Christianity Today

Leaders of conservative Episcopalians have expressed various levels of anger and disappointment about the Windsor Report, which the Lambeth Commission on Communion released on Monday in London.

Most conservative leaders who spoke to Christianity Today were either in London or on their way to it. None of these leaders expects that bishops of the Episcopal Church will express anything more than token regrets for proceeding with gay blessings or for consecrating Gene Robinson as a bishop earlier this year.

David Anderson, president of the American Anglican Council, cited Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold's "A Word to the Church: Some Preliminary Reflections Regarding the Windsor Report."

"Griswold already said, basically, nothing doing," Anderson said.

Griswold expressed two regrets in his document: "I regret that there are places within our Communion where it is unsafe for [homosexual persons] to speak out of the truth of who they are" and "[members of our church] regret how difficult and painful actions of our church have been in many provinces of our Communion, and the negative repercussions that have been felt by brother and sister Anglicans."

Anderson is no more hopeful that Episcopal bishops will observe a moratorium on consecrating additional gay bishops, should they be elected, or on blessing gay unions. "Will they do that? I've been around for a long time, and I don't expect it."

Robert Duncan, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, said the network's member bishops will press the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops to enact what the report asks of them.

"We'll call on the House of Bishops very clearly to express their regrets, to embrace the moratorium, to affirm the Lambeth Commission's resolution on human sexuality, ...

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