The archbishop of South Africa will teach, pray and talk with parishioners in Walnut Creek ”” and, it is hoped, return home with a renewed appreciation of diverse views.
He will visit St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Oct. 15 for a meditative Taiz service, a meal, a teaching, “and, I hope, some dialogue,” said the Rev. Sylvia Vasquez, spiritual leader of St. Paul’s.
The archbishop, the Most Rev. Njongonkulu Ndungane, will be in the Bay Area to participate in the Oct. 14-20 annual convention of the California diocese. Bishop Marc Andrus, head of the diocese, invited Ndungane while in Africa on a peace mission in March.
The invitation is in character for Andrus, who has matched California churches with sister churches in Africa in to strengthen the relationship between worshippers torn over such issues as women’s ordination and same-sex unions. “The African archbishops usually don’t respond well to our presence anywhere,” Vasquez said. “The only way we’ll be able to move forward is through dialogue.”
[blockquote]The divide has been worsened “by one group forging ahead with change in discipline and practice, and the other insistently treating the question as the sole definitive marker of orthodoxy,” (Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams)
said at (an earlier) time.[/blockquote]
This purported quote cited “from a February address” by +ABC sniffs like it was carefully lifted out of context. Does anyone have a link the the source?
I note also that Lum quotes Vasquez in the old saw about the problem being caused by “fewer than 5 percent of worshippers” so the press shouldn’t be giving it so much attention.
41 days 6 hours 40 minutes 15 seconds to go.
This is just spin control. The tone and bias of the piece gives one a good sense of how desperate TEC is. Larry
Sarah (#1), I found that line amusing as well. 🙂
I’ve been to Republican Party conventions more diverse than that diocese. Seriously.
During his time here in Alabama, Andrus did not seem too terribly interested in dialogue with folk who are orthodox.
I could not get past the first paragraph…Taiz…meditative service. Is this some new, spirit-sanctioned, abreviation of Taize? After that, the rest is just filler.
Br_er Rabbit, I am counting down with you. This promises to be an ‘e-ticket ride’ for sure.
Well, in defense of the Diocese of California … it can be said that its cergy and delegates to convention adhered to the “spirit” of Windsor in electing Mark Andrus their Bishop.
Given a slate of seven which included two gay men and a lesbian … don’t you think it’s rather remarkable that the top three vote-getters were two heterosexual men and a heterosexual woman? As far as I’m concerned it was darn remarkable (and quite fair) for so “liberal” a diocese.
[b]From Rowan Williams Presidential address to General Synod[/b]
[blockquote]But it is easier to go for one or the other of the less labour-intensive options. There is a virtual fundamentalism which simply declines to reflect at all about principles of interpretation and implicitly denies that every reader of Scripture unconsciously or consciously uses principles of some kind. And there is a chronological or cultural snobbery content to say that we have outgrown biblical categories. These positions do not admit real theological debate. Neither is compatible with the position of a Church that both seeks to be biblically obedient and to read its Scriptures in the light of the best spiritual and intellectual perspectives available in the fellowship of believers. And the possibility of real theological exchange is made still more remote by one group forging ahead with change in discipline and practice and other insistently treating the question as the sole definitive marker of orthodoxy.
Whatever happened, we might ask, to persuasion? To the frustrating business of conducting recognisable arguments in a shared language? It is frustrating because people are so aware of the cost of a long argumentative process. It is intolerable that injustice and bigotry are tolerated by the Church; it is intolerable that souls are put in peril by doubtful teaching and dishonest practice. Yet one of the distinctive things about the Christian Church as biblically defined is surely the presumption (Acts 15) that the default position when faced with conflict is reasoning in council and the search for a shared discernment – so that the truth does not appear as just the imposed settlement of the winners in a battle.[/blockquote]
I should add – one way to avoid, “the frustrating business of conducting recognisable arguments in a shared language”, is only to speak to people who agree with you.
That is a very interesting quotation from the ABC from driver8. It is a different way of expressing problems from,say Archbishop Orimbi or Archbishop Akinola.
The African Archbishops give you a straight-line argument (A and B, therefore consequence C). The ABC follows a kind of Hegelian dialectic: here is A, the thesis, there is B, the antithesis . . . then somewhere around here there should be C the synthesis of A and B. The problem is, he never quite gets to tell us what C is or looks like.
Which is a bit frustrating in a leader to whom people are looking for a bit of leadership.
PS to my previous post: I should also say that there is a curious non-self-committing quality about the way the ABC expresses himself. The African Archbishops say: ‘We believe X and we believe Y, there we will do Z’. Whereas the ABC says: ‘Some people believe X (with an implication that it isn’t right) and other people believe Y (with the same implication), but far be it from me to suggest what the resultant Z might be’.
His argumentation often makes me think of a theological Goldilocks who never finds the item which is ‘just right’.
Maybe this preference for expressing himself in an elliptical, tentative and ambiguous way ties in with Sarah Hey’s observations about the ABC’s extreme reluctance to make decisions?
Walnut Creek, California. The hometown of my gay activist cousin who died of AIDS. The gay community there is quite large now and well connected to the gay community in San Francisco.
Kudos to Driver8 for tracking down the source of Journalist Lum’s half-byte from Archbishop Williams. Note the contrast between what Lum wrote (possibly at the prodding of Rev. Sylvia Vasquez).
From Rebecca Rosen Lum:
[blockquote] The divide has been worsened “by one group forging ahead with change in discipline and practice, and the other insistently treating the question as the sole definitive marker of orthodoxy,”…[/blockquote]
The original from Archbishop Rowan Williams:
[blockquote]”And the possibility of real theological exchange is made still more remote by one group forging ahead with change in discipline and practice and other insistently treating the question as the sole definitive marker of orthodoxy.”[/blockquote]
I suspected as much. Lum’s attempt to un-waffle +++William’s words do not do justice to his meaning.
But it’s still fudge.
#10 I think this is very astute. Archbishop Rowan I think is committed to something like a Hegelian interpretation of the current Anglican crisis. Curiously, E.L. Mascall, the distinguished Angl-Catholic theologian, suggested that Archbishop Michael Ramsey had also come to kind of Hegelian view of Anglican ecclesiology. Mascall argued that such a view was ‘nonsensical’. See the comment by William Tighe who has been reading Mascall’s unpublished correspondence: http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/5140/#96001
Alice Linsley…your point is…?
Walnut Creek is quite a bit more conservative than the Bay Area as a whole — I’d refrain from painting WC with the brushstroke you’ve attempted to use…
The most striking thing to me about this exchange is how the wisdom and texture of Rowan Williams’ remarks compare so favorably to the commentary. In this time of acrimony, it shows real leadership to have one’s arms open, rather than just elbows out.
Rick D: The problem is, I’m not sure that the Archbishop’s words amount to ‘leadership’.
Subtle, nuanced, balanced – yes. A great discussion-starter for a seminar. But when there is a battle going on (and there is) the troops have to know where to rally round the flag.
My feeling is that the Archbishop hasn’t quite caught on to the difference between engaging in academic debate and leading Christ’s church. His dialectical way of presenting arguments, his allusive turn of speech (akin to a kind of poetry) and his non-self-committing statements tend to create more problems than they solve (imho). This is because by agonising over both sides of an argument he gives both parties a hint that he is on their side. And then he regularly disappoints them both by showing that once again he has avoided bing pinned down, or has not felt able to resolve the tension between A and B.
I suppose it is a kind of leadership. It is the leadership of someone who dislikes, or fears, or mistrusts plain unequivocal statements of position. Open arms – maybe. But it is difficult to do most jobs of work with your arms open. And he has got a job of work to do, I’m afraid.
No. 15 – Padre Wayne – You are right. Besides WC there are many other enclaves of conservatism in the Bay Area. I’m tired of comments from people who really don’t know very much about the place.
I was born a Californian, Rob, and still have family in the Bay Area.
Alice – Sorry for my snap reaction to your comment. Would you agree, though, in part at least, with what I said? Thx.