ENS: Bishops approach Communique, Covenant with prayer, reflection
Environmental sustainability, development goals central to weekend study
Monday, March 19, 2007

[Episcopal News Service] A weekend of prayer, reflection, and study of environmental sustainability and God's mission has engaged the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops as its members have prepared to respond to the Primates' Communique and the proposed Anglican Covenant.

The Covenant is the topic of March 19 discussions following a plenary presentation by two members of the document's international drafting committee, the Rev. Dr. A. Katherine Grieb, associate professor of New Testament at the Virginia Theological Seminary, and the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, a theologian who is rector of Ascension Church, Pueblo, Colorado. Radner is also a senior fellow of the Anglican Communion Institute, "a trans-national evangelical organization."

The day's agenda follows both Sunday sabbath time and Saturday lectures and workshops focused on theological, scientific, and practical aspects of environmental sustainability as one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Peace and justice work framed by the MDGs is the first of five 2007-2009 churchwide mission priorities designated by the General Convention. the rest