Primates from the Global South are contemplating a boycott of the next Primates’ Meeting because the US Presiding Bishop, Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori, will be present.
The Archbishop of the Indian Ocean, the Most Revd Ian Ernest, has confirmed that he will not attend the meeting, due to take place in Dublin, 25-31 January.
Archbishop Ernest said last week that he had written to the Archbishop of Canterbury in the summer to convey his distress at the election in the United States of the Rt Revd Mary Glasspool, a partnered lesbian, as Bishop of Los Angeles. He had urged Dr Williams to exclude Dr Jefferts Schori from future Primates’ Meetings.
“There were conditions attached in that letter,” he said last week, “and I can confirm I will not attend if those conditions are not fulfilled.”
As I pointed out on another thread. the writer injects some editorializing:
[blockquote] In a bizarre suggestion, he [AAC’s Bp David Anderson] advises that Dr Jefferts Schori be shut out of the room, or removed “by force of numbers†if she attends. If Dr Williams objects to this, the meeting could go ahead in a separate room without him. [/blockquote]
People can correct me, but the “bizarre” suggestion seems entirely consistent with Windsor to exclude a consecrator of Mary Glasspool.
I’m guessing, but I assume they view as ‘bizarre’ — not a disinvitation as such — but Anderson’s remarks about shutting out of a room or bodily removing.
#2
Bishop Anderson in no way suggested [b]bodily removing[/b] anyone from the future meeting.
[blockquote]If asked my opinion, I would strongly advise the orthodox Primates to 1) organize before the Primates’ meeting, and 2) attend and remove by force of numbers the Presiding Bishop of the American Episcopal Church (not physically, but by either voting her off the “island,” or recessing to another room and not letting her in)[/blockquote]
Australia should also be barred from participation in The Primates Meeting/Council and Communion (Eucharist) until they repent.
In fact, Rowan Williams should be barred from the Primates meeting and the Eucharist because of the number of are ‘gay’ (*see definition below) priests with spousal benefits for their same-sex partners in the Church of England (not to mention his unconscionable betrayal of trust and his violations of Spirit and Truth since taking office).
If the AC, even the orthodox, are going to draw the line at ‘gay’ bishops, but give the old wink/nod/bow to ‘gay’ priests, lay leaders and communicants, they will be following an unholy and unbiblical standard that will continue the decline and demise of Anglicanism.
*GAY = A. Assuming or believing one’s state of feeling/thinking/behaving is one’s ‘sexual identity’ and/or ‘sexual orientation’ B. Having the goal (agenda) to normalize, to gain sympathy or approval, C. Feeling one has the ‘right’ to gratify the impulses and inclinations that accompany this way of feeling/thinking/behaving.
Oops – Here’s the first sentence again with the link corrected, I hope (unless links don’t work here).
Australia should also be barred from participation in The Primates Meeting/Council and Communion (Eucharist) until they repent.
OK, it’s here: http://themcj.com/?p=15408
“If asked my opinion, I would strongly advise the orthodox PrimÂates to: 1) organise before the PrimÂates’ Meeting; and 2) attend and remove by force of numbers the PreÂsidÂing Bishop of the American EpisÂcopal Church (not physically, but by either voting her off the ‘island’, or recesÂsing to another room and not letting her in).”
Nothing bizarre about that. Apparently, the writer is unfamiliar with the definition of the word “bizarre” and imagines it to mean “something I disagree with”.
The staff reporter’s line had me thinking of the retort from Inigo Montoya in the funniest movie ever: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
I do like the mental picture of the admirable Archbishop of the Indian Ocean voting the TEC PB off the island, though.
I don’t have an opinion about the matter, frankly. It’s one of those topics destined/designed to generate heat. I was only conjecturing why CT labeled it ‘bizarre.’ I stand by the view that they read this as some sort of forced exclusion — so, the language ‘be shut out of’ (CT) and ‘removed by force of numbers’. To ‘remove’ the PB was interpreted, not as disinvitation or exclusion, but as an action taken to remove her from the physical space of the meeting. This is what CT heard in the language and so reacted as it did.
What is bizarre is that so great a number of ‘reporters’ mistake editorializing for reporting. Perhaps one may attribute it to the poor quality of journalism education – but IMHO I detect symptoms of group think, including a distinct lack of self awareness.
🙄
Forced exclusion (voting not to include people in meetings, barring them from meetings, moving meetings to different locations so as to preclude attendance by certain individuals) happens all the time among corporate and public boards in the US and UK when controversial matters involving a board member arise. So, as I say, not bizarre in any sense of the word.
As to the church, I would simply refer you to the precedent by the Archbishop of Canterbury to exclude the representative of Uganda at Jamaica after he had already shown up. One may say it was a different meeting, and one might even argue that forced exclusion is bizarre in one instance and not the other (unconvincingly) on some technical ground, but one cannot say that it was not an exclusion from a meeting.
It seems apparent to me, at least, that the distinction is that the ABC does not wish to suggest that TEC has done anything to call into question whether its primate is a valuable and welcome primate in perfectly good standing in the communion. Whilst there is little evidence the ABC has been particularly concerned with whether he was insulting the archbishop of Uganda in Jamaica, or whether Uganda is represented in communion meetings or not.
I agree with +Anderson. A boycott by orthodox primates accomplishes absolutely nothing. What did the GQAFCON bishops’ boycott of Lambeth accomplish? Nothing. All it does in concede the field to the enemy.
And Sarah, I know you disagree with me on this.
RobRoy, I usually like Anderson’s sense of *tactics* but in this case I don’t see what good it would do for however many Primates to show up [what, 8, 10, 14?] and try to vote Schori out, then when that vote goes down by 22 to 14 or whatever, trotting off to another room.
Why not simply meet on a closer continent if they are going to have to meet in their own huddle?
You can read Bishop Anderson’s full comments on the [url=http://www.americananglican.org/the-next-primates-meeting] AAC’s website.[/url]
The American PB is a primate of a constituent church of the Communion. A vehicle for disciplining errant provinces has not yet emerged. It makes no logical sense or strategic sense for orthodox priimates to behave as if they have been excluded or disciplined. They should attend believing that God will give them the words to speak and the courage to witness. Of course revisionists will win if they run away and hide.
It seems to me that “attend but make their positions clear” is what they tried at Alexandria. It was not effective in making any change. Why travel the distance and go through it again?
RE: “It makes no logical sense or strategic sense for orthodox priimates to behave as if they have been excluded or disciplined.”
Right — they should simply behave as is the truth — which is that orthodox Primates do not share communion with those who do not believe the Gospel, and will not pretend as if they do, either, much less participate at a leadership meeting where they also participate. Obviously Schori hasn’t been “excluded or disciplined.” That’s precisely the problem.
RE: ” They should attend believing that God will give them the words to speak and the courage to witness.”
They can do that just as easily while not pretending as if they are in communion with people who do not believe the Gospel, or sharing leadership decisions with the same.
No, my hope is that they cease playing Rowan’s game, on Rowan’s playing field, with Rowan’s referees and rules and Rowan’s manipulations, and Rowan’s fixed outcomes. They need to play their game, on their playing field, and Rowan can decide if he would like to join them — or stay over there with Schori.
The truth is . . . that decision has *actually* already been made by Rowan.
And now, the unfolding of the consequences of that decision will hopefully occur.
Katherine,
I may well be mistaken, but from the reports I read from Alexandria, it appeared that all they did was attend and sit on their hands. I ‘ve seen nothing to indicate any sort of coordinated effort on their part to call out TEC or Canada in that gathering. And afterward, at a press conference, we saw ++Venables and ++Orombi saying how collegial it had all been and how everybody now had a greater appreciation for the other’s contexts, etc., etc. Nothing bold or confrontational at all. If that’s all we could expect from their attending, I agree it would be useless. However, that’s not what +Anderson is suggesting.
RE: “And afterward, at a press conference, we saw ++Venables and ++Orombi saying how collegial it had all been and how everybody now had a greater appreciation for the other’s contexts, etc., etc.”
Right — because they recognized, as per Dar, et al, that it does no good to actually “come to conclusions” at Primates Meetings.
Why — seriously WHY — must we continue doing the same very same things every time?
Why?
Every single tactic and strategem at Primates Meetings has been tried.
But when you have one person playing with his hand-picked referees and playing field and fans and stadium and locker room and ball it is a fore-gone conclusion how the game ends.
It’s beyond me.
I fully agree with Sarah and Katherine (with all due respect to +Anderson and others here like Evan Miller).
But can we please put the focus back on ++Ian Ernest here? What is so significant about this news, so stunning really, is that ++Ian E has tried so hard for so long to work within the system to change the system. Surely, it is highly significant that even he has now given up on that futile endeavor. And rightly so (like ++Anis Mouneer, etc). As the saying goes, “[i]Fool me once…[/i]”
I think it’s momentous that this “moderate” conciliatory GS leader, widely-admired across the theological spectrum, has seen the light and is unwilling to play ++RW’s games, on his turf, as Sarah has aptly described it. This is a telling and encouraging sign that the stark and ugly truth is becoming more and more visible for all the world to see: the emperor (++RW) has no clothes. The Wizard of Oz turns out to be a sham, a con artist.
As even the ACI’s Ephraim Radner has finally admitted openly, the formal structures of the AC at the international level, the Instruments of Unity and Communion have utterly failed. They have been discredited since they have clearly been co-opted, corrupted, and manipulated shamelessly by ++RW and the duplicitous leaders of the ACO (and their “progressive” allies). There is no hope or help in them.
After all, ++Ernest is the current head of CAPA, yet he was also one of the key GS figures that ++RW recruited to lead Lambeth 2008. The guy valiantly tried to salvage one Instrument of Unity, the Lambeth Conference, and failed. Now he refuses to participate in another farce involving the attempt (by ++RW, the ACO and their sympathizers) to manipulate another Insturment of Unity, that has been gutted and twisted into a means of legitimating endless delay and blocking any real discipline.
And he’s willing to make it known publicly. In 2008 he went to Lambeth when many GS leaders stayed away. Now he is staying away. So naturally the questions is, who else will do the same?
What happens when even ++John Chew decides to stay away?
++RW’s bluff is being called. Great. I’m all for that.
But in 2008 we had GAFCON as the highly visible alternative to Lambeth. So what meeting of GS and orthodox primates will emerge as an alternative to Dublin 2011?
“[i]A house divided against itself cannot stand[/i]” (Mark 3:25). This sorry spectacle was inevitable as long as ++RW refused to repent, along with other misguided and deluded advocates of immorality in the AC.
David Handy+
Why couldn’t the orthodox Primates hold Gafcon II in preference to the Primates’ Meeting? It has been my impression for some time that leading Global South leaders who did not support Gafcon WOULD support it today. It would not be necessary to repudiate Gafcon but to revise it and to make it the larger umbrella for the orthodox Anglicans.
I believe +Ernest made these comments back at Entebbe. The general sense at the time was that the Primates were all telling the ABC of the difficulty of a meeting in January. Why should there be any surprize there? What appears to be new is the idea that the ABC claims/is being held to claim that there is a meaningful difference between inviting to Lambeth Conference and to Primates Meetings, and that he only ‘convenes’ the latter. So, Conger’s piece at CEN. This is a strange idea (I am not attributing its strangeness to Conger). If it is true, it would explain why the Primates in such large numbers are not likely to attend — again, what was to be inferred after Entebbe. Anderson’s suggestion seems unusual, if they were not going anyway. Is he arguing that they DO go, or is he assuming they will and suggesting tactics? I might have thought the clear verdict after Entebbe was that it was not very likely they would attend. As with the ACC, they had lost trust. I still do not understand the idea that the ABC only convenes meetings of the Primates, but has nothing to say about invitations. I don’t think anyone has seen this distinction used before.
I believe that, in the long run, GAFCON will be seen as successful. It was the beginning of the end for the AC as was known. Despite what some think everything has been tried on many occasions, alas, to no avail.
Perhaps they can take the problem to the forum in which she herself has invested much effort and many resources — a court system. Cease and desist from portraying herself as a primate of the Anglican Communion since she refuses to abide by requests, dicta, etc. etc. from the other Anglican primates or to cooperate with Communion processes and sensibilities. God knows there’s enough proof of that!
Cute, the “bizarre” choice-of-words; it’s a psych term known as “gaslighting”, probably taken from the old Ingrid Bergman movie where her husband is trying to achieve his ends by making her think she’s absolutely crazy. Or, think of it this way–three out of four family members are stinking drunk. The fourth member tells them they really need to clean up their acts, go to detox/rehab and quit drinking. The three proceed to tell the fourth that she is “crazy” or bizarre. So she is labeled crazy and they get to continue doing what they want, possibly because she backs off.
It’s labeled “bizarre”(basically an eloquent word for “crazy”) to shut someone out of a meeting…ooooo, someone might think I’m “bizarre” if I do that, so maybe I shouldn’t. It’s classic, subtle manipulation that I wouldn’t allow to see the light of day.
The primates, including primus inter pares, SHOULD have the guts to shut her out of that meeting, possibly including the ACoC primate, too. If they don’t, it will just devolve into more chaos and/or continue assimilating the liberal Borg. Choose this day whom you will serve…
For the life of me, I can’t understand why any Anglican anywhere has anything to do with this litigating apostate.
I have rejoiced to see the understanding some of you have of the position of people in radically revisionist dioceses. It may be easy for some, who have (or who can move to) more tenable spiritual environments, to decry the importance of ACNA. Coming from a high ecclesiology, I have not yet joined it, myself, but I have attended there some of the most enriching services I have ever experienced and have heard there distinctly global and high visions for the Communion. The local Episcopal situation is such that a distinguished colleague puts it this way: “I’m afraid to go inside the church, anymore, lest I have to be exorcised.” This was a serious comment. For some time, my wife and I sat in tears in the Episcopal Church (where we have generations of background and where our own handiwork remains in the nave and elsewhere); we knew we would have to leave friends and legacy and all that is dear and familiar in one’s own parish–this we would have to do to save our souls from the burning. Locally, we have attended the Catholic Church, but theological issues have prevented our actually joining, at least at the present time. My family and I must travel a hundred miles each way to go to an ACNA parish, but it may be our only recourse. Imagine how separatist it is, for people like us, to read (from some) the denigration of ACNA/GAFCON–to hear that they should not be part of the solution in a renewed Anglicanism. Is it better for people to be unchurched or to be in ACNA? Or to join the RC Church, though with principled reservations? I do think it is deeply unhelpful if the orthodox in the Episcopal Church can not join hands with ACNA, even at this juncture, and if orthodox parts of the Communion must keep eschewing GAFCON instead of recognizing its prescience. If Anglicanism fails altogether–as seems possible–I would turn to the RC Church as the one bastion of salvation and morals I can see that may still have the critical mass to stand up to the secularism and immorality of our times in the West. But I hope the spirit of ACNA/GAFCON need not be lost from the future Anglicanism. I hope that those who now refuse to see their value, and who blame these movements instead of valuing them properly, can see them truly and not be themselves a contributing part of the collapse of our Communion.
King David, when has the importance of ACNA been decried? Have I missed something in the above entries? (I would make a move to ACNA myself if I had an airplane to get me to a church on time. ) Larry
#26, I have found that lots of people decry ACNA. It seems to me that ACI and others consider it part of the problem (though they seldom mention it by name). But I didn’t refer to any specific posts when I said that. I appreciate your comments.
It surely should come as no surprise that many of the primates will not attend the Primates meeting. Something like half of the provinces are in impaired communion with TEC – meaning that they do not have communion with it, pending repentance and change by TEC which so far has not happened.
Evan Miller at #16 wrote about the Primates meeting at Alexandria in January 2009:
[blockquote] And afterward, at a press conference, we saw ++Venables and ++Orombi saying how collegial it had all been and how everybody now had a greater appreciation for the other’s contexts, etc., etc. Nothing bold or confrontational at all. [/blockquote]
I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. I thought the message from ++Venables’ and ++Orombi’s press conference after Alexandria, was that the Orthodox felt a great peace at Alexandria, because they no longer had any illusions that the liberals intended to repent.
They said that the orthodox primates concluded: “this is a broken communion. Let’s start with that and see where we go.â€