Bishops of Province One
Reflections on the Windsor Report

Prepared for the meeting of the House of Bishops
Salt Lake City, Utah
January 11-12, 2005

The bishops of Province 1 met in annual retreat at the Barbara C. Harris Camp and Conference Center November 29 through December 2. We were joined by Diana Butler Bass of VTS and Ian Douglas of EDS. The undersigned bishops of Province 1 offer these reflections for discussion as the fruit of our conversations.

We speak from the unique position of Province 1 in the Episcopal Church. Since 1988 five women have served as bishops in the dioceses of Province 1. Gene Robinson serves within this Province. Nine active bishops and five retired bishops of Province 1 participated in the consecration of Gene Robinson. The State of Vermont sanctions Civil Unions and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts sanctions marriage for gay and lesbian couples.

We deeply value and embrace the gift of Communion as a sacred tradition of our Anglican heritage. Relationships in Christ are foundational to our exercise of episcope. We acknowledge that certain actions of the Episcopal Church have contributed significantly to the current crisis facing us as we seek to live more deeply into that gift of Communion within the Anglican Communion. We regret that already fragile relationships within the Anglican Communion, and indeed within our own Episcopal Church, have been further strained by those actions. We look for a way to both honor the integrity of our Episcopal Church polity, along with the decisions we have made, and remain partners in mission with all Provinces of the Anglican Communion. We recognize the challenge inherent in that “both/and” desire and pledge ourselves to the hard work of reconciliation that lies before us. We are humbly aware of the need for strengthened relationships in mission between our dioceses and the dioceses around the world.

We gratefully receive the Windsor Report as a vehicle to help start discussion on deepening communion across the world and among all the baptized (laity, bishops, presbyters, and deacons) in every diocese.
We agree that we are called into communion in response to the love that God has made manifest in the Communion of the Trinity. We believe that any discussion about communion must also be based on the communion that Jesus Christ forms with us in the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion. Jesus, himself, invites us to the Font and to the Table.

We welcome the call for deeper study of Scripture within community across the current divisions and tensions in the church. We believe that the interpretation of Scripture is an ongoing responsibility in community under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We accept with joy our calling to be teachers of Scripture in the church and for the world. The Church must proclaim the Gospel in the midst of the realities and needs of the cultures in which it exists.

We resist structural solutions to adaptive and relational problems that stem in part from differences of culture. We pledge ourselves to continued openness to the life of the Spirit working in the whole church and we pledge to strive for fullness of interdependence within the Anglican Communion.
We acknowledge with sadness, citing the experience of women priests and bishops, that ordination has not been universally transferable within the Anglican Communion long before the ordination of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.

We give thanks for the theological framework of the Baptismal Covenant in the Book of Common Prayer. We disagree with the claim that theological work and scriptural study has not been done as we face the issues of our church and society, human sexuality among them. We call for far greater inclusion of laypersons, priests, and deacons in the process of reception of the Windsor Report, and ask specifically that the voices of gay men and lesbians be listened to.

We remain concerned that:

1. The Windsor Report’s theology of ministry and authority in the church rests too heavily on the office of bishop and primate.
2. The Windsor Report does not adequately acknowledge the historical roots and polity of the Episcopal Church especially in regards to the authority of General Convention, the role of clergy and laity in all decisions made by that body, and the primacy of dioceses in the election—by clergy and laity of the diocese -- not appointment, of bishops.
3. A strict process for receiving consensus across the Anglican Communion may place institutional restraints on the working of the Holy Spirit.
4. If the instruments of unity as developed in the Virginia Report and referred to in the Windsor Report become a de facto structure for the Anglican Communion the role of presbyters and lay people (especially women) will continue to be under-represented in the governance of the Church. (The Virginia Report was not accepted by the 1998 Lambeth Conference, and parts of it were expressly rejected by the Anglican Consultative Council).
5. The voices, experience, presence and contributions of gay men and lesbians have been mostly absent from this discussion.
6. The proposed isolation of the Bishop of New Hampshire makes him a scapegoat for long evolving tensions over the interpretation of Scripture, human sexuality and gender within the Provinces of the Anglican Communion.

We commit ourselves to the work of reconciliation within the Anglican Communion and in the life of the world. Specifically, we commit ourselves to:

1. Pray for the life and work of the Anglican Communion
2. Sponsor and encourage dialogue in our dioceses on the Windsor Report.
3. Engage in personal relationship and conversation with at least one other bishop in the Anglican Communion about the concerns addressed in the Windsor Report.
4. Sponsor at least one missionary in the developing world from each of our dioceses.
5. Bring at least one bishop of the Anglican Communion to the USA to experience the fullness of ministry in our dioceses.
6. Ask for invitations to visit other Provinces of the Anglican Communion to experience the fullness of ministry in their context.
7. Continue to nurture relationships in mission wherever we are welcome.
8. Implement the 0.7% giving in our dioceses and personal lives that has been asked for in the UN Millenium Development Goals and resolution D006 of the 74th General Convention.
9. Work for the implementation of the UN Millenium Development Goals by our federal Government.

   Faithfully,
   Roy ‘Bud’ Cederholm
   James Curry
   Thomas Ely
   Gayle Harris
   Chilton Knudsen
   Wilfrido Ramos-Orench
   Gene Robinson
   Thomas Shaw
   Andrew Smith
   Geralyn Wolf

Go to Episcopal Church Response to Windsor Report index page

Go to Lambeth Commission on Communion index page