Perhaps some joining of Catholics and evangelicals, in morals and manners, could achieve the social unity in theological difference that characterized the old Mainline. But the vast intellectual resources of Catholicism still sound a little odd in the American ear, just as the enormous reservoir of evangelical faith has been unable, thus far, to provide a widely accepted moral rhetoric.

America was Methodist, once upon a time””or Baptist, or Presbyterian, or Congregationalist, or Episcopalian. Protestant, in other words. What can we call it today? Those churches simply don’t mean much any more. That’s a fact of some theological significance. It’s a fact of genuine sorrow, for that matter, as the aging members of the old denominations watch their congregations dwindle away: funeral after funeral, with far too few weddings and baptisms in between. But future historians, telling the story of our age, will begin with the public effect in the United States.

As he prepared to leave the presidency in 1796, George Washington famously warned, “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” Generally speaking, however, Americans tended not to worry much about the philosophical question of religion and nation. The whole theologico-political problem, which obsessed European philosophers, was gnawed at in the United States most by those who were least churched.

We all have to worry about it, now. Without the political theory that depended on the existence of the Protestant Mainline, what does it mean to support the nation? What does it mean to criticize it? The American experiment has always needed what Alexis de ­Tocqueville called the undivided current, and now that current has finally run dry.

Read it all.

China said the number of Internet users in the country reached about 253 million last month, putting it ahead of the United States as the world’s biggest Internet market.

The estimate, based on a national phone survey and released on Thursday by the China Internet Network Information Center in Beijing, showed a powerful surge in Internet adoption in this country over the last few years, particularly among teenagers.

The number of Internet users jumped more than 50 percent, or by about 90 million people, during the last year, said the center, which operates under the government-controlled Chinese Academy of Sciences. The new estimate represents only about 19 percent of China’s population, underscoring the potential for growth.

By contrast, about 220 million Americans are online, or 70 percent of the population, according to the Nielsen Company. Japan and South Korea have similarly high percentages.

Read it all.

Here are the first four principles from the booklet entitled: “The Principles of Canon Law Common to the Churches of the Anglican Communion”

While the document is based on this earlier draft, a quick comparison with just these four principles will show that significant changes have been made to the final published text.

Read it all.

The Indaba process is, I think, evolving. It seems to have begun like a Western ecumenical Lent group – buzz in pairs, talk in quartets, report back with coloured pens and stick it all on the wall and have bright ideas about what is strikingly common and what is strikingly missing. The problem has been Western haste – five topics that would each keep a UN department fully deployed for years despatched in half a morning – instead of (as I understand it) a long period of listening and consultation on a single pressing matter – a meeting lasting days. But ‘they’ are listening to us and it should evolve….

In short, the Anglican Communion, via its Indaba groups and its plenaries at Lambeth, needs to head for a new settlement. One possibility is a split into evangelical and liberal Communions (in which there might be room still for traditionalists of all stripes in the former – if Sidney behaves on lay presidency and evangelicals don’t get as upset about Mary as one or two of them seemed to be when Cardinal Diaz gave us his memorable phrase Fiat, Magnificat and Stabat as models of Christian discipleship). The other is to say that the cork is out of the bottle on women’s ordination but we (which wouldn’t include me) could nonetheless ‘all’ regroup round a Covenant-monitored common hermeneutic (which certainly could not include serial monogamy or homosexual marriage) and maintain the Communion, which would be a godly thing and faithful to the Lord’s high priestly prayer.

Read it all.

As hard as this may be to hear, the Episcopal Church of the Sudan may be showing the Communion a way forward. Recently the Archbishop of the Sudan made some very strong statements about Bishop Gene Robinson and the Episcopal Church. Since the Sudanese along with Liberian bishops and some others had been invited by our Presiding Bishop for a reception tomorrow afternoon, when we first learned of Archbishop Bul’s statement to the press, we thought it signalled a rejection of us and a further splitting in the Anglican Communion. This does not appear to be the case.

We in the Episcopal Church have always said that we do not demand agreement with our positions in order to be in relationship. Now is the time to live into that commitment. The Archbishop of the Sudan was signalling to the rest of Africa, and I imagine particularly to the bishops of GAFCON who have stayed away from this conference, that he and the Sudanese are not being “bought” by the Americans. They do not agree with our actions, just as our other partners in Africa do not necessarily agree with us. And still they are choosing to be in relationship with us.

Hold in mind the words of Bishop Mdimi Mhogolo to me when we first entered into a partnership for Carpenter’s Kids. “We do not agree with your decision [concerning Gene Robinson] but we think the division is the devil’s work to keep the church from ministering to a suffering world.” Of course, Bishop Mdimi said those words to me in private and the Archbishop of the Sudan went very public very unexpectedly. Nevertheless, I believe we should keep this particular door wide open. The Sudan is one of the places where extreme poverty and extreme violence combine to produce some of the greatest suffering on this earth. As long as the bishops choose to be in relationship with us, we can move ahead to minister together to this suffering world.

Read it all.

There are a whole bunch here, click on the one’s which interest you.

This is a 60 page download and is a key background document to be aware of as Lambeth 2008 continues to unfold.

The message Friday during an afternoon self-select group session was a gentle one delivered by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster. He said the search for unity was worth the effort, but that “new tensions only slow the progress.”

But Bishop Alvarez said that what had been “a very good process even under Pope John Paul II” has changed under the new pope.

“They are the ones who are the obstacles,” Bishop Alvarez said, contending that Pope Benedict was placing too much emphasis on issues such as the ordination of women and homosexuals, which were not issues decided during the Church’s first seven ecumenical councils. “My concern is that they open themselves to dialogue instead of just saying this is wrong.”

Read it all.

Back to Ordinary days, this being the Ordinary Day 5. Same schedule, 7:15 Eucharist, today by The Church of North India and the Church of Bangladesh, then breakfast. Bible Study today covered John 8: 31-59. While we discussed that my Bible Study is becoming closer and closer and wanted to process the day before, the ironies, the incredible sight and feel of marching with our brothers and sisters for a cause that deserves and needs our moral and spiritual voice, hunger and poverty. That day will not soon be lost on any of us. Thanks to Mary Allen, one picture was found with me, kind of in it. I put it in just above. Also, you can see the BBC news video at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/7523539.stm

Today, we turned our focus to one of the issues that I have the most passion about and the one that I think is the most serious for us to have a voice; Climate Change and Global Warming. In my self select session I again attended the Climate Change workshop entitled today “The consequences of of climate change From South to North” The Chair was John Prichard, Bishop of Oxford, UK, and Tom Wilmot, Bishop of Perth, Australia and Bishop Mark McDonald, National Indigenous Bishop, Toronto, Canada and former bishop of Alaska. This was a fascinating discussion. I am very heartened by how many bishops see this as a major focus and how many want to know more.

Read it all.

The topic for today was Serving Together — the Bishop and other churches.

In our Indaba group, we watched the video by Dame Mary Tanner, of the World Council of Churches. One of the members reminded us that Desmond Tutu had said apartheid was too strong for one church. We talked about other things that are too strong for one church, such as poverty, racism, cultural-values and environment. For example, the MDGs and environment are larger than the Anglican Communion — these and others are issues for other religions and groups as well. We talked that in order to end poverty, we must deal with environment.

Read it all.

The paper proposing the Faith and Order Commission arose out of the July 23 hearing. In addition to proposing a new instrument of unity, the provisional paper released today also questioned the usefulness of the Anglican Consultative Council as it is currently configured.

“There are questions about whether a body meeting every three years, with a rapidly changing membership, not necessarily located within the central structures of their own provinces, can fulfill adequately the tasks presently given to it,” the paper stated. “Not all believe that a representative body is the best way to express the contribution of the whole people of God at a worldwide level. There are many ways in which the voice of the whole body can be heard: diocesan and provincial synods, networks, dialogues and commissions.”

The concluding work of the Windsor Continuation Group will involve trying to come to some consensus about where the bishops as the Lambeth Conference think the Anglican Communion should be headed. Archbishop Handford cautioned against expecting an immediate solution by the end of this conference.

“This isn’t a quick fix,” he said. “Dialogue is [the] key.”

Read it all.

In a press conference, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams would not go into detail about the proposal, saying only that “there is a very strong feeling that we need another level of structure to have a clearing house for some of these issues.” He added: “I don’t want to say anything about the detail because it’s a flag raised to see who salutes it.” He said the proposal was being discussed by bishops in their indaba groups today. “We’ll see how it flies.”

Already some questions are being raised as to whether such a commission would be equivalent to the powerful Pontifical Biblical Commission of the Roman Catholic Church, composed of cardinals who meet in Rome and whose duties include protecting and defending “the integrity of the Catholic faith” and deciding on “controversies on grave questions which may arise among Catholic scholars to ensure their proper interpretation.”

Asked how the Lambeth Conference might be able to offer such prescription since it has no authority to impose rules or prescriptions, Archbishop Williams said, “I’m looking for consent, not coercion. But unless we do have something to consent to, something which we trust to resolve our differences, we shall be (moving) further apart. It’s not as if we can just co-exist without any impact on one another.”

Read it all.

Q: The bishops would be asked to affirm the code of practice? Is it your mind that the provinces would make a promise to follow these principles?

A: This is, again, a descriptive exercise

Q: Then there are no teeth? It is a pretty picture
A: It is not at all, it is incredibly significant

Q: It is a VERY pretty picture?

A: It is exploring what we can deduce about our life together as we look at the way the material presents law around the word. This is not the covenant

Q: How does this feed into the covenant then?

A: It will be illustrative of some of the material that will be encapsulated in other ways in the covenant but the covenant process and this one are two distinct processes

Q I am trying to glean what this is. Could you say this is a tool to use by the AC in order to make the covenant work? I cannot believe that you do not hope it will have some effect on the communion?

A: Yes I speak about this having “persuasive authority” which is a legal concept. And very often you would do that when something is not written in a particular code or constitution. You must understand that the laws, the COE laws, are thick. The US TEC law is of a significant size. There are provinces where very little is written and you have bear bones. Part of this is to help provinces like that. If you are trying to figure out what the law could be in your province this could help you to find your way through.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Along with keeping his distance from Robinson, Archbishop Williams has ensured that the conference will hold no formal votes that could highlight divisions.

“Are we heading for schism? Well, let’s see,” Williams said at a news conference. “If it is the end, I do not think anyone has told most of the people here.”

Robinson said some people in the church are fearful of change and fearful that supporting gay people is contrary to Scripture.

Over the years, he said, “Scripture has been used to denigrate women, justify slavery and not welcome divorced people.” Thinking does change, he said, and “it’s not a matter of if, but when people will accept homosexuality” in the highest ranks of the church.

Read it all.

Earlier this week, Massachusetts Bishop M. Thomas Shaw sent back an e-missive from Lambeth to his flock. Emulating St. Paul (“speaking the truth in love”), Shaw alluded to “some frustration emerging in the conference around how [the indaba groups] are very process oriented and aren’t allowing for the conversations that people are really interested in to take place.” He further noted that “There’s been some controversy over a statement issued by bishops of Sudan and signed by Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul, calling for Gene Robinson’s resignation.”

“It’s going to take us awhile to find our way,” writes Shaw, who spent part of the following day at Buckingham Palace, bantering with Prince Philip. “It seems to me that that’s what we’re doing, finding our way, and for the most part, I think people are being faithful to that.”

My father wasn’t particularly religious and he wasn’t particularly Episcopalian. (Note to my sons: Don’t even think about discussing my religious beliefs in public.) He had a genial demeanor, and I remember him discussing Kit and Frederica Konolige’s classic book, “The Power of Their Glory; America’s Ruling Class: The Episcopalians” with me. The authors, who may have coined the term “Episcocrats,” take a sardonic view of the “Tory Party at prayer,” as Episcopalians are sometimes called.

But my father somehow concluded that, the criticisms notwithstanding, Episcopalians emerged from the book more or less unscathed. “[The authors] seem to think that we are good people, at heart,” he said. Now I wonder if they were right.

He leads an international fellowship of 77 million Anglicans but doesn’t like to travel first class.

His official residence is a grand palace in London, but he and his family live in small rooms furnished like any other middle-class British home.

He is the successor of Saints Augustine and Thomas Becket but counts himself a fan of “The Simpsons.”

With his bushy beard and black berets, Rowan Williams might more closely resemble the headmaster at Harry Potter’s Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry than previous archbishops of Canterbury. But the Welshman is considered one of the most important — and powerful — thinkers in Christianity today.

“Without a doubt, he is one of the most theologically astute archbishops of Canterbury that there has ever been,” said the Rev. John L. Peterson, who, as former secretary general of the Anglican Communion, worked closely with Williams.

Read it all.

[The indaba process’s] main thrust is to enable every member of the group to take responsibility for the process and agreed outcome. The group I am in has witnessed some very powerful and moving exchanges.

For an American liberal to hear how his action has led to the deaths of fellow Anglicans in another part of the world is not easy. There is work to do here and no guarantees that the hearing will turn to understanding; but that will not be the fault of the process.

Whatever the final outcome next week, what cannot be denied is that this has offered a new experience and a new way of doing our business.

Rather than displace serious attention to hard issues, these groups have provided a context of respectful relationship in which hard things can be said and heard.

Many western liberals now understand better how their actions affect people in New Guinea and Tanzania. And many Africans now understand better that the assumptions they bring to the debates also need to be checked.

Read it all.

Canterbury: A “bombshell” report is expected to be delivered to bishops attending the 14th Lambeth Conference on July 28 that is expected to call for the Episcopal Church to abandon its push for gay bishops and blessings.
Lambeth: Is Inquisition on the cards?

The request is expected to come in the third presentation of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) to the bishops at Lambeth and follows a call for the creation of an Anglican Holy Office to police the boundaries of the faith.

Backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican “Faith and Order Commission” will be a fifth instrument of unity for the Anglican Communion.

Plans for were disclosed on July 23 during the second of three briefings on the work of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) chaired by the former Presiding Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East, Bishop Clive Handford.

In its briefing paper to the bishops, the WCG commended the creation of an “Anglican Communion Faith and Order Commission that could give guidance on the ecclesiological issues raised by our current ”˜crisis’.”

Read it all.

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.

The Communion’s big agenda must flow from the love of God and not omit the god-ward axis in Micah’s challenge to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God.

At the same time we should not underestimate the significance of developing our institutional life.

At a time when the hegemony of the Western World is giving way to a multi-polar world in which the cultures of Asia and Africa will rightly have an increasing voice it is time to develop our arrangements for conversation, cooperation and mutual accountability.

We should draw on the history and the thought of the whole Christian church in attempting to discern the fundamental principles which have shaped the Anglican engagement with God and neighbour thus far.

In this task we cannot do without the bishops who are not at this conference. Their absence is a real loss.

Read it all

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Thursday was, as expected, a very long day (and a significant “break” in our routine). I think it was quite a good day, the highlight (for me, at least) being the “rally” on the front lawn of Lambeth Palace. Archbishop Williams was at his most eloquent, but the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was even more so, in his passionate call for the governments of the world – but even more so for the Christians of the world to pressure their governments – to recommit to the Millennium Development Goals, and make them a reality.

If you have seen pictures of that event you may have noticed an oddity: hanging on the twin pillars outside the entrance to the Palace were banners enunciating two of the three phrases from the day’s text, Micah 6:8. One read “Do Justice,” the other “Love Mercy.” Missing altogether was third piece of the command: “Walk Humbly With Your God.”

Fortunately, however, that third (and arguably most important) piece was not at all neglected by any of the day’s speakers.

Frankly, I cannot recall hearing an elected official, serving in anywhere the capacity of a Prime Minister of England; speak so openly about his/her personal faith in Christ and its implications for service.

The rest of the day was lovely, and it unfolded as was planned and expected.

Today the “revolt” I have been predicting began to surface. It is a very mild one, indeed, but a growing frustration is being expressed in many of the “Indaba” groups about what one senior Bishop called the “jejune” conversations taking place, to the neglect of the truly deep concerns that most people want to talk about. It is also a concern about “process” – breaking into small groups to discuss every specific may provide for “every voice being heard,” but the fact is, not every one wishes to speak to every specific issue.

Our group, and several others, did away with the small group structure altogether today, and we had a discussion of the whole: in 90 minutes 16 out of 36 people spoke, and the others were glad to listen. The subject today was “The Bishop and Other Churches” (read: ecumenical cooperation).

There is a growing “push” to get to the issues that remain of greatest concern at this moment in our history: Human Sexuality and the Anglican Covenant. We have only seven working days left, ten hours of “Indaba” discussion: We shall see what the next week brings.

The Bible Study today was on John 8:31-59, and the two statements of Jesus that our commentary/study guide termed the “high point” and the “low point” of John’s Gospel. “High point”: Jesus’ unqualified assertion, “Before Abraham was, I am.” (verse 58) And the “Low point”: his accusation that “the Jews” were “from your father, the devil…” (verse 44)

The commentary acknowledged that this verse has been cited by many throughout Christian history as a basis for anti-Semitism, and it asked us to consider carefully that “the Jews” in question were among those “who had believed in [Jesus].” (8:30, 31) This was not a condemnation of all Jews everywhere; this was a condemnation by a Jew (Jesus) of other Jews, who had – on some level, at least, and in some fashion, at least – believed in him. (Could there be implications for any of us, today? Is it possible that we might “believe” inadequately enough that he would have harsh words for us, as well?)

Our group got into a very interesting discussion at that point, and we reached no consensus. The question was: is it possible for someone who says, “Jesus is ‘my way’ [or, perhaps, ‘our way’],” but who cannot say, “Jesus is ‘the way'” – to be a real Christian?

(We were in full agreement that such a limited confession is “sub-Christian,” but some thought that a person able to make even that much of a confession might be trusting Christ sufficiently for his/her salvation that when the time comes Jesus will not say to that person, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” Others were convinced that putting such qualifications on one’s confession effectively puts him/her outside the Family.)

I will be interested to see whether this begins a thread on the list serve!

It reminds me of the Final Exam Jaroslav Pelikan asked at the end of his “History of Christian Theology” course at Yale: “Must Theology be Trinitarian to be Christian?” A one word answer was not sufficient!

(BTW, I got an “A.”)

If our Conference unfolds as currently planned, the topics remaining are:

July 26 – The Bishop and the Environment
July 27 – Sunday Worship
July 28 – The Bishop, Christian Witness and Other Faiths
July 29 – A Plenary Session, no topic announced
July 30 – The Bishop and the Bible in Mission
July 31 – The Bishop and Human Sexuality
Aug 1 – The Bishop, the Anglican Covenant and the Windsor Process (1)
Aug 2 – The Bishop, the Anglican Covenant and the Windsor Process (2)
Aug 3 – The Bishop as a Leader in God’s Mission

August 4 – my bus leaves for Heathrow at 4 AM.

Thanks for your prayers and words of encouragement.

Warmest regards in our Lord to all of you,

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