Statement by the General Convention Deputies and Alternate Deputies
of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont

March 23, 2007

The undersigned Episcopal Diocese of Vermont Deputies and Alternate Deputies to the 2006 General Convention offer the following affirmations and observations in response to the Communiqué and proposed Anglican Covenant commended to the Anglican Communion by the primates who met in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in February of this year.

We are grateful that our bishop, the Rt. Rev. Thomas C. Ely, took time from his much-deserved sabbatical to issue a letter to the diocese in response to the Primates’ Meeting. The complete text is here.

We note particularly Bishop Ely’s statement that, “In this diocese, we have carefully and prayerfully considered our commitment to the inclusion of all, not only as recipients of our pastoral care but also as participants in ministry at all levels.” With him, we are “not willing to compromise our spiritual, pastoral, and justice commitments as Christians to the many faithful gay and lesbian clergy and lay members of this church for a false and deceptive unity.”

We commend the delegation of Anglican women to the 51st session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW) for their statement of solidarity: “Given the global tensions so evident in our church today, we do not accept that there is any one issue of difference or contention which can, or indeed would, ever cause us to break the unity as represented by our common baptism. Neither would we ever consider severing the deep and abiding bonds of affection which characterize our relationships as Anglican women.”

We are heartened by the reports from the recent Towards Effective Anglican Mission (TEAM) conference in Boksburg, South Africa, with its focus on relationships, on the Millennium Development Goals and on the mission imperatives of the Gospel.

The Anglican women and the participants at Boksburg point toward a Communion that is bound together not only in a tradition of mutual relationships but also in a commitment to mission and respect for difference. Such webs of connection we believe are the hope for the Anglican Communion of the 21st century.

We are saddened to see how the Communiqué and proposed Covenant point in a different direction, one toward a Communion that is bound together by rules and an excessively hierarchical and centralized structure. Both documents assume a degree of episcopal and primatial authority that is alien to the tradition of the Anglican Communion and to our own polity in The Episcopal Church. The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral (BCP, page 876) has served the Communion well as a template for unity for over a century. We see no reason why it cannot continue to do so.

The Episcopal Church has moved toward a greater respect for, and a dependence on, the ministry of all the baptized, a ministry that is evident in pastoral care, in mission and in church governance. The Communiqué asks the bishops of The Episcopal Church to make decisions on behalf of the whole church that ought to be made only by the General Convention. It also invites them, and us as a church, to ignore the very foundation of our common life, our Baptismal Covenant, by singling out some of our baptized members as ineligible for leadership and participation in the full pastoral ministry of the church. We oppose any agreement with these requests for moratoria on confirming the election of gay or lesbian candidates for the episcopate and on the authorization of rites for blessing persons in same gender unions.

We are most grateful to the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church for their Mind of the House resolutions and statement issued March 20, 2007. The bishops say, “…we declare our passionate desire to remain in full constituent membership in both the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church.” They also state in their first resolution that the Primates’ proposal for a Pastoral Council and Primatial Vicar “would be injurious to The Episcopal Church and urges that the Executive Council decline to participate in it.”

The bishops acknowledge that such a scheme would grant unprecedented authority to individuals beholden neither to the General Convention nor to the Constitution and Canons of this church, and they have recognized that it is the Executive Council, with its elected lay, clerical and episcopal membership acting on behalf of General Convention that has the proper authority to respond to the Primates.

We commend the entire March 20 Mind of the House statement by the House of Bishops. We note especially the following: “We proclaim the Gospel of what God has done and is doing in Christ, of the dignity of every human being, and of justice, compassion, and peace. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave or free. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God's children, including women, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ's Church. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God's children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ's Church. We proclaim the Gospel that stands against any violence, including violence done to women and children as well as those who are persecuted because of their differences, often in the name of God. The Dar es Salaam Communiqué is distressingly silent on this subject.”

With Bishop Ely, we believe any covenant entered into by this church should be based not in structures but in mission (as exemplified by the draft of “A Covenant for Communion in Mission” that was presented to the Anglican Consultative Council by the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Mission and Evangelism and commended to this church for study by Executive Council resolution INC 012, passed in November 2006). The Diocese of Vermont has been in the forefront in ensuring that our lesbian and gay members are fully included in all aspects of the life and ministry of this church. This has not prevented us from having fruitful and mutually beneficial relationships with dioceses in other parts of the Anglican Communion. We have every reason to believe these relationships will continue to thrive.

We rejoice that TEAM and the Anglican women of the UNCSW are showing the way forward for The Episcopal Church and for the Anglican Communion. In contrast to the primates’ apparent focus on institutional power, they came together to address the concerns of a world in desperate need of justice and the healing ministry of the church. We are eager to walk this way forward with joy and with compassion for all.

General Convention 2006 Deputies           
Thomas J. Brown, C1, Chair           
Lee Alison Crawford, C2           
Gordon A. Bardos, C3           
Diane E. Root, C4
Anne Clarke Brown, L1
Thomas Little, L2
James Larkin, L3
Peter Galbraith, L4            

Alternate Deputies
John C. Morris, CA1
Mary Robb Mansfield, CA2           
Judson Pealer, CA3           
Reid Farrell, CA4
Stannard Baker, LA1
Laura Chase, LA2
Genie Rayner, LA3

For information, contact the deputation chair, the Rev. Thomas J. Brown, St. Michael's Episcopal Church, Brattleboro, VT, or Anne Clarke Brown, Communication Minister, Diocese of Vermont.  

Go to Primates' Meeting index page (this site) for other links.