This is from the comments below but I am highlighting it in case others missed it:
I remain at a loss as to why this is being proposed NOW, and being made public NOW, just as the Primates meet. I am grateful for the openness and desire for discussion around the concrete proposals (unlike some dioceses with which I am familiar). And in the spirit of such discussion, I included the following in a letter I sent yesterday to two of the Toronto bishops.
It is hard to escape the fact that the process you have now set in motion — one that involves public proposals, discussions, synodical actions, and all dealing with a way of ordering a particular “pastoral response” that involves episcopal oversight and particular permissions, following directives that involve the nature of prayers ”“ cannot avoid being seen as one of ecclesial “authorization” of liturgical matters surrounding same-sex unions. The following words of the Archbishop of Canterbury were given at the end of the recent Lambeth Conference:
One of the problems around this is that people in different parts of the world clearly define ‘public’ and ‘rites’ and ‘blessing’ in rather different ways. I’d refer I think to what I said in the address this afternoon. As soon as there is a liturgical form it gives the impression: this has the Church’s stamp on it. As soon as that happens I think you’ve moved to another level of apparent commitment, and that I think is nowhere near where the Anglican Communion generally is. In the meeting of Primates at Gramado in Brazil some years ago, the phrase ‘A variety of pastoral response’ was used as an attempt to recognise that there were places where private prayers were said and, although there’s a lot of unease about that, there wasn’t quite the same strength of feeling about that as about public liturgies. But again ‘pastoral response’ has been interpreted very differently and there are those in the USA who would say: ‘Well, pastoral response means rites of blessing’, and I’m not very happy about that. (Final Press Conference, August 3, 2008)
I would underline two things in this response by Archbishop Williams. First, the key character of putting the “Church’s stamp” on same-sex unions somehow, simply by there being a publically permitted or authorized form of prayer (“liturgical form” ”“ which is a deliberately vague phrase), is crucial. Second, the fact that “pastoral response” was always understood among the Primates at least ”“ and even here with a great deal of trepidation ”“ as involving no more than “private prayers”. Although you and your colleagues may feel that you are proposing something that would fall within this realm of only informal acknowledgments of private prayer, the very process you are following will make this very difficult to sustain in the judgments of many others around the Communion. The fact is that, among other things, your proposal includes the following:
Ӣ Episcopal permission be given to a limited number of parishes, based on Episcopal discernment, to offer prayers and blessing (but not the nuptial blessing) to same-sex couples in stable, long-term, committed relationships, as an extension of the current pastoral norms.
Ӣ Episcopal guidelines on the nature of the prayers/blessing will be established. A particular rite will not be authorized.
Ӣ Episcopal permission for blessings will be required.
Ӣ Evaluation of this pastoral response will be undertaken after one year.
Ӣ No parish or clergy will be required to participate.
”¢ A Bishop’s Commission will be formed to create the guidelines, monitor activity and review.All of this represents formal, episcopal, diocesan, public, liturgical prayers of blessing. And while it is true that the Archbishop’s remarks above do not carry any kind of formal authority in determining how the Church of Canada and her bishops will define “pastoral response”, I think it fair to say that his rather moderate definitions will be shared by, and even defined more strictly by, many others among our Communion partners. I believe, in short, that it will be very difficult indeed to make the case and persuade others of the fact that the Diocese of Toronto is not moving forward with a contravention of the informal moratorium articulated at Lambeth (and before), not to mention moving in a way that simply does not defer to the general concerns of many Anglicans around the world.
I think it’s nothing more complicated than moving forward with the GLBT agenda knowing that the AC will do nothing about it. Nothing has happened yet of any substance to slow them down and I don’t think that they will treat the Covenant with any greater respect.
Quite frankly I am surprised that Fr. Radner is suprised and at a loss. This is simply more of the same.
“If it walks like a duck . . . ” Dr. Radner’s point ad I understand it is that once the bishop becomes involved it is a matter of church policy. In the Episcopal Church the General Convention has established by canon a procedure for remarriage of divorced persons which requires clergy who wish to officiate as such a marriage to secure the bishop’s permission to do so. When I was interim in Smithfield, NC, a couple had a civil marriage at the bride’s home followed by a blessing of the civil marriage at the church. This had been arranged by my predecessor and the officiant was a friend of the couple from out of state. When I asked the bishop’s office for advice I learned that such blessings in that diocese were considered under the same guidelines as remarriage, but that apparently was not the case in the diocese where the officiant was resident.
[i] Ad hominem comment deleted by elf. [/i]
#3,
That last sentence – even if you believe it – is out of line. Whatever one thinks of the Archbishop of Canterbury, that he is not.
Intercessor,
RE: “Rowan Williams is Prince of Darkness.”
I just can’t give him enough credit for that. ; > )
The thread where Dr. Radner made his comments is here:
http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/20051
And he makes two more comments in response to various other comments.
Elves, please wake up from your nap and view #3. Not helpful.
#’s 4 & 6: hear, hear.
#2 Tom, that sounds like a “border crossing” to me.
Maybe Rowan Williams is more like the Prince of Fog. The Prince of Effusion? The Prince of Confusion? THE KING of ‘Tween?
How about the Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion. May God be with him.
Good grief, people.
I thought Ozzy Osborne was the “Prince of Darkness”?
What I’m wondering is what is so wrong about what Williams said. OK, maybe one might want to say that as soon as people aren’t disciplined for making such blessings, in any form, however private, then things have become hopeless. I am dubious about that. In an Anglican church, however, I have to agree with him that a diocese setting out a rite which can be publicly performed is the crossing of a Rubicon. At the point, the practice is ordained.
So now a bit of fluff is recalled about the nature of modernity in its understanding of language and that’s supposed to have some effect on the actualized realities of the North Americans? To wit, the “gentleman’s agreement” in the ECUSA/TEC/GCC/EO-PAC understanding and practice as applied by the Canadians?
Well, some quarters still believe in miracles! I am surprised and delighted, but not at all hopeful.
It saddens me to see Dr. Radner’s piece here, something I’ll attribute to his being more generous of heart than I.
To me, it has been clear that the revisionists are moving ahead on the gay agenda come hell or high water. The reason this is being proposed now is, quite simply, that it is the next step. This has nothing to do with religion…it’s a political project in vestments. It will continue until those in authority put a stop to it. I wish I could offer more comfort.
Williams may be a great liberal intellectual, but a leader he is not.
This may not be very original thinking but it suddenly occurred to me that if GLBT Blessings and Marriages are established practices in Canada and TEC then this will actually influence HOW the Anglican Covenant will be framed rather than the Covenant shaping practice. There seems to be the frequent use of action to set precedence followed by a “new tradition”.
I and others had stated pretty much what #1 had said. Ephraim+ [url=http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/20051/#331565 ]responded[/url]:
[blockquote] The ardency of certain revisionists is beyond doubt, to be sure. And if that ardency is simply wedded to a desire to avoid Communion “consequencesâ€, perhaps all this makes sense. But it is still irrational at a local level.
The Diocese of Toronto is not like many a TEC diocese in this respect. To a degree that is far more advanced than in TEC, many of the Anglican Church of Canada’s institutions and much of its infrastructure is decayed and decaying. There is hardly any endowment money in most congregations and dioceses, seminaries have atrophied tremendously in terms of numbers and finances and so on. What Toronto has, by contrast to some areas, is a (as I said) vibrant set of more conservative churches, and the most successful seminary, in terms of numbers and structural health (among other things), in all of Anglican North America (Wycliffe College—although Wycliffe is an independent school that is not affiliated with the diocese; I also leave aside some of the thriving conservative churches of the aboriginal north). There are, to be sure, some thriving liberal congregations as well. But the present and future of the church clearly does not lie in that direction, from a simple numbers standpoint. As I said, this is far more obvious in Canada than it is in the US. This really is cutting off your nose to spite your face in many ways. It may be “perfect timing†for a convicted martyr of sorts, but it doesn’t really add up according to most kinds of rational calculus.
I realize that there is a certain satisfaction in all this on the part of some here on the blog, a kind of “I told you so†attitude. It may be well-founded, I don’t know. But there is human rationality—clearly a weak reed—and there is divine rationality. I continue to trust in and learn from the latter, and to use and appeal to the former as best I can. [/blockquote]
I and others then pointed out what Sarah has been saying for a long time. The liberal ideologues don’t care about consequences. In fact, I think they revel in the disastrous outcomes.
re 10: The problem is that the ECUSA and ACC hierarchy are terrible followers. Their various willfulnesses have made the communion increasingly unleadable.
[i] I remain at a loss as to why this is being proposed NOW, and being made public NOW, just as the Primates meet[/i] —Fr. Radner
Perhaps the Toronto bishops are celebrating their Canterbury-conferred impunity.
They have confidence that no Rowan-managed process or covenant will lay a finger on them.