We in Via Media USA can take heart that the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church USA has decided that our delegates to the Anglican Consultative Council will, in keeping with the wishes of the primates of the Anglican Communion provinces, attend the ACC’s meeting, but as unofficial and non-voting members. In this action, the Executive Council has once again made a prudent, responsible decision that will help all involved find effective ways to continue to minister together as Anglicans.

The Christian gospel’s call to act with both faith and charity can be difficult to answer well, but, increasingly, this province of the Anglican Communion is showing decisive leadership in crafting ways to do so that meet contemporary challenges. All Episcopalians should be pleased with the spirit in which their leaders manage to uphold the gospel of Jesus Christ and guide the church as it lives into its call effectively and responsibly in our time and place.

Some people in the church who typically identify themselves as “conservatives,” “orthodox,” and “traditionalists” have been concerned for some time about a problem that does not exist: unilateral action taken by the ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada that have led Anglicans into apostasy. Even though not everyone has agreed with them, no actions taken by either church merit this harsh judgment. However, a small number of those most embittered by these actions are increasingly straying in that direction. These people, bent on creating a new North American province to replace the ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada, have been attempting to use the concerns of faithful and responsible conservatives over matters of human sexuality, scriptural authority, and worldwide Anglican comity to cover their attempt to tear apart these two thriving, though by no means perfect, Anglican provinces in North America.

In response, we all need to help each other understand that both the ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada have worked faithfully within the Anglican traditions to develop theologies, polities, and liturgies that are appropriately adapted to the cultures and societies in which they minister.

We also need to help the church address another of the primates’ concerns, which many share with them, that these two provinces find ways to provide better pastoral care for those who are not in agreement with certain of their recent decisions. These people, fall into two classes: the reasonable and the unreasonable—or, as we increasingly see, the loyal and the leaving. Enabling people to distinguish between them, and ministering appropriately to each, is part of how the provinces are showing this care. Let us do what we can, in charity, to help.

It will take time, but it will also join us to work already in progress throughout the church to foster reconciliation and healing, and to keep us on a truly centering middle way.

Christopher