I found disturbing in this morning’s conversation the suggestion that B033 somehow bought our continuing relationship with the Anglican Communion ”“ a relationship that, just the same, remains tenuous at best ”“ or at least so it was claimed. But the suggestion to me implied that B033 was a ticket to grace, a punch-card to get in the door (and we might get kicked out at any moment, if we misbehave, of course).
This witnesses only to the absurdity of the way the Windsor Report has been used and abused to try to force us to toe a particular line ”“ and almost utterly without honoring our God-given freedom to consent through prayerful due process. It has the hallmarks of attempting to make our relationship with the greater Communion a coerced marriage of sorts, and continues to poison even the best motivations behind efforts towards forging an Anglican Covenant.
The frankly bizarre assertion that B033 somehow “worked” as it ought ”“ that it enabled us as a Church to retain a seat at the tables of influence in the greater Communion, and that it somehow brings us towards a healthier state of affairs ”“ was soundly and succinctly contradicted by other members of House. They replied quite simply that relationship in the Communion cannot be bought or codified by resolution. It is rather forged in the incarnational work of person-to-person and community-to-community mission, and in the creation of common, tangible ministry from rebuilding broken lives to feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and healing the sick.