The 45-minute session on Friday with invited guest Canon Kenneth Kearon was carefully prepared for by the Standing Committee on World Mission, who wrote the thoughtful and substantive questions that made clear our commitment to being an inclusive church while also deeply committed to classic Anglicanism and deepening our relationship with our sisters and brothers across the Communion.
Canon Kearon began by describing the beginning of the current tensions as the increasing “problem of growth and diversity in the Anglican Communion.” This statement was significant to a body that has long seen diversity in the Body of Christ as an opportunity and has sought to base its actions on the baptismal promise that we will seek and serve Christ in all people and respect the dignity of every human being.
The questions sought clarification on the presenting issues, including the Archbishop of Canterbury’s removal of appointees from The Episcopal Church to ecumenical bodies and Canon Kearon’s statement that The Episcopal Church does not “share the faith and order of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion.” He also responded to concerns about incursions by other provinces of the Communion. He acknowledged that the Archbishop of Canterbury considers certain activities of the Province of the Southern Cone to constitute an incursion, but is awaiting clarification about the extent of these activities from the primate of that province. However, such ongoing breaches of the moratorium on incursions do not rise to the same level of departure from the faith and order of the Communion as does the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Christians.
I wrote this at SF as well, but, I thought this was quite an acknowledgment:
[blockquote]However, such ongoing breaches of the moratorium on incursions do not rise to the same level of departure from the faith and order of the Communion as does the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Christians.[/blockquote]
Granted, she couches it in terms of “inclusion,†of LGBT Christians rather than, “departing from the teachings of the Church regarding sexual purity,†but still…
I thought this a significant statement as well, but the article doesn’t attribute it to anyone directly. Did Canon Kearon say it, as one might (cautiously) conclude from the structure of the paragraph?
Hi Todd,
You are no doubt correct in attributing it, at the end, to Canon Kearon. It’s still remarkable that she presented his judgment the way she did, almost without spin.
If there are no quotation marks there is always room for spin.
“That is the fact that the reorganizing dioceses, like The Episcopal Church and indeed, the Anglican Communion, are dealing with what happens when the marginalized move to the center, and those formerly in the center are moved toward the margins.”
The above statement isn’t about “inclusiveness” nor is it about ecclesiology. It is a revolutionary statement worthy of the Jacobins of the French Revolution or the Bolsheviks who seized control of the Russian Revolution.
This part of the above quotation, “…what happens when the marginalized move to the center, and those formerly in the center are moved toward the margins,” is a particularly provocative expression of radical secular politics that has no place in the Anglican Communion or the Church Catholic.
But it is a particularly revealing statement. Don’t you think?
Yes; AnglicanFirst: this was the money quote for me too – both for the reasons you spell out clearly and because they are laced so with delicious irony. For who exactly is being removed from the centre and who raised to the centre, around the world of the AC, if not ECUSA/TEC, with its forms of power and persuasion?
Ludicrous meaninglessness.
Apologies Senior priest: “ludicrous” it was – due to an interruption before I completed the sentence, and thereafter its being posted too hastily! Please read: “… power and persuasion, in the first case, and the likes of GSA in the second case?”
That’s of course assuming you do not refer to the Exec Council as “Ludicrous meaninglessness” … But perhaps you do, together with their statement …?!
Other than the resolution concerning Arizona being typically uninformed and meaningless, as are most of our resolutions, where is the Episcopal Corporation’s concern for the Arizonians whose very lives are threatened by south-of-their-border gangsters?
Their resolutions show just how out-of-touch they are with what’s going on in America. They’ve been so focused on the GLBTs that they’re clueless about anything else and the real injustices and concerns in our country.
I notice that they’re planning an Executive Council meeting in Ft. Worth. No, no, no — they need to move that meeting to Laredo, instead, and hold it at a venue that’s as close to the Border as possible. After they’ve been shot at a few times, they might wake up to the real problems that the Border states have and understand why the Arizona law is necessary since the federal government refuses to act.