Lambeth Report #7 Wednesday morning, June 23, 2008

http://www.anglicansunited.com/2008/07/lambeth_report_7_wednesday_mor.html

[Anglicans United] 23 Jul 2008--I heard several different people report from the American provincial meeting held on Monday afternoon, that our bishops are finding it difficult to encounter so many disagreeable attitudes towards them. In short, they are wondering why they are disliked (some said ‘hated’) so strongly by so many bishops from other provinces.

And folks, they “don’t get it.” They see their actions as fully in line with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Bp. John Chane, who is getting a great deal of face time here, was in the today’s Lambeth Daily video report as a featured bishop on The Bishop and Social Justice, which is today’s theme. He said into the camera that he and all of the other bishops of the United States believe in Jesus. I have never heard him make any kind of statement of that nature before. I acknowledge that he didn't say what they believe Jesus to be: Incarnate Son of the Living God, or just one of multiple ways? He followed that with Jesus is the American’s model for social justice, which is not a new statement for this group.

Their efforts to tell the others that there is nothing wrong with the American church and that we are not in turmoil and/or crisis is falling on deaf ears. So far, three bishops have approached me, asked if I was an American and asked me about what is really going on in our church. Several reporters from other countries have done the same.

Yesterday at the ad hoc press conference with Archbishop Deng Bul of the Sudan, the Episcopal News Service correspondent here asked if he had spoken with Gene Robinson. When he replied “No”, she asked if he would like to.

That’s when the archbishop replied, “We will not talk to Gene Robinson or listen to him or his testimony. He has to confess, receive forgiveness and leave. Then we will talk. You cannot bring the listening to gay people to our Communion. People who do not believe in the Bible are left out of our churches, not invited in to tell us why they don’t believe.”