Anglicans Can Find Common Ground at the Cross

This is a must read from Newsweek/Washington post today. David Abshire was U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 1983 to 1987. The Very Reverend Ian Markham is Dean of the Virginia Theological Seminary.


Today, we feel that the Episcopal Church is viewed by the public through a blurry lens. Their view is distorted by the prominence given in the media to the dispute over wedge issues like gay bishops and female clergy. Press reports of the Lambeth conference or the General Convention inevitably play up these rifts. One might think that all mainstream Episcopal congregations spend most of their time in church discussing how to advance gay and female clergy. For the mainstream congregations that we are familiar with the reality is completely different. Our services focus on the Gospel and the life and teachings of Jesus. We feel that many breakaway parishes don't believe this reality, which is an example of the sort of accusation of false motives and hidden agendas that Guinness decries in his Manifesto.

The rift in the global Anglican Communion can and must be repaired through civil dialogue. This dialogue is impossible when parties refuse to show up at the table as happened at Lambeth. The differences among the vast majority are not as great as portrayed. We and other prominent Episcopalians will release a "Statement of Beliefs" that explains exactly what the beliefs of mainstream Episcopalians are. Among these beliefs are, not only that the risen Christ is "the way and the truth and the life," but also those values that Jesus lived out. He embraced the outcast and downtrodden, believed in inclusion far more than exclusion. He despised most hypocrisy and sanctimony. He believed in equity and justice and Christians making the most of their gifts in service to God. Surely, that represents a common basis for belief far greater than the sum of those points on which we differ.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2008/09/anglicans_can_find_common_grou.html