This presentation would be incomplete if we did not touch on the ecumenical dimension in the thrust for evangelisation which animates both the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church. Someone has rightly said in a humorous vein: “If Christians do not hang together, they will hang separately”. It is obvious that a united effort would certainly strengthen the implementation of Christ’s mandate to preach the Gospel to every creature. We must gladly recall here the Agreed Statement on Growing Together in Unity and Mission published in 2007 by the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM). The document thoroughly examines various aspects and prospects (worship, study, ministry and witness) for a common mission thrust. The more Anglicans and Catholics are able to study issues together and to discern an appropriate Gospel response, the stronger will be the impact of their mission endeavours. They could start with the points which unite the two Churches, and slowly strive to clarify their approaches and to perfect their attempts to harmonise their mission efforts.

Evangelisation is the unique prerogative of the Holy Spirit, who needs channels through which He may flow unhampered. This will be possible in the measure in which there is unity and cohesion between the members of the Church, between them and their shepherds, and, above all, between the shepherds themselves, both within the community as well as with the other Christian confessions. For, in the present ecumenical framework in which Providence has willed to engage the Churches, a unity which binds them together in the apostolic faith is intrinsic to the Church’s mission of speaking and spreading the Gospel. Hence, when they are of one mind and heart notwithstanding their diversity, their missionary thrust is indeed enhanced and strengthened. But, when the diversity degenerates into division, it becomes a counter-witness which seriously compromises their image and endeavours to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Much is spoken today of diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. By analogy, their symptoms can, at times, be found even in our own Christian communities. For example, when we live myopically in the fleeting present, oblivious of our past heritage and apostolic traditions, we could well be suffering from spiritual Alzheimer’s. And when we behave in a disorderly manner, going whimsically our own way without any co-ordination with the head or the other members of our community, it could be ecclesial Parkinson’s.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Suddenly this summer, the reality of same-sex couples lining up to get married in California has led some religious leaders to rethink their government role.

In a letter last month, Bishop Marc Handley Andrus of the Episcopal Diocese of California directed his clergy to “encourage all couples, regardless of orientation, to follow the pattern of first being married in a secular service and then being blessed in the Episcopal Church.”

The bishop’s missive illustrates what a tangled web we have woven when clergy intone “by the power invested in me by the state.”

Because the Episcopal Church doesn’t sanction same-sex marriage ”” but gives the option of blessing the union ”” the bishop appears to be seeking a way to bless all couples while distancing the church from legal arrangements sanctioned by the state.

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has continued his quest for Anglican unity with a strong statement against living in sin and gay sex.

Dr Williams said: “I do not believe that sex outside marriage is as God purposes it.”

And he said he remained “committed” to the Church’s official stance against gay sex, which aims to preserve Biblical norms.

Dr Williams denied that the Anglican Communion was at an end and said he did not believe the Church of England had entered the Lambeth conference as “a bleeding, hunted animal with arrows in its side” as a result of the vote on women bishops which took place at the General Synod last month.

Read it all.

A postcolonial conversation, a critique of colonialism involving patient listening and that includes everyone equally, is long overdue, yet most Anglicans tend to avoid the discussion, said the Rev. Joe Duggan, an Episcopal priest from the Diocese of Los Angeles and a doctoral researcher at the University of Manchester’s Lincoln Theological Institute (LTI).

LTI, along with the Journal of Anglican Studies, co-sponsored the panel discussion, “Anglican Identities and the Postcolonial,” a Lambeth Conference “fringe event” held at the University of Kent’s Darwin Hall. Featured speakers included: Robert Young, author and a professor of English and Comparative Literature at New York University; Bishop James Tengatenga of Southern Malawi; Bishop Mano Rumalshah of Pakistan; and Bishop Assistant Stephen Pickard of Adelaide in the Anglican Province of Australia.

Duggan said the panel discussion was planned for Monday, the day bishops would be addressing Anglican identity and mission. “We wanted to initiate a global conversation about what is the postcolonial in a way”¦not caught up in polarization with controversy in the debate, but a patient listening. Our hope is that you’ll take these questions back to your dioceses.

“There’s never been a Lambeth Conference that’s looked at what is the theology and ecclesiology after the colonial period,” Duggan told the gathering of about 75. “If you look at Anglican theologians around the world, the space given to colonialism is very brief and very short. So it’s not surprising we’re in the situation we are. We are trying to step back and provide resources”¦to begin asking the questions.”

Read it all.

Bishop Tilewa Johnson, from Gambia, said that his own villages used indaba, but called it bantaba, which means “under the big tree”.

“The fact that an attempt has been made to use the process is a good one. But of course it clashes with the culture here of everybody keeping an eye on the clock,” he said. “Indaba has no time limit. We keep going until a solution is found. Indaba takes place under a huge, shady tree where villagers assemble to talk about things. The aggrieved and the perpetrators must both be there to respond.”

Allison Lawrence, wife of the Bishop of South Carolina, Mark Lawrence, said: “They have taken a Zulu word and used it for an American concept. The African concept when you do an indaba is you talk, talk, talk until you agree. In these indaba groups, they talk a little and then someone changes the subject if they don’t like it. The Americans are feeling railroaded and manipulated. Even the Africans are saying, ”˜This is not indaba’.”

Bishops emerging from yesterday’s sessions described being divided into groups of about 40. As if there were not already enough divisions among Anglicans, they were divided up further into groups of four or five and given papers on subjects that the conference is addressing: mission, millennium goals, poverty ”“ the list is long. They talked and a rapporteur took notes, to be passed up to the next level. No one quite knew who or where that was.

Moreover, none of the bishops asked by The Times had yet been given a chance to discuss the one thing that they are all desperate to address: how can the Anglican Communion survive the consecration of Gene Robinson, the openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire.

Read it all.

THERE IS “a palpable sense of uncertainty about where it is all going” and “a lack of trust under the surface”, the Church of Ireland Bishop of Down and Dromore Right Rev Harold Miller said about the Lambeth Conference yesterday. He also warned that “if there is not a proper place for debate, then that will be exceptionally dangerous for the Anglican Communion”.

Acknowledging there had been just two days of the indaba discussions format, whereby the 670 bishops attending have been meeting in groups of 40, he said he felt one-line summations at the end of the discussions tended towards the bland. There was also uncertainty about being involved in something that would not involve the passing of a resolution, he said.

He welcomed as “brave” and “courageous” a statement from the Sudanese bishops yesterday that rejected homosexual practice as “contrary to biblical teaching and can accept no place for it within ECS (the Episcopal Church of Sudan)”.

They also called on the Anglican Church in the US and Canada to refrain from ordaining practising homosexuals as priests or bishops, from approving rites of blessing for same-sex relationships, to cease court actions with immediate effect, to comply with past Lambeth Conference resolutions, and “to respect the authority of the Bible”.

Read it all.

1. A failure to address the issue

Any covenant document has to recognise fully the mischief it seeks to address. This document makes no mention of the crisis which has generated the call for such a remedy, which is a crisis of obedience to Scripture. Further, it fails to recognise that in the eyes of many the ”˜instruments of Communion’ (3.1.4) are themselves part of the problem. This means that trying to use such failed instruments as arbiters of a future solution is problematic in the extreme. Put bluntly, this covenant will not allow the real issues to be addressed.

2. An illegitimate notion of autonomy

The understanding of the individual Churches of the Communion throughout this document is fatally ambiguous. The language of autonomy in communion is introduced in 3.1.2., but there has been no justification produced for this concept in the preceding sections. More seriously this language is unqualified and so fails to distinguish between matters on which Scripture is silent (and where there may be legitimate liberty and indeed diversity) and matters on which Scripture has spoken definitively (and where autonomy is therefore a euphemism for sin). Our obedience to Scripture and our responsibility to each other must significantly qualify all talk of ”˜autonomy’ with reference to any congregation, diocese, province or, indeed, the Communion itself.

3. No biblical theology

The entire document, and particularly the statement concerning ”˜the inheritance of faith’ in paragraph 1, is detached from the Scriptural narrative of salvation and redemption from sin, which Churches in the Communion have seen realised. The principal concerns of Scripture are ignored as the document concentrates on matters which are dependent and consequential upon those concerns. The unity of Christians flows out of the redeeming work of Christ and the incorporative ministry of the Spirit. Any attempt to generate or sustain such unity on our own terms and by our own institutional efforts without reference to this prior and determinative reality must be judged sub-biblical.

Read it all.

Via Email:

The Global Anglican Future Conference Theological Resource Group (TRG) has published a response to the St Andrew’s Covenant. www.gafcon.org/index.php This has the authority of that group and is the substantive response from GAFCON.

There are two major concerns about the proposed covenant. First, what will it contain? Will it have sufficient commitment to the doctrinal and ethical commitments of the traditional Anglican formularies? Will it have sufficient material on the process of maintaining unity on essentials?

Secondly, the current St Andrew’s draft focuses the action away from the Primates to the Anglican Consultative Council. In every case except the Church of England, the Primates are the elected heads of their churches. The Lambeth Conferences of 1988 and 1998 asked for enhanced responsibility to be given to the Primates on matters of contention. The St Andrew’s draft reverses this direction and gives responsibility to the ACC for approval of the final text of the covenant and as arbiter of inclusion in the Communion.

Thirdly, it should be noted that even though the Lambeth Conference is an instrument of communion, it has no decision-making role in finalizing the covenant. Rather it is the ACC that will be the final arbiter of what the covenant will contain.

Further, no bishop here has the authority to accept the covenant on behalf of anyone else: such decisions belong to the provinces, their synods and house of bishops.

The briefing paper that was posted on the GAFCON website, on which Dr Andrew Goddard focuses his major critique www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm, has now been removed. It was purely a resource paper provided for the TRG comparing the St Andrews Draft with earlier theological reflection. This reflection was incorrectly identified for which apologies are made for the confusion caused.

The response of the GAFCON Theological Resource Group is to the St Andrew’s Draft and the GAFCON Theological Resource group welcomes comments on the substance of their response to office [at] gafcon [dot] org.

Canada’s leading female Anglican cleric has courted controversy at a major church conference in Britain by predicting the eventual rise of a woman as Archbishop of Canterbury.

“The signposts are pointing in one direction,” former Edmonton bishop Victoria Matthews told Reuters on Tuesday during a global gathering of Anglican bishops at the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference. “I would be very surprised if it wasn’t accepted worldwide.”

Matthews, whose recent selection as the Bishop of Christchurch, New Zealand, sparked an uproar among conservative Anglicans in that country, also shot back at Vatican officials who have complained the Church of England’s July 8 decision to begin appointing female bishops poses “a further obstacle for reconciliation” between Catholics and Anglicans.

Read it all.

And yet if you look at McLeod’s case, and the entire financial crisis that it stands for, there is a third position. This is the position held in overlapping ways by liberal communitarians and conservative Burkeans.

This third position begins with the notion that people are driven by the desire to earn the respect of their fellows. Individuals don’t build their lives from scratch. They absorb the patterns and norms of the world around them.

Decision-making ”” whether it’s taking out a loan or deciding whom to marry ”” isn’t a coldly rational, self-conscious act. Instead, decision-making is a long chain of processes, most of which happen beneath the level of awareness. We absorb a way of perceiving the world from parents and neighbors. We mimic the behavior around us. Only at the end of the process is there self-conscious oversight.

According to this view, what happened to McLeod, and the nation’s financial system, is part of a larger social story. America once had a culture of thrift. But over the past decades, that unspoken code has been silently eroded.

Some of the toxins were economic. Rising house prices gave people the impression that they could take on more risk. Some were cultural. We entered a period of mass luxury, in which people down the income scale expect to own designer goods. Some were moral. Schools and other institutions used to talk the language of sin and temptation to alert people to the seductions that could ruin their lives. They no longer do.

Norms changed and people began making jokes to make illicit things seem normal. Instead of condemning hyper-consumerism, they made quips about “retail therapy,” or repeated the line that Morgenson noted in her article: When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.

McLeod and the lenders were not only shaped by deteriorating norms, they helped degrade them.

Read it all.

Read it all.

Read it all.

I commend these two to you as a genuinely useful resource.

Of particular interest is the entry about Sunday past from Bishop Nick Baines:

Archbishop Drexel Gomez (Chair of the Covenant Design Group) then addressed the history, process and current status of the proposed Anglican Covenant. The conference makes specific space for every voice to be heard and every contribution to count in taking the process forward (if at all). We will engage with principle as well as with detail of the latest draft. The process following Lambeth was also outlined.

Note that this is taking the serious questions seriously and tackling them head on, but in a structured way what gives all bishops a voice and not just the usual suspects who know how to manipulate the system to their own advantage.

Clive Hanford then brought matters to a very clear head when he described the Windsor Continuation Process in detail and tried out the Group’s initial analysis of the ‘crisis’ in the Communion. This was hard-hitting, unambiguously clear and must have made all ‘parties’ uncomfortable. The demands of the Gospel were spelled out. He observed that although we had sung ‘All are welcome’ in the Cathedral, this did not mean ‘anything goes’. The limits of diversity in unity need to be examined and defined. [Note:some material from this presentation was posted on the blog earlier today –KSH].

This was clear and powerful and left nobody in any doubt about the issues we face. So the conference has been designed to avoid conflict, has it? We are going to avoid the hard issues, are we? Er… I don’t think so. Ignore the journalists and punters who have already made up their minds what the outcome will be and listen to those who are engaging with the process with integrity.

The way Fulcrum has it set up alas, I am unable to link to individual blog entries–KSH

As I read this news and think about the stand taken by the Sudanese bishops, I’m reflecting on the crisis in Sudan. I have close personal friends who have worked in Darfur. I know quite a bit about the suffering and need in Sudan. How much easier it would have been for the Sudanese bishops to ignore the problems in the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion and be consumed by their own needs. How easy it would have been for them to close their eyes to the actions of TEC and NOT make waves, so as to continue receiving much needed gifts from wealthy Episcopalians. And yet, that is not what they’ve done. They have done the opposite.

Read it all.

Organisers are facing a budget shortfall of up to £2 million. The funding crisis is so severe that even in sky-high temperatures organisers have been unable to pay for air conditioning inside the sweltering conditions of the large blue circus-style tent in which plenary sessions are being held.

An emergency meeting of the Archbishops’ Council and the Church Commissioners has been called as soon as the conference ends next month. The Commissioners who have the funds to bail out the conference are not allowed by their charitable trust deeds to fund any except Church of England bishops.

Ironically, the one church that has the funds to bail out the conference is The Episcopal Church of the US. One senior source told The Times: “At the moment we just cannot pay for it.”

Read it all.

Having issued statements on the ongoing genocide in Sudan and the ongoing discussions on human sexuality in the Anglican Communion, it was not genocide but sexuality that was the focus of the Sudanese primate’s briefing to the media.

In the press conference on Tuesday afternoon, the Primate of the Sudan (the Most Rev. Dr. Daniel Deng Bul) called for the resignation of the Bishop of New Hampshire, declaring in the statement released ahead of the press conference that he had come to the Lambeth Conference “to take the necessary steps to safeguard the precious unity of the Church.”

When asked about ministering to the gays and lesbians in his province, the archbishop declared that he did not think there were any homosexuals in the Sudan as “none had come forward.” And when queried about his position on the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate said he “believed in women priests and bishops because they were human” ”“ leaving listeners to wonder if the inference was that homosexuals were not.

Read it all.

The Bishop of New Hampshire must resign in order to save the Anglican Communion from chaos, the Archbishop of Juba and Primate of the Sudan, said today. “If [Gene Robinson] were a real Christian he would resign,” Archbishop Daniel Deng said on July 22.

In a statement released on the second day of the Lambeth Conference, the Sudanese church called upon the American church to “respect the authority of the Bible,” refrain from ordaining gay priests or bishops, halt gay blessings, and “cease court actions” against traditionalists “with immediate effect.” The American Church’s experiments with gay blessings and bishops had led to the deaths of Sudanese Christians, Dr Daniel Deng said in an impromptu press conference in the Lambeth Conference media room.

Because of the actions of the American church, “we are called infidels in the Islamic world when they hear of the same-sex blessings,” he said. “It will give [Islamist militants] reason to kill” Sudanese Christians he said. Dr Deng’s statement, backed by over 150 bishops from 17 Global South provinces presents a significant blow to Dr. Rowan Williams’ hopes of averting a crisis at the 14th Lambeth Conference. The American church has been on its best behavior at Lambeth, seeking to mollify criticism from the wider Communion and preserve its place in the Church.

However, the Sudanese Archbishop, Dr Daniel Deng said there was “already a breakdown of the Anglican Communion.” To prevent its wholesale collapse, “Gene Robinson should resign.”

Read it all.

From the Archbishop of the Sudan:

“My people have been suffering for 21 years of war. Their only hope is in the Church. It is the center of life of my people. No matter what problem we have, no material goods, no health supplies or medicine; no jobs or income; no availability of food. The inflation rate makes our money almost worthless and we have done this for 21 years. The Church is the center of our life together.

“The culture does not change the Bible; the Bible changes the culture. Cultures that do not approve of the Bible are left out of the Church’s life; people who do not believe in the Bible are left out of our churches. The American church is saying that God made a mistake. He made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Adam.

“We will not talk to Gene Robinson or listen to him or his testimony. He has to confess, receive forgiveness and leave. Then we will talk. You cannot bring the listening to gay people to our Communion. People who do not believe in the Bible are left out of our churches, not invited in to tell us why they don’t believe.

“I have just come from a meeting of the African and Global South bishops who are here. There were almost 200 bishops there. They support the statement my Church made yesterday. That’s 17 provinces.

“The Authority of the Bible is always the same. You cannot pull a line out or add a line to it. That brings you a curse. We are saying no. You are wrong.

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.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

After the second day of “Indaba” groups, there seems to be an incipient revolt stirring among us. Many of the Africans are saying, “This isn’t ‘Indaba’ at all! First of all, we are not a village, and we don’t know each other. And secondly, we are not attempting to solve a problem; we are talking in small groups about minor issues of little consequence.”

The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu (himself an African, I believe from Uganda) is reported to have said, “If Indaba is such a great idea, why is Africa in such a mess?” There seems to be the beginning of some rumbling that we need to get to a decision-making moment in the life of the Conference.

Nevertheless, I found my two “Indaba” conversations today somewhat more interesting than yesterday’s. The first one discussed the Church’s (the Bishop’s) ministry to young people. And, from across extremely different social and cultural contexts, in many different parts of the world, there were a few key points held in common. First, the Bishop’s personal involvement in meeting with young people can be enormously significant. Secondly, the high priority of training youth leaders, and providing opportunities for young people to meet together beyond their local congregations. And thirdly, the need to provide numerous opportunities for young people to hear and encounter the Gospel, and be given opportunities and encouragement to respond with personal commitment to Christ.

I thought this was a pretty resounding confirmation of what we are attempting to do in Central Florida.

In the second conversation, once again, across extremely different local contexts, there was remarkably deep agreement that most of the implementation of the Church’s mission is at the congregational and diocesan levels, and that there is very little significant support – of any kind – that comes from the Provincial (national) or international levels of the Communion.

There was a general acknowledgement that one of the best things in the Communion is the encouragement of companion relationships between far-flung dioceses, and the proliferation of new forms of companionship at many different levels. It seemed to be agreed among the Americans that we do a few things very well at the national level: specifically, military and prison chaplancies were mentioned, along with the work of Episcopal Relief and Development. Apart from that there was not much enthusiasm for the mission efforts beyond the diocesan level.

This afternoon there was a meeting sponsored by the “Global South” (even though three of its most prominent Provinces are absent). Approximately 150 bishops attended. The history of how the Global South has come to have a life of its own within the larger Communion was recounted, and a brief update on the Anglican Covenant was presented (much more on this to come), and then Bruce MacPherson and Bob Duncan were each invited to speak, Bruce about the work of the Communion Partners, and Bob about the Network, and its evolution into Common Cause.

It was very clearly recognized that these two approaches are complimentary, CP is an “inside” strategy, and CC an “outside” strategy to attempt to maintain and further an orthodox witness and ministry in North America.

It was also clear that the phrase “Global South” no longer accurately names the configuration of Bishops represented, as all parts of the Communion were strongly in evidence. I found this a very encouraging session.

I also had a brief conversation with the Russian Orthodox Bishop who is in my Bible Study (and Indaba Group). I asked him two questions. First, how have things changed for the Church, and for you, since the dismantling of the Soviet Union? “Drastically! Before there were 6,000 parishes in my area, today over 30,000. Before there were 18 monasteries, today over 750. Today I am free to teach religion in the public schools.” Secondly, we in the West were often told that the Soviet government used to place its own people in positions of authority in the Orthodox Church. Was that true? “Yes, but we always knew who those persons were. Usually they were placed there so that, after a time, they could publicly renounce the Faith and embrace atheism.”

I think that if God isn’t finished with the Russian Orthodox, he may not be finished with the Anglican Communion, either!

Warmest regards in our Lord,

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

Watch it all.

Fr. Eric L. Bergman, chaplain of the Thomas Moore Society in Scranton and chaplain of the Anglican Use Society, explained some of the changes that have been made in the Anglican Use.
“The Anglican Use and the Pastoral Provision are now open to Continuing Church Anglicans as well as members of the Episcopal Church,” he said. “The [Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith] said the Pastoral Provision can apply to men in Continuing Churches and their communities.”

Fr. Bergman also said a community in Kansas City is forming because of the new opportunities, but the Anglican Use remains in the United States only, for now.
“Whether it will be expanded to other countries is anybody’s guess,” he said.

Archbishop Myers suggested those who have benefited from the Pastoral Provision over its 28 years of existence should remember that it was granted “for an indefinite period of time.”
“Catholic faithful who worship according to the Anglican Use must never see themselves as different from other Catholics or somehow privileged among other Christian communions,” he said. “We are Catholics together, obedient to the Holy Father, to those bishops in communion with him and ever faithful to magisterial teaching.”

“We long for an expansion of the Anglican Use that would welcome a body into communion,” said Bishop David Moyer, a bishop of the Traditional Anglican Communion and rector of The Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont. “The Traditional Anglican Communion petitioned for that in October. Any move toward expansion of the Anglican Use by the Vatican is very welcomed.”

Read it all.

Press was admitted to the plenary session (yes! Inside the big blue tent) to hear Brian McLaren, an American from Maryland who is an expert in evangelism and has written 10 books about it. He was specifically invited by the Archbishop of Canterbury to speak three times at this conference. He talks about the emerging church, which I did not detect as syncretism of an emerging “Unitarian” type of church. His opening line was “I love Jesus Christ and have come to break open our models for Evangelism. We must proclaim the way of Jesus Christ. You are leaders in this church and this is one of your primary jobs, not being drained by the complex demands of institutional maintenance. You must speak on behalf of those who are not in your churches, people Jesus described as harassed and helpless; those without a shepherd.”

“Evangelism is disciple formation. Nothing else is worthy of that trust beyond Christ. You are here to save the church from division, implosion and exhaustion.”

Pretty good start, right? I did not doubt his commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. But I must admit that it was a very “slick” presentation, a graphically rich Power Point that showed his points on three large screens behind him. The weakness with the presentation was in naming particular countries, continents and cultures as pre-modern, modern and post-modern. The ”˜tsunami’ of change that accompanies a culture going from pre-modern to modern, for example, could lead one to believe that the amazing numbers of conversions in Africa are not authentic; they are superficial and concentrate on how to go to heaven, not how to live on earth. Couple this with the increase in Aids/HIV that we have seen in this “newly Christianized” continent and you may have substantive proof of this shallow discipleship. This information alone may give the Americans more reason to dismiss the Africans and their requests to this conference.

McLaren has two additional sessions today and tomorrow for those who want more specific information on how to go about being evangelists in their local contexts.

Read it all.

Frustration is rising among members of the media here who have been barred from attending a majority of events at the 2008 Lambeth Conference, including the daily eucharist, and who have not been furnished a list of bishops who are present or absent for unspecified “security reasons.”

“All I can say is that all provinces are represented except Uganda,” said Archdeacon Paul Feheley, principal secretary to Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, who is acting as a conference spokesperson. “There were nearly 750 bishops at the 1998 Lambeth. This year, 670 are registered at this point.”

In a press conference, Mr. Feheley said it was not possible to release the names of the bishops present for “security reasons.” He would not elaborate.

Read it all. There is a balance to be struck here but so far Lambeth 2008 has not found the right mix between openness and confidentiality and security–KSH.

Canterbury: The push to seat Gene Robinson at Lambeth Conference failed yesterday after the American bishops declined to force the issue. At their July 21 provincial meeting at the Lambeth Conference the American bishops declined to take action on a request by liberal members of their caucus to ask the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to seat the New Hampshire bishop.

Bishops attending the closed meeting tell ReligiousIntelligence.com that some bishops pushed for Bishop Robinson to be extended an invitation. There followed a substantive discussion of the Robinson issue with several bishops expressing their anger and hurt over his exclusion.

However, the American leadership declined to take up the issue and a growing number of bishops appear to be distancing themselves from the controversial New Hampshire cleric in a bid to avoid conflict with the conference organizers.

Bishop Robinson was forbidden to attend the meeting of his own House of Bishops, writing on his blog the conference organizers do not consider the American meeting to be a meeting of the American House of Bishops but a meeting of American bishops at Lambeth.

Read it all.

The first and irrefutable conclusion that must be drawn from these two documents is the shocking inadequacy of GAFCON’s theological resource group and wider leadership. To have produced a briefing paper claiming to summarise the changes between the Nassau and St Andrew’s draft covenants but actually comparing the St Andrew’s draft to a quite different document unrelated to the covenant (and which many of the GAFCON team were involved in writing) is an astonishing error. That nobody in the group (or among the GAFCON leadership which released it) realised that the claimed removals from the Nassau draft were therefore all fraudulent suggests an inexcusable level of ignorance about the covenant process on the part of all those involved in writing and then disseminating this briefing paper to the wider Communion. The authorship is unclear but either we have a very small number of people writing what claims to be a representative document commended by seven Primates or we have a large group which failed to spot this basic and serious flaw. I am not sure which of these options is I would prefer to be reality. Unfortunately this all gives the strong impression that the conclusion ”“ “the new document is severely flawed and should be repudiated” ”“ was already decided upon on other grounds.

The second conclusion is that the other response of the same team is therefore seriously discredited, especially if it was put together on the basis of the briefing paper or by people who had seen the briefing paper and not realised its basic error.

Read it carefully and read it all. It is very disappointing that there was a basic documentation mistake of this magnitude–KSH.

The first Indaba followed on from the Bible Study which today consisted of only five of us, a Bishop from Connecticut, North America, who is our facilitator, and three Indian bishops. It was a good experience, in which I was encouraged to participate fully. It was humbling to hear the answer to the question – set in the context of the story of Jesus walking on the water and saying to the disciples in the boat, ”˜I am, do not be afraid’ ”“ what are the things that bring fear to Christians in your own context? ”˜Waiting for the church to be burnt for the third time’, ”˜Waiting for an excuse to be attacked.’ And not just for being a minority religion, but for being linked to the West. For these brothers from India expressing faith in ”˜I am’ rather than living in fear was inspiring.

And the Indaba group? Well, so far, it’s what it said on the packing. We set some ground rules and then in quietness answered three questions. We then moved into two conversations in different pairs and then formed a group of five in which we explored in more detail the question, ”˜Who am I as an Anglican bishop?’ At this point I might have felt left out, but not only was I was fully included but the group immediately offered to ordain me to the episcopacy there and then, and were already improvising for a bishop’s staff and Episcopal ring! Of course I resisted. What followed was not significantly different to the conversation I might have with my Team Leader colleagues, or indeed all Regional Ministers.

We then took our one sentence back and with the other small groups within the larger group, shared findings noting points of convergence and divergence.

Read it all.

It was the fourth meeting of our Bible Study Group and we are really relaxing into each other’s company. So far we have skirted around the gay issue, which is probably just as well as we need to secure our confidence and trust in each other before tackling it. But today was a powerful time as we talked about ”˜fear’, drawing on the story of Jesus walking on the water and the fear of disciples.

The stories of fear from members of our group who have been in the civil wars and strife of Africa were demanding. The two of us from the West really had little to contribute as, in truth, we live very safe and predictable lives. One of our number helped us understand that he fears that he would be deposed if he was known to have become soft on issues central to the thinking of his Diocese – and another piece fell into place in the jig-saw of the complexity of the issues which face the Conference.

The double dose of Indaba was clearly designed to get us in the mood for dancing together. There are certainly those who are very suspicious of this process, feeling far more at home with weighty reports, set piece speeches and a western style parliamentary approach to ordering the mind of the church – convincing them that Indaba will work may be an uphill struggle. But we all appeared willing to try and my group had a good go at establishing an ”˜Anglican Identity’. It was very much a first day at this and other groups clearly found the process frustrating.

Read it all.

The remarkable thing about the study is that a student’s ability at age four to defer gratification is correlated with better outcomes much later in life, such as academic and social competence. For example, one follow-up paper found a statistically significant relationship between how long a student waited to ring the bell and — more than a decade later — their “ability to cope with frustration and stress in adolescence.”

New York Times columnist David Brooks has cited this study and inferred that most social problems are rooted in an inability to defer gratification. He argues that for people with poor self-control “life is a parade of foolish decisions: teen pregnancy, drugs, gambling, truancy and crime.” I agree. I can find no other compelling explanation for why someone would do something as utterly ridiculous as dropping out of high school, no matter how bad the school is.

But I’ll see David Brooks and raise him one. I find myself asking an even bigger question: Is America as a nation losing its ability to wait for the second marshmallow? By that, I mean can we still muster the political will and personal sacrifice to make investments today that will make us richer and stronger 10, 20, or 50 years from now?

Read it all.

Is there any question that as the first blogged Lambeth Conference this one is more interesting as a result? I commend the bishops for their blogging, and for the time and sacrifice they are putting in to doing it–KSH.