It appears that, if someone can actually talk with Rowan Williams, the fellow isn’t really a bad chap. But then his Wormtongue managers at Lambeth Palace and the heavily US-funded Anglican Communion Office regain their control over him, and he becomes once again entranced to do nothing while evil prospers.
Actually, the ABC seems to be acting under the assumption that the best way to keep the Anglican Communion together is to keep the Episcopal Church together. Thus, he is remaining silent while the litigious (did I mention that already?) Presiding Bishop crushes all dissent. American Conservatives are apparently supposed to reconcile themselves to being casualties in a war Rowan would like to pretend doesn’t exist.
In reality, the only way to save the Anglican Communion is to discipline the Episcopal Church for its departure from Anglican Communion norms. The Archbishop of Canterbury can accomplish this discipline through his prerogative of invitations to the Lambeth Conference. The Primates can accomplish this discipline by censuring the American Church and limiting TEC’s participation in the instruments of unity. If this does not happen, not only the Episcopal Church, but the Anglican Communion will fly apart under the centrifugal forces of the orbit into which the anarchic deviations of the American Church have cast it””and it will happen sooner rather than later.
Are you listening, Rowan?
I wish I’d written that. A perfect synopsis of the passing scene and ++Rowan’s catatonia.
[blockquote] Are you listening, Rowan? [/blockquote]
A question asked myriad times by a veritable sea of people; and yet, what we all hear from +++Cantuar of late is…
Exactly.
Sir, it is now 14 days past the end of October, and the post-JSC report follow-ups. Have you anything to say?
What better way to spend this afternoon on Tuesday, than to read this wisdom from Robert Munday!
Shoot, Dave, I was trying to figure out how to phrase something like that!
An interesting rebuttal if one reads with the Dr. Seitz+ piece two below.
A very good, concise summary. I must, however, take a bit of issue with this statement: “A concurrent development with the escalating legal tensions over the past year has been the repudiation of the General Convention 2006 resolution (B033) urging restraint in giving consent to the election of a bishop “whose manner of life might present a challenge to the larger Communion”—in other words, a gay bishop.”
B033 doesn’t ONLY refer to a “gay bishop,” from the conservative standpoint. We have also stood against the consecration of heterosexual bishops that have been married 3+ times, such as the chap in California, whose name escapes me. And I think that the majority of us would support a bishop who was gay but committed to celibacy.
Barry Beisner, married 3 times, is the Bishop of Northern California.
Very good indeed. My only problem is this:
“But then his Wormtongue managers at Lambeth Palace and the heavily US-funded Anglican Communion Office regain their control over him”
If I am not mistaken, next to the Royal Family, the Church of England is one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest institution in land and endowments in Briton. I seriously doubt the Episcopal wallets hold all that much sway over the ABC – and I am sure if push came to shove, the US funds could be easily replaced with pounds sterling. But I am willing to be enlightened here.
Rather than funds, I suspect it is the lack of spine and liberal leanings that are responsible for the ABC’s lack of action – and my prayer is that his friend + Tom Wright of Durham might be able to exhort him to straiten up and lean more to the right (no pun intended).
If memory serves me, the C of E contribuites about 30% and TEC about 28% of the funding for the ACO. That would leave 42o;ming from other sources. Depending on what those other sources are and how they stand on controversial issues The ACO could be in very good shape without TEC money…or it could be in very bad shape.
Good grief! 42% coming from other sources.
The most important part of the article is this, and the author has it dead on: the longer the leaders wait to do something, the worse the chaos will be. I think it will become exponentially worse with each passing month, as the uptick in threats and forced departures seems to show.
Exactly, #11, and the projection goes in the opposite direction as well: Action days or weeks after VGR’s consecration would have meant a small kerfuffle at the time with little or no damage to the Communion. The apostates have now had time to build a constituency and nothing short of radical surgery, with the resultant blood loss, is possible. This will be ++Rowan’s legacy.
#6: A majority would support a homosexual bishop if he were celibate? What majority is this your refer to? Or am I in the minority? Not if the rest of the postings here mean anything. A homosexual bishop ought to be an oxymoron for he patently cannot uphold scripture. LM
Not neccesarily, Larry. If our hypothetical bishop had homosexual urges, but restrained them and remained celibate, what keeps him from upholding scripture? He is not celebrating sin by asking us to bless fornication or adultery. We are all fallen, the problem as I understand it comes from embracing the fallen-ness and insisting it’s perfectly OK.
Exactly, #14. We all have the propensity toward sin and it’s only by grace that we can turn away from it. Why on Earth would a person who recognizes his tendencies but rejects them as sinful and strives to live a holy life be unfit?
‘…limiting TEC’s participation in the instruments of unity’ until the next Lambeth Conference was a recommendation of TWR, which ABC has refused to honor. The two primates of North America should have been treated as guests like Ephraim Radner+ at Dar es Salaam; they should not have had any part in electing Standing Committee members – no right to vote or be elected.
This does make it hard for ABC to restrict American bishops who defy TWR, since he has, too. This contributes to the truth in #12, that the revisionists have marched on unrestricted in these four years.
On Monday, the 53 members of the Commonwealth gave Pakistan 10 days to lift emergency rule or face suspension, because its repression of democracy has violated the principles of the commonwealth. Surely the Anglican communion could do the same to TEC
http://www.pwcweb.com/ecw
[blockquote] Wormtongue managers [/blockquote]
I love it.
#14 and 15. If the urge is there, the motive is there. Christ’s hardest lesson was this, that our motives judge us. Fornication is a naughtiness, but the problem arises in my coveting my neighbors wife. If I take her to bed, my sin arises from my desiring to do so, for if my motive had not been bad, I would never have bedded her even if she had hot pants for me. Alas, the sin is in the motive. This is why we are all sinners one way or t’other and why it is so hard for us to change. Good motives may produce works t hat are disasterous, and bad motives may produce real benefits. So wags the world. But Christ knew”It’s the motive, stupid.” And thuis, we cannot have a priest of bishop whose motives are so contrary to scripture. If he remains celibate, God will in theory show him mercy, for here we have duple motives, t he hunger for sex with a man, and the desire to do what is right. But a bishop needs to be cut out of bet ter stuff than this.
Besides, I am a considerable cynic with homosexuals who remain celebate. Ther e may well be some. But if you believe, “I am living wit h my boyfirned but we don’t have sex,” and all such piffle and fraud, I have a gold brick which I will sell you cheap. LM
Larry, I was thinking more along the lines of the way RC priests are supposed to be celibate. My thought experiment bishiop is externaly indistinguishable from a heterosexual who remains unmarried and celibate. Can we really ask for bishops who are without sin? I only know of one person who matches that description, and He isn’t available for that job.