Proposal for initial Meeting of members of this Household.
The American Anglican Household in 2003 could be likened to an apartment complex where the inhabitants of the apartments hardly know each other and have little do with one another. They use the same address, the same electricity, water and gas supplies, but they have little else in common in a practical way.
The time has come, the time is ripe, and the external need is great, for them to begin a process of meeting together in the Lobby. This coming together to get to know one another cannot be rushed and it needs to start from small beginnings.
Thus instead of everyone who lives in the complex crowding into the Lobby there should be first of all a meeting of representatives from the various floors of the building. And when they have met, recognized how much they have in common and the pressing need for them to get to know each other better, then a larger meeting of more residents can be called and can meet in the hall next door.
We propose that the Anglican groups/societies/organizations/jurisdictions, that presently represent what may be called the faithful Anglican remnant in the U.S.A. (the ECUSA being generally apostate or nearly so), begin slowly and surely to get to know each other, to find common ground, and to move towards some kind of union, which can be the basis (God willing) for a new Province of the Anglican Communion in the USA. This process to run parallel to the Commission of the Primates which is looking into ways of bringing help and discipline to provinces that are in disorder right now.
To this end, we propose that there be a Fri/Sat Meeting in January in Atlanta (where bad weather should not be a problem) of two representatives from each of the following -- American Anglican Council, Forward in Faith North America, the Anglican Church in America, the Anglican Catholic Church, the Province of Christ the King, the Episcopal Missionary Church, the Anglican Mission in America, and the Reformed Episcopal Church.
Further, we propose that this Meeting:
•have as its Convener a person who is respected by all and is outside the American scene, but who has an understanding of it.
•begins on a Friday afternoon and lasts till Saturday afternoon.
•has no Eucharist but uses Morning and Evening Prayer.
•uses only a Prayer Book and a Bible for the services which were in existence before 1960 (thus classic BCP and KJV or ASV or RSV).
Also, we suggest that, if there be agreement that a further Meeting should occur, then that Meeting be in Philadelphia in the Spring, for Philadelphia has great symbolic importance -- it is where the PECUSA officially began in the 1780s. Further, we suggest that each participant pay for his own travel and hotel for the Atlanta meeting, and that a contribution be made by all groups involved to pay for the fare and hotel of the Convener and also of any consultant he cares to bring with him or to use.
Explanations
There are probably 75,000 active Anglicans/Episcopalians outside the ECUSA. The recent publicity of the AAC does not seem to have made this fact clear either to the Primates or to the Anglican Communion generally or even to the American people.
Anglicans outside the ECUSA tend to think that the conservatives left within ECUSA have compromised too much and diluted the received Reformed Catholic Faith.
Anglicans inside the ECUSA tend to think that Anglicans outside have a tendency to schism, to making too many bishops and to lowering the standards of clergy education.
Misunderstandings increase when people do not talk and pray together. The time has come for the talking and praying in a responsible and devout way to begin!
The time has come under God for the re-forming, re-ordering, re-uniting and renewing of the American Anglican Household on sure foundations.
The Revd Dr Peter Toon & The Revd Dr Louis R Tarsitano (October 27, 03)
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