Church group rips U.S. leaders

DALLAS — Conservative Episcopalians yesterday wrapped up a three-day meeting with a declaration accusing their governing body in the United States of unbiblical actions on homosexuality that have divided the church.

The declaration pleads for help from the worldwide Anglican Communion in the “realignment of Anglicanism” in the United States.

It also urges its own members to give no financial support to the Episcopal Church of the United States (ECUSA), which the declaration says now stands “under God’s judgment” and must repent for ratifying an open homosexual as bishop of New Hampshire.

“This is a defining moment in Christian history,” said Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan after the gathering sponsored by the American Anglican Council, adding that the issue is “life-threatening” for the Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of Anglicanism.

“This is your hour. This is your destiny,” Canon David C. Anderson told a cheering throng as the gathering sponsored by the American Anglican Council wound down.

At its convention in Minneapolis in August, the ECUSA’s General Convention confirmed the election of Canon V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire, and also acknowledged that some bishops are allowing the blessings of same-sex unions.

The conservatives’ declaration repudiates those actions, saying they broke “fellowship with the larger body of Christ.”

“There is nothing in the Bible that supports the confirmation of an election of a bishop living with a man outside of marriage,” said the Rev. Dale Coleman, of Santa Fe, N.M. “There is nothing that supports it. It is ripping the church apart.”

The Dallas meeting, with more than 2,700 present, including 800 priests and 45 bishops, came as a response to those decisions, with many conservative Episcopalians saying they could no longer function within the present structure. They say the ECUSA’s actions constitute heresy, and that conservatives represent the historical Anglican faith.

“This is your church,” Canon David Anderson, American Anglican Council president, told the audience. “We are the legitimate Episcopal Church of our fathers and mothers.”

Virtually all the 2,700 Episcopalians present stood to endorse the declaration, titled “A Place to Stand, A Call to Action,” and then signed individual copies to be sent to the London meeting.

Bishop Frank Griswold, the presiding bishop of the ECUSA, who backs the established church and will represent the U.S. denomination in London, issued a statement yesterday lamenting what he called the “inflammatory rhetoric” and “ultimatums” coming from the meeting.

“In such a climate, mutual pursuit of ways to build up rather than tear down is made more difficult,” Bishop Griswold said, though the church must take seriously the conservatives’ “grief and anger.”

“Regardless of what has been said or concluded, those gathered in Dallas are our brothers and sisters in Christ,” Bishop Griswold said.

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