From my perspective, these resolutions represent an endorsement of the Windsor Report and express a clear desire not to do anything that would further jeopardize our standing with the rest of the Communion.

The resolutions, which I also expect will pass in June, I would sum up as follows-and these are my own words as nothing is official at this point:

We certainly want to look at all things in the light of core Christianity. And if the Nigerian legislation is as bad as Bishop Chane says it is, then we are required to say something.

But I, for one, have become almost unable to "hear" anything that the power-people in the Episcopal Church have to say until they start acting with love toward those in the small minority over whom they have canonical power.

Needless to say, the election of Bishop Robinson met with a mixed response in the 77 million-member Anglican Communion. Liberals around the world hailed his election as an important step forward in the full inclusion of gays in the life of the church.

Conservatives were not so sanguine. While they admitted that there were prohibitions in the Bible that had never been or were no longer binding on Christians, they did not think that the traditional ban on gay sex was among them.

There are at least five key issues over which Episcopalians are divided. They are extremely serious issues and all of these issues are rooted in doctrine, even though we now live in a day when the culture is quite suspicious of doctrinal matters.