Webmaster's Note: Bishop Mathes has given permission to print his notes to the clergy of his diocese. The Bishop writes regularly to his clergy in order to inform, to teach, to share his joys and sorrows, and to encourage the clergy to likewise share with him. We are grateful to Bishop Mathes for allowing us to share these notes with you.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I want to thank you for your participation in our Diocesan Convention. I pray that you found the workshops helpful and the worship uplifting. I sensed that our workshops on resolutions and the budget led to greater understanding of what was placed before the convention and assisted in improving those offerings. We demonstrated a hallmark of our church: working together to find common ground.

As we completed our convention, the Primates of the Anglican Communion traveled to Dar Salaam in Tanzania to begin their meeting. The media attention and prognostications about this event are overwhelming. There is much commentary about the Primates, the Anglican Communion, and the Episcopal Church. There is great energy in some areas to create or spin an outcome of this meeting that would distance or remove the Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion.

The context for this is our last General Convention and our church's response to the Windsor Report. As I have said earlier, my judgment is that within the constraints of our democratic processes that the Episcopal Church affirmed the Windsor Process and accepted a posture of restraint relative to the questions of gays and lesbians in the Episcopate and same sex unions. I have been very clear about that restrained position continuing in this Diocese. Despite this some have chosen to leave the Episcopal Church and this diocese. Part of the misinformation that is used to create a wedge both locally and globally is to suggest that those who oppose the actions of the General Convention are oppressed. This is untrue.

Again, it is important to be clear. In our diocese, we will continue to be a collection of theologically diverse congregations. We will continue to talk about our differences regarding important questions as we seek common ground and appreciate points upon which we simply disagree in love. Our diocesan policies will always respect difference.

This includes respecting those who leave. However, that does not permit diocesan bishops and leadership to abrogate their canonical duties relative to the fiduciary trust that we have been given and have accepted. The efforts to depart as congregations, in almost all cases dismissing the desire of minorities within the parish who wish to remain Episcopalian, are something that must be resisted. It is mystifying that those who claim oppression from diocesan bishops and an ill-defined â?onational churchâ?� and who claim that unwanted decisions are thrust upon them can so easily oppress those who they know as fellow parishioners and friends. Indeed, my response to maintain the Episcopal parishes including their property rights is actually consonant with the logic of those who wish to leave. I am defending the rights of a minority to hold fast to the church as it was founded and to the presuppositions which they accepted when they joined the congregation.

In the end, whatever happens at the Primates Meeting, we are not defined by what others may say about the Episcopal Church. We are governed by an understanding of being the Church that predates the creation of the Anglican Communion. We respect the perspective of the primates. We will listen. However, our Anglican identity springs from our heritage and our own polity, not from what others may say about us.

In your prayers, I ask that you pray that our Anglican predisposition to hold opposites in dynamic tension will continue. As Dean White reminded us and as we practiced this last Saturday, we are a people of common prayer, united by our liturgy. At the center of this liturgy is our communion where we remember the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our theology is fundamentally incarnational and sacramental. In our human imperfection, we are formed into the Body of Christ. In our common, sacramental life, we touch the Holy and witness Gospel to the world.

Faithfully,

The Rt. Rev. James R. Mathes
Bishop