It was made starkly clear by the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) that actions moving toward affirming same-sex unions, including those in the Anglican Church of Canada, have increased the danger of fracture in the Communion. The WCG’s call to observe the Windsor Report’s moratorium on such rites, seconded by Archbishop Williams, was widely supported by the bishops. Most of the bishops also seemed to concur with Archbishop Williams’ challenge to receive the Covenant as the best hope for an enduring Communion. Only as we as a church receive the Covenant positively do we have the best chance of remaining full participants in the Communion. As any marriage counselor will tell you, holding a family together finally means facing hard truths and making sacrifices.

A theme of Archbishop Williams’ addresses was thinking and acting out of “the centre” of our faith. Such a centre implies accountability to one another in important matters of doctrine and practice on behalf of the Church catholic. He said this as centrifugal forces of a confessional right and a revisionist left strain at our Communion. I wonder if Archbishop Williams didn’t have the voice of another melancholic Celt in the back of his mind: “Things fall apart/ the centre cannot hold”¦”

We give thanks for the bishops’ experiences of unity at Lambeth, and for proposed new means to support it. But will the centre hold? That depends in part on our own church. Time may soon tell.

Read it all.

Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, said he wasn’t surprised with the Lambeth Conference’s call for a moratorium on actions that have led to divisions over sexuality. He said that bishops needed to be honest that this has been “a huge, huge challenge to implement.”

Archbishop Hiltz said that the moratorium and other recommendations are matters for the Canadian house of bishops and the Council of General Synod ”“ the church’s governing body between General Synods ”“ to discuss. Bishops were also presented with a proposal to create a pastoral forum that would create a “safe space” for conservative Anglicans who have left their churches.

There was wide agreement that moratoria on same-sex blessings, the ordination of gay bishops and cross-border interventions by conservative bishops would help to heal the conflict engulfing the Anglican Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury warned that failure to heed the call would put the Communion “in grave peril.”

Read it all.

Read it all.

As requested we have carefully studied the Reflections of the Windsor Continuation Group ”“ in particular the section that refers to our ministry within the North America. We offer these comments….

4. As was also the case with the statements from Dromantine and Dar es Salaam we reject the moral equivalence that is now explicitly asserted between those who continue to support the blessing of same sex unions and the ordination of persons involved in same gender unions in deliberate violation of the teaching of the Communion and those who are offering pastoral oversight for those alienated by these actions.

5. We have consistently observed that the current leadership of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada have embraced a theological and doctrinal stance that is diametrically opposed to the teaching of the Communion and more specifically that of our host provinces and our individual bishops, clergy and congregations. Consequently we can envision no way in which we could be part of Pastoral Forum in which either Church exercises any leadership role.

6. While we welcomed the comments of the Windsor Continuation Group that “ways of halting litigation must be explored,” those of us who are the subject of pernicious litigation initiated by The Episcopal Church find these rather tentative comments fall far short of what is needed for us to even consider any serious engagement with the proposed structures. Until the litigation is halted and a settlement achieved there is no possibility that we can enter into any formal agreements with any representatives of The Episcopal Church.

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Recognizing the division and brokenness which currently exists, the Archbishop of Canterbury stated in his August 2008 Pastoral Letter reflecting on Lambeth, “The Conference was not a time for making new laws or for binding decisions”¦The Conference Design Group believed strongly that the chief need of our Communion at the moment was the rebuilding of relationships ”“ the rebuilding of trust in one another ”“ and of confidence in our Anglican identity. And it was with this in mind that they planned for a very different sort of Conference, determined to allow every bishop’s voice to be heard”¦”

Unfortunately while ample opportunity was in fact given for bishops to speak during the daily Bible studies, Indaba Groups, self-select sessions, and plenary sessions, the western design of much of the Conference made speaking uncomfortable for many non-westerners and — as earlier attested to by Archbishop Orombi, the fact that one speaks does not necessarily mean they have been heard. The Anglican Communion has been encouraged for over ten years now to participate in a “listening process” as a means of working through the issues that divide us. While I am a firm believer in the importance of listening, even to those that we disagree with, unfortunately when dealing as we currently are with what I have come to believe are theologically irreconcilable differences in the views passionately held by each side of the debate on issues of the authority of Holy Scripture and human sexuality, I seriously question the chance of reconciliation by those on either end of the theological spectrum, barring a Damascus Road experience by one side or the other. No doubt, each side believes it is the other side that Jesus needs to zap.

This belief was confirmed at Lambeth while listening to some of the debates regarding homosexuality. During one of the sessions, an African bishop made an impassioned call upon the West to restrain from blessing same-sex unions and ordaining individuals engaged in homosexual lifestyles, stating that the Moslem extremists in his country are looking for any reason to attack and kill Anglican Christians. He said the revisionist actions of the West are giving them all the reason they need, resulting in the death and imprisonment of many of his people. Equally passionate, but from the opposite perspective, two Episcopal bishops spoke about justice for their gay and lesbian clergy and people, proclaiming their strong unceasing support for gay rights and that they would not stop the blessing of same sex unions in their diocese.

Unfortunately in many cases, the very ones calling for others to listen are unwilling to listen themselves. For some, the listening process will not be complete or successful until the other side is worn down and finally agrees with their position. Given the current debate on issues of human sexuality, when virtually every argument both for and against homosexual behavior, sex outside of marriage, and abortion have already been made numerous times over, the question ultimately must be asked ”“ When is enough, enough? The longer the debate goes on, the more divided we seem to become and the more distracted we are from proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A major distinction between GAFCON and Lambeth concerning this issue is that for GAFCON, the debate seems to be over, for Lambeth, no end is in sight.

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TWR’s solution was to give extant pan-Anglican instruments of union legislative and juridical authority. Member churches were to commit themselves to submit innovations in doctrine or practice (especially those concerning whom the Church is prepared to ordain and bless) to the instruments of union for approval, and to refrain from giving such changes institutional expression until such approval was secured. In other words, pan-Anglican instruments were to be given a veto power over any changes of ”˜essentials’ by national churches. TWR suggested the mechanism of a pan-Anglican covenant, whose provisions would be given legal force through member churches changing their canons.

Rhetorically, TWR is remarkable for presuming its own legitimacy. It speaks throughout as if TWR polity were already in force and as if TEC and New Westminster had violated covenant commitments. Rhetorically, TWR encouraged the instruments of union to act on this presumption. Rhetorically, TWR was persuasive.

So when TWR went on to suggest ways of disciplining TEC and New Westminster (putting them on probation by asking them to withdraw from participation in pan-Anglican instruments until matters were settled, until TEC and New Westminster had repented and enforced moratoria on ordaining non-celibate homosexuals and blessing homosexual partnerships) and of protecting the faithful in (what came to be known as) non-Windsor-compliant dioceses or provinces, the ABC and the primates at Dromantine took authority and proceeded to do just that.

Read the whole argument

We the undersigned contributors to Covenant-Communion.com believe that “a word in time” is now needed in order to assist the Communion to move forward in a constructive manner following the Lambeth Conference. We would like to speak such a word by specifically addressing the points Bishop Bob Duncan raises in his email to Bishop Gary Lillibridge, which has now been made public with Bp. Duncan’s permission. Our reflections are offered with all due respect for Bishop Duncan as a dear friend to some of us, and one whom those of us who know him personally admire as a stalwart in the faith. Bishop Duncan’s words are quoted in italics with our reflections following.

1. The first difficulty is the moral equivalence implied between the three moratoria, a notion specifically rejected in the original Windsor Report and at Dromantine.

Actually, it is largely American and Canadian liberals that have implied a moral equivalency between the two. We think most people are clear that the crisis in our Communion was precipitated by specific American and Canadian actions. In any event, someone has to be the first to give up their “rights” (either Bishop Duncan and the GAFCON folks by agreeing to moratorium #3 in clear terms, or the American and Canadian leadership by agreeing to moratoria #1 and #2, as well as an immediate cessation of the lawsuits and ecclesiastical trials). Who will be the first to display an act of Christian charity and self-giving on behalf of the Communion at this critical turning point in the life of the Communion?

Our understanding of the comments from the Windsor Continuation Group hearings at the Lambeth Conference is that no one really expects the jurisdictional crossings to cease without the concomitant cessation of blessing same sex unions and assurances of refusal to consent to the consecration of a bishop in a same sex relationship.

2. This process cannot be stopped – constitutions require an automatic second vote, and to recommend against passage without guarantees from the other side would be suicidal.

We recognize the canonical difficulties this presents. A constitutional change requires a second vote in the following year or the proposed constitutional change fails for lack of a second reading. Not even the Archbishop of Canterbury can change this requirement. Further, we understand that these dioceses are fearful of further legal repercussions that a delay would entail.

We suggest this is such a crucial issue that Dr. Williams convene a meeting, preferably in person, by September 30th, to work through an agreement on the assurances of the moratoria as well as the “safe haven” for those in the American and Canadian churches who feel the need for protection.

Read it all.

The task force established to implement recommendations of the Windsor Report is unlikely to complete its work in time to have any affect on plans by the dioceses of Fort Worth, Pittsburgh and Quincy to hold second and decisive votes to withdraw from The Episcopal Church this fall.

Despite the Windsor Continuation Group’s call for swift implementation of its proposed moratoria, Archbishop Clive Handford, retired primate of The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East and chairman of the Windsor Continuation Group, said he did not anticipate the group’s work having any sort of official status within the Communion until after the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in May 2009””six months after the last of the three dioceses, Fort Worth, has held its annual convention.

The six-member Windsor Continuation Group was established by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in February 2008. He had proposed formation of the group in his Advent letter to the primates last year.

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A letter by Bishop Robert Duncan, moderator of the Common Cause Partnership, to Bishop Gary Lillibridge of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas has been made public. In that letter, dated August 11, Bishop Duncan put in writing concerns of the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, Quincy and other members of the Common Cause Partnership caused by the suggestions of the Windsor Continuation Group for dealing with divisions in the Anglican Communion. Bishop Duncan had initially shared these concerns with those present at the Lambeth Conference of Bishops.

The August 11 letter was forwarded with permission by Bishop Lillibridge to members of the Windsor Continuation Group and subsequently leaked to liberal activists and published online and via email on August 18.

“I am happy to publicly acknowledge this letter and my description of the concerns we in the Common Cause Partnership have about the proposals of the Windsor Continuation Group. Nonetheless, it is disturbing to discover that at least one member of the Windsor Continuation Group, a body that is supposed to be working for reconciliation in the Anglican Communion, so quickly leaked private correspondence in an attempt to gain some passing political advantage,” said Bishop Duncan.

Read it all.

Mohler: Where do you see this leaving the Episcopal Church, U.S.?

Conger: I see it in the law courts over the next 10 years, frankly, as Evangelical parishes or Anglo-Catholic parishes who are the traditionally-minded members of the Episcopal Church either pull out and join new denominations, or take shelter and refuge under the leadership of bishops from overseas churches.

This is going to spark litigations over property, and who gets to call themselves an Episcopalian, who’s an Anglican. It’s a mess, and there is no short-term solution that I see to fix this problem save for one side giving up and going away.

Mohler: Now you are affiliated with and a priest of the Diocese of Central Florida, that’s known as more of the conservative of the regions of the Episcopal Church. I would compare that to San Francisco, or Washington, or Los Angeles. In what sense are you really part of one church at this point?

Conger: We’re not part of one church in the sense that I could not function”¦ A priest from, say, San Francisco who was a gay man or had been divorced and remarried, for example, could not come to where I am near Orlando and function as an Episcopal Priest. I could not get a job or license because of my theological views in many parts of the Episcopal Church. There is no interchangeability of clergy. It’s become Balkanized along doctrinal and theological views.

Read it all

The third principle that I am working with is that there will be little further change on the international front and little prospect for pulling back together the various shards of the Communion while Rowan Williams still occupies the see of Canterbury. Please note carefully that I’m not blaming him for this conference or for other failures of the Communion as a whole — I don’t really believe that the blame lies on merely one person.

Nor do I necessarily know that a new occupant of the see of Canterbury would be able to pull the shards back together again.

Nor do I believe that the see of Canterbury is “irrelevant” or “unimportant.”

I merely say, as a statement of belief, that while Rowan Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Communion will essentially be in a “holding pattern” of increasing fragmentation and distancing among various groups. The trust that has been lost and continues to be lost prevents renewed closeness and connection as a whole within the Anglican Communion. It is sad, and I don’t like it. But it is what it is, and we need to understand and accept that as reality and work within that reality, or move on and join another denomination. That applies, actually, to those Primates and bishops of the Anglican Communion as well who are associated with GAFCON.

The fact is that no action has occurred that will cause the Anglican Communion to step back from the brink of fragmentation. There have been words — but no action as of yet — and I see nothing that causes me to believe that this time Rowan Williams will do the hard things necessary to call the Anglican Communion back.

The thing to do is to make the best of how things are now and work within how things are now, doing the small things well within our parishes and dioceses, while waiting for a turn of the tide and winds on the international front, if that turn is to come. If that turn never comes, then the Anglican Communion will continue to whirl apart — the center not only did not hold but it will continue not to hold. And thus, the Anglican Communion will continue to further fragment until all but the bare bones of the structure remain.

Of course, if that is to happen, we certainly will not have been hindered or damaged by doing the small things with great love and attentiveness. It will simply be done while in the midst of living out the consequences of the lack of discipline within the Anglican Communion.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of the West Indies, Drexel Gomez, is chairman of the committee working on the covenant.

He claims that although the bishops in Canterbury did not want to adopt a Roman Catholic-style hierarchy, they did now accept the need for some mechanism to hold the Communion together.

“I’ve spoken to several bishops who were opposed to it, and who are now willing to give it a try”, he said.

In the past the centre ground of Anglicanism has seemed paralysed, unable to act decisively for fear of losing the liberal Americans and their allies altogether.

But the aim of the new strategy appears to be to isolate the radical liberal and conservative wings of Anglicanism, and create a new, more organised and directed, Communion with or without them.

The Rev Dr Graham Kings, of the moderate evangelical group Fulcrum, said the strategy was one of “intensification”.

The new Communion would be more active, have a corporate presence around the world, more high-level meetings, and possibly regional representatives among the archbishops.

Read it all.

Australia’s most senior Anglican said a once-a-decade conference has given him hope the church can avoid splitting over the issue of homosexuality.

Australian primate Archbishop Phillip Aspinall said while there is no quick fix to the damaging row, the Lambeth Conference in south-eastern England has pointed the way forward.

“There is enormously strong commitment among the bishops present at Lambeth to stay together and that is a very positive outcome,” Dr Aspinall told ABC radio.

The meeting, which ended yesterday, has been overshadowed by a dispute about the consecration five years ago of the first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in the United States.

Read it all.

Please read widely from a variety of points of view and if something is asserted, check the documentation if you can to make sure it is accurate. Seek not to jump to conclusions.

And get ready for this: if the Conference goes as I have been concerned it might (and I defer judgment in any final sense until the end), one of the responses is going to be: see, people like that (ie people who are concerned) just do not understand, they are against–and then you fill in the blank–meeting face to face, group process, face to face encounter, the importance of understanding different contexts, the Archbishop of Canterbury personally, etc. It does not follow that if Lambeth 2008 failed to do the most important thing that nothing good in the process occurred, but it is the larger overall outcome that matters. The Windsor Report used the metaphor or image of sickness to describe the state of the Communion (when it was written, now it is worse). The central question remains did the conference contribute the helping the serious sickness of the Anglican Communion overall heal or did it do the opposite? KSH.

A member of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) has stated that the body’s proposal for a “retrospective” moratorium on same-sex blessings means that dioceses such as Vancouver-based New Westminster “will be asked to reconsider and withdraw that right.”

The words “retrospective moratorium”, which has the potential to affect a number of Canadian dioceses, has caused confusion among Canadian bishops attending the decennial Lambeth Conference here. Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, said this, along with other proposals put forward by the WCG, was a matter that the house of bishops and the Council of General Synod ”“ the church’s governing body between General Synods ”“ would have to discuss.

Bishop Victoria Matthews, a member of the WCG and bishop of the diocese of Christchurch, New Zealand, said with the retrospective moratorium, “it isn’t just from here on there will be no new ones”¦”

Read it all.

We in the Global South believed the Primates’ Meeting had this authority – the 1988 Lambeth Conference urged the Primates’ Meeting to “exercise an enhanced responsibility in offering guidance on doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters” and the 1998 Lambeth Conference reaffirmed this.

So, it was appropriate, after the American decision in 2003, that the Archbishop of Canterbury convened an emergency meeting of the primates to address the biblical and ecclesiastical crisis into which the Americans had plunged the Anglican Communion. The primates, including the American primate, unanimously advised that the consecration should not proceed. Nonetheless, two weeks later, the primate in America presided at the consecration as bishop of a man living in a same-sex relationship. This was a deep betrayal.

Since that meeting there have been numerous other “betrayals” to the extent that it is now hard to believe that the leadership in the American Church means what it says. They say that they are not authorising blessings of same-sex unions, yet we read newspaper reports of them. Two American bishops have even presided at such services of blessings. Bishops have written diocesan policies on the blessings of same-sex unions. It is simply untrue to say they have not been authorised.

That such blessings continue and seem to be increasing hardly demonstrates “regret”, let alone repentance, on the part of the American Church. So, when the Archbishop of Canterbury invited these American bishops to participate in the Lambeth Conference, against the recommendations of the Windsor Report and the Primates’ Meeting, and in the face of the unrelenting commitment of the American Church to bless sinful behaviour, we were stunned. Further betrayal.

It was clear to me and to our House of Bishops that the Instruments of Communion had utterly failed us.

Read it all.

Update: George Pitcher has comments in response here.

The Lambeth conference of Anglican bishops discusses “human sexuality”, the subject which divides traditionalists and liberals. The Archbishop of Canterbury hopes to draft a statement that can hold the worldwide Anglican Communion together on this issue. Clive Hanford, the person in charge of drafting this statement, says it can be done but they have to be ‘cautious’.

Listen to it all.

Note carefully the comments of Bishop Stacy Sauls of Lexington (see city Lexington, Kentucky) which once again misses the central fact that there are different kinds of differences. The Elizabethan settlement was about allowing for difference within a community with a certain bedrock underneath on which difference was not possible (the statement [never said by Augustine] of Meldenius–“In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity”– is sometimes cited in this regard). It is precisely the issue of what kind of a difference this is which is currently at issue, and moving to an Elizabeth settlement on it settles the debate about the nature of this difference in practice before the theological debate about it is settled. This is what the Windsor Report was trying to get at, and Rowan Williams just made the same argument again in his second Presidential address to this Lambeth, and TEC has still not fully reckoned with that argument–KSH.

Regarding the observations put forward by the Windsor Continuation Group, he said they were covering ground the Primates had already looked at.

“Since the Primates haven’t been able to move it along some of us don’t have much hope it will take us anywhere.

“Dar-es-Salaam put forward the idea of a pastoral council and the House of Bishops in the States didn’t want it. They want their autonomy.

“The North Americans have said they’re not going to move back and those who have left their national churches are unlikely to go back.

“Unless we talk about the real reasons why we are divided there’s little hope of putting it back together again.”

Read it all.

I would like to do a little reflecting on [what Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said], to put it in our context and how I heard it. I think we will continue to hear more in it as we share it this week, but this is a near first-impression.

In our work on the “Windsor process” and the development of a possible covenant for the Anglican Communion, much of the attitudes and the work drafted thus far is very legal in its foundation and seems to be based in fear and formed by politics. Whether apologies from TEC have not been heard elsewhere, or whether they have been diminished by someone’s dismissively saying, “They did not really mean it,” or “That’s not enough” (both have been said repeatedly)””for whichever of those reasons, the reaction of a good many is still anger and sometimes hostility. It is understandable, given that we have really upset the Communion, some because our actions go against profound beliefs, and some because the response to those actions has severely impaired our ability to engage in mission partnerships around the world. I have sympathy for both of those reactions. But reactions are feelings and responses are actions and behaviors which, especially in a conflicted situation, need to be helpful for healing and reconciling the body, not causing more harm. The response of many is to want to punish us, to make sure that we have suffered “enough,” and that drives the wish to make a covenant for the Communion that will identify clear behaviors that are acceptable and others that are unacceptable, and clear consequences if anyone transgresses or deviates from the acceptable behaviors.

What I hear in Rabbi Sacks’ address is 1) a profound emphasis on unity based in the “faith covenant”””the many shared sufferings in our past and present; 2) the need to forgive each other in order to redeem the past; 3) the need to respect the dignity of each other so that we can come together to share, to be in relationship, to find our emerging identity in Christ, and to be transformed. On that basis, and only then, will we be able to build a “faith covenant,” full of shared dreams, aspirations and hope in order to make commitments for mission. This is where I come back to what I was writing the other day about a covenant which is about invitation, persistently inviting back to the table those who would isolate themselves or ostracize others.

Read it all.

The Bishop of Alabama, the Rt Revd Henry Parsley, described the Continuation Group’s suggestion of a pastoral forum or “holding bay” for disaffected groups within the Communion, as “interesting”.

“My sense is it would bring people together face to face to talk about these things, I think that will be a tremendous step forward so we’re not sending communiqués across the ocean, so we don’t really talk about things in person.

“Secondly I think it’s all about forgiveness, we’ve all heard each other in some ways and we need to move forward and heal.

“I’ve great hope for this Communion, I spoke in the hearing on the third session on the Continuation Group’s proposals, and spoke of the formula truth plus forgiveness equals reconciliation, and that’s true and is Christ’s message. Not that it’s easy but I’ve hope.”

Read it all.

It is the absence within the Communion of a clear and adequate authority, a clear and adequate theology and a clear and adequate ecclesiology which are at the root of the present crisis, and will likely lie at the root of crises yet unforeseen. One may point to the Windsor report, and behind it to the Virginia report and the work of the Eames Commission, as beginning to address these issues. But it remains the case that, apart from ad hoc declarations such as Lambeth I.10, there is no clear understanding of the common theology (including moral theology) of the Communion. There is no clear understanding of what it means to be a Communion, of the balance between the “autonomy” claimed (‘though not necessarily to the same degree) by the several Provinces, and the accountability of those Provinces to the whole. And there is as yet no body which is clearly empowered by the Communion as a whole and recognized by the Provinces as possessing the authority to intervene, and intervene even in the affairs of a particular Province, for the good of the whole.

The WCG proposes practical solutions, meant to lessen tensions and buy time as the Anglican Covenant is shaped. But it does not deal with the fundamental issues. It is unlikely but not inconceivable that The Episcopal Church might accept a moratorium on consecrating gay or lesbian bishops: but that does nothing to address the underlying theological dysfunction which led it to do so in the first place.

But it is hard to believe that The Episcopal Church would in fact agree to such a step. And it is likewise hard to believe that a well-established initiative such as the Rwandan-sponsored Anglican Mission in America, which is actively planting new congregations around North America, will risk the loss or reining-in of its inertia by placing itself in trust with the Communion, when the stated goal is to reconcile it with a Province which has succumbed to such dysfunction.

Read it all.

3. It seeks to impose a singular uniformity upon the complex diversity of our Communion. I quite understand that in some parts of the Anglican Communion homosexuality is subject to criminal law and cultural prohibition. However, I live in a country where homosexual people enjoy the same rights and responsibilities under the law as every other citizen. To discriminate against homosexual people, as this document suggests, is no more acceptable in Canada than to discriminate against women, black people or Jews. If this becomes the position of the Communion, it will put the Anglican Church of Canada in the position of having to support and defend irrational prejudice and bigotry in the eyes of our nation.

We already live with a good deal of diverse practice across the Anglican Communion ˆ in the ordination of women, the re-marriage of divorced persons, and the admission of the baptized and unconfirmed to Communion. Why can we not live with a similar diversity in this matter too?

4. It ignores reality. Whatever this document says, illegal incursions will continue. We have heard already how they continue to happen even in places that maintain the traditional position of the Church on homosexuality. And furthermore, gay and lesbian people will not go away, nor will they be healed, because they are not sick. It is the church that is suffering from blindness and prejudice, and it is we who need to repent and be healed.

Read it all.

The suggested ”Pastoral Forum” is more problematic. It’s to be chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury and serve as an advisory group to the various Provinces when there are internal disputes and difficulties which affect the whole Communion. Such schemes have been tried (or at least floated) in recent years and have always failed. I’m not sure why this one will have any greater chance of success.

I believe we should ask everyone to do the best they can to honor the spirit of the Windsor Report while the Covenant process continues and ”˜cut each other some slack’ until that time. All of us are working hard to maintain Communion while responding faithfully and fairly to our local contexts. That’s what Anglicanism is supposed to do and be, it seems to me.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s decision to have this a “non-legislative” Conference was a very wise one. If we were “voting” on such matters this week, we would leave here as divided and wounded as we were in 1998. As it is, we will discuss all the ”˜hard issues,’ give our input, and leave the matter for cooler heads to digest and deal with through the “Covenant Design Group” and the “Windsor Continuation Group.”

As always, any final decision will have to come through our separate Provincial structures (in our case, General Convention) for a vote by all the people of God, not just bishops and Primates! Thank God for a Communion which is “episcopally-led” but finally “synodically-governed!”

Read it all.

The other thing I have been musing on today is how different people approach a conference like this – especially when they are used to running things and cannot control this one. I attended a conference in Wittenberg, Germany, last year when the German Church (EKD) addressed its ten year reform programme under the title ‘Church of Freedom’ (Kirche der Freiheit). The ‘Impulspapier’ divided the church’s task into twelve elements that then formed the content of the conference. At the first plenary session a longstanding, more traditional bishop stood up and took the document apart. He claimed that the Church is not the ‘Church of Freedom’, but the Church of Jesus Christ. This clever statement then enabled several people to dismiss the report and the whole process. They had found the gap – the error – and therefore were absolved from any responsibility to engage with it.

I am reminded of this not because I think this a German problem, but because I think this is how powerful people behave when they don’t like being powerless. I think there are bishops here who are behaving like this and find endless fault in everything. I would like to go on a conference organised by them and show them what it is like to have people identify (oh so cleverly) all the other ways in which it could have been done.

I think this process has been remarkable….
If others haven’t engaged with it and gained from it, that’s too bad. But it is only by engaging with it that you stand any chance of getting any gain from it. Furthermore, I am fully committed to getting stuck into whatever we come out with at the end of this conference – whether that be something good or something a bit hopeless. The Church has gone through two millennia of ups and downs and threats and challenges and now is no different. After all, the Church is not the kingdom of God – we are called to be a sign of the Kingdom and that impacts (drives?) not only what we believe but how we live together.

This is significant in the light of this afternoon’s second ‘hearing’. Of 27 speakers, 23 were westerners (American, English, Irish, Canadian and Australian[)]. Of those 23, 15 were from TEC and they ran the gamut of TEC complexions. Once again, they spoke with passion and clarity, but what was not said about their province was as significant as what they did say. What I think was most significant about this was that the Americans cannot say that their voice has not been listened to and heard. (The other speakers were from Sudan, South India and Egypt.)

Read it all (timestamp of entry is Monday 28 July 2008 – 06:24pm)

Bishop Clive Handford, WCG chair and former primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East, clarified that “retrospective” did not imply that Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, would have to resign.

“We are not anywhere intending to imply that Bishop Gene Robinson should resign. We are aware that (he) was elected bishop according to the processes of The Episcopal Church, whatever we may think of that,” said Bishop Handford.

Bishop Michael Ingham, whose diocese ”“ New Westminster ”“voted to allow same-sex blessings in 2002, reacted strongly to the WCG’s proposals, describing it as “an old-world institutional response to a new-world reality in which people are being set free from hatred and violence.”

In a statement, Bishop Ingham called the WCG document ”“ copies of which were distributed to bishops for discussion ”“ “punitive in tone, setting out penalties and the like, instead of inviting us into deeper communion with one another through mutual understanding in the body of Christ.” He added that the suggestion of a pastoral forum “institutionalizes external incursions into the life of our churches.”

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[A] different way of trying to solve the problem maybe, but Preliminary Observations Part Three continues to misdescribe what the Communion’s problem is, and therefore gets us no nearer to a solution.

The basic assumption was the same in the Windsor Report, the Nassau Draft and the St. Andrews Draft. They all describe the threats to the Communion as being the blessings of same-sex unions, the consecration of openly gay bishops and to a lesser extent cross-border interventions. To call for a moratorium on all three, as though they all caused disunity, is to fly in the face of reality. Cross-border interventions undermine institutional unity by creating competing jurisdictions. New Westminster’s same sex blessings and New Hampshire’s consecration of a gay bishop do not.

The ethics of homosexuality is cause for disagreement, not disunity.

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A group of senior Anglican clergy has told the Lambeth Conference that liberal churches must end the ordination of gay bishops and stop blessing same-sex relationships if the Communion is to arrest its slide towards a permanent split.

The working party given the task of finding possible solutions to the rift told the 650 bishops meeting in Canterbury that traditionalist churches in Africa must also stop setting up parallel church bodies in the United States as homes for congregations splitting away from the American Church because of the dispute.

The group, headed by the former Archbishop of the Middle East Clive Handford, said in the long term some sort of statement of shared beliefs and an agreement to abide by them would be necessary.

But in the short term, a ban on gay bishops and blessings was needed to prevent “irreparable damage” to the Communion.

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Here is the full text it needs to be studied carefully.

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