This is a clear rejection of the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council.
We believe that it is vitally important for the Primates’ Meeting planned for January 2011 to go ahead, and that for this to happen the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church should not be invited to attend. Actions have consequences.
If this is what the “moderates” are saying, then KJS ought to be a bit concerned, I think, about her Anglican social calendar.
Fr. Darin Lovelace+
St. John’s Anglican
Park City, UT
Well, perhaps, Darin (#1).
Hope springs eternal in our hearts. But if ++RW who currently issues those invitations chooses to invite the PB despite this latest outrage, I myself wouldn’t be surprised. His whole game is predicated on trying to keep everyone at the table, endlessly talking and talking, and never coming to any closure or doing anything decisive. So if he refused to listen to the blue ribbon group that produced the Windsor Report and went ahead and invited Robinson’s consecrators to Lambeth, I’m not optimistic that he’ll suddenly show some backbone or change of heart and tell ++KJS to stay home and skip the next Primates’ Meeting. If he ignored his own hand-picked Windsor Commission, surely he would have little compunction about ignoring the recommendation of Fulcrum.
But hey, it’s a glorious spring day in Virginia and the flowers are starting to come out. Nature is bursting with new life and vitality and so we may well dare to feel hope that maybe, just maybe, ++RW will do the right thing this time. But I’m not counting on it.
However, there is another way to handle the matter of exercising discipline regarding attendance at Primates’ Meetings. Who says that we have to continue the tradition that only the ABoC can invite people to the Primates’ Meeting?? That’s not written anywhere in the Law of the Medes and the Persians. It’s high time that the Primates took responsibility for the group themselves and that they chose by majority vote when to meet and whom they invite, regardless of what ++RW wants or doesn’t want. He’s become irrelevant and is part of the problem instead of being part of the solution.
David Handy+
It’s a glorious Spring day here in California, David+, and I agree with you. I honestly don’t expect ++RDW to to a thing, but I DO like surprises, so maybe he’ll surprise us.
I noticed that Bishop Lawrence’s name does not appear on the list of signatories. That he supports the statement in spirit there can be no doubt–just curious if there’s a reason (strategic, coincidental, situational, or typographical).
William Shontz
[url=http://theleca.org ]The Lake Erie Confessing Anglican[/url]
Forgive me–#4 was intended for the prior post. Too many browser windows open.
William Shontz
Further to what David said, why wait until January 2011?
He’ll invite her to give her the opportunity to explain why TEC did what it did, the theological basis for doing it and what implications, if any, she thinks might be appropriate as a result of that prophetic action.
Dealing with actions and consequences first: The Archbishop of Canterbury has powers of convening and invitation in relation to the Lambeth Conference and the Primates’ Meeting as I understand it. That is why he has power to decide who is invited or not to the Primates’ meeting.
As far as the ACC is concerned, representatives are elected, although we saw at Jamaica the way in which [probably illegally] the JSC sought to debar a representative of a province, whatever one thought of the original choice. I am not sure that the ABC could disinvite a province from sending representatives to the ACC.
The Joint Standing Commitee is a strange creature. The standing committee of the ACC was elected by the ACC to represent it between sessions, and again the ACC’s secretary general has a secretariat for the purposes of the ACC. Over time these bodies have morphed into claiming to be the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion and the Anglican Communion Office, while as far as I see they are creatures of the ACC, which itself under its Constitution has a limited role of “advising”.
Again attempts to make a joint body from the standing committee of the ACC and the standing committee of the Primates, the Joint Standing Committee, has apparently morphed into the “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion” as the ABC and ACO are claiming. It has a new constitution based on articles of a new company for the ACC which has not even been formed or registered and which is not being released for people to read. It all seems a bit of a shambles. If the new company has not been formed and received the undertaking of the ACC the old structure remains and the old constitution as far as I can see.
So invitation to the Primates Meeting and the Lambeth Conference remain presumably in the control of the ABC; and for the ACC and JSC, it is anybody’s guess given the legal mess they are in apparently.
Moving on to the question of the issues of the Glasspool consents, yes it is clear that the requests of the ABC, Primates, ACC and JSC [or whatever it is] have not been followed by TEC, so what is the meaning of this? As far as I know this goes back to the concept of communion between churches.
As I understand it, the basis of communion is that you agree that you share and recognise common doctrine among one another; that you accept that you share sacraments, recognising a common eucharistic fellowship; and perhaps most practically that you recognise one another’s orders, and the ministry of one another’s priests and bishops. It is the last which has been the issue with the election and consent to Canon Glasspool, as it was with Bishop Robinson. The mutual recognition of orders in a communion means that a church in a communion can make bishops, not only for itself, but for the whole communion. TEC has elected two bishops and consecrated one, whose ministries are not recognised by the whole communion, indeed it has done so against the specific request of all of the Instruments of Communion. The mutual recognition of orders has broken down and in that so has communion.
That is the issue – in the face of one church carrying on wishing to have the benefits of communion, without taking any notice of its responsibilities in consecrating bishops for the whole communion, what is the rest of the Communion to do? Accept that degrees of impairment of communion are going to be a feature of its future life? In that event what does “communion” mean, and what is it worth? Why claim to be in communion with people if the features of communion do not exist?
I do think that if there is to be any hope for the future of the Communion there has to be a Primates’ Meeting to move things forward, and Fulcrum is right, if the Presiding Bishop is there, the meeting will not convene in any meaningful way. Perhaps representatives of a majority in the Communion will not turn up. Further the shambles over the JSC and what it is, needs to be sorted out by the Primates as well.
This has been a week of intense challenges for churches, not just the Anglican Communion but also for others. Prayers are in order for them.
“Actions have consequences.”
Is this a new concept for the Anglican Communion? Since the Bishop Coleto affair, arguably the start of the “Anglican Communion” as we understand it, has any consequence EVER flowed from the disjunctive actions of any alleged member of the alleged AC?
I venture a “no” qualified on the limited range of my reading in Anglican history under a very liberal diocesan education in theological studies program and under a very conservative educational program in AMiA (a.k.a. theAM).
I would gladly be enlightened by an incident, if such exists, and references (if possible).
This is a rather encouraging statement, coming from this source. If they think the game is up, it may be.
[blockquote]That, in the opinion of this Conference, unity in faith and discipline will be best maintained among the several branches of the Anglican Communion by due and canonical subordination of the synods of the several branches to the higher authority of a synod or synods above them.[/blockquote] (Resolution 4, Lambeth Conference 1867)
Alas that this did not come to pass. We are reaping the seeds sown by the stiff-necked independence of the Communion’s provincial synods, the actions of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church and its bishops and diocesan standing committees being perhaps the most egregious examples of this resistance to conciliar mutual submission in Christ.
“We are reaping the bitter harvest of the seeds sown….”
Sorry for that.
Let’s take some action in January 2011! That must have Dr Schori quaking in her boots!