2,500 Episcopalians to meet following election of gay bishop The Layman Online Thursday, October 2, 2003 In response to the election of the first openly homosexual bishop in the Episcopal Church, USA, more than 2,500 mainstream Episcopalians have registered to attend a meeting near Dallas and reaffirm their traditional faith. The Oct. 7-9 gathering in Plano, which is part of the Dallas metropolitan area, is titled A Place to Stand. A Call to Mission. It is sponsored by the American Anglican Council (ACC), an orthodox renewal ministry in the Episcopal Church, USA. The sponsors have called for "a solemn fast on Friday, October 3, 2003. We will abstain from food and instead feast on God's Word and the promises of God as we pray for the whole of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion." In an earlier notice about the meeting, the AAC and the host church, Christ Church of Plano, which is northeast of Dallas, said the gathering had drawn registrations from all 50 states and 95 of the ECUSA's 110 dioceses. More than half the registrations are lay people. That announcement said more than 40 bishops, 729 priests, 43 deacons and 91 seminary students had registered. The Plano meeting could become a watershed – and highly publicized – event for the ECUSA. More than 75 reporters, many from the secular press, have been issued credentials to see how mainstream Episcopalians respond to the election of V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as a bishop. The ECUSA's national assembly, which met in August, also authorized ministers in the denomination to conduct services for same-gender couples. Some Episcopal dioceses have already expressed their dissent by cutting off contributions to the denomination. Several bishops have indicated that they may sever their ties with the ECUSA and affiliate with other provinces of the world Anglican communion. The meeting in Plano will precede by one week an emergency worldwide conference of Anglican bishops, who will consider whether some punitive action should be taken against ECUSA. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams called for the bishops to meet Oct. 15 and 16 at Lambeth Palace in London. The repercussions from the ECUSA's actions have already begun. "Episcopal conservatives are hitting runaway ECUSA leaders where it hurts most – in the pocketbook – as Anglican world leaders approach meeting on gay issues," says World Magazine in its introduction to an analysis by Edward M. Plowman. "For ECUSA, the trip to the woodshed most certainly means an embarrassing tongue-lashing and possibly loss of voice and vote at important Anglican meetings," Plowman wrote. "Some of the primates have warned that if ECUSA doesn't repent and reverse its controversial actions (an unlikely scenario), they will vote to kick ECUSA out of the worldwide Anglican Communion altogether." The ECUSA's presiding bishop, John Griswold, has defended the election of a homosexual bishop and the sanctioning of services for same-gender couples. In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Griswold argued that the Bible does not condemn homosexual relations. But Presbyterian theologian, Robert A.J. Gagnon, who has written the most definitive book on what the Bible says about homosexuality, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, responded with a blistering attack on Griswold's interpretation of Scripture. "There really is no excuse any more for making the kinds of false statements about Scripture that you made in the AP interview," said Gagnon, who is a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. The issues in the Episcopal Church parallel what's happening – albeit, to a lesser degree – in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Mainstream Presbyterians, like their counterparts in the ECUSA, have been arguing for decades against proponents of abandoning their denomination's historic standards for marriage and ordination. To date, the PCUSA does not allow the ordination of practicing homosexuals, but it does allow its ministers to conduct union services for same-gender couples. The American Anglican Council represents a strong renewal component in the ECUSA, much like the Confessing Church Movement within the Presbyterian Church (USA). The major tenants of those two groups are that affirmations that Jesus is Lord and Savior for all the world; that the Bible is God's Word; and that God's standards of holiness must not be abandoned to accommodate cultural shifts. Both the ECUSA and the PCUSA have had huge membership losses that parallel their accommodation to liberal theology. The ECUSA has 2.1 million members; the PCUSA, 2.4 million. The American Anglican Council has published on its Web site an agenda for the Plano meeting.

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