The Most Rev. Dr. Mouneer Anis, who has resigned his position on the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, told The Living Church that discussions at the committee’s meeting in December 2009 are what prompted his resignation from the committee.
“I had been in communication before the meeting that I needed to discuss the participation of the Episcopal Church on the standing committee. I found some resistance to this,” said Bishop Mouneer, who is 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.
It is sad to read that the Anglican Communion has a muddled leadership which is making the situation worse by the leadership gap between ‘a promise and the follow through’. It is brave of the Primate to resign over this, but thankfully he makes his point well.
[i] Signature advertising the commenter’s parish deleted by elf.[/i]
The ABC’s Delphi Principle has worked again. This time it has been called.
“When it comes to who will sign and adopt the Covenant, there is exclusiveness,†he said. “This double standard hurts me.â€
Indeed, it hurts the church.
Yes, it does hurt the Church…….and it’s time for all of us to demand an [b]END[/b] to it.
Enough is [b]ENOUGH![/b]
Sorry, but the conservatives’ argument that including (by failing to exclude) our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters and those who support them somehow excludes them, the conservatives, from the conversation still does not make any sense to me. Those who walk away from the table exclude only themselves (Bishop Mouneer’s resignation case in point). I’m here: and I don’t expect any lack of response to this very comment!
😉
6, sometimes you can’t participate in a farce as that lends it legitimacy.
Sigh. Not going to take the bait.
Me neither!
It is sad to see ++Mouneer’s decline. I have known him for several years and watched him go from engaged to this. Unfortunately, picking up your marbles and going home isn’t the way to make a stand. It is a small splash in a HUGE pond and the ripples have already dissipated. What has been accomplished is to leave the SCAC as a unipolar group. TEC (and Canada and the CofE) wins. Trying to apply the Windsor Report was not only wrong in its application, but a failed attempt to create requirements from suggestions. I’m afraid that his resignation has had the effect of a “useless cry in the wilderness.”
Sarah (and others) has tried to spin this as some transcendent moral victory. If that is the case, then congratulations? I guess? I hope that it works out well for ++Mouneer as he is a good man.
“TEC (and Canada and the CofE) wins.”
He who laughs last, laughs loudest. I would wait till the Global South meeting to see how this plays out. Playing cards at a table where the dealer is in cahoots with one of the other players is not a good idea and the proper response is to go to another table.
The Delphi Principle had already assured that result, BfT19. This merely demonstrates that fact. Clearly. Unavoidably. From a reliable source who engaged far longer than anyone else. Can you say, Indictment?
RE: “Sarah (and others) has tried to spin this . . . ”
Hmmmm. Well . . . it can hardly be called “spin” when this Sarah has loudly advocated for two solid years on these blogs for the orthodox Primates to withdraw themselves from the committees that are being so transparently controlled by the ABC: the JSC, the Lambeth Meeting, and others.
I mean . . . it may be “wrong” or “not a good tactic” but it’s certainly not spin. I’m thrilled that at last somebody did something that I’ve wanted. ; > )
Maybe another two years of crying out in measly blogland and all the others will quit too.
Look, when games are played — as the ABC is doing — it’s best to withdraw from the game and not offer the credibility of your participation to the game and the GamePlayer. Period. A part of the ABC’s MO is to keep trying to pretend publicly as if “things are not all that bad if we can just keep gathering and talking and [sort of] taking Eucharist together.”
The less people “show up for the dialogue” the more silly his words and spin become and the more the sham and scam that he is offering becomes clear.
But playing the game when others hold all the manipulative cards is just not the way to do things. If you can play other people’s games and win, then fine. But if not, then a public, formal, written resignation explaining why is the best way to go, and publicly withdrawing from the playing field and starting up *your* game is the better way. Why play other people’s games on other people’s fields with other people’s rules and other people’s referees and be beaten over and over and over and over? Just for the thrill of it? For the sport?
Bishop Mouneer has done it precisely correctly. Couldn’t in fact be better.
The other great thing about this is that Bishop Mouneer is a leader. Others of the Global South Primates will look at his actions and read his words and learn something.
The other great thing is that it puts more GS Primates together on strategery and response to RW’s [and others’] games.
And the final great thing is that Bishop Mouneer has “learned” something in the war. He’s learned that it’s not about “dialogue” and “negotiating” — the liberal activists aren’t interested in that, other than for show. It’s about black and white, caving in or not caving in, power and submission. It’s not going to be a “moderate peace” or in fact any peace at all because the players don’t all share the same gospel. Heavens, it’s hard enough to come to peaceful negotiated outcomes with folks who share one’s values and foundational worldviews. But when a group in fact has precisely the opposite and antithetical values and gospels, no “dialogue” or “conversation” or “meeting around the table and being reasonable” will take place. One side or the other will win or lose.
Acknowledging that cold hard fact is the path to health and wholeness and Truth.
So rather than call it “decline” [heh] I would use the words “growth” and “truth-telling” and “clarity” and “coming through hard-fought battles with integrity.”
Now — Brian has on other pages seemed to proclaim that “what is reality now” is actually “what is moral and right and legal” — see the canon law threads, for instance. That’s certainly one way that deconstructionists view the discourse community.
But obviously that’s not what people of the Christian faith believe. In fact, often “reality” is what needs to be overthrown and defeated. As has occurred time and time again throughout history.