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Day Three (Thursday, June 15, 2006)
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by the Rev. Donna Ross, ECR Communications
Coordinator
The Rev. John Danforth, former U.S. Ambassador to
the United Nations as well as former Senator from
Missouri, spoke Thursday night to more than 500
deputies and visitors to General Convention. Again
and again, Danforth called his audience to the
ministry of reconciliation.
Although he is an Episcopal priest, Danforth said
he was bringing “an outsider’s perspective” on the
Episcopal Church to the Presiding Bishop’s Forum
on Reconciliation: “This is the first General
Convention I have ever attended, and I’m only here
for one night.”
Danforth asked those present to help the Episcopal
Church learn to speak to the world about issues
which are central, rather than peripheral, to the
Christian faith. Observing that almost all media
focus on the Episcopal Church’s General Convention
has been on issues related to sexual orientation,
Danforth questioned whether this issue is the most
important question for the church to consider. "I
don't want to downplay the issues ... but I want
to raise the basic question of whether human
sexual orientation is the centerpiece of important
issues for the Episcopal Church," he said. "I
believe that we have a higher calling, a more
central message ... Ours is a special calling to
the ministry of reconciliation."
The central message Christians bring to the world
today, he said, is the same message St. Paul sent
to the Corinthians in the middle of the first
century: “God has reconciled us to himself by
Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of
reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18)
Danforth asked the Episcopal Church to develop a
prophetic ministry to our nation and the world,
framing the discussion in the context of
reconciliation: “If we look for things to do
that are part of the ministry of reconciliation,
we will have far more listeners than worrying
about who we select as bishop.”
Danforth concluded, “Does the Episcopal Church
intend to be part of the problem or part of the
answer? A broken church is a sad church. If we
can't exchange the peace with one another, how can
we bring reconciliation to the world?” He said
that the Episcopal Church has always represented
the middle way, "where all sorts of people can
come together around the altar ... and have all
sorts of different views. If God calls us to a
ministry of reconciliation, how you conduct
yourselves at this General Convention is very
important because it would be very hard for our
church to offer ourselves as the broken answer to
the world.”
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