…I have come to the sad realization that there is no desire within the ACC and the SCAC to follow through on the recommendations that have been taken by the other Instruments of Communion to sort out the problems which face the Anglican Communion and which are tearing its fabric apart. Moreover, the SCAC, formerly known as the join Standing Committee (JSC), has continually questioned the authority of the other Instruments of Communion, especially the Primates Meeting and the Lambeth Conference.
…
Some may say that the provinces within the Anglican Communion are autonomous, and each province is free to make its own resolutions. While I agree and accept the autonomous nature of each province, I believe that the participation in the decision making process that affects the life of the Anglican Communion should be for those who show respect in word and deed to the whole Communion – not those who turn their backs to every appeal and warning.
A Key Letter from Primate of the Middle East Mouneer Anis Explaining his Resignation from the JSC
Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, - Anglican: Primary Source, -- Statements & Letters: Primates, Anglican Covenant, Anglican Provinces, Archbishop of Canterbury, Episcopal Church (TEC), Global South Churches & Primates, Instruments of Unity, Same-sex blessings, Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion), The Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East, Windsor Report / Process
I think this letter is pretty devastating to Rowan Williams’ whole neo-Hegelian strategy. If Anis+++ is quitting the JSC because he has come to the view, after years of involvement, that his presence is useless, and speaks so plainly and publicly about the intent to thwart the authority of the Primates and Lambeth within the Communion Office and its related instruments, then that probably means the non-Gafcon Global South leaders will be lost to Williams’ strategy more or less as a block.
TEC wants full steam ahead. CoE wants fudge until conservatives agree that these issues are not communion dividing. The Global South wants the Communion to act the way they said they would, and as that keeps not happening, they will, one by one, come to the point of realising that, in the words of Humphrey Appleby, words are being used, not so much as a window into the soul, but as a curtain to draw across it – and refuse to participate and so legitimate such constant disingenuity.
Wow.
All respect to Archbishop Mouneer Anis. He had integrity when he attended the JSC meetings and he has integrity now in withdrawing.
What a devastating indictment his letter and resignation are.
It appears that slowly but surely all of the original 22 Global South provinces are uniting. This is so good.
I hope that Bishop Mouneer knows that he continues to be in the prayers of Anglicans around the world. One can only imagine the heartbreak he feels in having to write such a letter. May our Lord continue to bless him, his province and his ministry in this time of trial for the Communion.
And may our Lord grant to Archbishop Williams and others the grace to hear and heed the good bishop’s words. The time grows short.
May God bless Bishop Mouneer. He has been a great witness and a voice of conscience for years in Anglican Communion matters. I had the great privilege of knowing the Bishop during my time in Egypt, and of serving his Diocese in a small way. He has fought the good fight for the Communion. It’s up to the Western leaders now to listen.
The Diocese of Egypt, while small in numbers, is very large in its ministry to the poor and the sick in Egypt. American Anglicans can now [url=http://www.friendsanglicandioceseegypt.org/index.html]donate[/url] to a U.S. tax-deductible charity which passes the money directly on to the Diocese of Egypt in support of its Christian mission, its hospitals and its educational programs. The Diocese of Egypt provides a strong Christian witness in the heart of the Sunni Muslim world.
The letter from Bp. Mouneer Anis is a bombshell in the midst of the Covenant process, On Bp. Mouneer’s resignation, I note the following:
1. Bp. Mouneer’s bold and sad resignation needs to be seen alongside Abp. Orombi’s absence from the last three (Joint) Standing Committee meetings in New Orleans, in Jamaica and in London. I do not speak for Abp. Orombi, but I think his actions reveal that he views the illegitimacy of the Standing Committee in the same way as Bp. Mouneer. One can argue whether absence or resignation is the better course of action, but the fact remains that the creation of the “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion†was a putsch by the Communion bureaucracy.
2. Bp. Mouneer assumes that the Standing Committee of the ACC is one and the same as the “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion,†so much so that he abbreviates it “SCAC.†If a former member who is not in favor of the direction of the Standing Committee nevertheless assumes that it is the one and only Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion and the one mentioned in the Covenant sec. 4, we have got to assume that this is what the other members of the Standing Committee, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, think. If Rowan Williams has a different understanding, let him speak out clearly on this subject.
3. In his sec. 1, Bp. Mouneer mentions the diminishing authority of the Primates in the Communion. This is indeed a major fact of Communion politics since 2007. It needs to be addressed and put right before the provinces go ahead with adoption of the Covenant. The Primates’ Meeting, for instance, was totally left out of the approval process of the Covenant draft, and will be in the future as well, if Canterbury has its way (note approvals of the Draft are to be sorted out by ACC-15, which will meet after the next “scheduled†Primates’ Meeting in 2011).
4. In sec. 2 on the Covenant, Bp. Mouneer indicates that he is not in favour of the latest draft in toto: “There are many good aspects of the Covenant but…†This is correct. At the very least, the identity of the “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion†must be sorted out, as the ACI points out. How would it be responsible for a Province to adopt the Covenant with this kind of obscurity with regard to the very entity that will oversee Communion discipline?
5. In his sec. 2B, he continues to hold the position of the Primates at Dar that TEC and its representatives should not be sitting on the ACC and the Standing Committee, which they are, at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Indeed is there any doubt that Ian Douglas, who sat on the Resolutions Committee at ACC-14 had a hand in the confusion that ensued over the approval of the Ridley Cambridge Draft? I might note that it was the very overturning of the Primates’ demands at Dar that led Henry Orombi to boycott the New Orleans meeting, which was called arbitrarily by Canterbury.
6. In sec. 2C. Bp. Mouneer says he believes that sec. 4.1.5 of the Ridley Draft giving dissenting “churches†in heterodox provinces should still be in effect, but this was the very section changed by the SCAC in December. There is no record and no minutes either from the ABC’s hand-picked Covenant Working Group or the Standing Committee meeting itself, apart from Kearon’s letter and Abp. Williams You Tube address promoting the December draft. Was Bp. Mouneer was outvoted on the changes? Are we to assume that there is no place for minority reports in the Standing Committee, and resignation is the only alternative?
7. In sec. 2D, Bp. Mouneer’s. reading of the Covenant sec. 4.1.6. is interesting indeed. He seems to think that only Covenant members should be eligible to elect members of the ACC and the Standing Committee. I agree with him fully, but sec. 4.2.8 of the latest draft assumes that there will be non-Covenanting members of the ACC and Primates, and Rowan Williams has gone out of his way to speak of a “two-track†Communion, in which the non-Covenanting members will still be represented at the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting, except in cases where discipline of Covenant members is at issue.
As always, Bp. Mouneer wears his heart on his sleeve, which is quite a contrast with the bureaucrats at the Anglican Communion Office and the Archbishop of Canterbury. In my opinion, the hopeful direction which he sees for the Communion and the Covenant will only become reality when the orthodox primates take the Covenant “process†out of the hands of Canterbury and the Communion Office. There is no reason why they cannot do so. The December draft of the Covenant is not sacrosanct. It should be approved by provinces only when the problems cited by Bp. Mouneer (and the ACI) are addressed and corrected.
Dr. Noll,
Thank you so much for your analysis. The coming months will determine whether the Anglican Communion can survive as anything other than a western parody of a church. No doubt the GS churches can go on spreading our Lord’s gospel more easily if freed from the political farce of the ACO and TEC.
I, for one, had not been aware of Archbishop Orombi’s absence in London at the recent SC (or JSC) meeting. Actually, there was a fair amount of misinformation on that score- having read several defenders (on blogs, not accusing officials of the Communion of misinformation, although they sure did not mention ++Orombi’s absence in any of the press releases) of the “Williams-Cameron draft” (do forgive me) state that said draft must have had ++Orombi’s approval at the meeting. Clearly, you are in a better position to know the Archbishop’s whereabouts than the average blogger. Did other GS members of the ACC/JSC/SC absent themselves (whether intentionally or due to illness or travel difficulties) in London as well?
One indicator of the significance of this may be the vehemance of the response of James Naughton of the Diocese of Washington. http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/anglican_communion/the_right_wing_blinks_first.html
Jim Naughton’s statement is unbelieving arrogant and condescending. I was present at Trinity School for Ministry when Archbishop Mouneer was a guest the few days before he headed off to speak to the House of Bishops to give this [url=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/6132/]speech[/url]. I and other members of the faculty saw him spend an afternoon in an office writing the speech. Mouneer is led around by no one, and he writes his own speeches. The man was, after all, a medical doctor, before he became a bishop. He is an incredibly intelligent man.
Mike,
Do you think Jim went to church this morning in time for the Ministry of the Word?
What an abject failure to hear and heed the Word of God.
Did you notice his closing: “May the Lord bless you!”. Isn’t nice to have leaders of the Church that are actually Christian?
I agree with Sarah’s “Wow.” The Covenant is unraveling before it has been ratified. Not that it is really that surprising. We are talking about people who put Bill “It depends on your definition of ‘is'” Clinton to shame. They exploit every sentence that isn’t explicitly spelled out and the present document is riddled with vagaries. The definition of the standing committee is just one of them.
And William Witt is correct: Jim Naughton is incredibly offensive. Simple liberal colonialism and arrogance.
RE: “Jim Naughton is incredibly offensive . . . ”
Mmmm.
I just can’t be offended. ; > )
I think more likely that he’s enraged, which springs from fear and the sense of being threatened.
I’ll up the ante- Naughton is a [edited], pure and simple. He simply assumes Africans are intellectually inferior to Americans/Europeans and are incapable of producing coherent speeches without the help of smarter white people. Sort of like how the same people assumed that Bishop Minns was writing Akinola’s letters because clearly an African couldn’t write that well…
[Edited by Elf]
Prayers tonight for Bishop Anis…this is certainly an act of courage and faith.
Intercessor
If +Anis is useless in the SCotAC (and I cannot dispute his word on this) then the Covenant–administered by the SCotAC–is equally useless. The AC in its current form is finished.
One interesting question arises following Bp. Mouneer’s resignation. How will he be replaced? According to the secret ACC Constitution (art. 3.4) “Trustee-Members [of the Standing Committee] appointed by the Primates shall hold office for so long as they shall remain members of the Primates’ Standing Committee.â€
But what if one resigns? So far as I know, the Primates’ Standing Committee – the Primates’ Meeting for that matter – has no constitution or even rules of order. In fact, I am not even sure the Primates’ Standing Committee exists, except as a legal fiction. E.g., is there any record of their meeting except for the reception of the Windsor Report in October 2004? As for the whole idea that the five members of the PSC shall come from the Americas, Europe, Africa, Mid-East and Far East, is this written down somewhere or just oral tradition?
So how will Mouneer be replaced? The next Primates’ Meeting will not convene until 2011, if the ABC so deigns. Can they hold a conference call? Do the Mid-East Primates get to choose by themselves? Or maybe the ABC himself as presiding officer of the Primates’ Meeting may simply appoint Mouneer’s successor.
For those of us schooled in the doctrine of the separation of powers, it seems rather dubious to have one Instrument (Canterbury) with authority to convene all three of the other Instruments and to appoint members to their representative Standing Committee. But then the direction of Anglican Communion governance at present is not toward a separation of powers, but toward a “primacy of jurisdiction,” i.e., a centralized bureaucracy.
Good points, Stephen. The SC house of cards must now deal with the aerodynamic effects of the the Egyptian dervish.
Preview, Rabbit, Preview.
Sheesh.
Having sat in the Cathedral in Cairo and heard Bishop Mouneer deliver an excellent sermon in English which I know he had written only the night before (because the scheduled celebrant was suddenly ill), and having heard him speak in English on other occasions, I affirm that Jim Naughton doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Wow. Just catching up on this news. Prayer and thanksgiving for Bp. Mouneer today. I’m thankful for his bold witness and his integrity. May the Lord give much wisdom to all orthodox leaders within the Anglican Communion as they seek to know how to respond. May the Lord use ++Mouneer’s witness to shine light on the truth and bring conviction and lead many to repentance.
For the record, I may be on the reappraising side, but I thought this “African Primates are clueless stooges of the American Right” thing was BS when it was directed at ++Akinola, and I think it’s BS now. I obviously do not agree with either ++Akinola or ++Mouneer on the presenting issues, but I have no doubt they are more than capable of thinking and speaking for themselves without having their opinions and speeches spoon-fed to them by Western reasserters. This kind of accusation just demeans our side.
Ross (20)-
Perhaps, as a revisionist, you should head on over to the Lead and let them know. We indeed agree with you. Had Naughton written such a thing about any bishop 20 years ago, he would be out of a job- a diocesan official would not have written this way about a crime boss, much less a Primate of the Communion. But no one in the TEC establishment is going to listen to traditional Anglican voices- that was Bishop Mouneer’s point.
I wonder if the timing of Abp. Mouneer’s letter was influenced by the COE Synod scheduled for next week. I understand that a private member’s resolution, to be debated at next week’s session, would call for the COE to recognize ACNA. Could that explain Jim Naughton’s anger?
++Rowan’s statement in ACNS is below:
Archbishop of Canterbury’s statement on Bishop Mouneer’s resignation from SCAC
Posted On : February 1, 2010 3:57 PM | Posted By : Webmaster
ACNS: http://www.aco.org/acns/news.cfm/2010/2/1/ACNS4682
Related Categories: ACC Lambeth
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, today expressed his regret at the decision of the Most Revd Dr Mouneer Anis, Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa, and President Bishop of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, to resign from the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion:
“Bishop Mouneer has made an important contribution to the work of the Standing Committee, for which I am deeply grateful. I regret his
decision to stand down but will continue to welcome his active
engagement with the life of the Communion and the challenges we face together.”
Ross, thank you for your comment (#20). I would add my request to tjmcmahon that you head over to the Lead and let them know exactly that.
Yes, Jim Naughton is impetuous. Ill-mannered people seem to serve the current loud TEC whine and shriek curia the best.
Good point about +++Anis: Rather than wither and whine the “other side” down, (as they do well), he is only practicing the advice of Another who was faced with equally impetuous and stubborn people. Rather than waste his time, he took the cue from his Boss:
“Don’t cast you pearls before the swine.”
“I wish the Anglican Communion Office would clarify with honesty what is really the ultimate aim of the listening process.” It will never happen. Honest clarity is not an Anglican attribute. If it’s clear it won’t be honest and if it’s honest it won’t be clear.
++Mouneer is both clear and honest, a godly, thoughtful and courageous successor to Athanasius his African predecessor in Alexandria.