The new ACC constitution also attempts to impose diversity criteria on the primates in selecting the primates’ standing committee. They are to “have regard to” diversity between regions and sexes in appointing their members. The new constitution also infringes on the traditional prerogative of the Archbishop of Canterbury to appoint members of Anglican commissions by giving the ACC authority to establish these commissions. It is significant that at last December’s meeting of the ACC’s standing committee it considered measures to regulate the governance of the Lambeth Conference and the frequency of Primates’ Meetings.
The fourth concern is that the new constitution reduces the role of the member churches in the ACC. In addition to redefining the ACC for legal purposes so that the members appointed directly by the member churches are no longer part of the legal entity, the new constitution also eliminates the requirement that amendments to the constitution be ratified by the member churches.
The last concern raised by ACI is that the new constitution appears not to be consistent in important respects with the new Anglican Communion Covenant, completed only last December. The Covenant not only reflects the traditional understanding of the ACC as the body composed of the members directly appointed by member churches; it also defines a Communion that recognizes “the central role of bishops as guardians and teachers of faith,” that has four coequal instruments retaining their historic independence and control of their own memberships, and that is not subject to a central executive authority like that into which the ACC standing committee is evolving.
“The ACC thus serves as a complement to, but not a replacement for, the other instruments that emphasize the central role of bishops in a Communion that recognizes the historic episcopate as an essential element.”
” After the Primates’ Meeting was created as the fourth instrument and established its own standing committee,….”
Why does the Anglican Communion need both the Primates’ Standing Committee and the ACC?
The Primates’ Standing Committee, in my episcopal (lower case “e”), view of things should have superseded the ACC long ago.
Having two standing committees is organizationally unwise. It makes a difficult Anglican deliberative, control and authority strucure much much more difficult.
Let’s just do away with the ACC.
Primates can start this by withholding funds from the ACC and not bothering to send representatives to the ACC and by not deigning to communicate with the ACC.
After a while only ECUSA and other revisionist entities will be funding the ACC and participating in its actions and then maybe ECUSA can subsume the ACC into its novel new world-wide institution called The Episcopal Church (TEC).
In practical terms what can actually be done? The new Articles of the ACC have been registered under the terms of UK law. There seems little willingness among ACO officers or Standing Committee members to look at them again. Even if they conflict with the proposed Covenant no other Instrument in itself has power to alter them. Is it possible to appeal to Companies House or would it demand a court case in England (and if so who has the funds and the will to begin such proceedings)?
I hear complaints. I hear no proposals for action.
To paraphrase Stalin, “how many divisions does the ACI have?”
Ah, colonialism and imperialism and unilateralism! How did the ACC so reproduce the alleged faults of George Bush to a “T”? Ka-T and money?
I will disagree with one point. This is no longer a matter of resisting the Standing Committee. The time for that was in the Covenant Design Group meeting that sold the soul of the Covenant to KJS and her cronies on the Standing Committee.
Now it is time to force the Standing Committee out of office. Excommunicate it. Declare it to be a separate church- which is what it truly is.
That is what I was proposing, using different words, in comment #1.
One does wonder how the CoE will feel on the day it wakes up to the realization that the ABoC is now nothing more than a figurehead for KJS’s new world order.
Will it be the next Primates meeting, attended by 18 primates?
Will it be the ACC meeting, when a dozen orthodox African delegates are replaced by order of the Standing Committee?
Will it be when KJS wears her miter into Canterbury Cathedral and sits in Rowan’s chair?
Will it be when KJS declares a sitting English bishop to have renounced his orders?
Will it be the techno-mass eucharist to open Lambeth? Or the fact that there are only 300 bishops there, 225 of which will be from TEC?
#6-
I think we are more or less in agreement. Of course, the main point of the SC outrages is to get us to leave, along with GAFCON and the other GS provinces committed to Christianity.
Oops, I forgot on in my list in #7-
The smarter folks in CoE and the AC generally might figure it out when the SC announces who they appointed to those seats vacated by the resignations from the committee of the real bishops. Who do you figure they appointed? Is there anyone from NZ not already on it?
#2 driver8 makes perfect sense,
But a question remains open: have the Articles actually been “ratified” by the Provinces? How might we know this?
1. But isn’t that a question for those of us who oppose the new Articles? If one wished to challenge them one would need to provide evidence that the new Articles were not in fact properly ratified. The legal officer of the ACO has already said they have been ratified and would one imagines say so again if asked by Companies House or in a court.
Presumably it would be in order for a member of the Standing Committee or ACC to ask the legal officer to provide details of how and when Provinces ratified the Articles. Perhaps a Provincial Synod could also pass a motion asking the question. Nevertheless even then someone would need to initiate a challenge with Companies House or perhaps in a UK court.
2. Perhaps, if the Articles are indeed incompatible with section 4 of the proposed Covenant (as seems to be the case), they could be redrawn to be made compatible with the Covenant. Though I note that under the new Articles, approval of any change to them is no longer via the Provinces but through a two thirds majority of the Plenary Session of the ACC itself.
RE: “have the Articles actually been “ratified†by the Provinces? How might we know this?”
I think what I’d do as a Province — as a group of Provinces — is to formally and publicly disapprove the new articles of the ACC and withdraw from further participation in the ACC.
Then I’d approve the Covenant with the stipulation that of course the adjudication of the Covenant may not be through the Standing Committee of the ACC.
One of the most extraordinary things IMO is that though many folks it seems did not know in detail what the new Articles contained, the Anglican Communion Office (ACO) certainly did. The ACO also knew in detail the contents of the proposed Covenant.
How could ACO, which exists to serve all the Instruments of Communion, offer for approval Articles which conflict with the proposed Covenant?
Dr. Radner,
One would have thought that you would be the one in a position to ask the question of those who should know. It clearly did not happen by the sort of parliamentary process by which the original constitution of the ACC was adopted (as recollection serves, I think TEC called a special convention for the purpose). Neither GC not the CoE Synod passed resolutions approving them, and it is difficult to see how they could have been approved in any other way in those churches. Several GS churches have expressed consternation over the supposed approval. It seems such approvals as exist are “agreements in principle” from persons other than the primates of the provinces. If the articles were approved, why do we still not have a list of provinces that approved, along with the process each province went through to approve? Why were the new rules not voted on at the last Primates meeting? The ACC seems to have adopted them on their own, but even then it is hard to tell if they were in final form, as they were still “secret” for months after. The only people who knew what was in them were John Rees and a few people at ACO.
However these new rules were forced on the Communion, we need to face the fact that now that they are enshrined in English law, the choice that is being put before the provinces is to live with them and submit to TEC and all that entails, or leave the Anglican Communion. There is no middle ground. The Archbishop of Canterbury can no longer even call a primate’s meeting without their permission (unless he can fund it himself, and then they claim the right to limit who he can invite). If Rowan has some magic solution, he has a week or 10 days to produce it.
[blockquote]How could ACO, which exists to serve all the Instruments of Communion, offer for approval Articles which conflict with the proposed Covenant? [/blockquote]Driver8- it was the ACO staff, Cameron and Williams who were primarily responsible for rewriting the original drafts of the Covenant to place the Standing Committee in charge of all discipline. The whole point was to refashion the Covenant into something TEC could sign. In essence, they re-wrote the Covenant so that it does not conflict with the new constitution- it is completely at the mercy of the Standing Committee. Since TEC now runs the Communion and controls all the levers of power, they will have no problem signing the Covenant, and then disciplining all the GS churches who have intervened on behalf of the orthodox in the US.
The Covenant revisions were made by the people who KNEW what the articles were. From Dr. Radner’s previous testimony, we know this was not discussed with the Covenant Design Group. But Williams, Cameron, and Kearon knew, and it certainly would not surprise me if the various revisionists on the Covenant Design Group knew as well.
The short answer would be there is now only one instrument of communion- the Standing Committee- the others have been demoted to lesser standing. So the ACO is now the servant of the single instrument- not that it has paid much attention to the former instruments, even when it was supposedly their administrative office. No one else, not even the ABoC, has any authority under this new constitution.
One province (was it Uganda?) said that they were asked in a letter to approve of the new draft Articles but never received the new draft Articles. However the letter said that if they did not reply within in a certain period it would be counted as approval.
One can easily imagine how following such a procedure the required majority might be achieved. Was such a process of “approval” legal under the terms of the old ACC Constitution, particularly if it was the ACO rather than the ACC itself which defined the terms of the required “approval”.
Is that true?
Yet even in the text of the proposed “final” Covenant, section 4.2.5 and 4.2.8 look incompatible with the new Articles.
Driver8-
In what way are the articles incompatible with 4.2.5 and 4.2.8? 4.2.5 says the Standing Committee may (not must, but may) recommend relational consequences (presumably that someone be “invited to consider withdrawing for a time”) from an Instrument of Communion. But that in no way infringes on the powers of the standing committee. And in all likelihood, given the makeup of the Standing Committee, results in disciplinary recommendations only for border crossing, as proven at the last standing committee meeting, when all discipline of TEC was voted down by 80% margins.
4.2.8 merely states that only Covenant church representatives – or those still making up their mind, which currently includes everybody- can vote on the disciplinary measures (assuming the Covenant is ever adopted at all). However, it also implies that the disciplinary measures only apply to the Covenant relationship, and not Communion membership as such. And if TEC signs, then the current standing committee has the power to rid itself of virtually the entire GS if it chooses to do so. Until such time as a church actually says it is not signing, it retains its presence on the standing committee or any instrument (“limited to those members of the Instruments of Communion who are representatives of those churches who have adopted the Covenant, or who are still in the process of adoption.”)- so with TEC stringing out its decision for the next 10 years, they can maintain hegemony, even if they never sign.
In other words the new Articles define the membership of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Standing Committee in such a way that section 4 of the Covenant can have no applicability (at least with reference to the ACC and the Standing Committee).
With reference to the ACC and the Standing Committee, even the Standing Committee is bound by the new Articles which define their membership according to UK law. That is, it is impossible under the new Articles for even the Standing Committee to “specify a provisional limitation of participation in, or suspension from” the ACC or Standing Committee.
The new Articles make no mention of any such limit and so would need redrafting if the Communion desired to put 4.2.8 into effect.
Yes Driver8, that is the point of the exercise- to redefine Communion membership to those churches who have ACC representation, and to disable the Covenant’s disciplinary procedure. And by also demoting Lambeth and the Primates to figurehead status, making it irrelevant whether they take any disciplinary action or not. The intent of the Covenant revisions was to make the Covenant toothless, except for the enforcement of national boundaries on churches other than TEC, which we all know is an international church in 16 countries, soon to open a franchise in every province.
The articles redefine the Anglican Communion. It is no longer those churches in communion with Canterbury, but rather those churches who interact on the ACC with TEC. Note that to date, the only form of discipline actually taken in the Communion is for some provinces to refuse to interact with TEC. Now, if you refuse to interact by removing your delegates from the ACC, you cease to be “legally” Anglican. The next logical step for the GS provinces (if there still is an Anglican Communion after the next Primates Meeting, or after the African Bishops meet, for that matter) is to remove their representatives from the ACC, given that TEC has not yet been disciplined as agreed at every Primates meeting since 2003. And, if TEC signs the Covenant, and your province does not interact with them, your province is in breach of the Covenant. You have to admire all those lawyers- the Catch 22 must have taken an enormous amount of work.
1. If the same folks drafted (or knew the contents of the drafts of) the new Articles and the “final” section 4 why is it that they conflict? For at least currently, 4.2.5 cannot be applied to the ACC and the key decision making body, the Standing Committee, and 4.2.8 can’t apply at all. The Articles do seem to gut the Covenant of its principal disciplinary measures of last resort.
2. 4.2.5 could still be used by the Standing Committee to recommend limited participation in or suspension from other Instruments of Communion such as the Lambeth Conference or Primates Meeting. However it cannot apply, as far as I can see, to the ACC or the Standing Committee.
3. Don’t the ACC Articles only define membership of the Communion for the purposes of ACC and Standing Committee membership under UK law. Non attendance at two meetings of the Standing Committee may be grounds for removal from the Standing Committee but not the Communion.
Imagine a Primate on the Standing Committee failed to attend twice and was voted off by the other Standing Committee members. Presumably the Standing Committee would then ask the Primates Standing Committee to provide another member. The Primate who was voted off would still have the right to attend Primates meetings should he or she so wish. Non attendance by non-trustee members at the Plenary ACC meetings, as far as I can see, has no effects.
In a weird sort of way it occurs to me that the sort of governance that the Communion is getting is beginning to look rather like TEC’s own governance. In theory the principal decision making body has a kind of synodical feel (ACC) though in fact it will meet only irregularly and regular decision making with be focused though the Standing Committee (one could call it an Executive Council). Other bodies (Lambeth Conference, Primates, ABC) are given little or no responsibility to make decisions and the vision seems to see them as, at most, offering recommendations, which are acted on or not by the central committee. The new Articles of the ACC acknowledge very few formal roles for the other Instruments and there seems to be no sense in which they envisage or encourage the sharing of responsibility or mutual accountability.
TEC has, as it tells us, a unique polity in which collective episcopal leadership is of less significance than any other part of the Communion. However, the new Articles make it seem that the Communion will begin to look and function more like TEC.
[blockquote]Primates can start this by withholding funds from the ACC and not bothering to send representatives to the ACC and by not deigning to communicate with the ACC. [/blockquote]
That won’t work. The funding is coming primarily from TEC. Even if all the moderate and moderate provinces withheld funds TEC would fund ACC from endowments, the sale of properties siezed in law suits and/or loans against those properties and maybe even Church Pension Fund assets.
Just another reason not to contribute to any parish that funds a diocese that sends funds to 815.
“Resistance is futile — You will be assimilated”
Don -the Borg (ACC) made me say that
[blockquote]1. If the same folks drafted (or knew the contents of the drafts of) the new Articles and the “final†section 4 why is it that they conflict? [/blockquote] Driver 8,
I will admit that I am working primarily from memory, as I don’t have much research time at the moment. Dr. Radner can certainly correct me if I am wrong about the following. It is my recollection that at the time that Gregory Cameron was the secretary (the fellow doing most of the writing between meetings) to the CDG, and although I forget the title, held a high position at the ACO or Lambeth Palace. Certainly John Rees was being contacted throughout both processes on legal issues of provincial relationships (and is clearly the chief author of the new articles) and if the ABoC was unaware of the wording of either the Covenant or the articles, it was intentional ignorance- he certainly had access to both. I am not at all sure that what you see as conflict is actually conflict. Although we of course will never see minutes of what was actually said, we are given from the standing committee press releases that Rees gave a presentation on section 4 of the Covenant and explained it to their satisfaction.
[blockquote]2. 4.2.5 could still be used by the Standing Committee to recommend limited participation in or suspension from other Instruments of Communion such as the Lambeth Conference or Primates Meeting. However it cannot apply, as far as I can see, to the ACC or the Standing Committee.[/blockquote]The new articles are clearly designed to redefine “member of the Anglican Communion” to mean “those churches with membership on the ACC”. No doubt the articles will be interpreted by the ABoC as his “two tier” idea, but now it is 3 or 4 tier- there will be Covenant churches that meet in Covenant meetings, Primate is in the Primates Meeting, bishops go to Lambeth. There will be non-Covenant provinces that attend all the meetings except the Covenant meetings. There will be Provinces whose primate is not invited to Primates Meetings or have some bishops excluded from Lambeth. But no one can be kicked off the ACC. Therefore, the only way that a church leaves the Communion altogether is voluntarily. The ABoC no doubt sees this as a feature, not a bug. In essence, by accepting the current articles, the SC has decided to give up a power granted to it by the Covenant. But in and of itself, that is not a conflict between the documents. Nothing in the Covenant obliges the Standing Committee to remove delegates. The articles might arguably prevent another abuse of power ala Jamaica, when the SC unilaterally, and unconstitutionally, removed a delegate. Although do note that the articles tighten up the wording on delegate qualifications.
As you your number 3, I will admit I was speculating, but having watched for 15 years as TEC hierarchs have bent, bruised and abused canon law, we can be almost certain that every nuance of the wording of the new articles, and of the Covenant, will be utilized by TEC to increase its stranglehold on the Communion.
Don, I agree, “resistance” is futile. TEC encroaches, inch by inch. It is time to stop resisting. It is time to counter attack. Time to stop playing the game by their rules and arguing endlessly over the gay agenda. Time to start playing by our rules- faith, theology, church order. Let them try to defend for a change.
These are all good questions to be asked, and not only asked but pressed. And they are and will be from various quarters. This is not the last we will hear about this; and it won’t be just the “little men” of ACI simply writing more tedious essays — the concerns being expressed here, and the concrete matters at issue, are ones already being mulled over and grappled with elsewhere in the Communion, with responses, no doubt, to come. We are entering, it strikes me, a new and very risky stage of Communion relations — far riskier than in the last few years — because of what increasingly appears to be a legal and procedural fiasco that touches every Anglican province, and moves directly into the center of the ACO. The outcome to this, in its destructive force, may not at all be what was intended by those revising the Articles.
Indeed, this is serious stuff. It is, unfortunately, difficult to conceive of any covenant proceeding in this atmosphere of deception. Thanks to the current incumbent of the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the next primates’ meeting may be the last for the communion as we know it – and that is they are even willing to respect his invitation, which is by no means certain.
Dr. Williams last chance may be next week when he will preach to (and one hopes meet with) that bishops at the All Africa Bishop’s Conference- assuming no Icelandic volcano eruptions, etc. (Information accurate as of 3 pm, EST, Aug 18, 2010)
http://www.africanbishops.org/
Well, while there might be no volcanic eruptions to prevent the conference from gathering, there might very well be an eruption of another kind among the primates…..and it shouldn’t be too hard to guess what that might be like.
Thanks for the comments above, which are as illuminating as the article itself.
Dr Radner’s last sentence at #28 is prescient. Do these fools really think that by neutering the Communion structures in this way that they will stop the orthodox in the Communion from continuing to be orthodox? All they have done is given added ammunition to those among the faithful who say that treating with ABC, Kearon etc is a waste of time.
They are effectively forcing those Anglicans who want to participate in a godly Communion to look for it outside the existing AC structure. Anglican leaders such as ++Anis who sought to work within existing the Communion institutions are being told to go and find fellowship with the “radicals” like ++Orombi.
Oh well, why should I complain? My view has been for some time that the orthodox should set up their own Anglican Communion structure with a few simple elements:
(a) a clear concise statement of orthodoxy along the lines of the Jerusalem statement, which essentially refers the reader back to the formularies and clarifies a few current points;
(b) a meeting of Primates every two years which no single prelate has power to forestall or prevent occurring;
(c) a continuation of the current legal position, i.e. that each Province is autocephalous. Participation in the new Communion is voluntary, and the worst sanction that can be applied is expulsion or suspension;
(d) a Primate of the Communion is elected by the Primates meeting, who holds office for four or six years, and whose role is mainly representational.
(e) Membership of the new Communion by new Provinces requires (i) acceptance by a two thirds majority at a Primates meeting; (ii) unequivocal ratification of the formularies and a clear statement of commitment to orthodoxy; (iii) that the candidate Province send a letter to Canterbury and ACC formally renouncing any relationship with them, except through the new Communion.
Needless to say, if TEC, ACiC or CofE aren’t part of the new Communion, either because they haven’t provided sufficient evidence of a commitment to orthodoxy or are unwilling to do so, then they will be given no protection whatsoever against border crossing by members of the new Communion. In fact, its probably better just to declare their provinces mission territory immediately and invite members to start planting new churches within them.
I wonder who here does [i]not[/i] think that Rowan has his hand in all of this? It is inconceivable to me that he does not. If I might paraphrase Gamaliel, “But if it is from Rowan, you will not be able to stop these men.”
I said on a thread on SF, that Rowan is the CoE’s Griswold. Rowan successor or his successor’s successor will be the CoE’s Schori. Is all the games being played is the Lord’s way to deliver us from a Canterbury centered communion? Is anyone thinking about such a new communion and how to get from here to there?
33. robroy:
I suspect that things are already progressing to address your questions in the affirmative. I’m involved in a family situation where an errant husband wants to talk about anything and everything except his culpability in his destruction of his marriage. It is an exceedingly sad affair. The breakup of the worldwide AC is also a sad affair where the guilty demand conversation of all and anything except conversation of their own culpability. But the innocent are taking measured steps to preserve the faith. God bless both them and their ministries.
Don