7/19/2004 from TITUS ON LINE

Conciliatory Tone Struck at FIF/NA Assembly
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— kendall @ 11:44 am 

Despite evidence that significant theological division remains between it and other conservative Episcopalians, the annual assembly of Forward in Faith/North America (FIF/NA) — which began exactly one week after the announcement of its charter membership in a new alliance of orthodox Anglicans in North America [TLC, July 11] — sought to convey a greater degree of tolerance for living with tension and difference.

Meeting at St. Vincent’s Cathedral in Bedford, Texas, June 24-26, the council and deputies approved a concordat of intercommunion with the Anglican Province in America (APA). The agreement has the practical effect of allowing communicants to attend FIF/NA and APA churches reciprocally and does not take effect until ratified by the APA at its September synod. A similar agreement already exists between FIF/NA and the Anglican Church in America (ACA), and talks are ongoing toward a concordat with the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC).

Passage of the concordat came following formation of the alliance of “common cause in the gospel of Jesus Christ” under the moderator of the Anglican Communion Network (ACN), the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan. Other partners in the alliance are the American Anglican Council (AAC), the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA), the REC, APA and ACN.

Registered participants included representatives of the alliance organizations, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Ekklesia Society, the Anglican Church of the Province of Uganda, the Traditional Anglican Communion, and Forward in Faith/United Kingdom. Commenting on the extraordinary degree of representation from like-minded interest groups at the assembly, the Rev. Canon Warren Tanghe, rector of Church of Our Saviour, Atlanta, Ga., and the newly elected FIF/NA vice president, said, “These new structures allow us to live out our integrity and carry out the mission given to us by our one Lord.”

Though FIF/NA leadership still considers itself in “impaired communion” with six of the nine network bishops because they ordain women to the priesthood, the Rt. Rev. Peter Beckwith, Bishop of Springfield, was invited to be part of a June 25 panel that outlined the network’s purpose and goals.

After commending FIF/NA for its faithfulness, Bishop Beckwith touched a raw nerve when he declared during a panel discussion that he believes God can reform the Episcopal Church. 

“He can bring it back from the brink in which it finds itself to faithfulness in orthodoxy,” Bishop Beckwith said. “I am not sure the leadership of ECUSA will allow it, but that remains to be seen.”

Bishop Beckwith’s remarks ran counter to those of the Rev. David Moyer, rector of Church of the Good Shepherd, Rosemont, Pa., and president of FIF/NA, who declared in his opening address that “ECUSA is irreformable.”
–The Living Church