Dear Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury: ¨All over the world, human beings are longing for liberation, love, respect and the dignity to have meaningful lives.¨ Bishop Christopher Ssenyonjo, Uganda

Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

The following is the full text of the letter from Bishop Ssenyonjo to Archbishop Rowan Williams and the Anglican Communion.

Dear Archbishop Rowan Williams, Primates and fellow bishops, clergy and people of our diverse Anglican Communion.

Peace from God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I give thanks on behalf of the family and friends of David Kato for your love and prayers at this difficult time. All over the world, human beings are longing for liberation, love, respect and the dignity to have meaningful lives. This week alone, we witnessed it in Egypt .We also see this longing in the struggle for human rights for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people (LGBT) through the sacrificial life and death of David Kato. As human beings, we must respect our differences and be united in our call for listening and sharing with each other. To understand God, we are all called to understand the mystery of each other, including our sexualities. God has given us this gift and to defame, condemn, imprison and kill human beings because of their God-given nature, is a great human error. The church has a tragic history of condemning Jews, Moslems, scientists and LGBT people. Our teaching and theology has a causal effect and if we do not learn from our own historical mistakes, we will repeat the same sinful destruction of lives, families and communities.

When European churches failed to protect minority communities during World War II, people were sent to the gas chambers and concentration camps. Many religious people in Europe emerged from that experience to help create the Declaration of Human Rights. We now have sixty years of building an internationally recognised framework for the protection of human rights in every country. If Anglicans in one country dehumanize, persecute and imprison minorities, we must be true to the Gospel and challenge such assaults on basic human rights. They key to our ministry must be to educate our people and encourage LGBT people to tell their stories and the impact of homophobia in their lives. Listening to the stories of LGBT people was the beginning of my own transformation. This work of understanding the phenomenon of human sexuality should be taken seriously in our theological seminaries and schools. The clergy should be well equipped to serve and not to ignorantly repel the people of God. A required course in Human Sexuality should be required of all seminarians and clergy.

Many African countries imprison LGBT people because of who they are. As a bishop in the midst of those countries, I am now a shepherd caring for the lost sheep that are persecuted by the Church and threatened by a pending anti-homosexual draconian bill in Uganda. I preach the new covenant of Jesus Christ sealed in love as we read in John 15:12. This is the heart of the Gospel-the Good News. This sacrifice of Love is mocked when sister churches tolerate or promote the violation of basic human rights. Life and liberty are at risk and we must hold each other accountable. A loving Anglican Communion should not keep quiet when the Rolling Stone tabloid in Uganda openly supports the “hanging of the homos,” including a fellow bishop who pleads for their inclusion and non-discrimination! Silence has the power to kill. We have witnessed its destruction this past week in the tragic and cruel murder of David Kato.

We African Anglicans have a rich and powerful history of speaking out on human rights in the most difficult of situations. Bishop Colenso worked with Zulus to establish an indigenous church while being fought by his fellow English bishops. Bishops Trevor Huddleston, John Taylor and Desmond Tutu resisted Apartheid. We must not demean our great tradition by oppressing LGBT minorities under any circumstances, even to maintain Anglican unanimity. The criminalization of homosexuality remains the greatest state and church sanctioned violence perpetrated against LGBT people and their allies in many countries. We must agree to demolish all forms of institutional homophobia beginning with the removal of all laws that punish human beings for being gay or living in loving relationships. This will be the first step in providing basic human rights to a largely invisible international community who live in daily fear of their lives.

So in thanksgiving for the unity and commitment we have together, let us continue to listen to one another, to protect the vulnerable and marginalized within our own societies and to bring our collective wisdom to the work of repairing the world and correcting the great injustices in our local communities.

Bishop Christopher, Uganda

+Christopher

Rt. Rev. Christopher Senyonjo

Further information on the work of the St. Paul’s Centre and Bishop Christopher may be obtained from Rev. Canon Albert Ogle at aogle@stpaulsfoundation.com

· Thanks to Box Turtle Bulletin, sidebar HERE
· Thanks to Wake Up and Live, sidebar HERE
· Thanks to The Rt. Reverend Christopher Ssenyonjo, Uganda
· Thanks to Jim Burroway

ATTENTION DR. ROWAN WILLIAMS, Archbishop of Canterbury: ¨I implore you to reconsider your support of the Anglican Covenant..¨

Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

On December 7, 2010, the moderator of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, the Revd. Dr. Lesley Fellows wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams on behalf of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition. Since, after more than five weeks, no response has been forthcoming from the office of the archbishop, we have decided to make the letter public. The text is reproduced below. A PDF version of the letter is available from the No Anglican Covenant Web site.

Westfields
Church Lane
Ludgershall
Buckinghamshire
HP18 9NU

Lambeth Palace
Greater London
SE1 7JU

7th December 2010

Dear Archbishop Rowan,


I am the Moderator of the International No Anglican Covenant Coalition, and I am writing to explain why our group is opposed to the Anglican Covenant. My hope is that through this correspondence, we may come to a better understanding of each other's approaches to the Anglican Covenant. These are some of our objections:


Firstly, the Covenant creates a two-or-more-tier Communion, as we know that some Provinces will not or cannot consent to it. This means that some Anglicans are 'in' the Communion, and some are less 'in'. There is no getting away from the feeling that the Covenant creates first- and second-class Christians. This in itself is unacceptable, but it also opens the door to some churches 'asking questions' about others if they perform 'controversial actions', ultimately leading to the imposition of 'relational consequences'. Hence, it favours the intolerant and the very conservative. Jim Naughton has said that the Covenant institutes "governance by hurt feelings". This seems counter to the gospel imperative of not judging others, but bearing with them and concentrating on the logs in one's own eye. A two-tier Communion does not represent unity.


Secondly, it seems unlikely that one can 'make forceful the bonds of affection'. "Where love rules, there is no will to power", Jung said. If we use force and coercion in our relationships, there is no true affection. A Covenant is made in joy at a time of trust - like a marriage. The Anglican Covenant is in reality a contract between parties where the trust has broken down. It may seem to you that this is the only way forward, but a better option is to remain a single-tier Communion, allow people to leave if they must, but keep the door open for their return. Any alternative position cedes too much power to those willing to intimidate by threatening to walk away.


Thirdly, in many countries, such as England, centralised institutions are breaking down and being replaced by networks. There is a great suspicion of hierarchical structures and rules that are enforced from above, particularly when the central authority is both physically and culturally distant. The Fresh Expressions movement is successful because it recognises this. The Anglican Communion, which is a fellowship of autonomous churches, is well placed to thrive in the challenges of this age. If we adopt the Covenant, then we will be less able to be mission-focussed in our own culture because we will be constrained by the Communion's centralised decision-making. One might say that Communion churches are on separate tectonic plates - the plates of modernism, postmodernism, and perhaps even pre-modernism. They are moving apart, and if we try to bind them together more tightly, then schism will surely occur. At this point in history, we need more flexible relationships, not a tightening of bonds.


I implore you to reconsider your support of the Anglican Covenant. I have the greatest respect for you as a person of God and for the role of Archbishop of Canterbury. However, I feel the Covenant is in a way like suicide - it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Moreover, it institutionalises inequality and judgementalism. In addition, I believe it will not work and will itself cause, rather than prevent, schism. Let us concentrate on things that bring us together, such as mission, worship and prayer, and let us agree to differ on issues that tear us apart, not judge who is wrong and who is right, who is 'in and who is 'out'.


Our group would very much like to begin a dialogue with you. We have the same aims of strengthening love and unity within the Communion and enabling out churches to go forward in mission, even if we have currently come to radically different conclusions about how to achieve those aims. We hope very much to hear from you. HERE


With very best wishes

Rev'd Dr Lesley Fellows
Moderator, No Anglican Covenant Coalition
 

Visions of Christmas Past/Present: Rowan Williams has failed to address the dangerous moral issues of excluding, bigotry, fear/hatemongering directed against LGBTI Anglicans

Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

When I was a child growing up in the Pacific Northwest of The United States of America we enjoyed every Christmas with Snow.  We loved snow (at least in the beginning of the Winter Season) and I remember our Mom dressed us up in Leggings, Hats with Ear Muffs, heavy Winter Coats and Boots to face the freezing cold--off we roared into the whiteness wilderness of it all.  We were secure, happy and ready to make Angels in the Snow,  Snowmen,  Snow Forts (my favorite) to hide in/behind for the upcoming neighborhood wars featuring Snow Ball fights!  We felt especially warm, loved and secure at Christmastime.

Some of those Snow Ball Fights were great fun and they weren´t meanspirited. They remained games as long as the ¨players¨ weren´t vendictive or feardriven warriors acting on some stored up hatred, prejudice, jealousy and resentment that went way beyond fun and revealed sadistic behavior.

Innocent acts of play and fellowship sometimes became opportunities to punish, to humiliate and demean.  Just plain mean and sometimes even dangerous games of sadism and bullying that happen even today, this Christmastime,at The Anglican Communion.

Often in my growing up years--until today--I´ve found myself amongst people who have less than ¨normal¨ or ¨moral¨ good/clean fun on their minds when they endlessly slander, mock, demonize and even physically attack their own family members, friends, neighbors, schoolmates.  The abused friends and coworkers often are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex real people with whom we ALL associate with at all levels of society everyday.  Abusing others is no casual accident, no act of random violence, spite or hate. Bigotry is premeditated anger exposed. Bigotry is a spiritual and emotional sickeness in the raw, nothing less. Bullies of every national and cultural stripe often spew unfunny words and inflict emotional and physical pain/scars on others whom they fear and despise just because they are ¨different¨ from them.  We´ve seen it all before, endlessly before, lifetimes of persecution and primitive vileness directed against LGBTI people. Who stands with the victims of outcasting/marginalizing when they are abused,defamed, demoralized and despised at Church?  Who will say a kind word, provide a little reason, compassion and encourage justice and understanding for all?  Who will offer love and look hate in the face and stare bigotry down?

Not the Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, continues to play a deadly game of pretend/denial/placating vicious abusers of LGBTI Christians this Christmas Season, 2010.  Rowan Williams fails to address the deep moral issues and the blatant excluding, fear and hate-mongering directed against LGBTI Anglicans, our families and loved ones by those who terrorize at Church/The Anglican Communion.

Abuse of others is happening everyday at many provinces within The Anglican Communion-- every minute of everyday bigotry finds a way to harm others.   Our Anglican/other humankind family members are being tormented at Church while Rowan Williams looks the other way.

Persecuting of fellow Christians/others is currently being done by self-named ¨orothodox¨ ruthless/ignorant Bishops who make bigotted pronouncements that marginalize and outcast LGBTI Anglicans at the Body of Christ.   Bishop Rowan buries his head as a religious ¨equality¨ debate has become a deadly hate campaign launched against LGBTI Anglicans by the Gafcon-Global South Anglican gang. 

Archbishop Rowan mostly ignores hatecrimes resulting in injury and murder against LGBTI people.  Crimes that are  IN HIS FACE in Liverpool (during the Lambeth Conference), London, Kingston/Jamaica and/or Kampala/Uganda are deflected as he panders to superstitious primates who initiate lies, thieve from others, shame, blame and preach demeaning and death from the pulpit radiating anti-LGBTI spew.

Rowan Williams has turned a shallow/butchered ¨Lambeth 1.10¨ statement and  ¨Listening Process¨ into a instrument of punishment of LGBTI Anglicans in England, Africa, The West Indies, the Middle East and Southeast Asia...he remains silent in the face of large group persecution/discrimination and doesn´t seem to ¨listen¨ at all except to the urge others to honor his resentments against those with whom he disagrees over LGBTI equality at Chruch/beyond.

Dr. Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury is responsible for playing a political power game at Church/Communion instead of promoting basic human rights, love and tolerance amongst all Episcopalians and Anglicans thoroughout the world...love amongst the Anglican Communion family everywhere ought not be ignored in favor of rewarding prejudice, discrimination and hate by pretending it doesn´t exist.

                                                                  

Anglican Hero Archbishop Martin Barahona, Bishop of El Salvador and Primate Emeritus of Central America

“The Windsor Report,” he said. “It’s just a report. When did it become like The Bible? The Covenant. Why do we need another covenant? We have the Baptismal Covenant. We have the creeds. What else do we need?” HERE

CONSIDERING THE ANGLICAN COVENANT ON SATURDAY: ¨Please vote against the Covenant if you are unhappy with it, worried about its implications...¨

  

Reasons to vote for/against the Covenant, by Paul Bagshaw, ¨Not the same stream¨

The Anglican Communion Covenant:  ¨..the enemy within is more dangerous than the enemy without so any confessional statement is simultaneously intended to unite and divide¨

What is the Covenant supposed to solve?


It will hardly come as a surprise to anyone reading this that I really don't like the Covenant. More than that, I think it is profoundly misguided, a denial of so much that is precious in the Anglican tradition that we have inherited, and a pitiful response to the deep divisions of the Church. HERE

Vote for/against the Covenant  (a daily series of arguments) HERE
Argument for Saturday, November 20, 2010

Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

Voting for the Covenant to support the Archbishop of Canterbury?

Oddly, this is the most frequently stated reason that I've heard for voting for the Covenant. It seems to be said most often by people who aren't very happy with the Covenant themselves but think they ought to vote for it.

It's a very difficult stance to argue against. I am all in favour of loyalty, respect, affection, regard. It is also true that the sustained judgement of leaders in any organization should weigh heavily in any corporate decision making. (Certainly more heavily than a bloggers'.)

But at the same time members of any governing body are there to exercise their own judgement, to weigh all the factors - evidence, judgement, loyalties, consequences - and to make a decision accordingly.

Vote against the Covenant

So - no arguments, just a request - please vote for the Covenant if you are convinced that, on the balance of probabilities, the Covenant will be good for the Communion.

Please vote against the Covenant if you are unhappy with it, worried about its implications or feel that there needs to be more time to consider it properly before it's brought to the Synod.

And, if you don't know, or if you are unhappy about the Covenant but do not wish to cast a vote against the Archbishop, please abstain.

Vote against the Covenant.HERE

 (cartoon and emphasis added by Leonardo Ricardo)

· Thanks to Paul Bagshaw, sidebar
· Thanks to Not the same stream, sidebar
· Thanks to No Anglican Covenant Coalition: Comprehensive Unity, sidebar

ROWAN WILLIAMS: ¨He is the dead hand bureaucratic referee, but one that has not been neutral but promoted bureaucratic solutions at the cost of minorities.¨

Does this part of the Anglican Communion border on evil?

¨One reason why I stopped taking communion in the Church of England was a conclusion about its wider moral bankruptcy, especially as parts of the Anglican Communion border on evil. The principal reason was my own belief, but others weren't so far off in conversation and they could carry on, showing much loyalty to the idea of the Church even if concerned about the reality. Even though I had two Church wives, and was effectively going back to only one of them, communion could have continued. But it is a public act to take part, and a public act to say no especially if you keep showing your face.

There were people close to me, but also those of very different view, and I asked myself what I had in common with them. Humanity, of course, and conversation is always good, but sometimes you stretch across too far. In the end you have to conclude that they are entitled to their opinion, so long as they can't harm anyone, and if they can't harm anyone then best to let them be. They may have the same view of me. And sometimes associating with the more likeminded develops greater consistency and strength for a clearer outward message.

Now that I have moved over the river, and the now local Anglican church seems (barely) staffed with evangelicals, although my curiosity isn't yet addressed, I'm keeping with my one Church wife. She needs building up a bit.

Perhaps I have read and listened to Rowan Williams too much. I do think he says interesting things from time to time, and has potential for a social and economic and an interfaith theology that can be reflected upon, and have taken to myself his notion of patience even in the heat of situations. But his attitude to the central question of the moment is just one of moral disengagement, saying in this manner:

¨The decision of the American Church to go forward, as it has, with the ordination of a lesbian bishop has, I think, set us back. At the moment I'm not certain how we will approach the next primates' meeting, but regrettably some of the progress that I believe we had made has not remained steady.¨

This sort of pathetic statement means it all comes down to the bureaucracy and it is what makes this man so deeply depressing. One supposes that, faced with oppression, he would work to save the institution first while people suffered. We shouldn't ask too much how someone would respond to repression, given our own potential weaknesses, but Rowan Williams doesn't exactly represent anything prophetic even in his own institutional terms. He is the dead hand bureaucratic referee, but one that has not been neutral but promoted bureaucratic solutions at the cost of minorities...¨ read it all The Pluralist Speaks, HERE

Adrian Worsfold, The Pluralist

· Thanks to Adrian Worsfold
· Thanks to The Pluralist

¨We should not allow the world to think that the Archbishop of Canterbury speaks for the Communion as a whole...

...God only knows what he has said to the Pope!¨

Rowan Williams, The Archbishop of Canterbury, ¨First among Equals¨ at The Anglican Communion

¨...We can quibble about when the Communion began its transformation from an instrument of mutual mission to the quarrelsome, meddlesome, dysfunctional leviathan it is fast becoming...

Bishop V.G. Robinson, Diocese of New Hampshire, TEC

...Certainly, the transformation accelerated in 2003 when Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams agreed to calling an emergency meeting of the primates in the wake of the consent to consecrate Gene Robinson...

The Very Reverend Dr.Jeffrey John, Dean of St. Albans

...Earlier in the year, the newly enthroned archbishop had proved that he could be intimidated when the protests of English Evangelicals led him to demand that Jeffrey John decline his appointment as Bishop of Reading...

Bob Duncan, deposed Bishop of Pittsburgh, TEC

...When the 2003 General Convention voted to allow the New Hampshire consecration to go forward, Bishop Robert Duncan and his band of conservative malcontents knew how to pull Rowan’s chain...

Archbishop Drexel Gomez, The Province of the West Indies (later, chairperson of The Anglican Communion Covenant group)

...The October 2003 meeting of the primates set in motion what has become known as The Windsor Process, a malevolent movement with zombie-like staying power pushing the Communion inexorably toward a more authoritarian polity...¨

The Archbishop of Canterbury

...That the Archbishop of Canterbury is a member of all the “Instruments of Unity” gives him unique opportunities to influence discussion and events within the Anglican Communion. There is no good reason—neither tradition nor history provide adequate rationale—that an English bishop should be so privileged.

That special position of the Archbishop of Canterbury allows him, whether legitimately or not, to speak on behalf of the Anglican Communion. Nothing constrains what he says, and almost never does he actually speak for the Communion in a formally authorized voice. Surely Rowan has been known to make some strange pronouncements...

The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope

...God only knows what he has said to the Pope! We should not allow the world to think that the Archbishop of Canterbury speaks for the Communion as a whole. I leave it to others to decide if he even does a good job of speaking for the Church of England. Since he has made it clear that he does not always speak his own deeply held opinions, it is difficult to know for whom Rowan does speak. In his defense, the role (or roles) is inherently problematic. In any case, I don’t want Rowan or any other archbishop to be seen as speaking for The Episcopal Church.

Even if we want to do so, how do we dethrone the Archbishop of Canterbury? We can start by rejecting the proposed Anglican covenant. The covenant institutionalizes the “Instruments of Unity” as never before and centralizes power within the Communion. The fight to separate the Archbishop of Canterbury from his special privileges will be long and difficult, however. I hope that our own Presiding Bishop, in her travels to other Anglican churches, is beginning to build a coalition to oppose those who would transform the Communion into a worldwide church on the Roman model. More churches have to learn to just say no. HERE

· Thanks to Lionel Deimel
· Thanks to Lionel Deimel’s Web Log, sidebar
· Thanks to Random quick takes by Lionel Deimel
· Thanks to Flickr Photo Sharing

NO ANGLICAN COVENANT.

TAKE ACTION AGAINST BIGOTRY, IGNORANCE and OUTCASTING/SOCIAL ISOLATION and THE ABUSERS of FELLOW ANGLICANS/others at The Anglican Communion:

The ANGLICAN UN, United Nations, HUMAN RIGHTS Observer, Mrs Hellen Grace Wangusa from Uganda, has an office and staff provided by the Episcopal Church (USA) at the Church Center 815 Second Avenue, New York, 10017. The direct office line is (001) 212-716- 6263 and the email address unoffice@episcopalchurch.org

Lionel Deimel, Anglican HERO, click HERE,¨No Anglican Covenant¨