink tea with our counterpart. Together we articulate the urgent importance for a space in which each can speak and pray freely.  The Port of Peace,  Dar es Salaam, el Puerto de Paz, if only for that place and time, becomes a sign of hope. We are reminded of the willingness of our Lord to sit down at table with those others thought unlikely. Friend and neighbor are vocations inseparable from evangelist, advocate, deacon, healer, and teacher, reaching back, with the guidance of Scripture, to what is best in our history. Lord, may it be so on every area of our lives.  Amen.  +GRS