A year ago, after analyzing carefully the chaotic vote on the Trisk amendment in Jamaica, we expressed the “hope that this will further demonstrate to the Communion the corrosive effect the current conflict and the efforts of those who seek to defeat or disable the Covenant are having in the Communion.” We have to conclude, however, that in the past year this hope has not been realized and the corrosion has only spread. Many of the primary players at Jamaica are now on the Standing Committee itself and they freely denounce and try to subvert the very Covenant they are to administer. TEC’s Presiding Bishop, like Dr. Fitchett calls the Covenant “un-Anglican,” challenges the Archbishop of Canterbury’s understanding of Pentecost and dismisses canonical requirements of the Church of England as “nonsense.” In reply, a Lambeth Palace official noted pointedly that one of the statements made by the Presiding Bishop was not true. The Secretary General notes that TEC does not “share the faith and order of the vast majority of the Anglican Communion” and that some Communion discussions are “at the point of collapse.” The Secretary General interrupted his vacation to meet with TEC’s Executive Council at its request only to be treated rudely while he was there and ridiculed after he left. Five resignations have been reported by the ACC Standing Committee in the last six months, and the Secretary General described its last meeting as the “worst meeting” of his life.
The Communion can hardly tolerate another year like the last one. It is essential that the Communion have structures that work in the midst of ongoing crises in several churches of the Communion. The corrosive effect we spoke of a year ago must now be addressed as a matter of urgency. Five things are needed….
[blockquote]TEC must be disqualified from serving on any bodies concerned with faith and order, including the Primates’ Meeting and the Standing Committee so long as it insists on departing from the faith and order of the Communion and repudiating the agreed moratoria.[/blockquote]
Boldest statement ACI has made in a very long time. It is difficult to envision this actually happening, as TEC has deployed octopus-like tentacles all over the bodies from which it ought to (must) be disqualified!
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Typically thoughtful and thorough research and recommendations from the ACI fellows. One hopes that Archbishop Williams and Canon Kearon read this and follow up on these recommendations. They are right on target.
Gene Robinson broke up his family (wife, two daughters) in order to pursue his personal sexual vision, and now he is doing the same to the Anglican family. No one has the guts to act decisively in this matter, so it’s all going to be interminably downhill. Is anyone actually surprised?
Within the current structures on the Anglican Communion, we are hopelessly bogged down in a convoluted conversation plagued with nuances, private agendas, political maneuvering, and all sorts and conditions of men. Instead of endlessly analyzing and promoting continuing fixes to the system, I think the time has come to move forward with an Anglican reformation. New wine must be put in new wineskins, otherwise the skins will break.
New structures are needed that reaffirm the foundation of our Christian faith, reunite Anglicans in the common bond of our tradition, and provide boundaries and accountability for those who would seek to innovate, revise, and interpret us into parts unknown. The “Five Things Needed” postulated by ACI are noble in their intent, but completely mired within the contextual bog of the old system. One thing is needed – action.
The action of reformation.
Yet, you may rightly ask: “Who will take this action?” How can this reformation take place?” If we move toward a new structure, will not the world look on and say, “Aha, schism”? What about our witness as Christians? What about our catholic sensibilities?
Certainly, questions such as these must be addressed honestly and openly, but, I would argue, in the context of moving toward a new paradigm as the goal. It is my hope, and prayer that leadership will emerge which will take us forward as Anglicans, into a vibrant expression of Christian faith and practice, which will offer the post-postmodern world a place to satisfy their spiritual hunger.
Fr. Jack Estes
I will say this once, and then I’ll say no more about it: Either the ACC Standing Committee must agree to observe the rule of law, or they won’t, in which case they should disband, and the Anglican Communion should organize a new form of government which will abide by the rule of the majority……if there is to be a Communion at all.
Like AR (#1) and Canon Michell (#2), I rejoice that this is perhaps the boldest, most emphatic call for action yet by the learned ACI team. And the key word is indeed action. The scholars haven’t just provided us with another example of their splendidly lucid analysis of what’s wrong in the AC but spelled out five things that must be DONE and done NOW.
Bravo. And the ACI suggestions constitute an absolutely minimal list of essential actions that urgently need to be undertaken. Personally, as regular T19 readers know all too well, I’d go much farther.
I particularly welcome the ACI call for a drastic overhaul of the ACC in order to make it TRULY representative. For too long we’ve heard monotonously the refrain that the ACC was the most representative of the Instruments of Communion/Unity because it included priests and laity as well as bishops or archbishops. And while that’s partially true, it glosses over the plain and undeniable fact that the ACC, in its current form is blatantly stacked in such a way as to favor the liberal, global north at the severe disadvantage of the major GS provinces. Unfortunately, colonialism still very much exists within the AC and the ACC is actually the most blatant example of it. If the giant provinces: Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, and Sudan were accorded the number of representatives they deserve in the ACC (far more than three each), it would help solve many of the problems that have crippled that extremely dysfunctional body and rendered it so untrustworthy and useless. But we would still be left with the deeper problem that the ACC, like all the current Instruments, was designed merely for consultation, not for governance.
I also particularly applaud and commend the ACI gang for naming names and thereby giving appropriate oppobrium to the nefarious northern leaders who have openly and brazenly opposed the Covenant and who yet, scandalously, are so far still allowed to serve on the ACC and its Standing Committee. This is totally unacceptable. It is high time that opponents of the Covenant like the treacherous PB of TEC, as well as ++Aspinall and Dr. Anthony Fitchett of NZ be automatically excluded from the group that administers the Covenant. And by the same token, figures like the Rev. Janet Trisk of South Africa and the notorious +Ian Douglas of CT should never be put on it in the first place.
But #4 above is right. I agree that much sterner and more drastic measures are called for than such relatively minor, incremental changes in our international structures. But genuine repentance can still start with the five urgent changes that the ACI leaders have rightly called for in the meantime.
David Handy+
[blockquote]From that moment on many Communion members lost all confidence in the ACC as a viable and representative Instrument of Communion.[/blockquote]
[blockquote]In the year since the ACC meeting in Jamaica, it has become increasingly clear that the problems so evident there were not isolated events but are endemic to the operations of the Council and its Standing Committee.[/blockquote]
I have been a supporter from the beginning of the Covenant process, and the RCD. I have mustered local support and education as well – BTW – from the publication of [i]TWR[/i] onwards. But there really does come a time when one has to consider: what’s the point?!
In this light, I for one shall be watching VERY closely what happens in late July, just as I trust many others will be. If this upcoming Meeting of the so-called ACSC really cannot get its own house in order – and be [i]seen[/i] to have its house well and truly, and so [i]justly[/i], in order – then … For the last sentence of the fifth and last “thing needed†is exactly the point. May this Meeting not be “wastedâ€. And if it is so squandered, then …