Y'all,

I think we need also to agree about what exactly we're doing in our 
dialogue.  Each of us can have theological objections to the other until 
we're blue in the face.  That won't change the fact that both the General 
Council of the REC and the Provincial Synod of the APA have ratified by vote 
the Joint Statement on Anglican Belief and Practice, a document whose final 
wording involved a careful parsing by clergy from the APA and REC, as well 
as all the REC bishops.  Note, it contains a specific section on the role 
played by the 39 Articles.  That document fulfilled the first stage of our 
unity scheme by showing that there were no substantive theological 
disagreements preventing our two churches from merging.

This doesn't mean we can't discuss our disagreements.  What it does mean is 
that presumably theological problems were aired in either church, that the 
authorized bodies voted, and that the majority in both churches agreed to 
the statement.

That statement takes into consideration the very differences evidenced 
recently on this list...though perhaps with less rancor and heat.

Finally, as the chairman of the APA's Ecumenical Committee and as one 
intimately involved in composition of the Statement, let me make it clear 
that there are NO hidden agendas.  Every meeting between our two churches of 
which I have been part have been open, friendly, and an all around delight. 
There has been an eagerness among these participants to get past old gripes, 
put behind us the 19th century, and move on in our Gospel work.  Frankly, at 
the same time there has been throughout an anxiety that our dialogue would 
be shipwrecked by small-mindedness.  To avoid that, we've gone the extra 
league to avoid buzz words, and have removed from the process a defininte 
time frame in which to merge.

Look, all of us can take the defensive route and come up with any number of 
reasons why our two churches shouldn't merge.  Frankly, I think a lot of 
traditional Anglicans have an excrutiating time differentiating between 
essentials and non-essentials.  But, as I've said before, if our devotion to 
the Trinity, the Joint Statement, the APA's Solemn Declaration, the REC's 
Constitution, the Lambeth Quadrilateral, our respective Prayer Books, the 
evident godliness of our bishops, and our mutual respect for our Anglican 
heritage, aren't sufficient cause for our merger then, I think, we have to 
admit that deep down we don't really care about the divisions in Christ's 
Church nor Jesus' prayer in John 17.

Mark+