The Archbishop of Canterbury has urged patience and forbearance upon Church leaders attending the Fourth Global South to South Encounter in Singapore, asking them not to take any hasty decisions over the future of the Anglican Communion.
However, the reception accorded to Dr Rowan Williams’ pleas for restraint from the leaders of the evangelical wing of the Communion was muted, with no applause or outward show of appreciation from the delegates at the close of his address. For most of those present, his words were too little, too late.
Delegates tell The Church of England Newspaper that Dr Williams has exhausted his political and personal capital with the overseas Church in the wake of successive disappointments in his leadership over the past few years. While the Global South continues to honour the office, Dr Williams’ stock has reached a nadir with many of those present.
[i]”Time would allow the American Church to come to its own decision that it did not want to be part of the Anglican Communion, one bishop explained in an email to The Church of England Newspaper.”[/i]
TEC to AC..”You can’t fire me..I quit!”
Anybody buying that scenario?
No. That’s a plea for continued inaction. The ABC wants nothing to happen and has worked hard for it over the past 7-8 years. Now is the time and now is the hour. TEC has already made its decision it is way past time for the the ABC and the AC to make its. And if the AC cannot or will not act (we know that the ABC will not act) then the Global South should make its decision without them.
Why should the Global South Anglicans act with restraint …? That was
the counsel given to TEC and the Canadian Anglican churches, yet
they chose to cast aside restraint, gracious or otherwise. There is no
reason it should be enjoined on the Global South. Perhaps that is the
two-track or two-tier model which was discussed in recent months.
At best, the ABC’s approach is a sort of duplicitous paternalism.
Unfortunately, the present ABC is a manager, not a leader.
It’s no wonder the response to his message was muted.
The new physical unit of Inertia must the “Rowan”.
I think the time has pretty much passed for TEC to make their decision; I think they’ve already made it. For all intents and purposes, they’re actually already set up as a communion of their own, and all they will need to do is make it formal. They’ll do it at a time and place of their own choosing. And what of ++Rowan? What can he do but go along with them?
++RW has only himself to blame for the increasing irrelevance with which his venerable office is treated by people all along the theological spectrum. Even so, the GS response in Singapre was still “[b]muted[/b],” which is a whole lot more respectful than the flagrant defiance with which his half-hearted appeals to TEC were treated by that body’s stubborn leaders. TEC has openly spurned the empty calls for “restraint” from Cantaur. The GS has not.
Poor ++RW. No one takes him seriously anymore. But as I said, he has only himself to blame for that.
David Handy+
I am still puzzled about who the ABC claimed to be in discussion with around the Communion regarding some kind of consequences for TEC. I honestly believe he sees the conflict in a Hegelian way and believes it is possible to arrive at a new synthesis or unity within the Communion. He does not seem to fully appreciate the depth of the struggle. He has more than once referred to the conflict as a difference of “styles”. This is not tincture of time bringing about a new synthesis, Rowan, it is a permanent fracture occurring.
Memo to Rowan: There is no such thing as synthesis. There is either
A or Non-A
Re ## 6 & 7. A couple of months after Lambeth 2008 I got a copy of Andrew Shanks’s book on Gillian Rose, [i]Against Innocence[/i]. Now; I do not wish for one moment to disparage Ms Rose’s conversion nor those who ministered to her, but the argument of the book and Giles Fraser’s preface is clear. In my view, the ABC ran Lambeth 2008 as if it were some kind of laboratory seminar along Rosean lines, hoping against the Law of Contradiction that some ‘greater synthesis’ would eventuate. Now we simply have more of the same.
Yet, in this Easter Season, we have the utter opposite [sic], as embodied in GSE4. John 16:8-11 is possible because of the cry, τετÎλεσται! And such a death may no more be ‘synthesised’ than God’s righteous and holy character cut a deal with sin and evil – which have to be [b]destroyed[/b]. And while patient humility before both sin and evil is commended (so Phil 2:1-13 and Hebrews) as we await the Father’s judgment, it is surely a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God who is a consuming fire. We need to pray even more fervently for TEC and the ABC, et al.