Admitting that the Instruments of Communion are ”˜less than they might be’ Archbishop Williams said examples of their desire to enable included such proactive projects as the Anglican Alliance, the Bible in the Life of the Church Project, Continuing Indaba, and promoting theological education. These were, he said, attempts by the Instruments to try and change a situation by being creative.

Archbishop Williams also suggested that younger Anglicans seemed more interested in one kind of authority over another.

“If you pick up and read the book by the young Anglican leaders who were present at the mission consultation in Edinburgh two years ago, you will see something of how a younger generation sees these questions,” he said. “I believe that for the authors of that book and those whom they represent, the vision of not only Anglican, but Christian structural fellowship has a great deal more to do with enabling authority than with absolute clarity about corrective authority.”

Read it all and please note the audio link to the full address at the bottom.

“In the wake of disaster and trauma, a city has to decide what is it that binds it together ”“ above all, what are the promises that we make to one another,” the Archbishop said.

“Because a truly healthy and just city is a place where people make promises to one another. They promise to be there for one another’s safety and welfare.”

Archbishop Rowan then went to the heart of God’s promise in Ezekiel: “I will resettle your towns, the ruins will be rebuilt.”

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The Synod vote had been due to take place in July, but was postponed after a last-minute row over wording.

A compromise was later agreed, granting traditionalists ”” who believe that female leadership in the Church goes against the Bible’s teaching ”” the right to have an alternative male bishop chosen “in a manner which respects” their theological convictions.

However, a small but well-organised coalition of traditionalist Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals has joined forces, claiming that the compromise is “not fit for purpose” because it still does not provide enough assurances for them. They believe they could have secured enough votes in at least one part of the Synod to deny the measure the full two thirds approval it requires to be passed.

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I propose disestablishment because I want Christianity to flourish in England, and renew itself, and the best way to do this is through a free market ”“ but when you have a powerful state tied to a weak church, you get a statist church pushing a statist agenda. See how Anglican (and Catholic) charities, subsidised by the state, increasingly bury any Christian identity they have in favour of the state’s ideology of “equality and diversity”. The Big Society, as its heart, was an attempt to push the state out of those areas in which it has no real business, such as the charitable, volunteering and caring sectors. The churches should be leaping at this opportunity.

So here’s a possible solution. The Church of England is disestablished, and becomes just another independent church. The government passes a law that no religious building can change function, while taxpayers stop funding church maintenance through groups like English Heritage (which costs £15 million a year). Therefore if a congregation feels that they are sick of Canterbury and want to break off to join a breakaway liberal or evangelical or Anglo-Catholic church they can do so, so long as they can raise the money to buy the building, which since it cannot change function and costs a lot of money to maintain is not much.

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Yet Dr Williams’s greatest failing has concerned the one thing all sides of the Church might have agreed on: a clear and coherent articulation of the essential doctrines of Christianity. This has been his greatest sin of omission.

Here’s an example of his failure to articulate one of the key tenets of the faith.

When it was announced that Prince William and Kate Middleton were engaged, journalists around the world requested an interview with the Archbishop. It seemed a perfect opportunity for him to present the case for Christian marriage…

But he wouldn’t agree to be interviewed..

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While there is much to commend in this message on the extravagant love of God, the world’s desperate need to know this love and our need to share his love with the world, the message was confusing. Was the Archbishop of Canterbury suggesting that everyone will be saved by the mysterious love of God which embraces all from the beginning? Would this not be offensive to those who reject Jesus Christ and his way, to be co-opted against their will? And how does this square with our identity as Anglican followers of Jesus Christ, who in the same Gospel of John makes it clear that he alone is the way, the truth and the life and that salvation is through Him alone? (John 14:6)

Currently, the work of the Anglican Communion appears to be driven by a new, non-Biblical global ethic that focuses on the needs of communities rather than the person and power of Jesus Christ. As I have written recently, the work of the Anglican Alliance on economic empowerment continues to focus on the secular development of skills for “inclusion,” “consultation and governance,” “protection of vulnerable people,” and “principles of financial planning”– all from their report today, all very worthy efforts and all utterly lacking in any Biblical and universal truths rooted in the person and power of Jesus Christ.

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Archbishop Rowan Williams believes the Anglican Communion needs to change its approach to mission. He also thinks young Anglicans will lead the way ”“ which is why he was so excited about a book launch in Holy Trinity Cathedral on Sunday.

The Communion’s mission maps were drawn, Dr Williams said, “largely by men, largely by ordained men over 55, and largely by ordained men over 55 with a slightly paler complexion than the average Anglican”.

And then, in a gesture of delight, he swung the book high over his head to launch a brand-new road map: “Life-Widening Mission ”“ Global Anglican Perspectives” by seven young Anglican leaders.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury has thrilled his New Zealand followers on what will be his last international engagement as the head of the Anglican Church.

The Most Reverend Rowan Williams – the 104th in a line which goes back more than 1400 years to Saint Augustine of Canterbury – today preached to some 1300 people at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Auckland’s Parnell.

The Anglican Consultative Council, which is chaired by Dr Williams, began its two-week New Zealand meeting in Manukau yesterday. It is the biggest and most influential international Anglican gathering ever to be held in this country, the church said in a statement…

Read it all.

One of the early Christian Fathers of the Church, Clement of Alexandria, says at one point that human love is always tending to slip back into the love of what is common among people.

But there’s nothing, he goes on to say, there’s nothing in common between God and the world.

So God’s love for the world is extraordinary. Without cause, absolutely free, absolutely, overwhelmingly unreasonable.

And that’s the kind of the love we are invited to become part of.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams gave the sermon at today’s beautiful opening eucharist for the ACC-15 meeting at Auckland’s Holy Trinity Cathedral.
Speaking on the Gospel reading, John 15:17-27, he said we all needed to remember that while the world around us is a place where love is conditional, Jesus punctures that view of love.” He said that the challenge for the Church is rethinking love & belonging. “We are to create more belonging with those who don’t belong…” he said. “The church is whatever in us says ‘yes’ to the reckless love of God, that reaches out in mission.”

Check it out.

After a rousing Maori welcome to TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre in Manukau, New Zealand, Archbishop Rowan Williams’ responded by celebrating thanking his hosts and celebrating the place of the Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia in the Communion’s past and present.

He asked the assembled gathering to pray “for a Pentecostal experience [for the ACC], that divided tongues of fire will touch us all in the days ahead, that we shall learn to listen to one another’s languages and experiences and insights with all the enthusiasm and eagerness with which we would listen to God’s own word.”

He went on to promise that ACC-15 would in turn pray that the “experiments” of the country of Aotearoa New Zealand and the Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia “will be marks and signs of work of the Holy Spirit in the world today and be signs of hope for a world in which by God’s purpose and by God’s promise one of these days all the islands will rise and sing.”

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“It is your Church, your home, ask for the best of your best of your pastors and teachers” with those words the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams concluded an extraordinary morning of welcome at the TelstraClear Pacific events Centre in Manukau, New Zealand. The response was to a question posed by a young person who was participating in a youth forum where questions were addressed to the Archbishop, Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori the presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church and Archbishop Thabo Makgoba the Primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

Dr Williams along with the Anglican Consultative Council delegation who are meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, had arrived at the centre for a powhiri – a Maori welcoming ceremony. A significant part of the morning event was a youth forum where questions ranged from Dr Williams’ favorite biblical passage to church attitudes towards women, same sex marriage, what shoes God would wear, and whether it was fun to be Archbishop.

Check it out.

The first thing the Archbishop of Canterbury will face at …[today’s] Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) opening ceremony will be a guttural challenge from the young people of this country.

On entering the Telstra Events Centre in Manukau, Dr Rowan Williams and ACC members will be greeted with a wero (challenge) from a young Maori Anglican brandishing a taiaha (spear).

Welcome to Aotearoa, Archbishop; we do things differently here.

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Get ready for a once in a lifetime event.

That’s what Auckland Anglicans were hearing in the leadup to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s visit, and the meeting in the Parnell Cathedral of the Anglican Consultative Council.

This, they were being told, was the first and last chance for Kiwis to see and hear Dr Williams, and the only chance most would ever get to sample the ACC.

Read it all

A seven-year effort to create a new “covenant” to hold the worldwide Anglican Church together may come close to an end at a historic meeting starting in Auckland tomorrow.

The global Anglican Consultative Council comes three months after the New Zealand and Polynesian province voted against accepting a clause that would penalise any church refusing to defer a “controversial action” such as ordaining gay priests.

Two of the other 37 provinces have also voted against the clause.

Read it all.

His Beatitude the late Patriarch Torkom Manougian was an exceptional figure both in the Armenian Church and in the wider Christian world, within and beyond the Holy Land.

An intellectual, scholar, musician and poet, he was also a skilled statesman who represented all the most impressive aspects of the Armenian character and the Armenian tradition.

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Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the leading cleric in the Worldwide Anglican Communion, is trying to persuade members of the Church of England’s upcoming General Synod to support the ordination of women as Anglican bishops.

In an article published in the Anglican newspaper The Church Times, Archbishop Williams said the church legislation “will shape the future of the Church of England for generations.” He contended that a vote against the proposal “risks committing us to a period of continued and perhaps intensified internal conflict with no clearly guaranteed outcome.”

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The secretive committee responsible for choosing the next Archbishop of Canterbury is to meet for an unprecedented fourth time in the next few days in an attempt to break the deadlock over who succeeds Rowan Williams.The Times understands that as many as five senior bishops may still be in the running for the top job and that the favourite, the Bishop of Durham, the Right Rev Justin Welby, might have peaked too early.

The present Church leadership is pushing for a decision before the end of the month, to be announced in early November, because of the coming vote on women bishops at the General Synod next month.

The two-thirds majority needed for women bishops hangs by a thread and the choice of the next Archbishop is seen as crucial in getting that through….

Read it all (requires subscription).

The Archbishop of Canterbury has begun a campaign to persuade General Synod members to back the new women-bishops legislation when it returns to debate it next month.

Writing in the Church Times this week, he addresses waverers, those who find the legislation “not quite good enough, or not quite simple enough”. To vote against the legislation, which he admits is “not perfect”, would be to risk “committing us to a period of continued and perhaps intensified internal conflict, with no clearly guaranteed outcome . . . a period of publicly embarrassing and internally draining indecision”.

Read it all.

[On Vatican II] Sometimes of course, yes, I feel that disappointment. But on the other hand, I look back at the ”˜60s and remember, of course, we believed anything was possible in the ”˜60s, whether in church, or in politics, or in international relations. There was a certain haste and a certain naivety about all that…The gain in terms of simply understanding ourselves as in some way belonging together, that’s irreversible. Of course, it would’ve been wonderful if we’d been able to take rather more steps towards something really visible, really concrete, in terms of mutual recognition.

But both the Roman Catholic and the Anglican families have changed, have developed in that period, in ways that have sometimes made that more difficult, and that’s reality. We don’t, when we change, always wait for one another. That’s a fact of our community life, I think.

The audio was posted earlier, but a bunch of you either can’t or didn’t listen, please take the time to read it all. [/i]