Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Sunday for most of us was a lovely day of worship at Canterbury Cathedral, at which the Dean preached, and Archbishop Rowan celebrated. That was followed by a superb barbecue on the lawn (lamb, chicken, sausage; actually, the best meal in our time here!) In the afternoon there was a Civic Reception in the ruins of the Abbey that was build by St. Augustine (he didn’t lay the stones, himself, but he oversaw its construction) in the early years of the seventh century. The Dean told us in his sermon that some of the pages of the Bible given to Augustine by Gregory the Great in 597 are still intact! I would love to have seen them, but I believe they are in the archives at Cambridge University.

Today’s Indaba subject was “The Bishop, Christian Witness, and Other Faiths.” During the session a DRAFT of the Statement to be issued at the end of the Conference was handed out. Though we still have a week to go, it gives us a much better sense of how it is envisioned that everything will “fit” together.

Perhaps a comparison with Lambeth 1998 would be helpful. Ten years ago we were given a reading list, along with scholarly papers prepared for us to study before coming to the Conference. Most of the Bishops were then divided into four main sub-sections, where we worked on Reports on broad major subjects. The only thing from that Conference that is much remembered is “Resolution 1:10,” which declared homosexuality to be “incompatible with holy scripture.” It was, and ever has been, the most controversial thing to come out of any Lambeth Conference.

But, interestingly enough, the REPORT from the sub-section on Human Sexuality, composed by Bishops from across the entire spectrum of opinion, and from every sector of the globe, was UNANIMOUSLY agreed to by all the members of the sub-section that worked on it. It outlined four major positions that faithful Christians take (or took, as of that moment) regarding their understanding of sexuality, and it was very carefully balanced and nuanced.
Archbishop George Carey invested a great deal of personal effort to keep sexuality from being the defining issue of the Conference (“If it becomes that,” he said, “we will have failed.”) We failed.

The “Global South” largely felt that the “Progressive West” was demanding a new understanding of sexuality, and it struck back with a vengeance. The Resolution was amended and amended, each time becoming more strident, and when the vote was taken it was 526 in favor, 70 against, with 45 abstentions. I think it is fair to say that each “side” believed it had been ambushed by the other.

To a significant extent, the American and Canadian churches have ignored the Resolution (it was five years to the day after passing it that our General Convention confirmed the election of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire!), and we have been trying to figure out how to resolve the contradictions involved in all of this ever since.

This time around, the Bible Study discussions flow into the Indaba groups, and they are somewhat related to the various Plenary sessions, as well. But, rather than scholarly and/or committee reports, what we will issue as a Statement of the Conference will be largely composed of a kind of composite “snapshot” of what the world’s Anglican Bishops believe regarding a wide variety of topics and issues as of summer 2008.

If an opinion is voiced once or twice in an Indaba group it probably will not make it into the “snapshot.” But if it comes up half a dozen or more times, in as many different groups, it almost certainly will.

As I reported earlier, all of this is in the category of “building relationships,” and getting to know each other in prayer, Bible Study, and “sharing.” It is also, clearly, laying a foundation for addressing (again!) the major remaining issues of the Conference: sexuality and the development of an Anglican Covenant.

This afternoon we had the second major “Hearing” on what is being envisioned by the “Windsor Continuation Group” as to “how we get from here to there” (“there” being the restoration of trust, fellowship, and communion). I need to quote to you at length from what we were given.

PLEASE NOTE: whether this survives at all, let alone in anything recognizably like what I am about to type, is anything but certain. There remains a great deal of objection to even having a Covenant, let alone to some of the specifics.

Nevertheless, here is what was handed out:

* The Windsor Report sets out requests for three moratoria in relation to the public Rites of Blessing of same-sex unions, the consecration to the episcopate of those living in partnered gay relationships and the cessation of cross border interventions.
* There have been different interpretations of the sense in which “moratorium” was used in the Windsor Report. Our understanding is that moratorium refers to both future actions and is also retrospective: that is that it requires the cessation of activity. This necessarily applies to practices that may have already been authorized as well as proposed for authorization in the future.
* The request for moratorium applies in this way to the complete cessation of (a) the celebration of blessings for same-sex unions, (b) consecrations of those living in openly gay relationships, and (c) all cross border interventions and inter-provincial claims of jurisdiction.
* The three moratoria have been requested several times: Windsor (2004); Dromantine (2005); Dar es Salaam (2007) and the requests have been less than wholeheartedly embraced on all sides.
* The failure to respond presents us with a situation where if the three moratoria are not observed, the communion is likely to fracture. The patterns of action currently embraced with the continued blessings of same-sex unions and of interventions could lead to irreparable damage.
* The call for the three moratoria on these issues relates to their controversial nature. This poses the serious question of what response should be made to those who act contrary to the moratorium during the Covenant process and who should make a response.

The WCG goes on to propose the swift formation of a “Pastoral Forum” – noting that it is essentially the same thing as a number of previously proposed bodies, a “Council of Advice” (Windsor), a “Panel of Reference” (Dromantine), a “Pastoral Council” (Dar es Salaam), and the Statement from the American House of Bishops (September 2007) acknowledging a “useful role for communion wide consultation with respect to the pastoral needs of those seeking alternative oversight.”

The WCG proposes that the President of the Forum should be the Archbishop of Canterbury, who would also appoint its episcopal chair, and its members, including members of the Instruments of Communion and a constituency “representative of the breadth of the life of the Communion as a whole.”

It says the Forum should be empowered to act quickly and decisively, especially through the ministry of its Chair, who would work closely with the ABC in the exercise of his ministry.

“The Forum would be responsible for addressing those anomalies of pastoral care arising in the communion against the recommendations of the Windsor Report. It could also offer guidance on what response and any diminishment of standing within the communion might be appropriate where any of the three moratoria are broken.”

I found this sentence particularly heartening: “We are encouraged by the planned setting up of the Communion Partners initiative in The Episcopal Church as a means of sustaining those who feel at odds with developments taking place in their own Province but who wish to be loyal to, and to maintain, their fellowship within TEC and within the Anglican Communion.”

And, finally: “The proliferation of ad hoc episcopal and archepiscopal ministries cannot be maintained within a global Communion. We recommend that the Pastoral Forum develop a scheme in which existing ad hoc jurisdictions could be held ‘in trust’ in preparation for their reconciliation within their proper Provinces.”

Will any of this actually be put into place? Will any of it matter? Only time will tell. But, two weeks into our time in England, things are becoming interesting.

With warmest regards in our Lord,

–(The Right Rev.) John W. Howe is Episcopal Bishop of Central Florida

My initial take on the report is cautiously positive, understanding four principles of note.

First, we have been here before. We have been here with Windsor and with Dar. And those two documents recommendations were simply not fulfilled ultimately.

Second, documents are different from action. We can be even ecstatic over a document, but that does not mean that any action will be taken. I suppose it all depends on whether the Archbishop of Canterbury is willing for those words to be implemented.

Read it all.

A new pastoral forum is to be set up to bring rebel provinces into line in the Anglican Communion.

The 650 bishops meeting at the Lambeth Conference in Kent debated proposals today for a body headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, that would prevent any more consecrations of gay bishops or same-sex blessings.

The forum will also clamp down on “cross-border interventions” such as those where conservative bishops from Africa have consecrated bishops to pastor congregations in the United States.

The document says the forum is needed because repeated requests for moratoria on gay consecrations, same-sex blessings and cross-border interventions have not been heeded.

Read it all.

Here is the link.

Finally, I was astonished by your declaration that ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada have satisfied the requirements of the Windsor Report. I note that you acknowledge that this is merely your personal view but where is your evidence? In our Dromantine Communiqué we said that “there remains a very real question about whether the North American churches are willing to accept the same teaching on matters of sexual morality as is generally accepted elsewhere in the Communion,” and that because of this, “the underlying reality of our communion in God the Holy Trinity is obscured, and the effectiveness of our common mission severely hindered.” [12] I have seen no change in this and no willingness to fully embrace Lambeth 1.10 as our current agreement on matters of human sexuality ”“ as you know this is the underlying assumption of the Windsor Report.

I was present in Nottingham for the recent ACC meeting and heard both Presiding Bishop Griswold and Archbishop Hutchinson, and their teams, try to justify their innovations. They failed. They made clear that there is no turning back and they did so with little or no reference to the plain teaching of the Holy Scriptures or the devastation that their actions have brought on us all.

While I am grateful that “regret” has been expressed and a temporary moratorium on Episcopal consecrations has been established, same-sex blessings continue to be authorized in some dioceses in both Provinces. And we all know that this is no more than a brief cessation of provocative actions and that no permanent change of mind is intended.

—Archbishop of Nigeria Peter Akinola in an open letter to Archbishop Robin Eames in 2005, highlighting the central problem which existed then, exists now, and which the report about the September 2007 House of Bishops meeting evaluated incorrectly, as Gene Robinson said at the time. It must be addressed this week in Lambeth if the huge breach in the communion is to move toward healing–KSH.

In the briefing, Williams was asked how an Anglican covenant would be imposed upon the community when no one entity in the communion has the authority to enforce such a document. “I’m looking for consent, not coercion,” Williams responded, referring the journalist to his July 20 presidential address.

“Unless we do have something about which we consent, [something] we trust to resolve [the issues] we shall be flying farther apart,” he said. “It’s not as if we can just co-exist without any impact on one another as local churches. There have to be protocols and conventions by which we recognize one another as churches and by which we understand and manage the exchange between ourselves.”

Williams acknowledged that “no one had the authority to impose things, we have to do it by consent, but ultimately some may consent and some won’t, and that in itself is an issue.”

The continuation group’s paper also goes into detail about what it calls the “lack of clarity” about the role of each of the communion’s Instruments of Communion and their relation to each other. The paper suggests the need ask whether the instruments “are fit to respond effectively to the demands of global leadership” and suggests that there must be a “communion-wide reflection which leaders towards a common understanding.”

For instance, it notes “questions concerning the authority of a Lambeth Conference and the nature and authority of its Resolutions” and likens Lambeth resolutions to those issued by “the councils of bishops in primitive Christianity” in that “they are of sufficient weight that the consciences of many bishops require them to follow or at least try to follow” them.

Read it all.

So what does the content of this WGC document mean?

It means that the people in charge of this process have at last realised, perhaps thanks to Gafcon, that the African provinces who are boycotting Lambeth are serious. There is a desperation to keep them on board to prevent the Church from splitting.

If this new Commission enforces the new canon law blueprint in a way that is strictly in line with Lambeth 1.10, it also means there will be huge anger in the US. The Episcopal Church could well find itself riven by a formal split, leaving questions over which will be recognised by Canterbury. (Maybe those behind the name change from the former PECUSA saw this coming and that was a preparatory step.)

But we are fools if we think just the US will be affected. There are many traditionalist, catholic parishes in the Church of England that might well prefer to be aligned with a liberal TEC than a strictly conservative evangelical province.

The key to this in the UK will be where the moderate conservatives go. The extreme end of Gafcon, it is accepted, might already be lost. But will the Bishop of Durham Tom Wright, the respectable and intellectual face of orthodoxy, and others of his ilk, who are disliked by the far right, go with this? Gary Lillibridge, Bishop of West Texas, is a member of the Windsor Contination Group and is a highly-respected conservative bishop, in similar mould to Dr Wright.

My sources tell me the moderate conservatives are on side with this….

Read it all.

An Anglican version of the Roman Catholic church’s “inquisition” is proposed today in a document seen by The Times.

Bishops are urging the setting up of an Anglican Faith and Order Commission to give “guidance” on controversial issues such as same-sex blessings and gay ordinations.

The commission was put forward as a proposal this week to the 650 bishops attending the Lambeth Conference as a way of preserving the future unity of the Anglican Communion. Insiders compared it with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the body formerly headed by the present Pope as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and previously known as the Holy Office or Inquisition.

This morning’s “observations” document is the second in a series of three. The third will be published next week. The document says: “Anglicans are currently failing to recognise Church in one another.”

Read it all.

2. Where we would like to be: Towards a Way Forward

If we are to survive as an international family of Churches, then the Windsor Report’s suggestion of a shift of emphasis to ”˜autonomy-in-communion’ might yet require a further step to ”˜ communion with autonomy and accountability’ cf. recommendations in the Virginia Report of the International Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission and the Windsor Report. The covenant process is intended to bring the Communion to a point where its understanding of Communion is renewed and deepened. There are a number of fundamental questions which need to be answered.

i. Can we recognise the Church in another?
* Anglicans are currently failing to recognise Church in one another;
* We value independence at the expense of interdependence in the Body of Christ
* We denigrate the discipleship of others
* This has led to internal fragmentation as well as to confusion among our ecumenical partners

ii What is a Communion of Churches?
*Recovering a common understanding of what it means to be a global communion.
*A common understanding of the place and role of the Episcopal office within the sensus fidelium of the whole Church.

Read it all.

There has been “a breakdown of trust” among members of the Anglican Communion, there has been “an inconsistency between what has been agreed and what has been done,” there is “turmoil” in the Episcopal Church of the U.S., there is “a diminishing sense of communion,” the bitter divide over homosexuality is affecting relations with the church’s ecumenical partners.

These were preliminary observations made by the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) on the state of the Anglican Communion and on the responses by Anglican provinces to the Windsor Report. These responses were presented to bishops for discussion Monday at the Lambeth Conference. The WCG was created last February by the Archbishop of Canterbury to “address outstanding questions arising from the Windsor Report and the various formal responses from provinces and instruments of the Anglican Communion.”

The Windsor Report, produced in 2004 by an international commission, outlined ways of healing divisions within the Anglican Communion over human sexuality. It recommended a moratorium on public rites of same-sex blessings and on the election of a gay person to the episcopate, the enactment of an Anglican Covenant, and an end to cross-border interventions.

Read it all.

(c) Breakdown of Trust

* There are real fears of wider agenda ”“ over creedal issues ( the authority of scripture, the application of doctrine in life and ethics and even Christology and soteriology); other issues, such as lay presidency and theological statements that go far beyond the doctrinal definitions of the historic creeds, lie just over the horizon. Positions and arguments are becoming more extreme: not moving towards one another, relationships in the Communion continue to deteriorate; there is little sense of mutual accountability and a fear that vital issues are not being addressed in the most timely and effective manner.
* Through modern technology, there has been active fear-mongering, deliberate distortion and demonising. Politicisation has overtaken Christian discernment.
*Suspicions have been raised about the purpose, timing and outcomes of the Global Anglican Future Conference; there is some perplexity about the establishment of the Gafcon Primates’ Council and of FOCA which, with withdrawal from participation at the Lambeth Conference, has further damaged trust.
* There are growing patterns of Episcopal congregationalism throughout the communion at parochial, diocesan and provincial level. Parishes feel free to choose from whom they will accept Episcopal ministry; bishops feel free to make decisions of great controversy without reference to existing collegial structures. Primates make provision for Episcopal leadership in territories outside their own Province.
* There is distrust of the Instruments of Communion and uncertainty about their capacity to respond to the situation.
*Polarisation of attitudes in the Churches of the Communion, not just n the current situation ”“ felt and expressed by conservative and liberal alike.

Read it all and please note the caution toward the top.

From yours truly from here:

How then will any move forward toward reconciliation be possible? By taking the specific requests and language of the Windsor Report seriously and responding clearly and honestly, by saying as a province yes we will sacrifice and do these things or no we will not.

Very simply, we need to say that what we did was wrong in the sense the Windsor Report intends. The Anglican Communion has a mind on this issue. There is such a thing as Anglican teaching and practice in the area of human sexuality, namely the language of Lambeth 1998 Resolution 1.10. We went against this mind and did something which the large majority of the Anglican Communion believes is a departure from apostolic teaching and practice. We did it, despite the fact that we were repeatedly warned not to do so. As a result, we have torn the Anglican Communion at its deepest level.

We therefore need to say more than that we are sorry others are hurt by what we have done, we need to say that a life of interdependence in the communion matters to us and we are sorry that we went against the mind of the whole church in an area which we believe the whole church should decide on. It is what we have done and the consequences of what we have done which are it issue.

Next, we need to undertake the two specific requests to us with utmost seriousness. First, a moratorium needs to be placed on the election or consecration to the episcopate of any person living in a non-celibate same-gender relationship until and unless a new consensus emerges. Second, we need to place a moratorium on the blessing of non-celibate same-sex relationships in the same time frame.
All three of these requests””the statement of regret and the two moratoria–can be found in the language of the Windsor report.

This raises numerous questions such as, since the Episcopal Church didn’t do these things why are her bishops present at Lambeth? In particular, why are the many diocesan bishops who are in dioceses allowing for same sex blessings present since they are at present contradicting the mind and practice of the Communion? How can the Archbishop of Canterbury call bishops to mutual accountability when he has not modeled it himself in who is actually present at this Lambeth Conference?–KSH

Read it all.

Archbishop Valentino L. Mokiwa of Tanzania has agreed to serve as one of three “Communion Partner Primates,” said a group of 13 diocesan bishops who have been working on a modified version of the Episcopal Visitors concept first announced by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori at the House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans.

“Many within our dioceses and in congregations in other dioceses seek to be assured of their connection to the Anglican Communion,” said Bishop D. Bruce MacPherson of Western Louisiana, a partnership spokesperson. “Traditionally this has been understood in terms of bishop-to-bishop relationships. Communion Partners fleshes out this connection in a significant and symbolic way.”

Read it all.

Communion Partners is intended to

Ӣ provide for those concerned a visible link to the Anglican Communion
Many within our dioceses and in congregations in other dioceses seek to be assured of their connection to the Anglican Communion. Traditionally, this has been understood in terms of bishop-to-bishop relationships. Communion Partners fleshes out this connection in a significant and symbolic way.
Ӣ provide fellowship, support and a forum for mutual concerns between bishops.
The Communion Partner bishops share many concerns about the Anglican Communion and its future and look to work together with Primates and Bishops from the wider Communion. In addition, we believe we all have need of mutual encouragement, prayer, and reassurance. The Communion Partners will be a forum for these kinds of relationships.
Ӣ provide a partnership to work toward the Anglican Covenant and according to Windsor Principles
The Communion Partner bishops will work together according to the principles outlined in the Windsor Report and seek a comprehensive Anglican Covenant at the Lambeth Conference and beyond.

Read it all.

Third, however, all this has come about not least because Paul has written a painful letter (2.3f.). This too is of course historically controversial: is the ‘painful letter’ 1 Corinthians itself, or is it one of the somewhat disjointed sections of 2 Corinthians itself, perhaps chapters 10-13? I am cautiously with those who think that it is a letter written between the two epistles, and now lost, but that doesn’t take away from the remarkable relevance of 2 Corinthians for our present moment. When the Archbishop issued his invitations, he made it clear as I said that their basis was Windsor and the Covenant as the tools to shape our future common life. That invitation was issued only three months after the remarkable joint statement from the Primates issued in Tanzania in February 2007. After a summer and autumn of various tangled and unsatisfactory events, the Archbishop then wrote an Advent pastoral letter in which he reiterated the terms of his initial invitation and declared that he would be writing to those bishops who might be thought particularly unsympathetic to Windsor and the Covenant to ask them whether they were really prepared to build on this dual foundation. Those letters, I understand, are in the post as we speak, written with apostolic pain and heart-searching but also with apostolic necessity. I am well aware that many will say this is far too little, far too late – just as many others will be livid to think that the Archbishop, having already not invited Gene Robinson to Lambeth, should be suggesting that some others might absent themselves as well. But this is what he promised he would do, and he is doing it. If I know anything about anything, I know that he deserves our prayers at this most difficult and fraught moment in the run-up to Lambeth itself.

Fourth, we have seen, predictably but sadly, the rise of the super-apostles, who have wanted everything to be cut and dried in ways for which our existing polity simply did not, and does not, allow. Please note, I do not for one moment underestimate the awful situation that many of our American and Canadian friends have found themselves in, vilified, attacked and undermined by ecclesiastical authority figures who seem to have lost all grip on the gospel of Jesus Christ and to be eager only for lawsuits and property squabbles. I pray daily for many friends over there who are in intolerable situations and I don’t underestimate the pressures and strains. But I do have to say, as well, that these situations have been exploited by those who have long wanted to shift the balance of power in the Anglican Communion and who have used this awful situation as an opportunity to do so. And now, just as the super-apostles were conveying the message to Paul that if he wanted to return to Corinth he’d need letters of recommendation, we are told that, if we want to go on being thought of as evangelicals, we should withdraw from Lambeth and join the super-gathering which, though not officially, is clearly designed as an alternative, and which of course hands an apparent moral victory to those who can cheerfully wave goodbye to the ‘secessionists’. I have written about this elsewhere, and it is of course a very sad situation which none of us (I trust) would wish but which seems to be worsening by the day.

Read it all–my emphasis (Hat tip: Babyblue).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Bishop of Central Florida, the Rt Revd John Howe, said that the group aimed to “provide a visible link for those concerned in the Anglican Communion”. It would exist to “provide fellowship, support and a forum for mutual concerns between bishops”, and “a partnership to work towards the Anglican Covenant”.

Relationships would be “governed by mutual respect and proceed by invitation and co-operation”. Bishop Howe wrote: “Our purpose in meeting with Bishop Schori [on 21 February] was to apprise her of this plan, seek her counsel, and assure her that we remain committed to working within the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church, and that the Primates involved in this discussion are NOT involved in ”˜border-crossing’, nor would we be. We will visit no congregation without the diocesan bishop’s invitation and permission.”

Critics fear that the group would give the appearance of speaking for the Episcopal Church as a whole in the Communion, and sense an attempt to drive forward a Covenant about which, even as redrafted, many have principled objections or deep reservations.

Dr Jefferts Schori has not yet given her approval of the extended scheme, though she has offered a “nihil obstat” ”” no objection. Lambeth Palace would not respond to reports that Dr Williams, who met the bishops’ group on 31 January, had backed the scheme. “We’re not commenting at all,” said a spokeswoman this week.

Read it all.

(ACNS)

The Archbishop of Canterbury announced the formation of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG), as proposed in his Advent Letter

The WCG will address outstanding questions arising from the Windsor Report and the various formal responses from provinces and instruments of the Anglican Communion.

The members of the group are:

The Most Revd Clive Handford, former Primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East (chair)
The Most Revd John Chew, Primate of South East Asia
The Right Revd Gary Lillibridge, Bishop of West Texas
The Right Revd Victoria Matthews, former Bishop of Edmonton
The Very Revd John Moses, former dean of St Paul’s, London
The Most Revd Donald Mtetemela, Primate of Tanzania

They will be joined as a consultant by:

Dame Mary Tanner, Co-president of the World Council of Churches

and assisted by:

Canon Andrew Norman of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Staff and
Canon Gregory Cameron of the Anglican Communion Office

Read it all.

VII. Seventh, there are difficult and maddeningly slow formal attempts unfolding, yet unfolding nonetheless, within the Anglican Communion as a whole to begin to identify a means of getting through this adjudicatory impasse. It involves a host of synods, including the Lambeth Conference, and a proposed “covenant”, among other things. Since no one has offered an agreeable alternative to these unfolding attempts, they remain the primary means, indeed the only means available to all parties in the dispute to move forward. They are, furthermore, in keeping with the long traditions of catholic order and deserve a presumptive respect. Yet because they are both slow, still imperfectly defined, and legally of untested strength, the ultimate usefulness of these unfolding attempts must depend on a host of other Christian realities that – most would agree – actually define the Church of Jesus Christ far more essentially, primarily, and profoundly than do simply the Constitution and Canons of this or that province or diocese (indeed, that latter are, in a Christian sense, legitimate only to the degree that they embody these prior realities). These realities touch upon the gifts and fruit of the Holy Spirit and the powers thereof that permit a clear following of the Lord Jesus Christ’s own straightforward calling to specific forms of relational behavior. They touch upon matters of humility, patience, longsuffering, honesty and transparency, self-control, and much more. That is, both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion of which it is still a part and which it has, rightly or wrongly, so disturbed through its executive actions, have been thrown upon a complete dependence upon these gifts and fruit, in a way that must transcend, even while respecting for the sake of the world’s order, particular rules and regulations.

Read it all.

Once again I find myself both in much sympathy with AM but also ultimately unconvinced by their critique. I too believe it would have been best if all the Primates met to evaluate TEC’s response. However, it cannot be denied that there were clearly serious problems ”“ financial, logistical, political – with that way forward. Indeed, a case can be made that to call such a meeting at this time would have been to put on this Instrument more pressure than it could be expected to bear and be action damaging to the Communion. It is ultimately the Archbishop’s decision whether to call an emergency meeting and he clearly took advice from the Primates about whether this was needed. The consultation with the Primates showed limited support for this way forward. Apparently only 3 of the 26 Primates who replied requested such a meeting! For the Archbishop to call an unscheduled meeting when there was such limited demand would probably be irresponsible, especially if, as claimed, several primates were very hostile to the idea.

The proposed alternative is one AM describes as the creation of a “hand-picked team of supposed specialists to determine the future life of the Communion in all its representative bodies”. In addition to its rather cynical tone, this description seriously distorts the role of that group according to the letter.

It is not some separate “hand-picked team” doing its own thing but a group who will work ”˜in close collaboration with the primates, the Joint Standing Committee, the Covenant Design Group and the Lambeth Conference Design Group’. The reason it is needed is because, far from “acting alone in this”, the Archbishop wishes to work collegially on ”˜the unanswered questions arising from the inconclusive evaluation of the primates to New Orleans’. Although clearly different, there are parallels in this way forward with Windsor’s proposed Council of Advice (paras 111 and 112). There is nothing at all to suggest that it will “determine the future life of the Communion”, it will simply “take certain issues forward to Lambeth”. Far from determining the future life “in all its representative bodies” it is, as noted, working closely with those bodies and “will feed in to the discussions at Lambeth about Anglican identity and the Covenant process” – a sign, once again, of the importance of attending Lambeth and supporting and shaping the Covenant process.

Read it all.

“So what the American church has done by the election and then ordination of Gene Robinson is really actually turn its back on the voice, the moral voice of the Lambeth Conference. That’s the problem basically. There is no way out of the problem now.”

Still, Carey feels that if the Americans were to come out wholeheartedly for the Windsor Covenant, dialogue and reconciliation would be possible.

“If the Episcopal Church says, ‘No, dammit, we are not going to go that way’, then there is no dialogue,” he said. “They are actually saying they are walking away from the family, they are closing the door. But if they are prepared to say, ‘We will fall in behind the convenant,’ then we can find a resolution.

“But there is no sign that the American House of Bishops realizes how serious it is,” he said.

Read it all.

Thirdly, The Attenders. There will not be a common mind amongst those bishops who do attend Lambeth 08. At one end will be the group of Americans, who took part in or attended the consecration of Gene Robinson, and at the other will be those of The Global South, who believe that The Episcopal Church has failed to meet the requirements of “The Windsor Report” and ought to be disciplined in some way or another. In between them will be a wide spectrum of opinion reflecting the generally confused state of the Anglican Family in 2008.

Fourthly, Reflections. If the bishops of such large and important Provinces as Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda do not attend””and right now it seems as if they will not do so”” and go to Israel instead, then there is no hope at all that the Lambeth Conference will take strong, traditional, orthodox positions on anything of substance. Further, if they do not attend, and put all their energy into making the Israel Conference into a success, then one may draw the conclusion that the Global Anglican Communion does not exist any longer in its 2007 form, for it has lost a third or so of its membership. Also, if they do not attend, then one may draw the conclusion that the See of Canterbury is no longer the symbolic center for them, and that, henceforth, they will create their own form of a worldwide Communion and Fellowship, into which only “the orthodox” will be admitted.

In fact, if they do not attend, it would seem that the Global Anglican Communion as we have known it is finished and its resulting parts will form alliances over the next few years.

For devoted Anglicans in the West these are difficult times to live through.

Read the whole piece.

Those who peruse the big Anglican blogs know that “Communion Conservatives” (those who advocate contending for the faith by staying in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion) and “Federal Conservatives” (those who are convinced one or both of those bodies are too far gone to the point they think it best orthodox at least prepare to leave) are rather close to each other’s throats at the moment.

To be honest, I have my opinion as to which side is most at blame, but that’s not my concern right now. This post may even seem a bit vague because I don’t want to engage in figure pointing. For my concern is that anger between the two sides is getting to and past the point that it will make it difficult for these two sides of orthodox Anglicans to work together in the future.

That distresses me. If it turns out the Federal Conservatives are right and the Communion Conservative eventually find staying in TEC and the like to be untenable, I want the Comm-Cons to feel they have a refuge in Common Cause and/or whatever church bodies the Fed-Cons form. Likewise, if a miracle happens and the Anglican Communion or even the Episcopal Church sufficiently reforms, I want Fed-Cons to feel they can return. I hope the current divisions between the two are temporary. And even if Comm-Cons and Fed-Cons remain on different tracks, I want them to be able still to work together on those things they can.

Read it all.

Read it all.

This is a thoughtful, prayerful letter and deserves to be treated as such by all Anglicans. It cannot possibly have been easy to put together.

There is much here to be welcomed.

First, he shows a profound awareness of the gift of the Anglican communion and its fragility at the present time, and desires our unity in Christ. Unity plays a strong role in the New Testament. To be part of the third largest Christian family in the world is an awesome responsibility and privilege. If Anglicanism falls apart, everyone loses. I simply cannot say how strongly some reasserters need to hear this message. Dr.Williams says he writes this “out of the profound conviction that the existence of our Communion is truly a gift of God to the wholeness of Christ’s Church and that all of us will be seriously wounded and diminished if our Communion fractures any further.” I wonder if our words and actions have a similar motivation?

Second, there is a strong underscoring of scripture’s authority and importance in our common Anglican life:

The common acknowledgment that we stand under the authority of Scripture as ‘the rule and ultimate standard of faith’, in the words of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral; as the gift shaped by the Holy Spirit which decisively interprets God to the community of believers and the community of believers to itself and opens our hearts to the living and eternal Word that is Christ. Our obedience to the call of Christ the Word Incarnate is drawn out first and foremost by our listening to the Bible and conforming our lives to what God both offers and requires of us through the words and narratives of the Bible. We recognise each other in one fellowship when we see one another ‘standing under’ the word of Scripture.

Third, there is a strong criticism of TEC’s actions. Note carefully that the actions in question were not one but two breaches caused by that fateful gathering, one having to do with the confirmation of an episcopal election, the other having to do with actual liturgical practice. The 2003 actions were not only unilateral, but they plainly imply “a new understanding of Scripture that has not been received and agreed by the wider Church.” Here we have again a reference to Scripture and the need to read and understand Scripture in, with and through the church. Given the importance of this decision, it should have been done with the wider church, but it was not. We should have sought to make a convincing scriptural case for its actions. but we failed to do so.

Let there be no mistake, the heart of the current crisis among Anglicans is a change “in our discipline” and “our interpretation of the Bible.”

More than this it is clear that New Orleans House of Bishops meeting and the JSC Report were insufficient. True, hard work went into them, but there are serious problems here, as to the assurances that were sought. In the case of Episcopal elections the tie in to a possible future General Convention receives special notice, and welcome reference is made to “the distinctive charism of bishops as an order and their responsibility for sustaining doctrinal standards.”

In the case of same sex blessings, what was asked for has simply not been given:

But the declaration on same-sex blessings is in effect a reiteration of the position taken in previous statements from TEC, and has clearly not satisfied many in the Communion any more than these earlier statements. There is obviously a significant and serious gap between what TEC understands and what others assume as to what constitutes a liturgical provision in the name of the Church at large.

(This is a much clearer and more accurate summary than that of the JSC report which had to be corrected by various participants in the New Orleans meeting).

Fourth, there is a welcome description of the Lambeth Conference as “a meeting of the chief pastors and teachers of the Communion, seeking an authoritative common voice.”

Fifth, there is again an underscoring of the need to treat homosexual and lesbian persons with the care of Christ himself. “The Instruments of Communion have consistently and very strongly repeated that it is part of our Christian and Anglican discipleship to condemn homophobic prejudice and violence, to defend the human rights and civil liberties of homosexual people and to offer them the same pastoral care and loving service that we owe to all in Christ’s name.”

That having been said, one is also left with many questions.

How can he recommend consultants given the degree of the breach? I am concerned that the Archbishop of Canterbury underestimates the depth of this problem, alas. “Actions which they deplore or which they simply have not considered” is not strong enough to describe what is, has, and will be happening. The Windsor Report’s language was stronger:

By electing and confirming such a candidate in the face of the concerns expressed by the wider Communion, the Episcopal Church (USA) has caused deep offence to many faithful Anglican Christians both in its own church and in other parts of the Communion.

(Please note carefully, not just offense, but deep offense)

Also, has he not undermined his own argument about Lambeth in the way Lambeth 1998 has been treated? If Lambeth ”is a meeting of the chief pastors and teachers of the Communion, seeking an authoritative common voice,” then why has a province which has unilaterally and blatantly repudiated that voice not suffered real consequences for so doing? What is the point of coming to a meeting to establish a common voice when those who so establish it will not honor it as common in the common life of their own province?

It is very important to underscore here something which many have missed, namely that is is simply insane to come together and discuss whether to do something which has always been considered immoral when one member family of an extended family is already doing it.

I also wish to ask why there is no mention of the fact that there has been no primates meeting since Tanzania? The Primates set in motion the process that produced the Windsor Report, received and deliberated over the meaning of that report for the wider Anglican family, and then set specific guidelines in place for TEC to respond to in order to repair the enormous breach which the TEC leadership caused. Surely they are the logical body to evaluate and deliberate over TEC’s response in New Orleans? The Archbishop of Canterbury risks arrogating to himself too much of a role here in this matter.

Finally, when Dr. Williams writes

I also intend to convene a small group of primates and others, whose task will be, in close collaboration with the primates, the Joint Standing Committee, the Covenant Design Group and the Lambeth Conference Design Group, to work on the unanswered questions arising from the inconclusive evaluation of the primates to New Orleans and to take certain issues forward to Lambeth. This will feed in to the discussions at Lambeth about Anglican identity and the Covenant process; I suggest that it will also have to consider whether in the present circumstances it is possible for provinces or individual bishops at odds with the expressed mind of the Communion to participate fully in representative Communion agencies, including ecumenical bodies. Its responsibility will be to weigh current developments in the light of the clear recommendations of Windsor and of the subsequent statements from the ACC and the Primates’ Meeting; it will thus also be bound to consider the exact status of bishops ordained by one province for ministry in another

He surely puts the emphasis in the right place but he raises so many more questions than he resolves. Who decides who is in this group or not and why, for example? What criteria do they use? By what deadline do they make their decisions? And: given that meetings and consultations have failed so far to resolve the current chasms in the Communion, how will this lead to any different outcome?

With regard to boundary crossings and the like, has not Dr. Williams allowed allowed this letter to look as if it supports the very equivalency between those actions and what TEC has done which the Tanzania Primates meeting said did not exist? Also, I do not feel that the Archbishop of Canterbury realizes that these actions have been undertaken because the Instruments of Communion have sought to provide a refuge for Communion minded Anglicans in the province of TEC, but they have consistently failed to do so.

The bottom line for me is this: we have here truth, but no consequences.

I sense Archbishop Williams really wants to have a Lambeth Conference as a conference of the whole communion. There is, I believe, a way to do this. It will mean not inviting bishops whose diocesan practice contradicts the mind of the communion; it will involve warning those who have been involved in increasing disorder in our common life, it will involve a clear declaration of the nature of the Lambeth Conference and its focus on the Covenant and that Covenant’s relationship to future Lambeth Conferences, and it will involve a called Primates meeting in the middle of the fall of 2008 to consolidate and elucidate what Lambeth and has said and done and its implications for our common life.

All though this crisis Rowan Williams has decided not to decide, and here he has done it again. Although his description of the problem is most welcome, the solution will take a Herculean effort without which the Lambeth Conference will no longer be a real instrument of the whole communion. In a real communion, there is truth, but there are consequences. I am concerned that with the underestimation of the degree of the problem and the lack of clarity involved in a real solution, Dr. Williams Advent letter will be too little, too late. I pray it may be otherwise–KSH.

Instruments of Mischief: Over the last decade and a half, sex-and-gender liberals in TEC/CoE have shown themselves vulnerable to this sort of reasoning. They have conceded sex-and-gender conservatives’ construals of what liberal tolerance and inclusiveness entails, and they have responded by handing sex-and-gender conservatives two (what I shall call) instruments of mischief. The CoE led the way with the Act of Synod which complicated the polity of the CoE to allow for flying bishops: a plan which allowed sex-and-gender conservative parishes to refuse to welcome geographical diocesans who had ordained women, and to request the episcopal offices of another bishop with clean hands. Candidates for ordination are also allowed to request a ”˜clean hands’ flying bishop to ordain them. This model has been twice adapted and applied in TEC, with the institution of Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight (DEPO) and now the presiding bishop’s scheme for Episcopal Visitors. Once the concept of individual congregations or dioceses not being bound to their duly elected geographical diocesan or PB is introduced and legitimized, it is an easy leap to appealing to bishops and primates of other Anglican provinces as well. The trajectory of +Duncan shows how slippery the slide from parallel ecclesial units within TEC (his diagnosis at the end of General Convention 2006) to schism (the move to form a separate North American Anglican church entirely, and/or to affiliate with some other ”˜orthodox’ Anglican province).

The second instrument of mischief is the The Windsor Report-proposed and Archbishop Drexel Gomez-interpreted Anglican covenant, which constructs a wider Anglican body politic in which a conservative majority would be guaranteed for the foreseeable future. Like the PB-sponsored House of Bishops’ ”˜pause’ (its resolve to withhold consents to non-celibate LGBT candidates for the episcopacy, and to refrain from authorising rites for the blessing of homosexual partnerships), consent to a Gomez-style Anglican covenant would represent a liberal concession not to implement their conscientious sex-and-gender beliefs at an institutional level. Talk about pastoral care defines the maximum scope within which conscientious liberal sex-and-gender convictions would be allowed to hold sway: to the private sphere, to what goes on individual to individuals, perhaps counter-culturally and covertly. And some Anglican communion primates are insisting on their right to invade privacy and put an end to the blessing of same-sex couples under the rubric of pastoral care.

Liberal concessions and sponsorship of these instruments of mischief represent not only a major political victory, but also a rhetorical triumph for conservatives. If tolerance and inclusiveness always trump, then liberals will never be in a position to press their conscientious content-beliefs about Kingdom-coming in the face of clever ([IPP]-invoking) conservative opposition. No wonder liberals are regularly caricatured as making idols of tolerance and inclusiveness, while betraying the Gospel!

Read it all.

Paul Feheley, Archbishop Hiltz’s principal secretary, defended the pastoral letter by stating that the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) understands that SSBs performed in Bp Ingham’s diocese are permissible under the Windsor Report.

He said the Canadian Church’s interpretation of the Windsor report was the moratorium forbid [sic] any bishop from giving any additional parishes the right to perform same-sex blessings.

In New Westminster, eight parishes were given permission by the diocese, but after the report was released in 2004 no additional parishes were given that authority. Those original eight churches continue to perform the rite.

That defence is difficult to accept for two reasons. First, even if it were true that the Windsor Report (TWR) allows SSBs in New Westminster to continue, why did Primate Hiltz not speak up when the synods of Ottawa, Montreal, and Niagara passed motions calling for SSBs in their dioceses? Why didn’t he say, “Sorry, old chaps, TWR doesn’t allow you to go through with that” (or words to that effect)? If he had, we might be able to give credence to Mr Feheley’s claim that the ACC actually desires to respect TWR.

Furthermore, TWR does not countenance SSBs anywhere in the Anglican Communion. If, for some reason, ACC leaders think that unclear from the text of TWR itself, the primates removed all uncertainty in the Dar es Salaam Communiqué.

Read it all.

There are clearly a number of centrifugal forces currently threatening the unity of the Anglican Communion. The focus of these for many is the issue of the proper response to same-sex unions and here I have suggested there is a wide spectrum of views among Anglicans which can be broadly classified into four groups: rejection, reassertion, reassessment and reinterpretation.

Faced with these divisions, the Communion responded by addressing the underlying ecclesiological questions relating to how we live together in communion and maintain our unity in the face of diversity. This produced the Windsor Report and now the Windsor Process (and within it the covenant process). This has articulated a vision of life in communion that I have called ‘communion Catholicism’ and then sought to apply that to the differences over sexuality.

The danger is that this process has, in turn, produced (or perhaps uncovered) further points of tension. At the level of principle there are new fracture lines developing as, competing with the Windsor vision, there are at least two other alternative ways of envisioning our life together – what I’ve called connectional confessionalism and autonomous inclusivism. These now supplement the tensions over sexuality and (in as much as there is a correlation between these and the two extremes of the sexuality spectrum) they may strengthen and reinforce them. At the level of practice there are those who, even if they share Windsor’s vision of life in communion and reject these two alternative paradigms, are unhappy with at least some of Windsor’s practical outworkings of this vision in relation to how the Communion should respond to its diversity over sexuality.

In addition to these three different levels of tension over more theoretical areas – attitudes to sexuality, visions of life in Communion, the implications of Windsor for sexuality – there is now the added and most pressing concrete question of discerning whether, if one accepts Windsor’s proposals in relation to the current crisis, TEC has (as JSC argue)accepted and implemented Windsor’s recommendations.

Finally, these forces are at play within and between at least four different institutional arenas within the Communion’s life – individual provinces and their relationships with other provinces, the Instruments of Communion, coalitions of provinces, and unofficial networks of committed protagonists.

Miraculously, for the last five years (since the current high-level tensions really began with the decisions of New Westminster diocese) the Instruments have been able to bring together all the provinces (though at ACC Nottingham, TEC and Canada attended as observers) and facilitate ongoing conversation across these various divides and wide spectra of beliefs and visions for the Communion. It has done so even as inter-provincial relationships and eucharistic fellowship among the Primates broke down. The challenge now is whether and how that achievement can be maintained, especially in relation to Lambeth 2008, and, if it cannot, what sort of viable ‘second best’ arrangements can be developed or ‘amicable separations’ negotiated.

Read it all.

From several emails.

My brothers and sisters:

I am grateful for the considered way in which the House worked together in New Orleans, and for our demonstration of solidarity with the people of Louisiana and Mississippi. I am finding that most of you would rather focus on the latter!

I have received from Rowan both a thank you for his time among us, and a copy of the Joint Standing Committee report. This has been posted online in a number of places, and I hope you have seen it by now.

Rowan is asking that I report to him by the end of October the sense of this Province, precisely on the following:

“…how far your province is able to accept the JSC Report assessment that the House of Bishops have (sic) responded positively to the requests of Windsor and of the Dar es Salaam message of the Primates. The report sets out clearly for us the requests that were made, both in the context of the Windsor Report and of the Dar es Salaam Communiqué; there are other issues that have been raised in general discussion around the Communion, and indeed in the TEC communiqué, but I hope you will concentrate on the very specific matters put before the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops. I shall welcome not only your reactions but also proposals for any next steps we should take together. My intention is firmly to honour the discernment of all the primates and the wider Communion at this juncture…”

Let me note that consultation in your Diocese will undoubtedly be helpful, and if you can give me an indication of what that looked like, I would be most grateful. I have finally had time to read all of the submissions on Communion Matters, and I am struck by the breadth of comment received and its coherence. Henry Parsley and the Theology Committee are to be deeply thanked for their effective work on this, in a short time-frame.

Please note the relatively short time available to do this – let me suggest that Monday, 29 October would be a helpful target – and that what is most needed are your brief impressions following conversation in your diocese.

I remain

Your servant in Christ,

(The Rt. Rev.) Katharine Jefferts Schori