Communion infrastructures have arisen in haphazard ways since 1945. The new ACC Constitution, I fear, is another instance. The lack of in-depth consultation on the constitutional changes stands in sharp contrast with the thoroughgoing processes in the drafting and dissemination of the Anglican Communion Covenant.
The controversy on the new ACC Constitution may well derail the already difficult processes in the adoption of the Anglican Communion Covenant. Churches in the southern continents may well be tempted to look for more radical alternatives for a more permanent solution to recent Anglican disputes.
I ask for the following clarifications….
Rather confused and rambling piece from Poon. Been reading to much guff from the those ACI folks I expect.
But he asks about the Lutheran World Federation and here we find how closely they are bound to Swiss law:
BYLAWS OF THE LUTHERAN WORLD FEDERATION
(as adopted by the LWF Council, Chicago, USA, 1991, including amendments
adopted by the LWF Ninth Assembly, Hong Kong, 1997, the incoming LWF Council, Winnipeg, Canada, 2003, by
the LWF Council, Jerusalem-Bethlehem, 2005 and by the LWF Council, Lund, Sweden, 2007)
1. LEGAL STATUS AND HEADQUARTERS
1.1 Legal Status
The Lutheran World Federation (hereafter the “Federation” or the “LWF”) shall be a non-profit association incorporated and registered under Article 60 and following of the Swiss Civil Code.
And as those ACI legal beagles will already know Switzerland was the first country to vote in a national referendum for same sex partnership ….
Another good example of why the Anglican Communion is not and never has been a ‘Federation’ on analogy with Lutheranism — a collection of national churches. No Lutheran in the US ever said ‘my headquarters are in Switzerland’! They said ‘2900 Queen Lane’ (Philadelphia) if they were LCA Lutherans, before the merger with the ALC, forming the ELCA — headquartered in Minneaoplis St Paul.
#2 seems a bit obsessed with ACI…not sure why. All his comments, no matter what the topic.
#3 It was Dr Poon who made the comparison:
“Can John Rees point to a similar instance in other Christian world Communion (for example the Lutheran World Federation and such like)?”
No – the ACI figures less and less in my thoughts – I once somewhat admired the scholarship – but it has sadly become yet another fissiparous group pulling the Anglican Communion apart. This present attack on the ACC is all of your making, so little surprise at a mention in dispatches.
We first exchanged comments here on this very blog some years ago, at that time I was asking why the ACI’s website claimed a large membership – as I recall you responded this was just a lie. I regret the occasion was not as memorable for you as it was for me.
The Anglican Communion not being a federation the question is not whether a country, such as Switzerland or the UK, permits same sex partnerships, but whether the Parliament of that country thinks it is part of its remit to determine what kind of bishops and other leadership the communion should have. The CofE is obviously comfortable with the involvement of the British parliament in its internal ecclesiastical life. The rest of the communion is not.
RE: “No – the ACI figures less and less in my thoughts . . . ”
. . . Yes, we can all tell how little that organization figures in MR’s thoughts.
RE: ” . . . it has sadly become yet another fissiparous group pulling the Anglican Communion apart.”
But what fun to observe the spectacle of a heretical activist complaining that something is “pulling the Anglican Communion apart”! ; > )
RE: ” . . . as I recall you responded this was just a lie.”
Not much has changed for Reynolds I see. Who knew that he was always that way, even years ago?
RE: “seems a bit obsessed with ACI…not sure why.”
Cseitz, who knows — they get that way sometimes. I expect it’s that they’re a bit threatened and irked.
Mr. Reynolds’ peevishness is, I believe in this case, misplaced: the kinds of concerns Dr. Poon is raising are ones shared now by a host of Anglicans around the world from quite different perspectives, and they go directly to the apparent subversion of the ACC as an above–board, responsibly self-regulating and representative body for the Communion. Whatever one’s views about same-sexuality, we are watching the seeming implosion of a key Anglican “instrument of unity”, much more formally so than we have observed in the weakening of other instruments, because of course we are dealing with legal and constitutional documents and the deformation of their formulation and application. This is not a minor chapter in partisan polemics, but a major, critical, and dangerous development.
On no account is the left hand to be permitted to know what the right hand is doing. That presumably is why neither the CDG nor IASCUFO nor anyone else for that matter has been put in the picture about the nature and effect of the changes to the constitution of the ACC.
That is why communion governance needs to be put on a more regular footing than the deceit and manipulation we see from St Andrew’s House and Lambeth Palace. The Primates Meeting must meet at least annually and determine their own agenda. The patronage on appointments and process exercised by Lambeth Palace needs to be again opened to control by the provinces, perhaps through the Primates Meeting and there is an almighty mess up over ACC and the Standing Committee to be sorted out.
I agree with Michael Poon – If the body appointed [although we know by whom] to review the Communion Instruments has been trumped in its work by a fait accompli on the ACC and Standing Committee, what is the point of their work. What guarantee is ther that the scheming and manipulation we have seen in the past, have now seen in July over the Articles and meeting of the Standing Committee, will not be continued into the future by the ABC and ACO?
Something more radical is called for – a return to control of the Communion by the provinces [perhaps in the first instance by action of the Primates], and the return of the ABC to his proper role of being first among equals, not manipulator-in-chief.