Regular readers of the Anglican blogosphere, be they fans of blogs such as T19, Stand Firm, Drell, and BabyBlue on one “side” or EpiScope, Episcopal Cafe, Fr. Jake, and Susan Russell on the other “side,” know things are buzzing right now. We’re gearing up for the September TEC HoB meetings in New Orleans later this week (Sept 20-25), the Common Cause Bishops’ Council in Pittsburgh immediately following, and the September 30 Dar es Salaam deadline. In some quarters, reports, responses, articles and pastoral letters are flying so fast and thick that it’s dizzying and pretty much impossible to “read it all,” no matter how often Kendall exhorts us to do just that!

But the buzz and news overload that those of us who follow the blogs are experiencing right now may be surprisingly limited in scope.

Your humble elf had more time for web browsing yesterday than any day in the last 2 months or so. It seemed like a good time to go on one of our periodic diocesan “news trawls.” What is being said in the various dioceses that we don’t hear from so often or read about much on the blogs? What responses have there been to the proposed covenant? What are bishops writing their flocks about the upcoming HoB meeting? etc. I knew from previous forays into diocesan website land that the results would be patchy. Some dioceses excel in timely communication, but many fail on that score. I expected that in a good number of dioceses the whole “Anglican crisis” and Dar deadline is being downplayed. But even I, an experienced denizen of diocesan websites, was surprised by what I found.

In the 4 hours I had free, I was able to visit the diocesan websites of 31 TEC dioceses. I focused on dioceses which I knew, from past experience, tended to have informative and relatively up-to-date websites. I purposely avoided some of the Network dioceses where there’s been recent news and statements (such as Central FL, Fort Worth, San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, Quincy, etc.) We already know these dioceses are engaged in the current crisis. I tried to hit some of the biggest and most influential dioceses (Texas, Atlanta, New York…) and also many Camp Allen or reasonably moderate dioceses, as well as to get a good geographic mixture.

Here’s a list of the diocesan sites I visited and what I found. A diocese received a “NO” if I could find nothing new about the TEC/Anglican situation since the March HoB meeting. (Legend: **Network diocese, *Camp Allen bishop)

Alabama – NO
** Albany – NO
Arizona – NO
Arkansas – NO
Atlanta – NO
California – NO
Colorado – NO
Connecticut – NO
** Dallas – YES — a good selection of background links and resources, though most not very recent, nothing specific on the upcoming HoB meeting
East Carolina – NO
East Tennessee – YES — a nice and quite current “Windsor Process” page
Florida – NO
Lexington – NOPE, surprising given +Sauls lead role in many recent reports, etc.
Los Angeles – Nothing since April
Massachusetts – NO
Mississippi — YES. Pastoral letter from +Duncan Gray.
Newark – No
New York – Yes. Bishop’s letter July / August (see p. 3), special 8 page insert in Dio. Newsletter
North Carolina – YES Big feature on “Communion Matters” meetings throughout the diocese on the homepage
* North Dakota – not really. A passing mention in Dio. Newsletter “pray for Sept HoB meeting”
* Northern Indiana – No (Bp. Little is on sabbatical, but will be attending HoB mtg)
Ohio – No
Rio Grande – YES Pastoral letter from +Steenson
SE Florida – Partial: Response by Executive board to Anglican Convenant (unclear if laity and parishes are engaged, however)
* SW Florida – Nothing new since May (surprising. SW FL is usually VERY current on news and info)
** Springfield – No
* Tennessee – No
* Texas – No
Upper SC – No
Virginia – NO
* West Texas – YES. Sept 2007 Audio message to diocese from Bp. Lillibridge

So, totalling up the YES column and the NO column:

Only 7 of 31 (or 8, if one counts SE Florida, which is somewhat borderline…) had anything substantive and current on the ECUSA/Anglican crisis. That’s 25%. So of the nearly 1/3 of the ECUSA domestic dioceses surveyed (and I chose those which I know to have generally informative and regularly updated websites) it would appear that 75% of these dioceses are not getting out current info on the Anglican crisis. This includes Network dioceses (Albany and Springfield), and Windsor Dioceses (Northern Indiana, Texas, Tennessee, and SW Florida), as well as more reappraising dioceses. Big dioceses with lots of resources, and small dioceses. I have absolutely no reason to think that the dioceses I didn’t survey are any better.

The lesson to draw from this: If you care about these issues and the decisions that lie ahead, share the news you read on this blog and others with your fellow parishoners, or friends in other dioceses, etc. Don’t assume that the dioceses or other structures are getting the news out. There are many in TEC parishes who have no idea that there is a House of Bishops’ meeting this week. If you care, share a few links and invite them to pray and get involved!

–elfgirl

From here and there:

It is impossible to respond to this sad piece, except to say that is so filled with error, special (and false) pleading, misreading and misunderstanding, pretence and posturing, perversion and malice, as to defy coherent reply….

Will any one, in the days ahead, pay attention to the sorry production of these miguided bishops? I pray God that they will not.

I have always suspected that the HoB March Statement was drafted before the meeting ever took place, by people like Sauls and others. (Whether Prof. Grieb was in the loop, I don’t know; but she certainly didn’t miss a step in blending in.) The success of this strategy in March, which “framed” the outcome then rather slickly, may have over-emboldened the same group to adopt a more public pre-meeting profile. Obviously, given the embarrassing nature of the quality and content of this “report”, the strategy is proving a profound mistake on their part. It has deep-sixed any credibility that Henderson might have (if ever he would) to stand as a Primatial Vicar nominee, it has publicly nailed the character of the bishops in question to a caricature of American arrogance and “Christian” idiocy, and it has dug a hole for their cause, before the Communion, whose only fit filling is the ordure of their arguments.

Watch it all.

This elf is thinking we might need a scorecard soon to keep track of who has written what to whom… 😉 But all kidding aside, ACI has posted Dr. Turner’s rebuttal to Dr. Noll’s letter to him.

A REPLY BY PHILIP TURNER TO STEPHEN NOLL’S REPLY TO PHILIP TURNER
Written by Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Monday, 06 August 2007

Dear Stephen,

Thank you for your gracious reply to my response to your open letter calling for a “full and final separation” between those whom you term a “faithful remnant” and The Episcopal Church (TEC). Knowing you as I do I was certain there would be a reply, but I nonetheless hoped against hope that none would be forthcoming. I say this not because I am not open to theological exchange, but because the medium (blogs) now used for such exchanges encourages hasty and ill tempered response and counter response. I have no desire to be involved in such a back and forth and I presume you do not either.

It is this observation that leads to my first response to your response. You and others have questioned my reluctance to use the word “heretic” to refer to those we jointly oppose. I have no desire to enter into an argument about the correct use of the terms “apostate” (which you did not use) and “heretic”(which you do). I believe that my observation that these terms are not being accurately applied is correct. However, my major concern was and is not their correct meaning. Rather, my concern is the way in which they are being used in our present conflict. Both terms are used (more often than not) in anger simply to dismiss those with whom one disagrees. My point concerns a culture of anger, condemnation, and dismissal that makes it unnecessary to address one’s opponent as a brother or sister who has gone astray or as a false teacher who needs correction. Rather, the terms are used to reduce one’s adversaries to a category-one that places them among “outsiders” about whom one’s spirit need not be in agony until Christ be adequately formed in them. So my first hope remains that you might join me in cautioning those who share our view of the sad state of TEC that we, the critics of TEC, stand in grave danger of misreading our circumstances because so many of us have been taken over by one of the seven deadly sins. We cannot possibly hope that God’s agents for reform and renewal will be those who themselves suffer from such a serious spiritual disease.

The full text is here.

Here are the background links:
Noll’s response to Turner (posted Aug 3)
Turner’s response to Noll’s open letter (posted Aug 2)
Noll’s Open Letter to Network bishops (posted Jul 29)

Fr. Matt Kennedy has weighed in to specifically address Turner’s comments about the use of the word “heretic” with his feature at Stand Firm: A Brief Note on the Use of the Word “Heretic”

Also related to this debate, over at Stand Firm, Dr. Noll posted a response to Sarah Hey’s recent essay (which Kendall linked here).

And just so the links are handy, the long thread (270 comments) on Dr. Radner’s resignation from the Network is here. (Stand Firm posted Dr. Radner’s T19 comment on the ensuing discussion as a separate thread here. Note also Stand Firm’s post of Dean Munday’s response to Radner, which I don’t believe Kendall posted here.)

The wonderful journal First Things has made available online the full version of a feature article by Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi, the Primate of the Church of Uganda “What is Anglicanism?”

What Is Anglicanism?
by Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi

Copyright (c) 2007 First Things (August/September 2007).

Few would deny that the Anglican Communion is in crisis. The nature of that crisis, however, remains a question. Is it about sexuality? Is it a crisis of authority””who has it and who doesn’t? Have Anglicans lost their commitment to the via media, epitomized by the Elizabethan Settlement, which somehow declared a truce between Puritan and Catholic sentiments in the Church of England? Is it a crisis of globalization? A crisis of identity?

I have the privilege of serving as archbishop of the Church of Uganda, providing spiritual leadership and oversight to more than nine million Anglicans. Uganda is second only to Nigeria as the largest Anglican province in the world, and most of our members are fiercely loyal to their global communion. But however we come to understand the current crisis in Anglicanism, this much is apparent: The younger churches of Anglican Christianity will shape what it means to be Anglican. The long season of British hegemony is over.

The preface to the Book of Common Prayer states, “It is a most invaluable part of that blessed ”˜liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,’ that in his worship different forms and usages may without offense be allowed, provided the substance of the Faith be kept entire; and that, in every Church, what cannot be clearly determined to belong to Doctrine must be referred to Discipline.”

And yet, despite this clear distinction, contemporary Anglicans are in danger of confusing doctrine and discipline. For four hundred years Anglicanism represented both the theological convictions of the English Reformation and the culture of the Christian Church in Britain. The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Anglican divines gave voice to both: English Reformation theology (doctrine) and British culture (discipline). The Anglican churches around the world, however, have ended the assumption that Anglican belief and practice must be clothed in historic British culture.

Take, for instance, the traditional Anglican characteristics of restraint and moderation. Are they part of doctrine, as Anglican theology, or discipline, as British culture? At the recent consecration of the fourth bishop of the Karamoja diocese, the preacher was the bishop of a neighboring diocese whose people have historically been at odds with the Karimajong (principally because of cattle rustling). At the end of his sermon, the preacher appealed for peace between the two tribes and began singing a song of peace. One by one, members of the congregation began singing. By the end of the song, the attending bishops, members of Parliament, and Karimajong warriors were all in the aisles dancing.

The vision of Christ breaking down the dividing walls of hostility between these historic rivals was so compelling that joy literally broke out in our midst. At that point in the service, I dare say, we were hardly restrained or moderate in our enthusiasm for the hope of peace given to us in Jesus Christ. Did we fail, then, in being Anglican in that moment? Was the spontaneity that overcame us a part of doctrine or of discipline? Surely, African joy in song and dance is an expression of discipline. Yet our confidence that the Word of God remains true, and our confidence that it transforms individuals and communities””all this is part of doctrine: the substance of the Faith that shall not change but shall be “kept entire.”

In the Church of Uganda, Anglicanism has been built on three pillars: martyrs, revival, and the historic episcopate. Yet each of these refers back to the Word of God, the ground on which all is built: The faith of the martyrs was maintained by the Word of God, the East African revival brought to the people the Word of God, and the historic ordering of ministry was designed to advance the Word of God.

So let us think about how the Word of God works in the worldwide Anglican Communion. We in the Church of Uganda are convinced that Scripture must be reasserted as the central authority in our communion. The basis of our commitment to Anglicanism is that it provides a wider forum for holding each other accountable to Scripture, which is the seed of faith and the foundation of the Church in Uganda.

Read it all.

AGAIN: Turning from the ancient to the modern, can you give us an overview of the state of Anglicanism today? Orthodox Christians in America need to know about the Anglican communion in order to have a fruitful dialogue with individual Anglicans and Episcopalians and with their parishes as they live out their own witness of the Orthodox faith.

TM: It is important for me to explain just a little bit how the Anglican compromise has resulted in such interesting things in terms of structure, which has so much to do with the current problems. The more conservative elements of Anglicanism tend to be its most Protestant elements, and its most liberal elements are usually people who think of themselves as highly catholic. . . .

The heart of the Anglican compromise boils down to putting St. John Chrysostom and John Calvin in the same pew. But neither one of those men want to be there. There are things on which they do not agree with each other, and they would not compromise. And yet the Anglican compromise tried to have both sides of a Protestant and ancient equation be equal. You simply can’t pull that off.

People need to understand that there are very strong parts of Anglicanism that are rigorously Protestant. Some of the liveliest Anglicanism you will meet in the world is thoroughly Reformed, very Calvinistic. This is the John Stott and J. I. Packer wing of low-church Anglicanism. In that context, you will find a heavy emphasis on congregationalism. They will be very Protestant, and this is probably the most conservative and biblical part of modern Anglicanism. That’s where, for the most part, you had the missionary societies that went to the Third World. Then you have the traditional branch that would be called Anglo-Catholic, which would deny or water down a lot of the Protestant side of the compromise and put a much heavier, more Roman emphasis on ecclesiology, on the role of the bishop, on church tradition as a part of interpreting Scripture as opposed to sola scriptura””a very consciously Catholic element. . . .

Anglicans are highly skilled and genuinely talented in compromise. When you say that Anglicanism is the church of the via media””the middle way””that implies a kind of compromise position between two camps that often don’t want to compromise. And on moral and social issues, what you have ended up with is a never-ending march to the left””because you’re constantly compromising on the church traditions of the ages. This steadily, slowly but surely, pulls you to the theological left on critical issues. . . .

Episcopal bishop William Frey used to say that Anglicans have been doing this via media theological method for so long they can’t stop. As he put it, if one side says Jesus is Lord, and the other side says Jesus is not Lord, the Anglican compromise is Jesus is occasionally Lord. He meant that as a joke, but you can see that in the history of the Frey Amendment. [Editor’s note: This was a failed attempt by traditionalists to make a doctrinally conservative addition to Episcopal Church law.] Frey said Episcopal clergy must not be sexually active outside of marriage. That leads to a theological statement: Sex outside of marriage is sin. But the other side says sex outside of marriage is not always a sin. Which means the Anglican compromise is sex outside of marriage is occasionally sin. The left isn’t happy, and the right isn’t happy, but you have moved in the leftward direction. You’ve compromised the absolute truth of an ancient doctrine. That’s how the mechanism works.

Right now, what we have is two groups of true believers who don’t want to compromise. It’s so interesting that sexuality ended up being the line in the sand, when it could have been””and I argued it should have been””the Resurrection. Why when Anglican bishops began to deny historic doctrines related to the Incarnation and Resurrection and salvation through Christ alone, and other critical doctrines, why didn’t the war break out then? Whereas now it has broken out over sexuality.

AGAIN: Why do you think that is so?

TM: My own hunch is that first of all sexuality gets covered in the media, whereas a doctrine about theological language is harder for the press to cover. The other thing frankly is that the theological left has learned how to state its beliefs about Resurrection and Incarnation in a way that sounds OK. And, they’re very hard to pin down. In other words, you could talk about the hope of the Resurrection, but you’ve redefined what all the words mean. You need to understand that Anglicanism defines itself as being united by certain liturgical texts””but you don’t have to all agree on what the words mean. A lot of Anglicans will say it’s important that when they say the Creed, instead of saying “I believe,” most Anglican churches say, “We believe.” Meaning the body affirms this, but it is not necessary for the individual to do the same.

AGAIN: Since issues of sexuality have been what has sparked the current conflicts, though, do you have thoughts in general on how that is playing out? Where are the lines being drawn? And, to what extent are the issues of sexuality bound up with the related issues of gender in general, like say the female priesthood?

TM: For the Anglicans, sexual issues do not automatically connect with gender issues, even though Orthodox would see that they do. For a lot of Protestant Anglicans, remember that they are placing more of an emphasis on congregationalism and less on classic catholic orders. So, there are a lot of charismatic Episcopalians and evangelical Episcopalians who have no problem with the ordination of women, because their concept of priesthood is subtly different from those who see it in the full catholic sense. Even though they are conservative, the ordination of women was not a make-or-break issue for them. They don’t connect it with the transcendent, sacramental understanding of what the priesthood is, because their theology is more Protestant and more Reformed. There’s this very low church Protestant element there that can be conservative on some issues but not on others that the Orthodox would see.

AGAIN: It seems that something the Orthodox need to keep in mind in their encounters with Anglicans is that they need to be prepared to speak to two different audiences. On the one hand, you have the more Protestant wing, where you may have more agreement on questions of, say, scriptural truth and their application to social issues. And on the other hand, there is the more Catholic side of the Anglican communion, where you may have some common ground about, for example, sacramentalism and mystery in the faith.

TM: There are still conservative Anglo-Catholics, but not as many. The most vital and alive conservative elements in modern Anglicanism are charismatic or evangelical low-church Anglicans. There are still some very high-church, fully Catholic Anglicans. But I find it very interesting that modern liberal Anglicanism tends to identify much more with a high-church, liturgical smells-and-bells approach to Anglicanism.

This makes many Orthodox confused, because they see these people and they say, gosh, they even have icons in their church. We have a lot in common with them. When theologically, you may have almost nothing in common with them. And then you walk into another Anglican church, and it will be like a megachurch. There will be a rock band, and it will be very low church. The liturgy may be much more informal, but their view of morality and basic doctrines and biblical authority and ancient traditions of the Church would be much closer to the Orthodox””even though it doesn’t look like it in terms of style.

The whole interview is here.

This elf’s opinion? TMatt not only “Gets Religion” but he really gets Anglicanism too!

Over at Stand Firm, Matt Kennedy has now posted two entries in a series of essays on the Articles of Religion.

On the First Article of Religion

Who is the Son?: Essays on the Articles of Religion part 2

It has become apparent recently through reading responses to the proposed Covenant Draft, that many reappraisers within TEC reject the truth and authority of the Articles of Religion. This elf is thinking especially of SE Florida’s response which stated:

The statement “led by the Holy Spirit, it [i.e. each member Church, and the Communion] has borne witness to Christian truth in its historic formularies, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons,” is factually untrue and inappropriate for a Communion-wide Covenant. […] Moreover, the “truthfulness” of several of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion is debatable (e.g. Articles VII, XIII, XVII, XVIII, XX, XXIX, and XXXIII). The validity of several of the Articles has been a subject of debate and doubt in The Episcopal Church since its inception.

Obviously the question of a Covenant raises the question of the Formularies. Thus this elf really welcomes and appreciates Matt’s effort to help us examine the Articles afresh. Go read his essays!

This is perhaps one of the more provocative discussion starters Dr. Toon has posted in quite awhile. What think you all?

The Rev’d. Dr. Peter Toon writes:

A basic belief of Christians is “the providence of God;” that is, that God is ultimately the only ruler of the cosmos, that nothing happens without his knowledge and permission, and further that, as the Father of his adopted children (“the elect”), he both causes and allows things to happen to them and around them for their long-term true good.

Looking back over the last fifty years of Episcopalianism in the USA in terms of divine providence, I advance the following proposal or thesis””for others to reflect upon, accept, modify, improve, or reject. It provides an account of the lost possibilities offered by Divine Providence through the two major recent secessions from The Episcopal Church [TEC].

I begin with the schism of 1977 leading to the formation of the Continuing Anglican Church.

By this secession, God provided the opportunity and means for a committed group of Episcopalians to join together in orderly and godly ways to begin all over again””outside and away from TEC””The Anglican Way in America. And this is what they intended, even though in the Zeitgeist of the USA with its powerful centrifugal forces, they knew that their task would be very difficult. Further TEC intended that they should fail and worked to gain that end. Regrettably””as much by their own weaknesses and errors as by the machinations of others””the intended Unified Continuing Church lasted but a year or so, and then divided into what became small competitive jurisdictions””and from these have come more small groups since 1980.

I suggest that this opportunity provided by Divine Providence to recreate the Anglican Way in the USA was missed and not utilized and this was a most serious failure””indeed a tragedy; and, thirty years on, there are only a few signs of those who trace their roots to the original seceders of 1977 actually working together as one or even desiring to do so. If anything, they are in danger of getting more entrenched in their divisions, because of their having created elaborate separated, canonical machinery to govern each of their separated denominational units. Bureaucracies are easy to set up but difficult to dismantle!

Now I move on to the schism that is associated with the consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire as a Bishop in the TEC (but not in the catholic Church of God!) in the twenty-first century. In protest, parts of, and whole, congregations left TEC looking for temporary Episcopal oversight from some friendly bishop from overseas, in the hope that a new Anglican Province for America will be founded soon (arising particularly from the support and efforts of “the Global South” ) and that that they would have a rightful and natural home in this new Body.

It is very possible that by and through this secession Divine Providence was giving to Episcopalians in the USA a second major chance to reform themselves and to be renewed by the Gospel and the Spirit. However, what was also needed, due to the complexities of the Anglican Communion of Churches, was godly patience by all””i.e., those wishing to be orthodox in the USA and their supporters overseas””at least until the major get-together of Anglican bishops in England in July 2008. At this Lambeth Conference the negotiations could take place, it was hoped, to make it possible to gather together within the USA at a later time the various seceding congregations and groups into some orderly unit and then make this the beginnings of a new Province””blessed initially at least by the Global South and probably, later, by other Provinces as well. Meanwhile TEC would cease to be the American Anglican Province, because a majority of Anglican Provinces would not be in communion with it, and thus TEC would become an independent, liturgical Unitarian Church.

Most regrettably in the period of testing and waiting, patience recently ran out; Lambeth July 2008, it seemed, was too far away; righteous anger and holy indignation made their impact; Africans long held down by British colonialism flexed their new muscles and took (precipitous?) action! Here again the opportunity provided by Divine Providence for a path to reform and renewal appears to have been blown. And this time blown first in Africa and then in the USA.

Read the rest here.

The hot rumor before Dar Es Salaam was that North American reasserters would get a new college of bishops. We got the Pastoral Scheme instead, and a lot of us were steamed. It never seemed like something TEC would actually do. What’s Plan B, we wondered. Well, it seems that the Pastoral Scheme was Plan B. TEC having decided to follow the “you’re not the boss of me” path, those Primates involved in US oversight are reverting to Plan A.

”˜Course, this is difficult and uncertain work. Anyone who thinks that it’s just a matter of out with the old, in with the new” needs to read the chapter “Bad Bishops” in [Ephraim] Radner’s Hope among the Fragments. Dealing with corrupted parts of the Church has always been extremely difficult, and those of us who call ourselves traditionalists should be at least listening to older voices about this mess. We shouldn’t be doing whatever we want, because we want to. That’s the behavior that got us into this mess. On the other hand, I’m not sure that this situation isn’t wholly unprecedented. We’ve got an independently governed Christian unit that is fully in the hands of heretics who have rejected any outside calls to mend their ways, who are actively engaged in persecuting those who disagree with them, and who reject any interference.

So what will ++Rowan do after he writes his book on Dostoevsky? I dunno. His recent actions, or actions taken on his behalf, have fallen even deeper into a sort of chaotic inscrutability….

Read it all.

The Province of Kenya issued a statement on Wednesday, June 13, 2007, announcing its intention to consecrate The Rev. Canon Bill Atwood as a Suffragan Bishop “to support the international interests of the Anglican Church of Kenya, including support of Kenyan clergy and congregations in North America.” Their further “goal is to collaborate with faithful Anglicans (including those in North America who are related with other provinces). A North American Anglican Coalition can provide a safe haven for those who maintain historic Anglican faith and practice, and offer a way to live and work together in the furtherance of the Gospel.”

So, what does this mean? It is illustrative of the truism, “nature abhors a vacuum.”

In this analogy, nature is the Anglican Communion. What is the vacuum? The lack of leadership from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

I have long been a supporter of the Archbishop’s leadership and the difficult position that he has been in. I have gleaned his writings and comments for those tidbits that would give an indication of the direction in which he would lead the Communion.

He has been quoted to say that “actions have consequences,” leading me, and others, to believe that he would allow the TEC to suffer the consequences of their decisions in some form of discipline. He said that he gave a September 30th deadline for the assurances from the American Episcopal House of Bishops so that invitations to Lambeth could be sent out or withdrawn in response to the American bishops’ responses. He said that the primates would decide what course of action they would take.

This all made sense in light of his perceived ecclesiology: he did not want to make an arbitrary decision that would give subsequent Archbishops of Canterbury more power that might be abused later; he had a conciliar view of the authority of the church and its bishops. All this made sense to me until the invitations to Lambeth were issued in an untimely manner, and the actions of the American Episcopal church bishops that consented to and consecrated the bishop of New Hampshire that has caused this rupture in the Communion.

The act of issuing these invitations at this time has shown that some actions have not had any consequences. The American House of Bishops’ response to the Primates’ Communiqué from Dar es Salaam clearly rejected the pastoral scheme of the Communiqué and dismissive of the underlying concerns of the Primates.

Since the actions of the American Church seem to have no consequences with respect to the full Communion, contrary to their stated concerns, we are left with the consequences of inaction. The inaction of the primates as a whole and our Archbishop of Canterbury have resulted in the consequences of yet another Anglican bishop being consecrated by another foreign (African) province to provide oversight for churches who want to leave the Episcopal Church because the actions of their American bishops have been shown to have no consequences at the international level.

In short: nature abhors a vacuum. Because the conciliar vision expounded by the Archbishop of Canterbury is either not working or not being followed we are left with everyone doing what is right in their own eyes (Judges 17:6). This has led to the multiplicity of foreign jurisdiction Anglican bishops in the United States, lawsuit upon lawsuit, inhibition and deposition upon early resignation and retirement.

How does Jesus view us? I suspect just as he did when he saw the crowds: “he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

We are a bishop-based church. Whether one believes that bishops are of the esse or the bene esse of the church, it is time for our bishops, both primates and diocesans, and especially the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in consultation with the Archbishop of York, to step up and bring some order out of this chaos. We are witnessing the breakup of the Anglican Communion before our very eyes. It has been given to the primates to enforce their own Communiqué. If they do not, the Anglican witness in the United States will truly be diverse, with a multiplicity American-born Caucasian bishops from Bolivia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Venezuela, overseeing their little niches of Anglicans in the United States, while the greater cause of Christ is hampered by our sad divisions that speak the lie to all our self-affirmations of unity. Maybe this is what God wants. Maybe this is what Anglicanism deserves.

–The Rev. Canon Dr. Neal O. Michell is Canon Missioner for Strategic Development in the Diocese of Dallas; this is posted here with his permission

My own view (and that of others) has long been that TEC’s behavior has been so brazenly destructive of the Communion’s conciliar life on a number of levels, that the entire American church’s college of bishops should not be invited to Lambeth at all. Without some major, formal, and agreed recommitment to the character of conciliar life, TEC’s participation in the Communion’s gathering threatens to be subversive, not edifying, inevitably confusing, not clarifying. The Anglican Communion is not “the Catholic Church” tout court, by a long shot, and requires a kind of conserving energy that goes beyond whole-sale pneumatic openness-within-order. Individual TEC bishops might, if they so chose, petition Canterbury and the Primates for a seat at Lambeth on the basis of affirming a commitment to the principles the Primates themselves laid out in their recent Communiqué (the “Camp Allen Principles”) ”“ this may already be implied in Canterbury’s current invitation, although this is not wholly clear — or at least a commitment to previous Lambeth resolutions, whose imposing legitimacy has now been clearly affirmed by the interlocking agreement of other Anglican Communion synods.

Perhaps something like this is still possible in the post ”“September 30th Anglican world, when TEC’s House of Bishops will have given their common response to the Primates. Many of us hope for this and urge this, of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates themselves. But my opinion is only that ”“ an opinion among many. I have no role in inviting, and I can only advise, from the farthest distance, on the character of prudence demanded by the current situation. The Lambeth Conference should go on with (preferably) or without imposed criteria. Even the most pessimistic “conservative” must agree that the numbers are there for traditionalist bishops to do whatever they discern as fitting, if they indeed show up and pursue it. That is the nature of a council: if “what they pursue” is right, it will stick.

But quite apart from Canterbury or this or that party’s hopes or judgments, Lambeth can be, in terms of the Holy Spirit’s leading, whatever it wants to be. Neither Canterbury, nor the Design Committee, nor those who do not attend can make or unmake the conciliar character of Lambeth. And those who do attend may well, should they choose to exercise the tools of the Spirit they are given (to the degree that any of us have such a “choice”), transform through the Spirit’s work whatever the Lambeth Conference may initially appear to be into a true and authoritative council of the Communion and even of the Church at large. The Holy Spirit controls the course of a gathering of saints; and the saints are eager to work with God. The Church of Christ eagerly seeks counsel together, even when its “formal councils” are obscured.

And why would anyone wish to be otherwise than eager in this regard? There are clearly those who want to declare the Lambeth Conference conciliarly ineffective, and to depose it from (or deny it) any conciliar role, even before it convenes. A question to be asked of these people is whether they want to declare themselves, before the fact, as letting go of the charismatic calling of the Church. For, in the context of the Christian faith and the Church’s life, they need not do so. “Talking down” the Conference or deliberately absenting oneself from it may or may not undermine the authority of Lambeth (indeed, depending on how it is done, it may in fact enhance it!). But if it so undermines it, it also may well undermine the authority of those who deliberately reject the Conference itself. For such preemptive rejection will cloud the eagerness, trouble the faith, dampen the fire, quench the Spirit. Let archbishops and their episcopal colleges come and “fight the good fight”, sustained ”“ as surely they will be ”“ by the Holy Spirit of God. These are good people, whose deepest hopes the Lord would shape and honor. Let those who pray, come together and pray; let those who serve, come together and serve; let those who teach, come together and teach; let those who heal, come together and heal. Let the Holy Spirit list where He will within the Church as she gathers in the name of Jesus.

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Our proposals for a new province were designed to permit all in the Church of England to flourish, and represent the only solution thus far suggested which would enable women bishops to exercise their ministry without hindrance in their own dioceses, thus fulfilling the aspiration lying behind Canon Jane Sinclair’s amendment to the motion passed by General Synod on 10 July, 2006. The proposals were, of course, set out in forensic detail in 2004 in Part Two of Consecrated Women?; we would respectfully submit to the Legislative Drafting Group that, two and a half years on, they would repay careful re-reading.

In particular, we would ask the Group to note the following key features of the solution which we proposed:

Ӣ a province which would be an integral part of the Church of England
Ӣ a province which would provide a stable and secure solution to the problem
Ӣ a province the bishops of which would have ordinary jurisdiction
Ӣ a province the boundaries of which would be entirely permeable
Ӣ a province in which only male priests and bishops would minister sacramentally
Ӣ a province in which orders would derive from the historic episcopate as traditionally understood
Ӣ a province which would thus provide the necessary sacramental assurance
Ӣ a province which would enable renewal in mission and evangelism
Ӣ a province which would bring peace to the Church of England

Read the whole proposal.

Given this situation, we would make the following points and raise the following questions:

1. ACI has defended not only a collaborative understanding of the Instruments of Unity, but their integrity as well. The failure of the ABC publicly to state that the Dar es Salaam Communiqué is alive and well has been injurious to our common life. It has also been intimated in certain quarters that the adjudication of the Communiqué will be undertaken by a Joint Steering Committee of the Primates and the ACC. We trust that this rumor is mistaken. The Primates have worked hard and declared their intention, and their recommendations and requests are fully within their remit as an Instrument with enhanced responsibility, whose present character was requested by other Instruments of Communion. Lacking any clear understanding of the precise fate of the Communiqué has left the field open for manipulation and the multiplication of other initiatives, borne of fear, concern, power balancing and so on.

2. ACI has sought to work with the Windsor Report, the Covenant, and within the US, the Windsor Bishops. One can watch with curiosity and concern the proliferating of various groups within the conservative ranks, most recently, a Common Cause College of Bishops (as proposed), CANA, and others. The Anglican Communion Network would appear to have split into those bishops now headed toward the Common Cause College, and those who wish to continue on the Windsor path. But to the degree that the Windsor Bishops have no clarity about the future of the Primates’ Tanzanian Communiqué, and hence a comprehensive, ordered response to their Communion life in troubled times, they will collapse altogether. Indeed, one wonders what role they might be expected to exercise in the light of such unclarity.

3. It is our understanding that the recent issuing of Lambeth invitations was done in the light of organizational concerns and the timing of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s leave. The ways in which the Archbishop has reserved to himself all manner of options, discernment, and counsel regarding the ultimate character of invitations–which is his right to do–means that speculation about the character of the conference is bound to be only that. Still, it is speculation capable of generating unease and reaction that is not always constructive.

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My beloved church, the Episcopal Church, has been much in the news of late.

Some of the media focus has been flattering, especially the funeral services for former President Ford held in three Episcopal churches, including Washington National Cathedral. Much of the media focus has not been flattering, portraying a church fraying at the edges over issues of sexuality and the election of a female presiding bishop, the first ever in the worldwide Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion is the second-largest Christian denomination with 80 million adherents, second only to the Roman Catholic Church.

Historically, the Church of England emerged from the Reformation as the least-reformed model of Protestant Christianity. Unlike many of the continental European churches, the office of the bishop was preserved as was a focus on the Eucharist in worship along with other sacramental rites. The liturgy was reformed, and the Mass was translated into English. Many of the continental churches’ drastic reforms in worship and church theology were rejected. Because of its uniquely preserved Catholic emphases, the Anglican Communion is considered the “via media”: the middle way between the Protestant and Catholic traditions.

In 1549, one of the greatest of all books in the history of Christendom emerged, the Book of Common Prayer. It is still used today throughout the Anglican Communion as the basis for communal worship services and private daily prayer.

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I would guess Paul Greve is a nice man. I am sure he means well. I share his love for the beauty of liturgy. But this is the kind of article which makes me tear my hair out in frustration and will get us nowhere.

First of all there is the issue of basic errors of fact. The Anglican Communion is NOT the second largest Christian denomination in the world. This would come as news to the over 220 million Eastern Orthodox Christians! Goodness. If you use strict membership as a guide, you can make a case for the Baptists being number 3 at about 100 million worldwide. Nevertheless as a family of churches I believe you can try to argue Anglicanism is number 3–but not number two.

Richard Hooker not only doesn’t discuss the three legged stool, he never mentions it. Augustine? Someone please show me the three legged stool in Augustine! This is historic revisionism at its worst and it is reflected widely, alas, in the leadership of the Episcopal Church..

But the biggest objection to the article is that he never really gets to the meat of why the present crisis is such a big deal. If Anglicanism is a via media between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism as he (thank the Lord) rightly says, then it is not a middle way to nowhere, nor is it a middle way between faith and life, or between all sorts of other false polarities which are suggested in a number of recent discussions. The heart of Anglicanism is as Marco Antonio De Dominis rightly said in essentials unity, in non essentials liberty, and in all things charity. But what happens when the ‘“big tent” of Anglicanism that comfortably accommodated a full range of conservative and liberal beliefs’ accommodates disagreements about matters which are not non-essential?

Here is what I said on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer a while back:

MARGARET WARNER: Canon Harmon, why can’t different views of these two issues — that is, whether to bless same-sex unions or allow priests who are in same-sex unions to become bishops — why can’t both be accommodated in the Anglican Communion?

Is this rooted in faith? Is it a question of — well, I don’t want to characterize what Reverend Russell said — but is it more sort of political and cultural? What is the nub of the inability of different views on this issue, these two issues, to coexist?

KENDALL HARMON: Well, the difficulty here is that Anglicans believe in the importance of tolerating differences, but Anglicans also believe in boundaries. Otherwise you can’t have any community to discuss differences in.

And the crucial point to make here is, there’s different kinds of differences. And it’s interesting that this is the topic of debate here, because in the Windsor report this specific subject is addressed. And in one section — it’s paragraph 89 — what they say in there is, in the New Testament, there are certain kinds of differences that actually Christians can’t tolerate, because it’s not part of what it means to be a genuinely Christian community.

Two examples they use are sexual behavior and lawsuits of one Christian against another. And it’s interesting that, in this communique, both lawsuits and sexual behavior are things that the primates are talking about.

So the reason is because there are different kinds of differences, and the majority of the communion sees these differences as not the kind of differences that can be tolerated.

Or as Stephen Neill in his wonderful book Anglicanism says:

So, by 1593 the Church of England had shown plainly that it would not walk in the ways either of Geneva or of Rome. This is the origin of the famous Via Media, the middle way, of the Church of England. But a ”˜middle way’ which means ”˜neither this nor that’ seems a rather negative road. And a middle way which is no more than a perpetual compromise, an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable, is not likely to inspire anyone to heroism or to sanctity. Such is the carica­ture of the Anglican position which is the current coin of con­troversialists, and nothing could be further from the truth. Anglicanism is a very positive form of Christian belief; it affirms that it teaches the whole of Catholic faith, free from the distortions, the exaggerations, the over-definitions both of the Protestant left wing and of the right wing of Tridentine Catholicism. Its challenge can be summed up in the phrases, ”˜Show us anything clearly set forth in Holy Scripture that we do not teach, and we will teach it; show us anything in our teaching and practice that is plainly contrary to Holy Scripture, and we will abandon it.’ It was time that this positive nature of Anglicanism should be made plain to the world. It was the good fortune of the Elizabethan Church that it produced the two greatest of the positive controversialists of English ecclesiastical history (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 119 (emphasis added)

Ah, different kinds of differences, there is the rub, but Mr. Greve never even makes this clear. This controversy does involve Scriptural interpretation but it also involves Scriptural authority (the two go hand in hand), it involves how the church makes decisions, it involves marriage, it involves the doctrine of humanness, the doctrine of sin, and even ultimately the shape of the gospel itself. We need better informed discussion that gets at the root of the real issues if we are going to get anywhere–KSH

There is a burgeoning literature of Muslim views of Jesus. Nazir-Ali discussed the view of Jesus as presented by Rageeh Omar in his TV Series The Miracles of Jesus. Omar believed that Jesus’ miracles were presented as a sign of his divine authority and of God’s victory over evil. Omar claimed however that the Quran does not emphasize the miracles of Jesus because this could lead to him being seen as divine. Nazir-Ali asserted contrary to Omar that the Quran does affirm that Jesus’ miracles occurred by God’s leave. For the Quran Jesus is a prophet, apostle, the Word and spirit of God, and even mentions his death in 19.33 and 3.55. He hoped that Omar can address in a future series what he has learnt from Christian tradition about Jesus and what his Muslim background has taught him. To understand Jesus and his movement, we have to look at the Jewish people for information and inspiration. To the Jewish community Nazir-Ali asked how far the Jews can within the integrity of their own faith see the marks of the coming messianic age in the figure of Jesus. Hindus and Hinduism itself has been changed in surprising and important ways by the encounter with Jesus. The criticism of caste, the emancipation and education of women and the tendency to ethical monotheism took place under explicitly acknowledged Christian influence. But the key question in Hinduism has to do with the uniqueness of Jesus as the Word made flesh whose death enabled human beings to have open intimacy with the God who is the source of their being. Jesus presented himself as divine wisdom in the search of the excluded, disreputable and the lost. The female form of wisdom affects our understanding of women as in God’s image sharing in a common mission with men but distinctively. Redemption in Christ does away with false distinctions, oppression and subordination which result from the Fall and human sinfulness but not with a similarity in difference which is an aspect of God’s will for humanity.

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For traditionalists, the real problem is how these liberals see the Bible: man-made, sometimes helpful. But to traditionalists the Bible is divinely inspired; it is God communicating with humanity. To them the homosexuality debate, though important, is just a symptom; the disease is a misunderstanding about the authority of Scripture.

While the traditionalists see it as a matter of truth and fidelity, for liberals it is a matter of justice and human rights. God loves all alike, they say, and quote Paul’s letter to Galatians that for Christians “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”.

Each side would rather go its own way than compromise and keep the Anglican Church together. The topic goes to the core of how churches relate to the wider culture in which they live. The sexuality debate pits the African Anglicans, now the biggest group in the church, against the Americans, who are the richest.

American culture is deeply concerned with individual rights, which shape how even churches deal with moral questions. African culture is more communitarian, shaped by tribal structures, and more authoritarian.

After the Americans appointed a gay man, Gene Robinson, bishop of New Hampshire in 2004 many African churches broke off relations.

That really made it a political problem for church leaders, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams: how could they keep the church together?

As with any global political dispute, it’s a mixture of principle, posturing and pragmatic politics on all sides, of complex motivations, divided loyalties and shifting agendas.

For example, the Africans who led the opposition to the American liberals have been influenced not only by theological conviction but by cultural misunderstandings and colonial resentment. It’s rather a thrill to tell the Americans where to get off.

So there have been international meetings and committees, and the US church has agreed to partly withdraw. Dr Williams has probably bought enough time to stop the church self-destructing before the 10-yearly meeting of the world’s bishops in London next year, which will reassess the situation.

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In his book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman explains how our world has shrunk. Thanks to instant information and rapid transportation, hierarchical structures have been flattened.

One global organization that should be ideally positioned for this transformation is the Christian Church. The genius of its founder was that it was designed to be “flat;” small groups with a common vision, a common language of faith, and international networks that crossed national boundaries. As often happens, initial flexibility was soon lost and replaced by more predictable and controllable structures and the early vision forgotten while waiting for another fresh wave of inspiration and creativity.

We are witnessing such a new wave. A prime example is the Anglican Communion – an international community of more than 75 million in 164 countries, ordered into 38 separate provinces.

In the good old days mandates, money and missionaries flowed from the traditional power base of London and, more recently, New York to their grateful recipients in the developing world. But that is all changing now and we have, as noted Penn State religion and history professor Philip Jenkins describes it, ‘A New Christendom’ where much of the energy, leadership and vision now come from the Global South. The old ways of doing church are being shaken and we are rediscovering what it means to be part of a truly global community.

One example is the birth of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, or CANA. It was first conceived as a way to provide a safe harbor for Nigerian Anglicans who no longer felt welcome in The Episcopal Church because of its deliberate distancing from traditional mainstream Christianity but now includes a growing number of other Anglican congregations from across America.

This realignment isn’t simply about issues of human sexuality but on the other much more basic questions such as the role and authority of the Scriptures and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. It is part of an emerging movement of formerly Episcopal churches and new congregations, which are breaking out of their hierarchical straightjackets and connecting directly with other parts of the Anglican Communion. What unites them is a vision for global Christianity; a commitment to a common language of faith and abiding friendships that connect across challenging cultural divides.

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PHILIP JENKINS: The word schism means a split, and the great historical example is what happened in 1054, when the Eastern and Western churches had a tiff over such crucial theological issues as whether priests should wear beards. Everyone knew this was going to be resolved in just a couple of years; 950 years or so later, and counting, they’re still divided into the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and it’s not likely to be resolved any time soon.

Today I’m going to talk about the Anglican schism, but I want to look at the question of whether this is the first shot in a much larger war and whether instead of an East-West schism, we’ll be looking at a North-South schism. I want to start this off with a quote you will find shocking or at the very least surprising. As you’re aware, a number of Episcopal churches in the United States have placed themselves under the authority of African and Asian clergy because, basically, they don’t trust the leadership of the Episcopal Church.

One of the African clerics they’ve turned to is a man called Emmanuel Kolini, who is the primate of Rwanda. When Kolini is asked why he is interfering in American affairs, he has a very simple answer: “Back in my country back in 1994, we had the genocide and the world stood idly by, nobody came to help us; we are not going to let that happen to you. We will not stand idly by while this dreadful thing happens to the Episcopal Church.” Most of us, of course, look at that and think, “You’re seriously comparing the 1994 genocide with the split in the Episcopal Church?” That seems astonishing. But I hope to suggest why some of the issues involved here are so very important for Global South churches.

Quick narrative: The U.S. Episcopal Church is not a huge body, but it’s a very influential body. Realistically it has maybe two, two-and-a-half million members, yet its influence is far beyond those numbers. It’s a very liberal body on issues of gender, sexuality; it’s been semi-overtly ordaining gay clergy and carrying out gay marriages for a number of years. The turning point came in 2003 when an openly gay cleric, Bishop Robinson, was ordained. For some years before that, conservatives within the Episcopal Church had been looking to the wider Anglican world, and they’d had a lot of support from those Global South churches. Global South means, in this context, Africa and Asia.

In 2003, the skies fell in. Global South primates from countries like Nigeria and Uganda started using ferociously critical language about the ordination of Robinson. They called it a satanic attack on God’s church. The U.S. Episcopal response here was, “Who are you to tell us this?” Then the primates in countries like Nigeria said, “Let us tell you who we are to be telling you this. There’s two, two-and-a-half million members of you; the Nigerian church had, back in 1975, five million members, we’re currently up to 19 million members; by 2025, we’ll be at 35 million members. We’re doubling every 25 years or so; what can you say to that?”

But of course, the Anglican Church is not just Nigeria; it’s Uganda and Tanzania and Rwanda and all these other countries. Since that point in 2003 the Anglican Communion has developed an ever wider split. Most recently, of course, conservative churches within the U.S. Episcopal Church have placed themselves under the Episcopal authority of Global South churches. The most recent, of course, affected a number of very large, prosperous churches in Virginia, which are now part of a missionary diocese of the Nigerian church under its primate Peter Akinola.

The language, the sentiment and the depth of hatred in these events has been quite striking. We could have a competition as to which remark is the least conducive to Christian charity. (Laughter.) I have a couple of candidates. Candidate one is Akinola’s remark that the U.S. Episcopal Church is like a cancerous lump that has defied all treatment, and the time has come for it to be excised altogether. Candidate two is from one of the gay pressure groups within the Episcopal Church, when someone said: “All I can say to you African bishops, is why can’t you go back to the jungle you came from and stop monkeying around with the church?” We’ll have a vote afterwards as to which is the more offensive remark….

Read it all.

Listen to it all and make sure to note the comment of Chris Seitz below the audio link.

So what happened? How did it all fall apart? Clearly, Gene Robinson was a watershed, and with it went a lot of other matters building up and associated, often in profound and logical ways, with the seemingly radical change in sexual discipline that General Convention 2003 represented. But “doctrine” alone doesn’t explain the tidal shift in relationships.

The central problem, I believe ”“ one noted by both Windsor and Primates — is the loss of “trust”: trust among Anglican churches was broken, and by and large, the initiative for this breaking (although not wholly) has come from one direction. In sum, TEC and her leaders broke trust with the Communion, and Global South leaders and conservatives within and outside TEC lost “trust” in the American church and her leaders. This is related to TEC’s changed doctrine and discipline; but, as I said, only partly. One can navigate doctrinal difference and dispute, even of the most essential kind, if there is a trusted means of doing so. The real issue has been the sense that TEC is no longer what she was, that her word is not worth anything, that she cannot keep promises, that she is no longer trustworthy and therefore she that cannot be dealt with consistently and openly in terms of discussions and common counsel. The doctrinal and disciplinary dispute of the present is “irreconcilable” not only because the divergences at issue are vast, but because there is no commonly coherent means of resolving them. The difference between 1970’s and the 2000’s is that in 1970, for all the suspicions and even dislike and outright worries about its liberalism, ECUSA was still “trusted”; now she is not.

And why was ECUSA trusted then, and TEC is no longer trusted now? In brief, because TEC has lost her bearings within a coherent history others once recognized; because she no longer evidences a consistent character others once encountered; and because she is no longer engaged in a committed Christian discussion of critical matters in a Christian way with her Anglican sisters and brothers she once pursued. This claim is now worth unpacking.

One major debate today ”“ and it has emerged only now, but necessarily and essentially ”“ is over the identity of the Episcopal Church’s history, and thereby the church’s historical character. The debate has been attached to a new argument that has been promoted of late by, e.g. the House of Bishops, and that has also been taken up by the House’s allies and apologists. The argument is that TEC has an exceptional character vis a vis the rest of the Communion: she is a “democratic” church. And this “democratic” character means that the church is governed by a comprehensive set of representatives well-beyond the episcopal order, committed to “liberative praxis”, to breaking the shackles of colonialist imperialism, to upholding the needs and aspirations of oppressed and marginalized peoples, and to working to fulfill the inclusivist project (or “mission”) of God to bring all people, whatever their condition and social status, into a reconciled and egalitarian participation within the Church’s authoritative order. This articulated self-identity has been used to justify the direction taken by TEC’s General Convention on matters of sexual morals and discipline (not to mention other elements like “open communion”), even when this direction has gone counter to previously stated hopes, claims and promises.

Now, this newly argued Episcopalian identity may indeed be a hope for some or even for many. But it in no way represents the historical character of TEC in a purely factual or sociologically tethered fashion. The new progressive liberative identity is a constructed or invented history that is being foisted on the church by its proponents through the mechanisms of political rhetoric and strategic procedure. But it does not reflect what TEC has in fact been, or even is today (leaving aside the question of whether it is faithful to the Gospel of the Scriptures itself, which, in many crucial respects, I believe it is not).

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From here:

Some Anglicans, especially critics of the authority of the Primates Meeting as an Instrument of Unity/Communion, have tended to see the four Instruments of Communion as competitors. There is no evidence that this view is held by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is himself an Instrument, and who presides at the Lambeth Conference, the Primates Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council. Clearly he views the Instruments as mutually encouraging, even as they have a specific and discrete identity and remit.

It has been the consistent position of ACI, going back to ”˜To Mend the Net,’ that the specific authority given to the Archbishop of Canterbury is that of gathering and inviting. And the place where that authority is his alone is the Lambeth Conference invitations.

But there is no evidence whatsoever that in making invitations for the 2008 Conference, +Canterbury has set aside or ignored the authority of the other Instruments.

It needs also to be underscored that the response of the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church to the requests of the most recent Primates Meeting says nothing probative in any way about the vitality and purchase of these requests. The means for providing regularization of various emergency extra-territorial ”˜missionary’ initiatives is the Pastoral Council Scheme and the Primatial Vicar. It is not the job of the Archbishop of Canterbury unilaterally to declare the regularization of these initiatives by inviting the bishops acting in such a status to the Lambeth Conference. That would be to reject the work of the Primates Meeting still alive and waiting final prosecution ”“ especially in the light of how the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church finally responds as of 30 September 2007.

It is tempting to wish to see individual initiatives, individual bishops, and individual Instruments as more definitive than others, and this instinct is alive on both ends of the Communion spectrum. What we are in fact seeing is the unfolding of a specific Anglican Communion polity, now come of age, and its hallmark is the mutual cooperation of four Instruments of Unity. The timing is such that the recent statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury is being given a specific kind of enhancement, but that may be misleading. In no way does his action in signaling an intention about present and future invitations stand over against the work of the other Instruments of Communion, and we can be sure he and his counselors have had this foremost in their minds.

We also wish to note the language of his statement””and this has not been properly emphasized due to concerns about CANA or New Hampshire””which points to the assumption that those Bishops attending do so with a commitment to the Instruments of Communion, and the statements and actions emanating from them. So far as we are concerned, the best indication of the mind of the Instruments in this season of disarray and challenge is what the Dar communiqué called the Camp Allen Principles: because these reaffirm Lambeth 1.10, Dromantine, The Windsor Report, and the serial statements and actions of all four Instruments.

It is our view that the efficient working of the Lambeth Conference, which is the desire of the Archbishop of Canterbury, needs an assumed commitment to these principles, if the meeting is not to be distracted and politicized according to this or that discrete concern or cause. We hope that the language used by the Archbishop of Canterbury at this juncture will receive specific commentary and elaboration. We believe we hear him rightly and trust that this perspective represents what is best for the healthy working of the Anglican Communion and the mission of Jesus Christ in this part of his Body the Church.

For a long time a number of posters on House of Bishops/deputies listserv and prominent TEC leaders have gone on and on about the Anglican Communion’s Instruments of Unity having no real authority.

What is interesting to me about Archbishop Williams statement is that he acknowledges the authority he has to invite, or not to invite, indeed possibly even to withdraw a given invitation, to the Lambeth Conference. He then chooses (in a rare instance in Anglican history) to exercise that authority in a few “cases.”

This goes all the way back to Mend the Net.

So let’s end the fiction that the instruments do not really exist, or that they don’t matter, or don’t have any real authority.

They do have authority. And we do seek to be an Anglican Communion. Whether we ever become what God wants us to remains to be seen–KSH