The Cost of Discipleship

by Susan Russell

The letter written April 13th, 2005, on behalf of ECUSA's Executive Council offers the kind of creative and grace-filled compromise that gives one hope that the spirit of Anglican comprehensiveness may, after all, prove strong enough to survive the barrage of partisan polemic and polarizing rhetoric that sadly seems to dominate our ecclesial discourse.

By voluntarily withdrawing our representatives to the June ACC gathering from "official participation" ECUSA has once-and-for-all demonstrated to the larger Communion that we take seriously the cost of discipleship -- that we are willing to pay a price for the prophetic ministry to which we have been called: the high calling of striving to include all of the baptized in the Body of Christ.

At the same time, by "asking our members to be present at the meeting to listen to reports on the life and ministry we share across the Communion and to be available for conversation and consultation" the Executive Council reasserts both the right and responsibility of ECUSA representatives to be incarnationally present in the deliberations of the only representative Anglican body including all orders of ministry.

It is a decision that will leave some feeling that in forgoing our voting privilege we have gone too far to appease the larger communion. It is a decision that will leave others feeling that in insisting on sending our representatives to be present at the table in Nottingham we have stopped short of the recommendations of the Primates. On reflection, I believe this considered response has found a true via media: not only complying with the "letter" of the Primates' requests but leaving room for the Spirit to move in conversation and consultation.

There is no question that there is cost to this discipleship to which we have been called but there is also promise -- promise in the potential that the listening process to which the Communion has committed itself for nearly thirty years may actually begin to happen in these conversations and consultations -- and hope that the spirit of reconciliation might draw us to recognize that the Gospel that ultimately unites us is stronger than the differences that currently divide us.

[COVENANT, Number 20, April 2005]

The Revd Susan Russell is president of Integrity, National, and on the staff of All Saints Church, Pasadena, CA