From the Canterbury Retreat & Conference Center, Diocese of Central Florida (Epiphanytide 2020)

“For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

We, Communion Partner leaders, gathered Feb. 4-5 to take counsel with one another for the good order of the Church and the continued proclamation of the Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Our meeting took place within the context of prayer and worship, bringing together members of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, who represent dioceses and parishes in North America, as well as Central and South America. We give thanks to God for the opportunity to be together.

During our meeting we focused our attention on this summer’s Lambeth Conference. As the 1930 Lambeth Conference recognized, the churches of the Anglican Communion are bound together by mutual loyalty sustained through the common counsel of the bishops in conference. A commitment to be present at the Conference as listeners and learners along with brothers and sisters throughout the world is essential to our life together as a Communion.

We look forward to discussion at the Conference on our common future as Anglicans over the next decade. As Communion Partners, we seek to teach and act in ways that are guided by the common counsel of the bishops in conference, especially in controverted matters. We believe that the Conference should offer guidance on the relational and representational consequences of our disagreements. We encourage the Conference to reaffirm the traditional teaching on marriage, grounded in Scripture and expressed in the 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution 1.10.

We remain committed to the foundational elements of our identity as a group, which includes all the moratoria enumerated in the 2004 Windsor Report. We note with concern the continued consecration of bishops in both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada whose domestic relationships lie outside these moratoria, as well as recent cross-border interventions in multiple Anglican provinces.

During this past year, Communion Partners sponsored or participated in a number of events intended to provide resources for the bishops as they prepare for this summer’s Lambeth Conference. In a colloquium at Lambeth Palace in October 2019, leaders from around the Communion gathered to recall the great summons of the 1920 Lambeth Conference to “fellowship” between churches and among Anglicans. In a consultation at Virginia Theological Seminary in January 2020, an international gathering explored the bonds and boundaries of communion in the midst of disagreement. Papers from both gatherings will be published in volumes this summer.

Two of our members reported on their experience as observers of the seventh conference of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches, meeting in Cairo in October 2019. The gathering endorsed and sent to its member provinces for adoption a draft structure for enhanced ecclesial responsibility. These proposals involve many of the bishops who will gather for the 2020 Lambeth Conference. We were encouraged by the prayerful and passionate determination of the Global South delegates to remain loyal to the Anglican tradition, and to be agents of transformation in a world beset by poverty, dispossession, and violence. We desire deepened fellowship with our Global South brothers and sisters through mutual prayer and partnerships.

We urge further attention to the many members of the Anglican Communion in Latin America, who testify that their perspective is sometimes set aside in favor of other global regions. Our Latin American bishops and leaders fear that this contributes to a deficit in the training and education of new clergy, in their sense of church history and doctrine. We ask that the Communion take up anew the needs of Latin America, especially as we seek to plan for the theological education of new clergy who will be charged with maintaining the faith of the Church in Latin America.

Those of us in the Anglican Church of Canada give thanks that at our 2019 General Synod in Vancouver, the Church’s traditional teaching on marriage was upheld. We are deeply concerned that many Canadian dioceses have decided to go ahead with a “local option” for same-sex marriage, in defiance of the marriage canon. In this time of serious tension in our Church, we continue to strive for a common mind in a spirit of humility, and for space to advance the broader biblical witness in a secular society.

We in the Episcopal Church are grateful for the work of the Task Force for Communion Across Difference, charged by General Convention 2018 to “seek a lasting path forward” in the midst of our disagreements on human sexuality. We believe that this will require significant labor on matters of doctrine, liturgy, and polity, such that it may be possible for all in the Episcopal Church to live together in good conscience under the authority of Holy Scripture. Insofar as we teach and practice the Anglican Communion’s teaching on marriage as between a man and a woman, we appreciate General Convention’s affirmation of “the indispensable place that the minority who hold to this Church’s historic teaching on marriage have in our common life, whose witness the Church needs.”

All of us stand in solidarity with our brother, the Rt. Rev. William Love, as he faces a disciplinary trial on April 21. We request your prayers for him and his diocese in a time of great difficulty. As we work for communion across difference, and seek adaptive solutions, we are dismayed that latitude is extended to some in the enforcement of canons, but not others. This double standard, which allows majorities to act with impunity, is capricious in nature, and undermines the church’s authority.

The encouragement of a new generation of leaders in our churches remains a pressing concern. The upcoming Radical Vocations Conference (RadVO), featuring the Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, N.T. Wright, Fleming Rutledge, James K.A. Smith and others, will build on the 2018 Conference which attracted over 700 participants, with over 150 young adults discerning a call to the ordained ministry. We pray that the conference, which will take place at the Church of the Incarnation, Dallas, September 17-19, 2020, will continue the movement for the renewal of the Church.

We also approved a Communion Partners Steering Committee: The Rt. Rev. Michael Smith, Assistant Bishop of Dallas, is the convener; members include the Rt. Rev. Greg Brewer (Central Florida), the Rt. Rev. Michael Hawkins (Saskatchewan), the Rt. Rev. Annie Ittoshat (Arctic), the Rev. Fariborz Khandani (Athabasca), the Rev. Jackie Ruiz (Honduras), the Rev. Leigh Spruill (Tennessee), Ms. Sharon Dewey Hetke (Ontario), and Dr. Christopher Wells (Dallas). The Rev. Canon Jordan Hylden (Dallas) and the Rev. Ajit John (Toronto) serve as consultants.

We are grateful to God for “the work and labor of love” (Heb. 6:10) of so many faithful members of our churches over this past year. We ask your continued prayers for all of us in the work that lies ahead.

The Rt. Rev. Lloyd Allen
Bishop of Honduras

The Rt. Rev. John Bauerschmidt
Bishop of Tennessee

The Rt. Rev. Greg Brewer
Bishop of Central Florida

The Rt. Rev. Tony Burton
Rector of Church of the Incarnation, Dallas

The Rt. Rev. Franciso Duque-Gomez
Bishop of Colombia

The Rt. Rev. Michael Hawkins
Bishop of Saskatchewan

Ms. Sharon Dewey Hetke
Director of Anglican Communion Alliance, Canada

The Rev. Canon Jordan Hylden
Canon Theologian, Diocese of Dallas

The Rt. Rev. Annie Ittoshat
Bishop Suffragan of the Arctic

The Rev. Ajit John
Associate Priest of St. Paul’s L’Amoreaux, Toronto

The Rt. Rev. Fraser Lawton
Diocese of Dallas

The Rt. Rev. Bill Love
Bishop of Albany

The Rt. Rev. Dan Martins
Bishop of Springfield

The Rt. Rev. David Parsons
Bishop of the Arctic

The Very Rev. Rob Price
Dean of St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Dallas

The Rt. Rev. Joey Royal
Bishop Suffragan of the Arctic

The Rt. Rev. Michael G. Smith
Bishop Assistant of Dallas

The Rt. Rev. George Sumner
Bishop of Dallas

Dr. Christopher Wells
Executive Director of The Living Church Foundation