Given these shortcomings, it’s hard to see how the Dublin document advances even “honest conversation,” much less “our common life in Christ” (46-47). We will all have to do better.
1. With a full 15 of their membership missing in action, many for reasons of conscience, that the Dublin primates saw fit to produce any document at all on “the purpose and scope of the Primates’ Meeting” appears presumptuous and imprudent. In the current climate of broken trust, it was bound to be approached suspiciously. For what commonly accepted criteria of Christian decision-making were used, shorn of party prejudice? And if it is pointed out that the document lacks theological conviction as well as continuity with the recent past, this only creates other problems. Why publish such a thing, when the chances are small that the text, even as a non-committal working document, will be received by a future, restored Primates’ Meeting?
2. “No meeting can allow itself to be shaped wholly by the people who are not there,” said Archbishop Williams afterward, a sound general principle. Given the deep divisions within Anglicanism, however, which the several instruments of the Communion have proven increasingly unable even to address directly, much less resolve, it may have been better to call off the Dublin meeting altogether, as Canterbury reportedly contemplated at one point: refuse to press on with business as usual, in favor of an intervention or course correction. One hears an impatience in the archbishop’s statement that “two thirds of the Communion at least wish to meet and wish to continue the conversations they have begun.” Who will take responsibility for the whole by speaking publicly and candidly about the way forward and how we will get there? The archbishop himself has done so before and must do so again, as a “focus and means of unity” for the Communion (Anglican Covenant, 3.1.4)….
This really is a superb analysis and editorial from TLC. It must have been difficult to excerpt!
Oh well.
Well, THEY are the ones who absented themselves and thereby reduced the orthodox voice to mere silence. Why blame the heterodox for taking an opportunity presented to them on a silver platter? Once again the orthodox have demonstrated their absolutely inerrant gift for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
The meeting was fixed, Senior Priest. Attendance was just used to notch up more claimed parts of the Communion in agreement with it. There was no more point in turning up to this manipulated and infantalised meeting, whose conclusions emasculating the Instrument of the Primates Meeting into an advisory council to our Mubarak were written beforehand, than there ever was to turning up to a meeting of the Supreme Soviet.
It is, as wildfire says, an excellent piece, would that its subject Archbishop be worthy of it. But I suspect the debate has moved on, and elsewhere.
The piece from Living Church is carefully crafted, densely argued, and offers considerable clarity about what went on at Dublin, and how it is seen.
[blockquote]With a full 15 of their membership missing in action, many for reasons of conscience, that the Dublin primates saw fit to produce any document at all on “the purpose and scope of the Primates’ Meeting†appears presumptuous and imprudent. In the current climate of broken trust, it was bound to be approached suspiciously. For what commonly accepted criteria of Christian decision-making were used, shorn of party prejudice? And if it is pointed out that the document lacks theological conviction as well as continuity with the recent past, this only creates other problems. Why publish such a thing, when the chances are small that the text, even as a non-committal working document, will be received by a future, restored Primates’ Meeting?[/blockquote]
Quite so.
[blockquote]In this capacity, we urge him to reach out without delay to the primates missing from Dublin, and to undertake with them a public profession of, and recommitment to, common faith and order. All appearances, and certainly any reality, of preference for “Western†and “liberal†ways and means must be wholly and resolutely renounced in favor of clear, direct, transparent, non-manipulative dealings. Only in this way can there be any hope of restoring trust between the alienated camps of Lambeth and the Global South.[/blockquote]
That would certainly be a start, presuming there is any hope of restoring what Rowan Williams so recently utterly and completely destroyed, and that anyone is prepared to grant any credibility to dealing with him personally ever again given what he did at Dublin, and as he is even now doing as he engages in making appointments to ARCIC which would embarrass Koko the Clown. But I suppose he has to start somewhere.
[blockquote]In the end, no real advance can be made until the instruments of the Communion are able to fulfill again the purpose for which they are named. [/blockquote]
Absolutely spot on. But who will do this? Will anyone trust Williams or the ACO to go anywhere near an Instrument given what they have been up to in the last 2 years with the Lambeth Conference, Jamaica ACC meeting, Covenant, ACC constitution, Standing Committee, Dublin Primates Meeting, Listening Process, Continuing Indaba, not to mention shennanigans post Dar? Then there is the taking of money from secular institutions funded by TEC priests and dedicated to promoting inclusion among religious bodies.
The only people who can restore the Communion and ongoing credibility are the Communion Provinces themselves.
Taking the theme of the editorial, I would note that the first half is written in the indicative and the second half in the subjunctive. The first half describes the utter failure of the latest Primates’ Meeting and the victory of the revisionist party, spearheaded by Canterbury himself, over the final Instrument of Communion that had attempted to stand up for biblical truth and the teaching of the Lambeth Conference.
The second half, esp. beginning at #2, is pure fantasy. Calling on Rowan Williams to exercise his role as “focus of unity†is like calling for the fox to bring order to the chicken-house. He has shown precisely the kind of “my way or the highway†approach to unity that he intends for the future. It is a joke to ask him to “reach out without delay†to the absent Primates. As they made clear, they did meet with him in Uganda in August and explained to him their conditions for attending, just as they had warned him in advance about the Lambeth Conference. Exactly how is he to restore credibility and transparency when he has just pulled off yet another example of Western, liberal, indirect, manipulative dealings?
I won’t comment on Abp. Ntahoturi except to say that one of the most disgusting techniques of Western liberal manipulation is choosing a house conservative from Africa to make one look inclusive, by which process he forfeits his credibility with his colleagues from Africa.
Finally, calling for “repentance on all sides†is one of the oldest dodges in the book. No, the dismantling of the Anglican Communion as an organ of the church catholic which upholds biblical faith and order and carries out unified and effective witness rests with one side alone and with one man in particular.
[blockquote]Finally, calling for “repentance on all sides†is one of the oldest dodges in the book. No, the dismantling of the Anglican Communion as an organ of the church catholic which upholds biblical faith and order and carries out unified and effective witness rests with one side alone and with one man in particular. [/blockquote]
This is the truth of the matter. The treachery of the ABC was made clear to all who would see it after Dar es Salaam. The Primates who did not attend did not give the game away as it was never theirs to give. Rather they refused to continue to be window dressing for the ABC’s games in being TEC’s front man.
Dr Noll writes:
[blockquote] “The second half, esp. beginning at #2, is pure fantasy. Calling on Rowan Williams to exercise his role as “focus of unity†is like calling for the fox to bring order to the chicken-house. He has shown precisely the kind of “my way or the highway†approach to unity that he intends for the future.” [/blockquote]
I wouldn’t disagree with your assessment of this ABC, but I would have thought that it is a good witness to publicly call upon him to do what he should do, even if (humanly speaking) there is little prospect that he would ever do it. The Lord sent prophets to cry the warning even to those who were never going to turn from their wickedness.
Thus it is useful and a comfort to orthodox Christians all over the world when the article writes:
[blockquote] “In this capacity, we urge [ABC] to reach out without delay to the primates missing from Dublin, and to undertake with them a public profession of, and recommitment to, common faith and order.” [/blockquote]
I also found it encouraging that the statement:
[blockquote] “All appearances, and certainly any reality, of preference for “Western†and “liberal†ways and means must be wholly and resolutely renounced in favor of clear, direct, transparent, non-manipulative dealings. Only in this way can there be any hope of restoring trust between the alienated camps of Lambeth and the Global South.” [/blockquote]
is a very direct critique of one side only!