A meeting in London this week of traditionalist Anglicans has dismissed attempts to accommodate orthodox believers and says that if the liberal leaders of the North American churches sign up to the proposed Anglican Covenant ”˜in good conscience’, it will be meaningless.
The leaders of the Gafcon movement issued a communiqué after their meeting at a hotel near Heathrow Airport in which they gave recognition to dissident Anglicans in North America. They said: “The FCA Primates’ Council recognizes the Anglican Church in North America as genuinely Anglican and recommends that Anglican Provinces affirm full communion with the ACNA.”
[blockquote]if the liberal leaders of the North American churches sign up to the proposed Anglican Covenant ‘in good conscience’, it will be meaningless.[/blockquote]
Once again, a variation of the Marx brothers statement helps us understand this. “I would not belong to any club that would have them as members”
#1 Do you see any danger of that happening?
May thr FCA be blessed and prosper and somehow also have a tonic effect of the increasing TEC poison. This pro-women’s ordination, inclusive and GLBT affirming member is feeling more and more dis-ease in my church. I want an inclusive Orthodoxy but what I’m getting is liturgical Unitarianism.
If TEC were honest with herself she would enter into full communion status with Unitarian Universalists albeit requiring them to be ordained in the historic episcopate.
The Emergent Church is our best last hope for revival.
#2. PG,
I thought initially that ACNA could and would quickly sign on to the Covenant. However, as I listen to the GAFCON Primates and read between the lines it sounds as if there is a reluctance to sign the kind of covenant that could also be signed by TEC and ACofC. If this were the case, I think ACNA would also resist signing the Covenant. Maybe the Covenant will provide more clarity than unity. They chose the word “affirm” in reference to ACNA but they chose the words,”principled response” when referring to the Covenant not “affirm”. “We welcome the Ridley Cambridge Draft Covenant and call for [b]principled response[/b] from the Provinces. When you read the following, doesn’t it sound like they are really ambivalent about the efficacy of and need for the Covenant? [blockquote]As the Jerusalem Declaration insists we believe that the existing theological formularies of Anglicanism provide an adequate basis for the restoration of the relationships within the Anglican Communion[/blockquote]It sounds as if the Jerusalem Declaration could serve as the Global South Covenant and those who could sign on would be the ones they would seek to be in communion with. What are your thoughts?
#1 – of course. Are there any “liberal leaders of the North American churches” who can utter a single word of truth? To paraphrase Mary McCarthy, [i]every word they utter is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.[/i]
#4 Dcn Dale
What are my thoughts? I have no idea, but will ponder – perhaps something will pop into my head?
Perhaps we are in uncharted territory.
#6. Pageantmaster,
“Perhaps we are in uncharted territory.”
In that case we also have to keep watch for Pirates.
So what did they actually say? The linked article has this text in the sixth paragraph:
[blockquote]“While we support the concept of an Anglican Covenant, we understand that its adequacy depends on the willingness to address the crisis that has ‘torn the fabric’ of the Communion. If those who have left the standards of the Bible are able to enter the Covenant with a good conscience, it seems to be of little use.â€[/blockquote]
but in the full text of the Communiqué below that, the wording has been changed to:
[blockquote]While we support the concept of an Anglican Covenant, we understand that its adequacy depends on the willingness to address the crisis that has “torn the fabric†of the Communion. We welcome the Ridley Cambridge Draft Covenant and call for principled response from the Provinces.[/blockquote]
In a similar article in [url=http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2009/04/global_anglican_1.html]Christianity Today[/url] the Communiqué was quoted earlier in the morning as saying:
[blockquote]Anglican Covenant– It is too soon for us to comment at depth on the latest version of the Covenant. While we support the concept of an Anglican Covenant, we understand that its adequacy depends on the willingness to address the crisis that has “torn the fabric†of the Communion. If those who have left the standards of the Bible are able to enter the covenant with a good conscience, it seems to be of little use. This is one of the questions to be resolved. It is also important to recognize the reality that the success of a covenant is related to genuine accountability.[/blockquote]
Later, this was changed (without any explanation) to:
[blockquote]Anglican Covenant– As the Jerusalem Declaration insists we believe that the existing theological formularies of Anglicanism provide an adequate basis for the restoration of the relationships within the Anglican Communion. While we support the concept of an Anglican Covenant, we understand that its adequacy depends on the willingness to address the crisis that has “torn the fabric†of the Communion. We welcome the Ridley Cambridge Draft Covenant and call for principled response from the Provinces.[/blockquote]
What is going on here with these two rather different versions of the Communiqué?
Bill Ghrist
Bill (#8) I’m on an e-mail list which Peter Frank (communications director for ACNA) contributes to. Apparently the first copy of the communique which was published this morning in various places was the DRAFT version, not the final version. I haven’t compared them.
Go to the Common Cause or the ACNA websites and you’ll find the final version.
Not signing something because someone else might sign it is a curious way of expressing things. I wonder if that is what they really mean. The language used seems to hark back to the CAPA ‘Road to Lambeth’.
Rather than that I would have thought the real question is whether the draft covenant is really fit for purpose? Does it really do what was claimed in the [small] box it came in? People may still be considering this on all sides. It may be that neither TEC/ACoC or GAFCON will sign on promptly. A question is will anyone else?
That probably depends on the view taken of whether the draft covenant is efficacious. Does it do what it was meant to – or has it been so hedged about and neutered as to be practically pointless. If so you can probably thank Dr Williams for that.
It certainly does not contain the mechanisms for assessing doctrine that Bishop Wright advocated at Synod:
http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/20339/#335826
And I say that as someone who would like to see an effective Covenant. I think that what has been delivered is extremely disappointing, but I may be wrong.
#8 Oh my. What a cock up.
As I reviewed what Archbishops Venables and Orombi said following the primates conference their statements made more sense to me now and help explain that they had come to a genuine epiphany about where TEC and ACoC were at.
[blockquote]Both primates supported the Anglican Covenant process as it would clearly define where the parties stood.
“It will be another way of describing we are not in Communion,†Archbishop Orombi said.[/blockquote]
[blockquote]Both primates agreed that a legislative or legal solution would not resolve the splits as two different faiths were in contention. “A liberal expression of Christianity is not Christianity [as we know it],†Bishop Venables said. Addressing this gap needs to take place before structural or legislative solutions are imposed on the church.[/blockquote]
You have to laugh, don’t you? The level of slapstick with the draft covenant and the GAFCON Communique is extraordinary…..and the fact that TEC bishops are earnestly discerning whether to make a Buddhist a bishop….the tears, the ribs aching and the involuntary spasms as laughter rocks one’s body.
I grow increasingly concerned about the rhetoric of GAFCON and ACNA regarding the Covenant. They are beginning to act like the exclusive gatekeepers of the Communion. Of course, the GAFCON crowd is not solely representative of orthodox Anglicanism. There are many provinces, and diocese of provinces, that are not party to GAFCON and yet hold to historic Anglicanism.
These bishops must recognize that the Covenant will take time to implement and time to work. Accountability and discipline can not occur when provinces sign on but only after they have violated their covenant with the balance of the Communion. The international problem caused by TEC and others took decades to build and erupt; it cannot be remedied overnight. This will take time, but the Covenant is a recipe for orthodox success if GAFCON/ACNA will give it a chance. I am afraid these bishops have no intention of giving it a chance, though, and rather than restoring the unity of the Communion through the painful but honest Covenant process, they will break it indelibly by walking away from the table.
Let us pray for the church.
#10. Pageantmaster,
[blockquote][The Covenant]Does it do what it was meant to -[/blockquote]
I think that depends on which party you addressing that question. Archbishop Orombi was looking for it to provide greater clarity.
The ABC is looking for it to provide greater unity.
TEC wants unity without accountability.
The Covenant is like the story of the new tailored suit. The fitters kept asking the client to adjust himself to accommodate the tailoring irregularities. He needed to hobble down the street after leaving the store. Passersby discussed how sad his carriage appeared but admired the fit of the suit.
Of course the Covenant, by its own admission, does nothing to aid the North American orthodox. Nor do I think will it ever. And, for that matter, neither has, or will, the institutional AC. For all practical purposes they are simply irrelevant.
#16 So you are saying that the Covenant is like a camel….a horse designed by committee?
Wise comment I thought of yours.
I think that the Primates realize that the current draft covenant is a bunch of toothless waffle. A real Covenant would include the Jerusalem Declaration. If you can’t agree to the Jerusalem Declaration, you should not be considered an Anglican, period, end of story.
Rubbish.
18. Pageantmaster,
It just seems to me like the Covenant is like a blueprint for a home that has undergone several changes in response to the demands of a family that has already dissolved and gone it’s separate ways. When I was in construction there were sadly, new homes up for sale by divorcing spouses. The process of building the home made the irreconcilable differences obvious. Maybe this is why Archbishop Orombi said the Covenant would provide greater clarity. If this is the only accomplishment of the Covenant then it is at least some payback for those who have labored so long and with such dedication. I am certain that some will be angry with me for saying what I have said but it is from the standpoint of someone who is only an ordinary thinker and is part of ACNA. What’s wrong with a divorce? We are killing each other and destroying our witness.
#21 Dcn Dale
The intention of the Covenant was clearly set out by the ABC himself in his ‘The Challenge and Hope of Being An Anglican Today: a Reflection for the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion’ of 27th June 2006
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1462?q=challenge+and+hope
It was a clearly articulated vision of direction for the Communion and one which I have to say I bought into and buy into:
[blockquote]Future Directions
The idea of a ‘covenant’ between local Churches (developing alongside the existing work being done on harmonising the church law of different local Churches) is one method that has been suggested, and it seems to me the best way forward. It is necessarily an ‘opt-in’ matter. Those Churches that were prepared to take this on as an expression of their responsibility to each other would limit their local freedoms for the sake of a wider witness; and some might not be willing to do this. We could arrive at a situation where there were ‘constituent’ Churches in covenant in the Anglican Communion and other ‘churches in association’, which were still bound by historic and perhaps personal links, fed from many of the same sources, but not bound in a single and unrestricted sacramental communion, and not sharing the same constitutional structures. The relation would not be unlike that between the Church of England and the Methodist Church, for example. The ‘associated’ Churches would have no direct part in the decision making of the ‘constituent’ Churches, though they might well be observers whose views were sought or whose expertise was shared from time to time, and with whom significant areas of co-operation might be possible.[/blockquote]
He set out articulately how he saw his role:
[blockquote]Being an Anglican in the way I have sketched involves certain concessions and unclarities but provides at least for ways of sharing responsibility and making decisions that will hold and that will be mutually intelligible. No-one can impose the canonical and structural changes that will be necessary. All that I have said above should make it clear that the idea of an Archbishop of Canterbury resolving any of this by decree is misplaced, however tempting for many. The Archbishop of Canterbury presides and convenes in the Communion, and may do what this document attempts to do, which is to outline the theological framework in which a problem should be addressed; but he must always act collegially, with the bishops of his own local Church and with the primates and the other instruments of communion.[/blockquote]
Since then there has been much water under the bridge. In many ways Dr Williams has been double minded and tacked back and forth, losing support as he did so. I think it is very hard to underestimate the deep sense of betrayal that took place when he deliberately undermined the work of the Primates in Dar-es-Salaam by undermining their Communique and particularly the pressure on the US and Canadian churches, something he and Dr Sentamu did by telling the respective churches that there would be no consequences to their decisions and that the time limit set by the Primates was not a time-limit. He did so off his own back without authority. One Instrument, himself exceeded his authority to undermine the decisions of another. He further went against the recommendations of the Windsor Report by re-including the Episcopal Church in the councils of the Communion, seating Mrs Schori with the Primates and having her appointed to the JSC, the JSC which he substituted for the Primates in his attendence at New Orleans for the meeting of the TEC HOB.
Of course his efforts were not respected by TEC. He grossly, like many of our bishops, underestimated the creature he is dealing with in TEC. By removing all sanction, they paid lip service to him in New Orleans while behind the scenes Mrs Schori plotted the continued persecution of bishops and the removal of Bishop Duncan. They paid him no respect, quite the opposite. They think he is a patsy. They have learned that if they make the right noises and continue to do exactly what they wish there will be no consequences, Dr Williams will back down….and they are right.
Then in the most extraordinary event yet, Dr Williams went against both the Windsor Report and his own prior undertakings, he invited all the sanctioned US bishops to the Lambeth Conference.
GAFCON is the response of the majority of the world’s Anglicans who have lost all confidence in Dr Williams and the Instruments he has so spectacularly undermined. In many ways it was inevitable.
So I don’t agree with you about the dissolution. This is the view people have come to, but it was not the intention of the Covenant at all, quite the opposite. But in practice what we have seen is a pattern of Dr Williams appointing his Welsh boyo friends to all sorts of committees, having meetings where people do not decide things, but ‘soundings’ are taken and reported to other boyo committees, the secretaries of which are all boyos, and where reports and information provided by boyos are circulated. He draws in others where on the surface looking in you would say that they are balanced, if not conservative in character. They are finely balanced, so finely balanced that with the lightest of touches he or one of the boyos he appoints to be secretary can steer and direct the committees and the reports they issue and the documents they draft. There is an appearance to outsiders of process but in reality it is all a interlocking system of groups appointed by Dr Williams, meeting at his pleasure and agenda and sending decisions on to other similar groups.
It is all very clever, but unfortunately the net effect has been to undermine the very thing Dr Williams set out to build, a Covenant that would draw together and bind the Communion. What was a few years ago a problem of discipline for two tiny provinces has become a crisis where the majority of the worlds Anglicans have lost all confidence with Dr Williams, do not turn up to Lambeth Conferences and has become a division issue.
This should not have happened. Perhaps it still may not, but that will require some grown up conversations and an end to the spin and manipulation of Dr Williams and the boyos and a return to sensible decision-making among the grown ups in the Communion.
My thoughts fwiw. Well you did ask.
#22. Pageantmaster,
Superbly understood and explicated as only a Brit could read the mind of the ABC. I think you have given him the Beta Weight he deserves in this equation. The ‘opt-in’ matter is interesting since I think TEC views itself as “already in”. Where I believe the ABC has erred is his understanding that he is dealing with Provincial leaders who will simply self select out if they don’t find the Covenant to be commensurate with their own beliefs. He is a Hegelian at heart and unfortunately believes that the competing ideas are of equal value. With enough conversation, the evolved synthesis will emerge. Unfortunately, with each conversation there is more clarity and less synthesis. I am puzzled that he would view the struggle in North America as cultural and not more than that. If he views things in this manner, then he will again see an equivalence of competing ideas. We are in agreement that his intended goal of a Covenant that would unify the Communion was undercut by his own actions. We may disagree on this but for me, the style of his leadership has never led me to a point of trusting him. That should have been the first step in reestablishing trust within the Communion. You have said that he has given the appearance of due process yet has manipulated this process. I believe this is correct but that does not build trust, rather it diminishes it.
#3, Archangelica: Your comment is worthy of notice. Thank you for your honesty and courage in sharing those thoughts.
Hoo hoo – he is at it again. I have just read the ACC program for Jamaica – “Discernment Groups”
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/acc/meetings/acc14/programme.cfm
Discernment Groups – Indaba shall be thy name.
More manipulation, more passive-aggessive twisting and control-freakery from the Archbishop and his Welsh chums.
No doubt the St Asaph ACC meeting will sit in their St Asaph ‘Discernment Groups’ considering the St Asaph Draft Covenant and the St Asaph Windsor Continuation Group report.
By the way I wonder if someone goofed – in the first part of the program they are called “Deliberation Groups”
I think the problem with all this Delphi Technique stuff is that the members of the ACC never get to hear the views of the others, deliberate no doubt, but the reality is that the mind of the ACC is never heard. The same is true of the Lambeth Conference.
This is no way to run a grown up Communion. If you don’t trust people to make their own decisions, you will force the breakup you seek to avoid. IMHO.
Pageantmaster-
Looking over the role call for this “event” it is perhaps even worse than you represent it to be. Beyond the Delphi technique- look at how the membership has been stacked. With all the “invited members” and “co-opted members.” New Zealand ends up with as much representation Nigeria and Uganda put together. Global South representatives will be vastly outnumbered in their little indaba groups and won’t be able to get a word in edgewise.
This whole process is turning into a farce.
#27. Pageantmaster,
[blockquote]This is no way to run a grown up Communion. If you don’t trust people to make their own decisions, you will force the breakup you seek to avoid.[/blockquote]
Trusting subordinates is an important part of leadership. My observation would also be his constitutional double mindedness. He is the intellectual who is willing to live with conflicting views internally but doesn’t understand how this is a problem for others. He has a hope for unity but does he have a vision also? Others are less patient and have moved on.
Oops, that was intended to be “roll call” in 28, although given the cast of characters, perhaps I was correct the first time.
Here I had been assuming all this time that the ACC would follow its constitution and adjust membership according to size of province, but no. Same old- same old. Wake me when its over.
Having looked over the programme for the ACC meeting, which can be viewed at http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/acc/meetings/acc14/participants.cfm, I am left positively awe-struck, wondering how they have managed to [i][b]cram[/b][/i] about four solid days of work into thirteen days (or even eleven, if you consider the first and last days to be ‘travel days’).
Is this leisurely approach a cultural inheritance from the latter days of male [i]primogeniture[/i] in England, when “gentlemen didn’t work” and, as it has been explained to me, the only respectable choices for the junior sons of the well-to-do were the Army, the Royal Navy or the Church of England?
Blessings and regards,
Keith Toepfer