A report backed by the heads of all the Anglican provinces around the world has put forward the innovative proposal as a way to settle the dispute between conservatives, who oppose the ordination of homosexual clergy and the blessing of same-sex unions, and liberals.
The external mediators will try to reconcile differences between the Common Cause Partnership, a group of orthodox Anglicans in America and Canada who want to set up a new province, and the national churches from which they have split.
At the end of a week-long gathering of the leaders of the 38 Anglican provinces in Alexandria, Egypt, known as the Primates Meeting, they said in a joint communique: “We request the Archbishop of Canterbury to initiate a professionally mediated conversation which engages all parties at the earliest opportunity. We commit ourselves to support these processes and to participate as appropriate.”
I suggest we use a mediator from among those recommended by an outsider, such as Pope Benedict.
external mediators
This would appear to exclude Anglicans as mediators. Would Christians also be excluded as mediators? Will we seek the Jews to help us sort out our doctrine? Will we seek out atheists to help us rightly divide the word of truth? Oh sorry, scratch that. For the majority of the primates, there is no word of truth, everything is relative and open to mediation. Mediation, ah yes, mediate us right to the middle. Not too hot. Not too cold. Right in there with the Church of Laodicea.
Thank you, primates, for your bold leadership. Your leadership so clearly taking us off to Laodicea. Now the real question. Who will follow whom?
So it actually is going to be multi-party marriage counseling after all!
Hint: I never bought a ticket for Sodom. I am not about to buy one for Laodicea.
Marriage counseling, last-ditch effort before the divorce. As long as it’s not binding arbitration, one more try may be worth the effort, assuming the moderator is actually not biased. There’s the catch.
This sounds oh-so-therapeutic…one denomination under therapy, so to speak, to paraphrase the title of Dr. Satel’s book.
The primates’ communique admonished and cautioned ACNA and not ECUSA.
So, if we are to use the marriage counseling analogue and consider “…the Faith once given….” as an expression of the marriage vows of the Anglican Communion, then who is the ‘wayward spouse’ in this situation.
The wayward spouse is clearly ECUSA. ECUSA has essentially declared that its relationship with the Anglican Communion is one of ‘open marriage.’ That is, its wants all of the benefits of marriage without being encumbered by marriage’s obligations.
On the other hand, ACNA declares that its Anglcans are still being true to their original vows to “…the Faith once given….”
So who needs the couseling? Easy answer. ECUSA needs the counseling and it should come directly and emphatically from those primates who still unequivocably adhere to “…the Faith once given….” Where was you voice in the primates’ communique?
#7. AnglicanFirst,
Two points:
1. You are so, so right!
2. Ain’t gonna happen!
— Stan
I like the idea of a non-Anglican mediator. Following the example of the Muslim family that holds the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre’s main door, how about engaging a respected Islamic theologian and mediator from the Middle East?
Employing mediation implies that the basic disagreement involves the parties’ interests, perceptions, and human relations—not a fundamental difference of theological principle.
If that’s what’s going on here, then it’s a telling and tragic misdiagnosis.
In other words, Irenaeus, they haven’t a clue and were totally hoodwinked by KJS presentation of lies.
It is possible to mediate between request for a salary of $100,000 and an offer to pay $90,000. It is not possible to negotiate a choice between life and death (the miracle worker from [i]The Princess Bride[/i] notwithstanding).
Hey, any chance of appealing to the PM of GB or the Queen about this, since there is every indication that they may be losing a large number of their last remaining empire, the Anglican Communion.
Jim Elliott
Florida
Did Solomon mediate between the two women? Would TEC have told him to cut up the child? Maybe the equivalent of the loving mother offering to give up the baby would be for orthodox Anglicans to simply leave and set up their own body via Gafcon. Per the Gamaliel hypothesis, I believe the original Anglican Communion would either not exist or exist in only a very diminished form within a few decades. Besides, given the self-destructive impulses exhibited by political, intellectual and many spiritual leaders in Great Britain, do we really want to continue to look towards Canterbury for spiritual leadership?
“Mediation”, Hmpf. Yeah, right. The Ecumenical Councils were a better model. I can just see Arius asking for outside professional mediation, and what the orthodox bishops at Nicea would have said about such feminized silliness. That request obviously emanated from either Mrs Schori via Rowan or a similar source. Such grasping at straws I have never seen. It disgusts and disappoints me that such luminaries as Archbishops Venables, Orombi, and Akinola would have agreed to it. Alas for the orthodox! They really don’t have the killer instinct that Mrs Schori has. If the tables were turned and she was in the majority, she would amaze the world by her implacable ruthlessness toward those who disagree with her. But, Oh! she does that already, doesn’t she?
#14 Amen.
Don’t they UNDERSTAND? There can BE no mediation as long as TEC holds to the course they’re on! There is no talking with these people. They will not listen, but they expect everyone ELSE to do all of the listening. If this process is adopted, nothing will change; it will mean talk, talk, talk, and more talk, and what will the result be? It is over…..so why can’t we all just admit it?
It may just be me, but I suspect that something else has transpired via the meeting, at least between +Cantuar and primates +Akinola, +Orombi and +Venables, based on the comments referenced in Rev. Greorge Conger’s article at The Living Church.
Please don’t misunderstand, I don’t hold out hope for any sort of mediated resolution. But I have considerable difficulty squaring the quoted remarks of +Venables with what is offered in the [i]communiqué[/i].
Is it not possible that +Cantuar might finally have come to grips with the realities of TEC’s fundamental behavior and what it implies about their path? I think that possibility is at least equally likely as the alternative explanations which suggest themselves, namely, [i]either[/i] that +Schori and +Cantuar have again managed to [i]sell[/i] the idea that there will be true “gracious restraint” from TEC, [i]or[/i] that +Cantuar is promising, yet again without firm intent to deliver, some form of decision by some sort of date, or event, certain. After all, neither +Venables, +Orombi nor +Akinola strikes me as particularly gullible or naive. TEC GC09 (Anaheim) might very well be the “make or break” event on which action would hinge.
Blessings and regards,
Keith Toepfer
I mean this in all seriousness; this is not an attempt at sarcasm or snark. Is the Anglican Communion relevant? As a body, as an institution, as a theological school of thought? Would it make more sense let the whole thing fall apart and let those who chose to associate together do so, without the constraints of “other people” telling them what to do?
http://tinyurl.com/adh2dt
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[Comment deleted – off topic and prosyletising weblink – Elf]
Irenaeus (10), you are so right! One may “mediate” a civil law dispute, or secular disagreement, but HOW in the name of all that is sacred do these church leaders propose to “mediate” fundamental matters of church doctrine and belief? While we’re at it, should we “mediate” the church’s position on fornication, or “open marriage,” or adultery?
Edited by Elf
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There is a big disconnect. See [url=http://stillonpatrol.typepad.com/still_on_patrol/2009/02/less-amazed-more-confused.html ]David Trimble’s essay[/url] on the interview of ++Orombi and ++Venables who state the communion is broke and there are two IR-reconcilable religions and Rowan’s call’s for reconciliation with [strike]Delphi manipulators[/strike] professional mediators. In particular, there is talk about “progress” being made between Recife and the completely heretical, hedonistic Brazilian church. I sure haven’t heard of any such progress. If Rowan thinks that ADV or AMiA churches or say, Matt Kennedy+’s church is going to crawl back under the talons of Ms Schori, he is absolutely clueless.
# 15, Senior Priest…you’re so right about the feminized silliness!