The Anglican Communion is in a state of grave crisis and is broken in a way that is very resistant to reconciliation. The church is broken de facto both within provinces and between provinces. There is a sense of the bizarre and of unreality about discussions that view schism as something that approaches but has not yet come. (The next General Convention of The Episcopal Church may clarify this reality in a stunning way.) The church at all levels is torn and the question now is what degree of reconciliation is possible and what will the de jure structures of a reconciled communion look like. It is a positive development that there is a growing recognition that the current instruments of communion are not adequate to maintain the faith, order and unity of a world-wide church. The emphasis on autonomy by the local provinces across the theological spectrum is hard to square with mutual submission in the Body of Christ especially when issues arise that scandalize large portions of the faithful….

All of the suggestions for pastoral care of the alienated orthodox in North America have been too little and too late. The main defect of these proposals is that they are developed without consulting the very people they are supposed to help and are promulgated without a clear signal that those to whom they are supposed to offer relief, see their needs adequately met.

Read it all.

In stark contrast to the increasingly relational tone reflected in the Primates Communiqué, the Windsor Continuation Group has taken a step backward, issuing a report that yearns for greater ecclesial centralization achieved by concentrating power in the hands of bishops and archbishops, further marginalizing the laity and diminishing the influence of member churches in the common life of our Communion. The authors of the report””two retired primates, a primate, two bishops and a retired Cathedral dean””believe an “ecclesial deficit” exists within Anglicanism and propose to remedy it by strengthening three of the four “Instruments of Communion”, namely the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference and the Primates Meeting. The instrument they have overlooked is the Anglican Consultative Council; the only instrument that includes lay people, priests and deacons and that has a constitution that codifies its membership, procedures and authority. The ACC’s meetings have proven much less susceptible to outside manipulation than those of the Primates Meetings, as the machinations at Dromantine and Dar es Salaam made painfully clear.

Yet the Windsor Continuation Group argues that the Communion must receive statements from the Primates: “with a readiness to undertake reflection and accommodation,” while questioning whether the Anglican Consultative Council can “adequately” exercise the purely consultative function it currently serves. This illustrates a triumph of ecclesial ideology over common sense.

Read it all.

The primates’ letter had received the unanimous endorsement of the primates, Archbishop Williams said. However, the WCG’s communication was a report prepared by a committee appointed by Archbishop Williams and presented by him to the primates as a resource document; it was not submitted to a vote. Many parts of the communiqué refer to passages from the 17-page WCG report. Other sections of the communiqué refer to the document on gracious restraint. The sections mentioned in the communiqué indicate broader support among the primates.

This communiqué, perhaps to a more significant degree than others in recent years, attempts to look to doctrine rather than legislation or political solutions. The primates pick up a theme from the Windsor Report, which questioned whether the Communion suffered from an “ecclesial deficit, in other words, do we have the necessary theological structural and cultural foundations to sustain the life of the Communion? We need to address divisive issues in a timely and effective way, and to learn the responsibilities and obligations of interdependence.”

The Episcopal Church and the proposed Anglican Church of North America both received support, as well as pointed but fair questions about their conduct and objectives. For instance, The Episcopal Church was praised for its efforts to date to exercise “gracious restraint” in not consecrating any additional openly gay bishops. The proponents of the proposed new parallel province in North America were reassured that they were Anglican, and that they were deserving of some measure of protection from legal attacks, at least in the short term.

Read the whole thing.

This week, at their meeting in Alexandria, the primates have been debating the Covenant, a new document that is at the heart of the solution and sets out a Bible-based orthodoxy that the provinces will be invited to sign up to. Some provinces may well refuse to do so. These include Canada, where one diocese, New Westminster, has already authorised same-sex blessings, and another, Toronto, is expected to follow suit within a year.

The Episcopal Church of the US might also have difficulty giving full support to a document that does not do full justice to the ministry of clerics such as Bishop Robinson, now an establishment figure who is friendly with President Obama ”” he prayed the invocation at the start of the inauguration celebrations last month.

The result will be not schism but a two-tier communion, with all provinces in communion with the “mother church” in England and its primate, Dr Rowan Williams, primus inter pares or first among equals, but some having a lesser status and not being in full communion with each other.

At the same time the new “church” formed by conservative evangelicals in the US, led by the deposed Bishop of Pittsburgh, Bob Duncan, which is seeking recognition as a new province, is likely to be granted some extra-provincial status allowing the thousands of Anglicans it represents to remain within the Communion. This would lead to two parallel Anglican provinces operating in the US, one free to pursue its mission of inclusivity including the consecration of bishops of different sexualities, the other mandated to preach its own gospel of what it believes to be “orthodoxy”.

Read it all.

A presentation by the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) to the primates’ meeting was scheduled for two hours on Tuesday morning, but spilled over into the afternoon.

In December, the WCG met at the Diocese of West Texas’s conference center and prepared a final draft of its report to the primates. The report was given to the primates Tuesday, but placed under a media embargo until the close of the conference. The news blackout extended to the day’s press conference, where the primates’ spokesman, the Most Rev. Philip Aspinall of Australia, would say only that the archbishops discussed the report over two sessions.

Read it all.

This is from the comments below but I am highlighting it in case others missed it:

I remain at a loss as to why this is being proposed NOW, and being made public NOW, just as the Primates meet. I am grateful for the openness and desire for discussion around the concrete proposals (unlike some dioceses with which I am familiar). And in the spirit of such discussion, I included the following in a letter I sent yesterday to two of the Toronto bishops.

It is hard to escape the fact that the process you have now set in motion — one that involves public proposals, discussions, synodical actions, and all dealing with a way of ordering a particular “pastoral response” that involves episcopal oversight and particular permissions, following directives that involve the nature of prayers ”“ cannot avoid being seen as one of ecclesial “authorization” of liturgical matters surrounding same-sex unions. The following words of the Archbishop of Canterbury were given at the end of the recent Lambeth Conference:

One of the problems around this is that people in different parts of the world clearly define ‘public’ and ‘rites’ and ‘blessing’ in rather different ways. I’d refer I think to what I said in the address this afternoon. As soon as there is a liturgical form it gives the impression: this has the Church’s stamp on it. As soon as that happens I think you’ve moved to another level of apparent commitment, and that I think is nowhere near where the Anglican Communion generally is. In the meeting of Primates at Gramado in Brazil some years ago, the phrase ‘A variety of pastoral response’ was used as an attempt to recognise that there were places where private prayers were said and, although there’s a lot of unease about that, there wasn’t quite the same strength of feeling about that as about public liturgies. But again ‘pastoral response’ has been interpreted very differently and there are those in the USA who would say: ‘Well, pastoral response means rites of blessing’, and I’m not very happy about that. (Final Press Conference, August 3, 2008)

I would underline two things in this response by Archbishop Williams. First, the key character of putting the “Church’s stamp” on same-sex unions somehow, simply by there being a publically permitted or authorized form of prayer (“liturgical form” ”“ which is a deliberately vague phrase), is crucial. Second, the fact that “pastoral response” was always understood among the Primates at least ”“ and even here with a great deal of trepidation ”“ as involving no more than “private prayers”. Although you and your colleagues may feel that you are proposing something that would fall within this realm of only informal acknowledgments of private prayer, the very process you are following will make this very difficult to sustain in the judgments of many others around the Communion. The fact is that, among other things, your proposal includes the following:

Ӣ Episcopal permission be given to a limited number of parishes, based on Episcopal discernment, to offer prayers and blessing (but not the nuptial blessing) to same-sex couples in stable, long-term, committed relationships, as an extension of the current pastoral norms.
Ӣ Episcopal guidelines on the nature of the prayers/blessing will be established. A particular rite will not be authorized.
Ӣ Episcopal permission for blessings will be required.
Ӣ Evaluation of this pastoral response will be undertaken after one year.
Ӣ No parish or clergy will be required to participate.
”¢ A Bishop’s Commission will be formed to create the guidelines, monitor activity and review.

All of this represents formal, episcopal, diocesan, public, liturgical prayers of blessing. And while it is true that the Archbishop’s remarks above do not carry any kind of formal authority in determining how the Church of Canada and her bishops will define “pastoral response”, I think it fair to say that his rather moderate definitions will be shared by, and even defined more strictly by, many others among our Communion partners. I believe, in short, that it will be very difficult indeed to make the case and persuade others of the fact that the Diocese of Toronto is not moving forward with a contravention of the informal moratorium articulated at Lambeth (and before), not to mention moving in a way that simply does not defer to the general concerns of many Anglicans around the world.

Read it all (43 page pdf).

I mention this because as we prepare for the upcoming 218th Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina the stormy seas have not abated in the almost six years since General Convention 2003. If anything, the swath from the northeaster has broadened and intensified, engulfing more and more provinces of the Anglican Communion. While nothing is certain at this point, it seems clear to me that there is no immediate solution to our present crisis. In the midst of a storm, most of us can only react to changing circumstances as they develop. My commitment is to keep in line with the Scriptures, the historic faith of the Church, and the larger Anglican Communion. So long as we can remain Episcopalian and keep with these three instruments of trustworthy navigation, there is no reason at this point to man the lifeboats. Though many would like to see this crisis ended, or hear prophetic predictions of calmer seas, such are not likely to be forthcoming. The next foreseeable sounding of significance is the Primates’ Meeting in February 2009 and the Anglican Consultative Council in May. At both meetings, issues regarding the Anglican Covenant and, I suspect, the proposed new province in North America will be in the forefront. Then comes TEC’s General Convention in July. It’s questionable that any of these will be ports of decisive destiny; still, vigilance is a virtue.

While there are many dimensions of our present situation we cannot control, (what else is new?), that does not free us from discerning God’s vision for the Diocese of South Carolina as we near the end of this first decade of the 21st Century and prepare to enter the next. Rather, it makes it even more imperative. This raises for me the question””“What is a diocese supposed to do?” Theologians often reflect on what a diocese is””such as those who say, the Diocese is the basic or fundamental unit of the Church. But that is a statement of being, not of doing. I have spent more than a little time lately reflecting on this question. And from there, the more specific question””“What is the Diocese of South Carolina supposed to do?” Or put another way, “What is God calling the Diocese of South Carolina to do?” This is demanding but essential work if we are to maintain both a macro and micro-perspective in God’s kingdom. In fact, it is all the more essential if we are to be proactive about our future rather than merely reactive to the tossing of every gusty wind and swelling wave. Therefore, I will seek to articulate what I believe this is at our upcoming convention.

Read it all.

We do not know how the proposal for a new province will be received nor are we entirely clear what its proponents are proposing; that is probably unavoidable given the hardships all around. We understand that many see the situation as demanding this option. For our part, we accept the promise of those associated with this movement that they will honor our own commitments. Communion Partners will pray for the Common Cause proponents and will assume that promise of cooperation entails a charitable acceptance that another way forward is to be honored and that we can move forward on parallel tracks and not ”˜recruit’ from each others’ daily purpose, honoring the jurisdictional integrities of respective bishops. God will be in charge of the next season, as He has always been.

When the Primates meet in February we anticipate that our separate ways of moving forward will be acknowledged and honored. We pledge our prayers for all involved and ask God’s blessing on all of us in a very difficult time. With gratitude for his grace and mercy, again this 2009 Epiphany we remain, yours in Christ, on behalf of Communion Partners,

Read it all.

The two understandings of discipline and the roles of Canterbury and the Primates collided at the Primates’ Meeting in Dar es Salaam in February 2007. The early rounds of the conflict went to Rowan Williams, who had invited Presiding Bishop Katherine Schori despite a recommendation in the Dromantine Communiqué that Episcopal Church officials refrain from attending Communion events until Lambeth 2008. He then set the agenda of the meeting with only four hours devoted to the Episcopal Church’s reaction, and he endorsed a Joint Standing Committee report which claimed that the Episcopal Church had satisfied the conditions of the Windsor Report and the Dromantine Communiqué.

At this point, the Global South Primates interrupted the set agenda and pushed back.[46] The final Communiqué was surprisingly strong, in which the Primates “unanimously” [made their recommendations]….

For a few brief weeks, it appeared that a final separation was imminent. Then Canterbury struck back:

1. by issuing invitations to Lambeth 2008 to all Episcopal bishops except Gene Robinson (May 2007);

2. by accepting an invitation to the House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans (September 2007) and commissioning a report from the Joint Standing Committee that was not part of the Dar “process”;[50]

3. by denying by word and deed that September 30 was a real deadline; and

4. by giving the Episcopal Church a weak pass in his Advent 2007 letter, which was all that was necessary to get it over the hurdles posed by the Dar Communiqué.

Most significantly, in the year intervening between Dar and Lambeth 2008, Archbishop Williams refused to call a follow-up Primates’ Meeting, despite the clear expectation in the Communiqué that he would reconvene the Primates to judge the Episcopal Church’s response and despite an urgent appeal from the Global South Steering Committee that he do so. Apparently the Archbishop had concluded from the Dar es Salaam Meeting that the Primates’ authority had been enhanced too much and that they needed to be relegated to the B-league as an honorary council of advice.[51] The hope of Communion-wide discipline of those who had broken fundamental Christian doctrine had evaporated in a cloud of verbiage and dithering.

Read it carefully and read it all.

At the core of the present fragmentation in the life of the Anglican Communion has been an avoidance of the conciliar process beyond the national level and an elevation of provincial autonomy over catholic consensus through the councils of the wider church. The conciliarist principle holds that local option must submit to the consensus of the wider church, which represents the whole church, not just a segment of it. Lesser synods must submit to the decisions of greater synods. Though the Anglican Communion has the structures in place that could promote conciliarism as a way of addressing current controversies, particularly the Lambeth Conference of Bishops and the Primates’ Meeting, these instruments of unity have been prevented from functioning in an effective way.

The Windsor Report (2004) proposed a conciliar approach to addressing the crisis prompted by the Robinson consecration and the blessings of same sex unions in North America. However, the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to discipline offending bishops by not inviting them to participate in the Lambeth Conference. The Primates’ Meeting was prevented from following through on the moratoria demands they had made of the Bishops of The Episcopal Church in their Dar es Salaam Communiqué (2007), and the 2008 Lambeth Conference was carefully orchestrated to prevent the Bishops from acting as a council of the church to address the sexuality crisis that has so deeply divided us.

Until the Anglican Communion addresses the prevailing system of elevating provincial autonomy over all else, we will be unable to function as a conciliar church and address controversy as a truly catholic body. Any claim to autonomy must be understood within the context of what it means to be a part of the larger body of the church catholic. There are limits to provincial autonomy that fall short of independence from the rest of the church and the principle of common consent. When we speak of autonomy, it is always autonomy in communion and interdependence. This has been made more difficult to address in light of the fact that the Lambeth Conferences have intentionally been designed to act merely as conferences, without legislative or canonical authority. They have not been seen as councils or synods of bishops with anything but a certain kind of moral authority. And when Lambeth resolutions are rejected or ignored, as in the last decade, there are no consequences, no discipline, and no accountability. Instead of discipline for American and Canadian bishops who openly rejected the teaching of the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1:10 and refused to comply with the recommendations of the Windsor Report, Archbishop Williams and his planning committee decided that Lambeth 2008 just would not adopt any resolutions or make any recommendations. We would simply have carefully orchestrated indaba groups and times for honest sharing of feelings.

Read it all.

On Saturday, Jan. 10, The Right Rev. Robert O’Neill ordained Mary Catherine Volland to the sacred order of priests, along with Heather Leigh Payton, Michael David Scott Demmon and Bret Bowie Hayes. All four ordinands will be serving congregations in Colorado.

Volland, a long-time resident of Colorado, was a candidate for ordination from the Diocese of Minnesota where she was ordained to the transitional diaconate this summer. She has been called to serve as an assistant priest at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Denver, and was ordained here by Bishop O’Neill on behalf of the Bishop of Minnesota, the Right Rev. James Jelinek. (Hayes, a candidate for ordination from the Diocese of Connecticut, is serving as a curate at St. John’s Cathedral, and was also ordained here by Bishop O’Neill on behalf of the Bishop of Connecticut, the Right Rev. Andrew Smith.)

Volland is a partnered lesbian. The Episcopal Church does ordain partnered gay and lesbian persons. Several Colorado congregations have been and are served faithfully by gay and lesbian clergy. Although there is a clearly range of opinion among clergy and lay people of the diocese about the ministry of partnered gay and lesbian clergy, one of the gifts of Anglican Christianity is its tradition of holding widely divergent points of view in a context of orthodox Christian faith.

“The Diocese of Colorado is perhaps the most politically and theologically diverse diocese in The Episcopal Church,” says Bishop O’Neill. “Our faithful walking together as sisters and brothers in Christ is at once challenging and a great gift that we have to offer to a broken and divided world. I am grateful to all in this diocese who faithfully come to the table to offer their many gifts to God’s service, including the gay and lesbian Christians among us who so generously contribute to our common life and ministry.”

I tried in vain to find this on the Diocesan Wesbite, if anyone else can help with this please let me know–KSH.

The Anglican world is about to be plunged into a new crisis over sexuality as the American Diocese of Colorado ordained an openly gay and partnered priest yesterday.

Under terms agreed between member Churches of the Anglican Communion, there is a moratorium on ordaining further openly gay people, but Bishop Robert O’Neill (pictured) ordained Mary Catherine Volland, along with three others, to the priesthood at St. John’s Cathedral on Saturday.

Read it all.

Mary Catherine Volland, a longtime resident of Colorado and a partnered lesbian, was ordained Saturday at St. John’s Cathedral in Denver, as the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado ended its moratorium on ordaining gay priests.

Volland had been a candidate for ordination by the Diocese of Minnesota. She will serve as an assistant priest at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Denver.

Nationally, the issue of ordaining gay priests has caused division within the church.

Read it all.

Update: There is also a Rocky Mountain News story here.

But I do not think leaving is the answer. That is where the Communion Partners rest. Daniel had to stay in Babylon, but did not abandon his faith. Jeremiah was not given another Israel. Ezekiel had to preach to the dry bones. When Jesus and his message were completely rejected, he did not leave. He wept. He stayed. He did not move on to Egypt. He stayed and faithfully preached when they believed and when they did not believe.

There appears, for now, to be tremendous hope in the other forms of Anglicanism that have been springing up around the country. But they are very much in their embryonic stages. In my previous diocese, there were six different expressions of Anglican identity in one small area of the state. None of them were growing significantly. There are already some divisions within these breakaway movements over liturgy, women’s ordination, and prayer book language. I wish them well, but I would have rather seen them stay.

I have asked every person I personally know that has [left] or was pondering to leave the Episcopal Church if they were prevented in some way by their parish or bishop from preaching the gospel. Each one has said, “No….”

The press has not done an adequate job of reporting on the success stories in the Episcopal Church, and it has also ”” too often ”” presumed that the vast majority of Episcopalians agree with the revisionist agenda. I would argue that the vast majority in the pews do not. Many bishops do not, and many clergy do not.

Read it all.

These convictions and commitments are reflected in patient and enduring witness rather than in strategies and tactics designed to bring about desired future states. They grow from trust that God will use faithful witness in his own time and in his own way to bring about his purposes””purposes that do not stem from our imaginings or our desires but from God’s justice and God’s mercy.

Just what are these convictions and commitments? Here we must summarize a host of conversations to which we have been party over the past several years. The convictions revealed are these.

1. The weakness and disarray of TEC (and indeed of the churches of the West) are best understood as the result of divine displeasure at pervasive misconstruals of Christian belief and practice coupled with a common life that blows neither “hot nor cold.”
2. It is a form of delusion and disobedience to place oneself and ones friends outside the judgment God intends for the health of his church. Rather, fidelity calls for acceptance of the judgment as both just and merciful. It calls also for faithful Christians to live through that judgment to the end. This way is none other than the way Christ himself walked, believing not in a future state of his devising and constructing but in God’s power, through his death, to give life to the dry bones of his people.
3. The pattern of Christ’s life suggests the necessity of a clear differentiation between a way faithful to his life and teaching and one that has simply assumed the form of the culture with which the leadership of TEC has identified.
4. The obedient form of differentiation suggested by the pattern of Christ is not separation but faithful persistence along a different path within the fellowship of the church that has nurtured one as a Christian but has, nonetheless, gone astray.

Read it all.

Update: Sarah Hey has a lengthy response to this here which concludes this way:

Let’s be clear. There are Episcopalians who are most interested in the “inside strategy.” The fact that the ACI and I assume the Communion Partners group eschews the “inside strategy” does not mean that those Episcopalians do not exist.

On the other hand, it is good to see the ACI and the Communion Partners continue to clarify their goals publicly. Their expressed goals do not make them “bad organizations.” Their goals merely express who they are and what they intend to do — and it’s important for clergy who are making decisions about participation in either organization to be aware of what those organizations mean to do. There are some good people in both organizations and, from the perspective of this layperson, the Communion Partners is currently the only place that an inside strategy clergyperson can gain some fellowship.

In the same way, we all know what the new Anglican entity — the ACNA — is clearly seeking. Those who leave for the ACNA have obviously abandoned any “inside strategy” as well.

At this point, those Episcopalians interested in the inside strategy need to connect with one another, and seek counsel where they can — but with crystal clarity that there is no organizational or institutional or national help for them. We are, as I have said for the past almost two years, on our own. Acknowledging that fact is the first step towards clarity and healing and seeking help where we can find it, with those who share our goals — and of course, fellowshiping with joy with all orthodox Anglican brothers and sisters, whether in the ACI, the Communion Partners, or the ACNA.

[Archbishop Greg] Venables attended both conferences, at Canterbury and Jerusalem. “The African bishops did not go to Lambeth because they feel frustrated,” he said. “The Anglican Church in Africa has always been very traditionalist, and when the United States suddenly took a direction that many did not agree with, they found there was no room for dissenters.”

This is the dilemma today in the Anglican Church, he said. There is a “serious crisis,” according to Venables, but the decision to break apart or to settle the differences has been postponed. The next Anglican Communion Primates’ Meeting, convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury, will be held in Alexandria, Egypt in February 2009.

The bishop of Argentina said he had persuaded the African primates to attend, but he admitted that they are skeptical about the results that can be expected.

“They say that it will just be more of the same. Their patience is running out. They feel that ‘again, white people want to run everything their own way,'” he said.

Read it all.

What about the definition of Anglican? In the October issue of First Things, I expressed the hope that last summer’s Lambeth Conference, and particularly the leadership of Archbishop Rowan Williams, gave strong evidence that the center of the Anglican communion intended to hold together; that the Episcopal left and the GAFCON right would not, in fact, carry the day and so lead the communion ever-further down the road to fragmentation and incoherence. Since that time, most of the action has been on the GAFCON and Bishop Duncan side; and the more influence they have, the less chance there is of an eventual coming-together of things.

But the ball is now in center court, as it were””this February’s meeting of the Anglican primates will be crucial, as will the meeting of the Covenant Design Group in April and the Anglican Consultative Council’s meeting in May. If Anglicanism is truly to mean something beyond the local, these meetings will carry forward the Lambeth vision of a genuinely covenanted “global” and “catholic church,” with its ministry, faith, and sacraments “united and interdependent throughout the world,” as Rowan Williams has put it.

There are, of course, no guarantees. The forces of dissolution and division right now are strong, and it is always much easier to pull apart than it is to hold together. The question “Anglican or Episcopalian?” may always be with us; but at the least, we may still be able to hope that the question “What kind of Anglican are you?” will not become just as common.

Read it all.

One friend suggests his refusal to “speak out” is a reflection of Jesus’s own approach, especially when Christ refused to answer Pontius Pilate’s questions at His trial, as described in Mark’s Gospel. “I think that, again, one of the things the Gospel ought to do is make us question the way we put our questions,” Williams says. “So that, right throughout the ministry of Jesus as well as at His trial, a hostile person sitting there could say, ‘He never gives a straight answer to a straight question: “Do we pay tribute to Caesar?”‘ And Jesus pushes it back and says, ‘What are we really talking about?’ I think it’s always important to ask before we make the snap answer: what are we really talking about?”

Thirty years ago, Rowan Williams had a formative experience in Liverpool that would help define his approach as a churchman and an archbishop. “When I first went to train in a parish in the 1970s, I went to one of the worst council estates in Liverpool for a bit as part of my student experience, and the vicar said to me something I’ve never forgotten: ‘The people here have doors slammed in their face every day of the week. I want to make sure they don’t have another one slammed on the seventh.’ That’s a very central vision for me and that’s what I try to work with.”

It is a vision that helps guide him through the crises threatening his church.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Read it all.

Because of weaknesses of ACC, Donald Coggan called first meeting of Primates. This has been crucial in helping people understand one another and work on issues facing Anglican Communion. It has no legislative power ”” it is a consultation.

Anglican Communion is facing many things, many challenges, growing in some places, declining in others, making decisions which offend some parts of Anglican Communion and lacking opportunities to dialogue.

Who is an Anglican? Answer, “Does the ABC recognize you?” He only recognizes bishops, by inviting them to Lambeth. Problem for ABC, if he doesn’t invite a bishop, what does it say about the people in that diocese?

ABC has lots of influence, but no power. If a Bishop is behaving notoriously, he cannot remove that person. He can only talk with ABp or Primate of that area and plead with them.

ACC is in same situation. It has influence but no power.

Lambeth Conference is the same. It has influence, but it has no power.

The Primates’ Meeting is in the same situation.

Read it carefully. A couple of comments. First, I prefer very much the category of authority rather than power. Second, it is NOT true to say that the Lambeth Conference, for example, has no authority, it does have authority, the question is what kind of authority does it have. Again, my preference is to talk in terms of personal and moral authority rather than legislative authority. But this is all a matter for further prayerful reflection–KSH.

Before I do so, however, there are other objections to my analysis that deserve a response. Bishop Whalon and others often argue that Dioceses are “created” by General Convention. This claim, however, is an example of wishful thinking that ignores the legal precision of Article V of TEC’s Constitution. This article is entitled “Admission of New Dioceses,” and not “Creation of New Dioceses.” The first sentence specifies General Convention’s role in the process. It is to “consent.” The wording indicates at the outset that the role of General Convention is secondary, not primary. It consents to actions initiated elsewhere.

The following sentences in Article V elaborate this process. The proceedings “originate” with a convention of “the unorganized area,” not with General Convention. It is the unorganized area that “duly adopts” its own constitution. Article V then describes the legal entity created by the duly adopted constitution not, as before, as an “unorganized area,” but as a “Diocese.” Then the “new Diocese” submits its constitution to the General Convention for consent; and upon receipt of this consent, it enters into “union with the General Convention.”

In this articulation of the steps involved in the creation of a new Diocese, Article V reflects the civil law. When an unorganized area adopts its own constitution, by definition it is no longer “unorganized.” It is a legal entity. In the terminology of Article V, this entity is called a “new Diocese.” This step, furthermore, occurs before the constitutional involvement of General Convention. What happens when the new Diocese obtains the consent of General Convention to its application is that it is “admitted” into union with the other dioceses in General Convention. The transformation from “unorganized area” to “new Diocese” occurs when the diocesan constitution is duly adopted. When General Convention gives its consent, another transformation occurs, but it is not the creation of a new Diocese. It is the transformation of unaffiliated “new Diocese” to member diocese of General Convention.

Read it all.

A conservative province in the Anglican church faces “punishment” this week for offering a safe haven to conservatives.

Senior bishops and laity meeting in London are to consider suspending the Anglican church in South America for taking rebel US dioceses under its wing.

The move will bring the Anglican Communion closer to a formal split. Early next month, rebel conservatives are expected to finalise plans for a new Anglican province in the US, to sit as a parallel jurisdiction alongside the existing Episcopal Church.

Unless this new province is recognised as part of the Anglican family by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and the other 38 primates, it will in effect become a new Anglican church.

Read it all, keeping in mind that Ruth wrongly summarizes what the Episcopal Church was asked to do; something a large portion of the Anglican Communion believes it has not done.

So what did happen at convention? Actually quite a bit happened, and some of it was pretty positive. First, our bishop, though obviously quite contemplative during the convention Eucharist and the opening business session (and clearly focused upon what he was going to include in his convention address) quite boldly stood squarely on the side of “doing the right thing” and standing firm in upholding the constitution and canons of TEC against the blatant abuses of power by the Presiding Bishop of TEC, her chancellor and the House of Bishops. Knowing full well that the PB’s eyes and ears were present in our convention hall, your bishop stood tall and not only outlined the abuses of power that have occurred in three recent depositions of orthodox bishops, but declared that these types of abuses must be opposed and stopped. In the Alice in Wonderland world that is TEC at this time, this action is no small thing.

Four resolutions were proposed for consideration, three of which were approved by large margins. Two of the resolutions addressed the Communion Partners Plan which +MacPherson favors as a structure for the support of orthodox Episcopalians during the completion of the Windsor Process and pending a vote on the anticipated Anglican Covenant. Both passed overwhelmingly. The other two addressed the deposition of Bishop Robert Duncan of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. One of the resolutions dealt directly with the Duncan deposition and the abuse of constitutional and canonical process in securing the deposition. I had the pleasure of speaking in favor of that resolution and it passed. The second Duncan resolution did not pass and it appears to me that it did not pass principally because it sought to cite a statement by the Primates Council of GAFCON that condemned the Duncan deposition but that also called for the establishment of a separate province in North America for orthodox Anglicans (I also voted for that resolution). At this point in the life of our diocese, the overwhelming view of both the clergy and the lay orders is that we are not willing to speculate about a new province and, for now at least, our diocese prefers to work within the existing Anglican structures and particularly toward our consideration of an Anglican covenant.

Read it all.

There was much debate over the rightness, or better stated, the wrongness of this entire allegation, and there was considerable opposition to the charge against Bishop Duncan. The resistance to the action being taken was centered more on what was seen as pre-emptive action pertaining to the interpretation of the Constitution and Canons of General Convention [2006] and failure to provide due process. The pre-emptive action as applied to the Canons, and failure for proper process, rest in the fact that Bishop Duncan was never inhibited, nor did he have the right of a trial made available to him.

The ruling to place this before the House for deposition was made by the Presiding Bishop, and as I have previously written to the diocese, I was one of the bishops that challenged the ruling based upon the irregularities stated above. This required a two-thirds majority to overrule, and thus did not carry. This was subsequently followed by a request for a roll call vote being asked for by nine bishops, myself included. These things were not carried out in the form of a rebellious mood, but rather, with deep concern for the direction the Church is moving with total disregard for proper order, adherence to the Constitution and Canons, and a precedent being set that will enable the disruption of any bishop or diocese that does not subscribe to the present direction of General Convention or the Office of the Presiding Bishop.

Some, I am certain, will argue about the actions of Bishop Duncan and some of the people of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and seek to justify the action of the Presiding Bishop and the House of Bishops. My argument is not whether or not he did something, but the fact that we have a new rule of order that has evolved, and it has not been brought about by the Councils of the Church nor is in keeping with Canonical structure. As I have shared before, this is a precedent that is a danger to the dignified order of The Episcopal Church as we have known it, and this must be corrected.

Read it all carefully.

While we have always have our historic formularies and creeds, the Church has needed from time to time to restate again her position on issues affecting our common life. In the 1998 Lambeth, one of the issues was our Church position on the family. And if Lambeth 2008 is anything to go by, that mind remains.

If so, why can’t we submit ourselves to this discipline and mutual accountability as minimally expressed through the Windsor-proposed Covenant process (as a solution to the crisis and help the Communion to deal with future similar ones)? If being part of the wider (global and by far, much larger in some parts) Communion is to mean anything, why can’t each Province choose to stand together on this? And we have not even begin to mention our relationships with our ecumenical partners and what these recent innovations will do to our long held ”˜Via Media’ role.

We have come thus far in affirming the Windsor Report (and the ”˜process,’ which in the opinion of some, weakens the report). Whether quick or otherwise, the crisis needs fixing.

We pray that the Covenant Design Group and various Communion bodies will not blink.

Read it all.

The Lambeth ceasefire has collapsed in Canada after the Diocese of New Westminster moved to reassert “control” over two conservative congregations who had broken with Bishop Michael Ingham to join the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC).

On Aug 26 the Dean and Chancellor of New Westminster, acting on behalf of the vacationing Bishop Ingham, invoked the Canadian Church’s Canon 15 and sought to dismiss the wardens and parochial trustees of two parishes: St Matthew’s Abbotsford and St Matthias & St Luke in Vancouver, replacing them with nominees loyal to the diocese.

The diocese had taken these steps “to remove clergy who have left the Anglican Church of Canada rather than accepting the decisions of its local and national governing bodies,” a press statement said.

Read the whole article.

The Anglican Communion is currently pursuing a number of activities in response to the acrimonious struggle over sexual teaching and discipline within our churches. These activities have been encouraged by the Communion’s leadership, including at the recent Lambeth Conference. I have, to various degrees, been a supporter of these activities, not least because I have trusted those who have promoted these means towards ecclesial healing. I am increasingly skeptical, however, that the way these activities have been framed ”“ descriptively and practically ”“ represents the true nature of our disputes.

Categories like “moratoria” and “reception” and “listening”, for instance, are now prominent elements in our strategic ecclesial discussions. Unfortunately, they no longer appear to be useful categories, in large part because they do not accurately reflect the actual relationship of expectation and possibility that the disputing parties hold, one to another and with respect to their own commitments. When one party says, while responding to the request for a “moratorium” on specific actions, “yes we will consider it; but there is no going back on our underlying commitments”; and another party says at the same time, “yes we will consider it; but only on the condition that you others give up your practical commitments”, then the very category of “moratorium” functions in very different ways in each case. Similarly, when “reception” is a “process” that seeks to discern the Christian authenticity of an innovative practice, but also does so by the very means of rooting that practice within the life of the church in different areas, the notion that discernment has a possibly restraining role to play seems practically undercut. Or when “listening” presumes an ecclesial practice even as it refuses to evaluate that practice, one is not so much listening as receiving justification ex post facto.

Read the whole piece.

Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, has expressed “frustration” that the Canadian church has not been given an opportunity to present its situation with regards to the blessing of same-sex unions during hearings conducted by a body formed to determine the next course of action for the Anglican Communion to salvage its fractured unity.

Archbishop Hiltz, who attended the once-a-decade conference of the world’s Anglican bishops here, said that it would be “a huge challenge” to merge what has been happening in bishops’ discussion groups, called indaba, with what the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) has been recommending as the way forward for the Communion.

“I think what we’re running into is a kind of difficult rubbing between the indaba process which has been in large measure very conversational, very relational” and the work of the WCG, which is “seeking to find structures and procedures whereby we can remain in communion with one another,” said Archbishop Hiltz.

Read the whole article.

The Anglican Communion has been broken and it is an “illusion” to believe things can ever be the same again, the archbishops of the Gafcon movement said last week following their first organizational meeting in London.

The leaders of the conservative wing of the Anglican Communion, representing more than half of the Church’s active members, on Aug 29 released a statement affirming the aims of the movement — now known as the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) — and restated its commitment to the reform and renewal of the Communion.

However, they disagreed sharply with the course taken by Archbishop Rowan Williams in avoiding a full and frank airing of the issues, with one insider telling The Church of England Newspaper the Anglican Communion’s sex wars had taken on a Dickensian quality, and like “Jarndyce and Jarndyce” was still dragging its “dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.”

Read it all.