Friday Morning Roundup - Kearon addresses House of Bishops and ECUSA spins church downward spiral

Spinmeisters beware. The spin begins.

The morning briefing starts off with a defensive posture of "explaining" to the press why the Episcopal Church membership stats are so low. It's because all the mainline churches stats are low - and oh, by the way, not everyone goes to church on Sunday. It's interesting that ECUSA feels it needs to explain why their membership stats are dropping. The briefer didn't mention how the membership has dropped over the years, he only compared it with the other mainline denominations.

It seems that this defensive posture is being taken because of David Anderson's remarks last night on CNN:

ANDERSON: Well, three years ago in August, we told Presiding Bishop Griswold that he was running the Titanic into the iceberg on the Gene Robinson confirmation. They said -- he said and others that we would all get over it. That's not been the case. People are voting with their feet. 35,000 a year, that's 700 a week literally, are saying no to Gene Robinson being a bishop, no to Frank Griswold's episcopacy, and they are moving on to other denominations, and moving into other Anglican entities but out of the Episcopal Church. That's pretty significant.

The ENS (the communications office of ECUSA) though released stats this morning that said that

2004: Active Baptized Members: 2,247,819, which is 36,414 fewer than 2003 (domestic dioceses only)
2003: Active Baptized Members: 2,284,233, which is 35,988 fewer than 2002 (domestic dioceses only)

Isn't that what David said last night?

This morning the Special Committee voted to recommend A159, Anglican Communion, A166 to participating the development of the Anglican Covenant, A165 regarding the Listening Process, and rejected C007 regarding the funding of ACC. Tonight will be 6:15 meeting regarding the timeline of their meetings. Still before the Committee are A160, A161, and A162.

Later: I'm just back from hearing Kenneth Kearon, General Secretary of the Anglican Communion address the House of Bishops. I saw him earlier this week when he testified before the Special Committee (not at the big hearing on Wednesday night, but an earlier hearing). What was significant was not so much what he said that was memorable, but what he didn't say. He has a history of saying very nice things about ECUSA and his dearth of pleasantries spoke volumes. He did talk about the tearing of the fabric that is the Anglican Communion and of the efforts underway to define a "Windsor process." I nearly fell over though when he said it would take six to eight years to write a covenant. One does wonder if the Internet works in England - or do they still carry messages by riders on horseback?

Tonight is the AAC Eucharist with Bishop Michael Nazir-ali, Bishop of Rochester and the other candidate for Archbishop of Canterbury. It will be at the Nationwide Arena at 7:00 p.m. Just in time.

bb