Province IV Resolution Urging Non-legislative
Approach to Issues Regarding Homosexuality

 

Resolved, the Synod of the Fourth Province endorses the following affirmations, which were unanimously adopted by the House of Bishops of our Province meeting on June 4, 2003, for the purpose of being presented as a proposed resolution of the 74th General Convention of the Episcopal Church:

  1. That our life together as a community of faith is grounded on Holy Scripture and the historic creeds of the church.
  2. That no consensus exists among us in our understanding of homosexuality, how best to care pastorally for homosexual persons, and what is or should be required, permitted, or prohibited by the doctrine, discipline or worship of the Episcopal Church concerning the same.
  3. That our baptism into Jesus Christ is inseparable from our communion with one another, and we commit ourselves to that communion despite our diversity of opinion and, among dioceses, a diversity of pastoral support for homosexual persons.
  4. That it is a matter of faith that our Lord longs for our unity as his disciples, and for us this entails living within the boundaries of the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. We believe this expresses faithfulness to our polity and that it will facilitate the conversation leading to the consensus we seek not only in the Episcopal Church but in the wider Anglican Communion and beyond.
  5. That resolution of either our diversity of opinion or diversity of pastoral support by legislation of the General Convention would imperil the unity of the church absent the emergence of the consensus we seek, and we commit ourselves to avoid such attempts.
Adopted June 6, 2003, at Kanuga Conference Center, Hendersonville, N.C.