Short Overview
There is a political, theological, and moral struggle occurring within the world-wide Anglican community, and to a lesser degree within the Episcopal Church in U.S.

Your clergy and vestry together feel an obligation to:

• Better educate ourselves as to the issues
• Broadly offer education to the congregation
• And then, to communicate an informed opinion of our beliefs to our Bishop; and perhaps also to other church leaders such as the Presiding Bishop
• Finally, we view this as an opportunity to personally and communally grow in our understanding of what it is God calls us to be and to do.

There are two issues, the “core issue” and the “triggering issue.”

• The core issue (as framed by the U.S. House of Bishops) is: Should, or even can, the Episcopal Church in the U.S. bow to “demands” made by Primates representing other Provinces (countries) on how we determine policy and governance within our own Province?
• This core issue arises from a triggering issue: how should homosexual persons be treated by the church?

This document provides a very brief overview of the two issues and a list of resources for further investigation.

An intuitive sense is that most of our community falls into one of three groups:

• Those who support a “progressive” position
• Those who support a “conservative” position, and
  
• Those who don’t care and wish all the racquet would quite down and go away!

This suggests a fourth alternative for all of us. We learn from struggles, from having our core beliefs/positions/values challenged. Each of us now has an opportunity to nurture our unique connection with God; with the Divine, the Spirit, the Hidden Holy. Please consider joining your fellow journeyers as we explore both the core and triggering issues and how we (re!) listen to what God calls us to do, to be.