Click here to read my report about Metropolitan Jonah's address to the ACNA Provincial Assembly. As a former Episcopalian and the first convert to lead the Orthodox Church in America, Metropolitan Jonah is a unique figure with special ties to the Anglican Church. I found his address to be comprehensive, placing the renewal movement within the Anglican Church and broader Christianity into the context of two thousand years of church history.

The Orthodox Primate also presented a clearly thought-out world view, connecting sanctity of life and human sexuality to God's plan for humanity. Jonah proved a wonderful complement to the Evangelical voices of Pastor Rick Warren and Bishop-elect Todd Hunter.

Check out this video (courtesy of Mary Ailes of Baby Blue Online) of the procession into the sanctuary at Christ Church, Plano. Hundreds of people assembled in a striking entrance sung to "Praise My Soul The King of Heaven".

Archbishop Duncan and Bishops Iker and Minns joined Vice-Chancellor Cheryl Chang of the Anglican Network in Canada and Dr. Michael Howell from Forward in Faith for a press conference prior to the installation.

Duncan has repeatedly emphasized how the Anglican Church is "Keeping the main thing the main thing" by pursuing common mission. A few quotes from the press conference:

"We are oriented toward a hopeful future again. We are not turning back to the hurts of our past. We have been able to say that it is time to move on and move forward together in Christian mission.

We are focused on the main thing again. And the main thing is the mission of Jesus Christ. That mission is carried forward by us, his people, who are loved by God and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God loves everyone. God calls us to share that good news with everyone.

Finally, we are part of something big. God isn't just bringing Anglican Christians together. Across the church people are re-embracing Scripture's authority. Across the church, Christians are once again discovering the beauty, wisdom and grace of our 2,000 year-old tradition. And as Christians discover that, they are discovering, as we have here in Texas, that we are not so far apart as we thought."

I had the opportunity to ask Archbishop Duncan about Metropolitan Jonah's proposal of dialogue, working towards eventual full communion with the Orthodox, and how the departure from the Episcopal Church is affecting ecumenical relations between the Anglican Church and other Christian churches.

Duncan  highlighted particularly the Orthodox and Roman Catholic interest in the Anglican province, but also the National Association of Evangelicals and the Association for Church Renewal.

"Suddenly they [other churches] are seeing Anglicans who look like the Anglicans they always knew. Anglicans were the bridge often between Protestant and Catholic. Suddenly there are Anglicans who find themselves with connection to the great tradition. What's happened with western Anglicanism in the past 30 years is that it's tried to be a bridge to the culture. Once you attempt to be a bridge to the culture, you're on one side of the bridge, and you don't have to go very far before you're not recognizably Christian any more. And so, suddenly, there's this great interest in what we're doing, because we look like what Anglicans are supposed to look like. We look like that main stream.

After 35 years of a suspended dialogue, the metropolitan of the Orthodox Church in American comes and announces to us that the Orthodox Church in America is prepared to re-establish the dialogue, and has proposed dates for that to begin, [that] is extraordinary ecumenical news."

This morning's keynote address was by Orthodox Church in America (OCA) Metropolitan Jonah. Jonah, a former Episcopalian, is the first convert to head the OCA. He was greeted with great applause, and called for full communion with the new Anglican province. That will take time: the OCA is set against women's ordination, and there are several other key issues. That being said, Bishop Duncan committed ACNA to dialogue with the OCA.

I'll have a full write-up of Jonah's address later, in addition to a Rick Warren article. Jonah's installation as head of the OCA has been seen as a positive development, with the Orthodox Church distancing itself from dominant Russian ethnic ties and past financial scandal. A young leader (Jonah is in his 40s), Jonah is a breath of fresh air in a church that has struggled in recent years. At IRD, we're hopeful that Jonah will also remove the OCA from the National Council of Churches, which increasingly shares little in common with the Orthodox Church.

Speaking of installations, Faith McDonnell and I have shuttled over to Christ Church, Plano, for Archbishop Robert Duncan's installation tonight. We've been informed that it will not be an "enthronement" as Christ Church, Plano has no actual throne. Christ Church is the largest single parish in the ACNA, having departed the Episcopal Church for the Anglican Mission in the Americas over two years ago. It is worth noting that Christ Church was also the largest parish in the Episcopal Church, prior to it's departure.

-Jeff Walton

Well, it didn't take long: on only day two of the ACNA Provincial Assembly, the IRD was assigned full credit for schismatic activities, funding the religious right, and ... Pastor Rick Warren. Following his decision to enthusiastically address the ACNA meeting, Warren quickly came under fire from Religious Left folks at the Daily Kos. The popular progressive blog has decided to squarely place the blame for such activity upon the IRD. Check it out here and take a moment to savor the paranoia.

I'll share some highlights of Warren's keynote address tomorrow morning.

-Jeff Walton

Anglican Action's press release about Monday's events can be viewed by clicking here. Tuesday morning features an address by Pastor Rick Warren, one of the ecumenical guests giving a keynote address during the assembly. I'm headed over to the Marquee now, to ensure a seat with what will probably be another overflow crowd.

-Jeff Walton

After discussion and votes on each of the sections, the constitution has been adopted: the new church has been officially constituted.

Everyone is singing the doxology, it's a good conclusion to a surprisingly unified session. There was discussion specifically about acknowledging the strains in the Anglican Communion, as well as about the role of the prayer book and the role of healing in the church.

Delegates are hearing from overseas visitors, including the bishop of Recife, Brazil. The Diocese of Recife has some parallels to conservative Anglicans that recently departed the U.S. Episcopal Church. Having left the Province of Brazil in the past decade over differences rooted in scriptural authority, the diocese has taken an aggressive missions posture. They have doubled the size of their membership, and also taken in congregations from other parts of Brazil and the United States.

This is an important voice to hear: concerns about schism breeding further schism are valid, but the history of Recife shows that groups distancing themselves from a national church can succeed in mission and growth if they unify around shared priorities.

It's a welcome contrast to the rather limited success of the 1970s-era splinter churches, which did not grow upon departing the Episcopal Church. ACNA delegates have already spoken about not wanting to follow the fate of those numerous but small bodies.

Now we're hearing from Saw Noel Nay Lin, Bishop of Mandalay, part of the Province of Burma. Sent by the Archbishop Stephen Oo of Yangon (Rangoon), he's expressing his support, prayers and blessing. His soft-spoken words are followed by Bishop Alfred Nwaizuzu, a boisterous Nigerian expressing many of the same sentiments:

"We Nigerians are the happiest!" Nwaizuzu is exclaiming, enveloping Bishop Duncan in a large hug.

The first of the "work" sessions has begun, with a review of corrections and clarifications to the Constitution and Canons. There is a significant representation from many other Anglican provinces: observers from the Anglican Provinces of South East Asia, North Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, and others have been introduced. Additionally, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' representative, as "pastoral visitor" has been introduced: he is the retired bishop of Seychelles in the Province of the Indian Ocean.

Also introduced: Hugo Blankenship, Chancellor of The Falls Church in Virginia. Blankenship has been the pointman for the development of the church canons. Following the session, I'll speak with him at a special press conference.

-Jeff Walton

Faith McDonnell and I arrived this morning in Fort Worth for the ACNA Assembly, and I've quickly discovered that the event is even larger than I envisioned. The St. Vincent's campus is expansive, with enough room for the 234 delegates and over 500 additional registered attendees.

The IRD booth is located in the hallway off of the main assembly room, we're looking forward to meeting with many of the delegates and sharing about IRD's work with the persecuted church. Some of our neighboring booths testify to the diversity of ACNA: the Reformed Episcopal seminary table sits adjacent to the anglo-catholic Nashotah House seminary table, demonstrating the cooperation between "Catholic, Evangelical and Charismatic" streams of Anglicanism that are present.

In his opening address, Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan spoke to some of the changes in the Church universal that he sees ACNA centered upon:

"There is a great Reformation in the Christian Church underway. We North American Anglicans are very much in the midst of it. While much of mainline Protestantism is finding itself adrift from its moornings (submission to the Word of God), just like Western Anglicanism, there is an ever-growing stream of North American Protestantism that has re-embraced Scripture's authority (just as we have). At the same time, these Protestant and Pentecostal brothers and sisters are also being drawn to come to terms with something we classic Anglicans know very well, what the late Robert Webber of Wheaton College described so aptly as "the Great Tradition." What this means is that Our God is up to something very big, both with us and with others. The Father truly is drawing His children together again in a surprising and sovereign move of the Holy Spirit. He is again Re-Forming His Church. This also explains why there is such keen interest in what is happening here in these days among our Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters. The whole of the Christian Church senses re-alignment in the air. Many even wonder: Is it that our God is bringing about some confluence of the three great streams that are the Evangelical, the Catholic and the Pentecostal? Daring to recover what Anglicanism at its best has always been about, is it any wonder that the whole world is looking here to Bedford at this moment? Are we ready? Are we willing?"

Significant work is ahead, as the delegates begin discussing the proposed Constitution and Canons this afternoon.