Read it all.

In June, Robinson plans to enter into a civil union with his partner of 20 years, Mark Andrew. He says he will do everything he can to keep photographers away, out of deference to those who find his same-sex relationship offensive, but he acknowledges that the event is likely to attract negative attention nonetheless.

And then, in July, he will head to London, as the most prominent uninvited guest of the Lambeth Conference, the decennial gathering of the world’s 800 Anglican bishops. Robinson was not invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury because he is a noncelibate gay man, a status that many Anglican leaders believe is prohibited by the Bible.

The Anglican Communion offered to allow Robinson to appear at a booth in an exhibition hall, rather than attending the meeting; that proposal was ridiculed by a columnist for one British newspaper, the Guardian, who suggested, tongue in cheek, that the invitation for Robinson to appear in the so-called “marketplace” was made “presumably so that passing bishops can poke him in his cage with a stick.”

Robinson said that because he will not be permitted inside the Lambeth Conference, he will instead be outside the meeting daily, talking to anyone who will listen. He said he is working with gay organizations internationally who hope to have gay people from throughout the Anglican Communion in London to show the bishops that the issue is global.

“One of the things I think I’ve learned in the last five years is that, as much as I wanted to be known as the good bishop, and not the gay bishop, there’s no escaping,” Robinson said in an interview last week at the diocesan headquarters here. “I would love just to be a simple country bishop, but that just doesn’t seem to be in the cards.”

I will consider posting comments on this article submitted first by email to Kendall’s E-mail: KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Two weeks ago Robinson was told he would not be allowed to take part in the event – the only bishop out of 880 to be excluded. He will still go to Canterbury, but with no official status and the same access as a member of the public. Yet he will, inevitably, be one of its star attractions. Robinson will not go into detail, but says he has his own events planned, including one with award-winning actor and gay rights campaigner Sir Ian McKellen, who will perform a reading.

His official exclusion came as a blow to Robinson, who told a spring gathering of the US Episcopal church house of bishops that he felt abandoned by Williams. He wept during the address. “It was the hardest time I’ve had since my consecration,” he said, driving along interstate 93. He suggested it was not his consecration or homosexuality that was tearing apart the Anglican communion, but a failure of the leadership.

“I don’t know if it was Rowan’s intention to divide the US house of bishops but he’s done the very thing he was trying to avoid through his action or lack of action. It mystifies me that he has never commented on statements Akinola [the Archbishop of Nigeria] has made about homosexuality,” he said.

Robinson has met Williams only once, although he has had three one-to-one encounters with the US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

I will consider posting comments on this article submitted first by email to Kendall’s E-mail: KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Much of our time together was spent on the hearing of reports and presentations, but the meeting was framed by two very emotional bookends.

The first was the announcement that in spite of intensive lobbying by many bishops of our church, the Archbishop of Canterbury has decided not to permit Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire to participate in any capacity at the upcoming Lambeth Conference in July. Although Bishop Robinson was the only American bishop not to receive a formal invitation, it had been hoped that a way could be found to have him present in an unofficial capacity. This news was greeted with great sadness by most of the House, and we are working to find ways support our brother during our time in England, and especially to invite our counterparts in the Anglican Communion to meet with him. I invite you to read all the documents that are posted on the Episcopal News Service website, including Bishop Robinson’s very moving response to the Lambeth decision, as well as a resolution passed by the House in support of him. Whether one agrees with him or not, it is important to remember that he is a duly elected Bishop and that his exclusion is hurtful not only to him, but to the integrity of the American church.

The other sad moment in our time together came when we took action to depose two bishops of the church who had violated their ordination vows by working to take parishes out of the Episcopal Church, Bishop John-David Scofield of San Joaquin, and Bishop William Cox, retired Suffragan of Maryland.

Read it all.

Well, it was hardly surprising that Lambeth Palace, in negotiation with Gene Robinson, the American House of Bishops and other interested parties were unable to find any suitable way of inviting the Anglican Communion’s only ”˜partnered gay’ bishop to the 10-yearly Lambeth Conference. The Archbishop of Canterbury offered him a venue in the conference’s exhibition hall – an offer which not surprisingly he rejected, since it was an avenue already open to him in the first place.

Consequently, Gene Robinson told this week’s meeting of US bishops that he had cleared his diary in any case to be present in Canterbury for the duration of the conference presumably attached to the hordes of activists of both the ”˜left’ and the ”˜right’ who will swarm over the campus, although he was not able to come as an official participant or observer.

“I am not here to whine. I learned of the result of this negotiation on Friday evening. I have been in considerable pain ever since,” he said. The trouble with this situation is that by singling out Bishop Robinson, his puffed-up sense of victimhood is reinforced. His propagandists already constantly remind the world that he had to wear a bullet-proof vest to his own consecration, as if he was seriously in danger from gun-toting conservative Anglicans.

But creating ”˜martyrs’ is frankly never a good idea: it tends only to reinforce divisions, heightens the sense of injustice felt passionately by various groups and creates deep feelings of anger. In one sense, it’s no use going back over old ground, but this all could have been avoided had the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican bureaucracy actually taken any notice of the Windsor Report which they commissioned in the first place.
The Windsor Report specifically asked the American bishops who had elected and participated in the consecration of Gene Robinson to withdraw from the councils of the communion. This approach had merit in that it didn’t require a specific scapegoat in the form of Gene Robinson, who it has to be said is an attractive and courageous figurehead. It also drew attention to the specific issue many of us are concerned about ”” not a sense of personal revulsion at homosexual acts or a hostility to gay and lesbian people, but the damage that is caused to unity when particular parts of the body of Christ act as though they have no need of the other parts. The offence of The Episcopal Church is not to offer pastoral care to homosexuals, but to unilaterally change the teaching of the Church.

The recommendation that The Episcopal Church withdraw from the councils of the communion had the potential to draw the sting out of this particular debate for a season while a more sensible approach could be developed towards dealing with our deep divisions. After all, it shouldn’t have been beyond Anglicanism to come up with some form of appropriate pastoral response to homosexuals without throwing out the Bible’s commitment to sexual expression only within monogamous marriage.

Additionally, the Windsor recommendation created distance between the Episcopal Church and many of the more outraged parts of the Anglican Communion. While retaining the semblance of communion it relegated the liberal wing of Anglicanism to a sort of secondary status within the Anglican Communion albeit for a temporary period while the Anglican Covenant was worked out. Had the Windsor model been followed then it might have been possible to have all the Anglican Bishops present this summer at Canterbury ”” even Gene Robinson. Most of the American and some Canadian bishops would be at the Conference in a non-voting capacity and a great deal of diplomacy might even have kept a larger number of Global South bishops at the table.

Instead, we have the worst of all worlds ”” a Lambeth Conference a shadow of its former self in terms of numbers. And in the gaze of the world’s press we will have the sight of Bishop Gene Robinson, an icon of living martyrdom, filmed and interviewed ad nauseam, while the real business of the conference is marginal at best to the centre of Anglicanism.

However, it’s not only liberal Anglicanism which has its martyrs. The Bishop of New Westminster, Michael Ingham, is trying his best to create a martyr for all evangelical Anglicans in the form of the octogenarian theologian, JI Packer, by moving against one of evangelicalism’s most respected theologians with a threat to ”˜depose’ him for ”˜abandonment of communion’, Bishop Ingham couldn’t have picked a worse target. Packer is of course a totemic figure for evangelicals both inside and outside the Anglican Communion (his ”˜Knowing God’ still a work which repays careful reading, even if he doesn’t quite have the appeal of John Stott).

It hardly matters that ”˜abandonment of communion’ has no equivalent in English canons and amounts to little more than the removal of Packer’s licence ”” a licence he no longer wants, given that the church he belongs to has voted to place itself under the oversight of the Southern Cone, which will presumably licence the clergy of the parish in future.

Yet it highlights the canonical fundamentalism to be found in North America. Having abandoned various fundamentals of faith, Anglicanism seems to be retrenching around the rules and order of the institutional Church. Whilst favouring ”˜untidiness’ in faith and morals, liberals like Bishop Ingham cannot seem to tolerate messiness in institutional terms.

–This article appears in the March 14, 2008 edition of the Church of England Newspaper, page 12

The Episcopal Church’s deposition of Bishop John-David Schofield of San Joaquin has had no immediate effect on his invitation to attend this summer’s Lambeth Conference of bishops.

A Lambeth Conference spokesperson said the House of Bishops’ March 12 actions will have an impact throughout the Anglican Communion, but “it will take some time for these [implications] to be considered properly.” The source is not authorized to speak on the subject and therefore declined to be named.

Read it all.

Integrity expresses its profound disappointment and anger that the Archbishop of Canterbury has failed to find a way for the Rt. Rev. Gene Robison to meaningfully participate in the Lambeth Conference. The Rev. Susan Russell, President of Integrity, said, “Bishop Robinson’s marginalization is symbolic of the discrimination experienced by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender faithful daily throughout the Anglican Communion. It runs completely contrary to the promise made at the last Lambeth Conference ‘to listen to the experience of homosexual persons’ (see Lambeth 1998 Resolution 1.10.) making a travesty of the so-called ‘Listening Process.'”

Russell added, “Integrity completely supports Bishop Robinson’s call for other U.S. bishops to attend the Lambeth Conference despite his exclusion — and we challenge them to speak not only for him, but for the LGBT faithful throughout the Anglican Communion who will have no voice in Canterbury. Integrity will be consulting with a number of progressive bishops on how to best offer that witness.”

Russell concluded by saying, “Integrity continues to prepare for our Lambeth Conference witness with our global Anglican allies. We will be there in numbers and we look forward to the opportunity to claim God’s justice and proclaim Christ’s love.”

Noel Debien: The Archbishop here in Sydney has suggested that the authority of Lambeth has been undermined because North America has moved ahead, even though Lambeth said not to move ahead. Has Lambeth been impaired?

Drexel Gomez: To a certain extent, but all the North Americans have said they have taken a legalistic approach. The Lambeth Conference is a consultation of the various bishops. Each province is supposed to receive the resolutions of Lambeth to discuss them and to decide whether or not they’re willing to accept them. But despite the legality, I believe that the Lambeth Conference – the way it has developed over this century- has attained a certain moral standing in the communion. So when the bishops as leaders of the communion, speak on an issue, I think they have a moral authority, and in this particular resolution the Lambeth 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth conference was passed by an overwhelming majority of the bishops present. And what they did was not to take any step, what they did was simply to reaffirm the church’s traditional teaching on sexuality. And in that reaffirmation the churches in North America have had some difficulty in joining in because they’re seeking a new direction. And they claim that they’re doing so as a Gospel imperative, that we are guided by the Holy Spirit to effect changes in the way the church has approached matters related to sexuality and Biblical authority. I don’t agree with them, neither does Archbishop Jensen, but that disagreement – I think- must not prevent us from at least trying to talk to them and trying to see if we cannot restore the traditional teaching of the church across the communion.

Noel Debien: Even though they’ve shown that they won’t back down on autonomy, the US Episcopalians (who you’ve actually criticised previously as ‘aggressive, revisionist theologians’) but they seem to have put the brakes on, yet the global south see4ms also to want a showdown still.

Drexel Gomez: The leaders of the global south feel that North America in particular, some other parts of the communion have not taken them seriously, and are not listening to the protests that they are giving, because they say the issues as fundamental not only to the unity but the integrity of the Gospel.

Read it all.

As the Lambeth Conference approaches, we believe we have an enormous opportunity, in the midst of struggle, to be proud of our heritage, and to use this particular time in a holy way by affirming our rich diversity. The health of such diversity is that we are dealing openly with issues that affect the entire global community. Thus, even as we acknowledge the pain felt by many, we also affirm its holiness as we seek to be faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Even though we did not all support the consecration of the Bishop of New Hampshire, we acknowledge that he is a canonically elected and consecrated bishop in this church. We regret that he alone among bishops ministering within the territorial boundaries of their dioceses and provinces, did not receive an invitation to attend the Lambeth Conference.

Read it all.

Read it all.

It is very helpful to have the full text of this, thanks to Episcopal Cafe.

The House of Bishops was informed March 10 that full invitation is “not possible” from the Archbishop of Canterbury to include Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as a participant in this summer’s Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops.

Robinson, addressing the House, urged the other bishops of the Episcopal Church to participate fully in the conference, and thanked all who are willing to “stay at the table.”

Robinson told the House that he respectfully declined an invitation to be present in the conference’s “Marketplace” exhibit section.

Robinson confirmed for ENS that he plans to be in Canterbury during the July 16-August 3 once-a-decade gathering, but not as an official conference participant or observer.

Read it all and please take the time to read Gene Robinson’s address to the House of Bishops as well.

“These issues that we’re facing are an issue of every church in the world, and we are the only ones that are facing it,” he said. “We’re getting a right hammering in the media about it”¦ but if we do face it that can be a great gift to the rest of the world.”

While same sex issues are causing friction across the Communion, Kearon said, he believes they are just the “presenting issue” ”“ symptomatic of a wider division.

The Anglican Church, which has its roots in the Church of England, essentially spread with the British Empire, he said, “on a really rather haphazard basis.” After the American Revolutionary War, the Episcopal Church in the United States “began to distance itself” from the Church of England, as it no longer fell under the sovereignty of the crown, and that rift, between the North American church and the church in the British colonies, has continued to widen. When the British Empire began to crumble in the 1950s and 60s, many colonial churches wanted to become national churches, and also loosened their links with the Church of England.

“That does lead today to very different understandings of the church,” Kearon said. “As churches became autonomous, there became a need for different kinds of governance.”

The instruments of unity ”“ the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates Meeting ”“ essentially provide this.

“I think as the Communion has grown and become more diverse, those structures have become strained,” Kearon said. “I think there’s a need to look at the instruments of unity.”

One attempt to address these divisions is the proposed Anglican Covenant, first suggested by the 2003 Windsor Report, a commission set up to study significant challenges in the Anglican Communion. This will be discussed at the Lambeth Conference, and will be taken up again in 2009 by the Anglican Consultative Council, Kearon said.

Read it all.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori welcomed the House and introduced new bishops: Mary Gray-Reeves of El Camino Real; Dan Edwards of Nevada; Kee Sloan, suffragan bishop of Alabama; Mark Lawrence of South Carolina; Jeff Lee of Chicago; and Steve Lane, bishop-elect of Maine (whose consents have been received). Prince Singh has been elected bishop of Rochester but his consent process has not been completed.

Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori shared her hopes for the upcoming Lambeth Conference: “that we go with a sacrificial attitude open to one another, expecting divine encounters,” that “we are willing to embrace the pain of difference as a sign of hope” and that “we avoid pre-judgments.”

“I hope we build bridges for greater mission engagement,” she said.

Ed Little of Northern Indiana, chair of the HOB Planning Committee, noted, “Our agenda during this meeting will weave in and out of discussions about the Lambeth Conference.”

Read it carefully and read it all.

Read it all.

The decision of our Bishops not to attend the Lambeth Conference in 2008 is the culmination of ten years of thought, prayer and action. We have played our part in challenging false teaching and practice, always hoping that those who have flouted the strong position taken by the last Lambeth Conference would turn back in repentance. As part of this, we have developed strong fellowship links with the many Anglican christians all over the world who feel as we do that the crisis over human sexuality is of momentous significance, and who are determined not to accept unbiblical teaching and sinful practice.

Read it all.

From here:

After hearing about the five primates’ intentions to boycott Lambeth, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said February 15 that the conference will be diminished by their absence, and I imagine that they themselves will miss a gift they might have otherwise received. After hearing about the five primates’ intentions to boycott Lambeth, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said February 15 that the conference “will be diminished by their absence, and I imagine that they themselves will miss a gift they might have otherwise received.

Herewith the BBC blurb:

The Anglican Church of Uganda has announced that its bishops will not be attending this year’s Lambeth Conference, the meeting of worldwide Anglicanism that takes place once a decade. The Ugandan bishops cited what they called the “crisis” over homosexuality. The most Reverend Henry Orombi, the Archbishop of Uganda, talked to Sunday.

Stefan Stern writes about business and management issues for the Financial Times. In a recent column he turned his attention to the challenges facing the Archbishop of Canterbury. He discussed his take on the Anglican ‘brand’.

Listen to it all (just under 9 minutes).

We think it is important to let you know our reasons for not acceding to your request, and also to make them public since your letter is public. We have a number of concerns.

First, the Lambeth Conference is not a two hour seminar discussing a contentious issue. It is three weeks in which we bishops and our wives are called to share together our lives, our prayer, our bible study, our meals, our worship and the Lord’s Supper, to be a family together.

You will know that some of us have not been able to take communion with the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church since February 2005, – a period of about three years. The reason is that TEC took an action to consecrate Gene Robinson as Bishop in 2003 contrary to the resolution of the Lambeth Conference, an action of which they have not repented. The consecrators of Gene Robinson have all been invited to Lambeth, contrary to the statement of the Windsor Report (para 134) that members of the Episcopal Church should “consider in all conscience whether they should withdraw themselves from representative functions in the Anglican Communion”.

You will know that some of those who objected to this consecration in the United States and have made arrangements for orthodox oversight from other provinces including ours have been charged with abandonment of communion. Their congregations have either forfeited or are being sued for their properties by the very bishops with whom you wish us to share Christian family fellowship for three weeks.

Read it all.

here is part one, follow the links to parts two to four.

It would be “scandalous” if gay Anglican Bishop Canon V. Gene Robinson appeared at the upcoming Anglican Lambeth Conference in July with his partner, Archbishop Drexel Gomez told The Guardian Monday.

The upcoming conference, held once every 10 years, is expected to see the coming together of a number of Anglican Bishops at the University of Kent in Canterbury. But because of the on-going schism within the Communion as a result of the ordination of Robinson almost six years ago, Gomez said some provinces recently indicated they would not attend the upcoming conclave.

“There are at least four provinces in Africa that have either said they will not attend or are still considering if they will attend, but there are three who said they will definitely not be attending,” Archbishop Gomez said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Read it all.

(Church of Uganada News)

Church of the Province of Uganda
Statement by the Provincial Assembly Standing Committee on Lambeth Conference 2008

1. The Lambeth Conference is a gathering that brings together the Bishops of the Anglican Communion from all 38 Provinces of the Communion at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The conference is usually held every ten years. It provides Bishops with an opportunity for “worship, study, and conversation,” discussing and making resolutions that affect the Anglican Communion.

2. At the 1998 Lambeth Conference under Resolution 1.10 the Bishops overwhelmingly passed a resolution that rejects “homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture.” The conference also rejected the blessing of same-sex unions.

3. In 2003, in flagrant disregard of this resolution of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (TEC) elected as Bishop Gene Robinson, a divorced man living in an active homosexual relationship. The Primates, who are the Archbishops of all the 38 Provinces of the Anglican Communion, met shortly after that and warned the Episcopal Church not to proceed with the consecration of a practicing homosexual as a Bishop. They warned that, if they proceeded with the consecration, their action would “tear the fabric of the Anglican Communion at its deepest level.” Less than a month later, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church presided over the consecration of Gene Robinson. This action has divided the Anglican Communion in a profound way.

4. The Primates of the Communion have asked the American Church to halt further consecrations of practicing homosexuals and ceremonies for the blessing of same-sex unions. Regretfully, TEC has continued to bless same-sex unions, in ceremonies that were presided over, among others, by two Bishops.

5. The Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA) produced a statement entitled The Road to Lambeth that calls for this crisis to be resolved before the next Lambeth Conference is convened. The House of Bishops of the Church of Uganda endorsed this position at their meeting in December 2006. Since this crisis has not yet been resolved, the Bishops of the Church of Uganda have resolved that they will not be participating in the Lambeth Conference to be held in July 2008 in Canterbury, England, a position that the Provincial Assembly Standing Committee strongly endorses. This decision has been made to protest the invitations extended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. Rowan Williams, to TEC Bishops whose stand and unrepentant actions created the current crisis of identity and authority in the Anglican Communion.

6. The Church of Uganda, by this decision, wishes to reaffirm our commitment to the resolutions of the 2006 Provincial Assembly and Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which, in substance, denounced homosexual practice and called upon the Church to remain faithful to the Holy Scriptures.

7. Consultations are going on at different levels on how to deal with this crisis, which, among others, include planning for a meeting of Biblically orthodox Anglican Bishops, clergy, and laity to be held in Jerusalem in June 2008. We request the Church to continue in prayer as efforts are being made to find a lasting solution to this crisis. Further developments regarding this matter will be communicated to the Christians in due course.

Issued in Kampala this 12th day of February 2008

The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi
ARCHBISHOP OF CHURCH OF UGANDA.

Bishop MacPherson recently wrote his diocese with some reflections on Archbishop Williams’ Advent letter to the primates. In his highly anticipated letter, Archbishop Williams declined to sanction The Episcopal Church for failing to provide the unequivocal assurances sought by the primates’ in their February 2007 communiqué. Archbishop Willaims’ letter also offered no substantive alternative means of resolving the conflict within the Anglican Communion over innovations to church teaching on sexuality, a particular point of contention for Bishop McPherson.

“What hasn’t been said is when the continued extension of conversations and meetings will come to an end and a definitive decision made,” Bishop MacPherson wrote. “What also has gone unstated is when is The Episcopal Church going to be called to a place of accountability by the wider Anglican Communion, Lambeth 2008?

“Throughout all of this I have stated that we needed to follow the process that would prayerfully lead to resolution. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel before us? I can’t answer this specifically, but do know and have shared that in order to remain informed of all that is taking place, and the options that may well come before us, we must remain a part of the conversations.”

Read it all.

The problems posed by the American church are not going to remain in North America. This means that the rest of the Anglican world must be active in teaching the biblical faith as endorsed by Lambeth 1998. Many, including bishops in England, have questioned whether Lambeth will be able to deal adequately with these urgent issues.

Some have said to me: isn’t it better to be there than stay away? I respect those who hold that view but it is not as simple as that. Several African provinces have indicated that they will not be attending, because to do so would be to acquiesce with the North American actions. They are not ending the Anglican communion, or even dividing it. They are simply dealing with the reality that the nature of the communion has now been altered and reflecting that Lambeth is not as crucial to the future as it once was.

They see that since the American actions were taken in direct defiance of the previous Lambeth Conference, the Americans have irreparably damaged the standing of the conference itself. They asked without success for it to be postponed. As in family life, it is sometimes better to delay a meeting to allow time for greater clarity. They do not think that this conference is what is needed now. To attend would be to overlook the importance of the issues at stake.

After much thought, I agreed with this approach. Yet people, the media included, should not jump to wrong conclusions. We are not alone in this. Some of the largest Anglican communities in the world have taken the same decision. This is not a discourtesy to the Archbishop of Canterbury. I have assured him of our prayers as we continue in the Anglican communion and I am sure he understands our situation.

Read it all.

Dr Jensen’s confirmation of his diocese’s boycott came after Nigeria’s Archbishop, Peter Akinola, declared that Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda and some other African churches would not go to Lambeth, which he called “a three weeks’ jamboree” that would sweep issues under the carpet.

Instead, Dr Jensen, Archbishop Akinola and other conservatives are planning their own, rival “global” conference in Jerusalem in June. This despite appeals for them to attend Lambeth from 21 evangelical English bishops and the West Indian Anglican archbishop, who is drawing up a document designed to resolve the dispute.

Dr Jensen says the Anglican communion is now in a “tumultuous” state, but insists he and his allies remain “totally committed” to its good health. Yet their present tactics seem likely to deepen the crisis and widen the division. They are not so much taking their bat and ball and going home as refusing to go on the field at all, preferring instead to play among themselves.

Much better, surely, to go to Lambeth and put their case.

Read it all.

The Anglican archbishop in charge of drawing up the document intended to reunite his warring Church said he believes that schism can still be averted in spite of divisions over the issue of homosexuals.

The Archbishop of the West Indies, the Most Rev Drexel Gomez, said that a new formula had been found that would allow the disciplining of errant churches while respecting the traditional autonomy of the 38 worldwide Anglican provinces. Urging all Anglican bishops to attend the Lambeth Conference this year, he said that it would be a “tremendous tragedy” if the Church fell apart.

A new document to be published this week would form “a basic way of holding each other accountable as a Communion”, he said. But he indicated that the Episcopal Church of the United States was unlikely to face discipline or any form of exclusion from the Anglican Communion as a result of consecrating Gene Robinson, who is openly gay, as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

Read it all.

Read it all.

ST PAUL, facing shipwreck off Malta, spotted the soldiers getting into a small boat to rescue themselves. “Unless these men stay in the ship,” he said to the centurion, “you cannot be saved.”

A similar urgent plea must now be addressed to those who, envisaging the imminent break-up of the good ship Anglican, are getting into a lifeboat called GAFCON, leaving the rest of us to face the future without them.

I have shared the frustration of the past five years, both in the United States and around the world. I have often wished that the Windsor report could have provided a more solid and speedy resolution. But the ship hasn’t sunk yet.

The rationale of GAFCON (the Global Anglican Future Conference) is: “The Communion is finished; nothing new can happen; it’s time to split.” No mention is made of the Windsor report, the proposed Anglican Covenant, or, indeed, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Advent letter, insisting as it does on scriptural authority, which GAFCON seems to regard as its monopoly.

Read it all.

Asked how the conference would address the issue of homosexuality, Archbishop Williams said one day on the schedule was reserved to consider “sexuality questions as they affect the ministry of bishops,” including a report on the listening process from the Rev. Canon Phil Groves of the Anglican Communion Office. “It [also] is inevitably going to be part of the conversations informally, day by day as people will bring to the conference what their anxieties are and what their hopes are. There will not be a resolution on this subject.”

Archbishop Williams reiterated that Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire has not been invited “and it’s proving extremely difficult to see under what heading he might be invited to be around.” Asked whether he had considered inviting all bishops, including CANA bishops and Bishop Robinson, Archbishop Williams said he had, but “I thought it best to stick fairly closely with what the Windsor Report recommends, that we should see this as an event for those who have accepted the general direction of the Windsor Report and haven’t flown in the face of its recommendations.”

Regarding the attendance of San Joaquin Bishop John-David Schofield, inhibited by the Presiding Bishop earlier this month, the archbishop said he is “waiting on what comes out of the American House of Bishops’ discussion of that. It’s not something I’ve got a position on yet. At the moment he still has an invitation.”

Read it all.

In relation to doctrine the Lambeth Conference (and, in England, the development of synodical government) were alternative to legal proceedings. All the experience of nineteenth century legal approaches to doctrine was that such methods failed. There is no reason to think that twenty-first century lawyers will be better judges of doctrine than nineteenth-century lawyers. There is no reason to think that twenty-first century bishops will be any more careful of claims of justice than were nineteenth-century bishops. And the first case in which the Primates find against the promoters will result in the court being blamed for its perverse finding and sections of the church refusing its jurisdiction. Stalemate.

Conferences and synods developed (in part) in order to talk and to keep talking and to enable argument and disagreement to continue within manageable bounds. Discourse, not law, is what keeps a communion together, keeps doctrinal debate in play, and enable both the reassertion of orthodoxy and adaptation to novel circumstances to proceed with the assent and through the reception of the majority.

It won’t please everyone. But, believe me, legal or semi-legal approaches to belief and faith will affront far, far more people.

Read it all.