Claims the Anglican Mission in America has been given a home in the Anglican Church of the Congo are false, the Primate of the Congolese church, Archbishop Henri Isingoma of Kinshasa tells Anglican Ink.
The Anglican Church of the Congo plans to endorse the Anglican Covenant at its forthcoming general assembly, the archbishop said, and would not violate the recommendations of the Windsor Continuation Group and initiate a cross border intervention in the jurisdiction of another Anglican province.
Interesting news about the covenant. One wonders how many African provinces will head in this direction, joining with SE Asia and Southern Cone.
Congo sent representatives to the Gafcon conference in Jerusalem 2008 which endorsed the creation of ACNA. The Primate of Congo is a trustee of ACNA’s Anglican Relief and Development Fund.
So, when ++Isingoma says:
[blockquote] “The Anglican Church of the Congo … [will] … not violate the recommendations of the Windsor Continuation Group and initiate a cross border intervention in the jurisdiction of another Anglican province.” [/blockquote]
there is a live issue as to what he means. If he is speaking geographically, then he may mean that Congo won’t initiate a cross-border intervention into ACNA’s territory. If he is speaking in terms of oversight, then he may mean that Congo won’t initiate a cross-border intervention into a jurisdiction which properly belongs to Rwanda.
It seems unlikely that he is referring to TEC!
RE: “there is a live issue as to what he means.”
It seemed clear to me that he was referring to what the Windsor Continuation Group/Covenant meant which was not intruding on TEC.
Since ACNA is no longer under the Provinces of Uganda/Kenya/etc, then those provinces are not involved in cross-border interventions.
[blockquote] “Since ACNA is no longer under the Provinces of Uganda/Kenya/etc, then those provinces are not involved in cross-border interventions.” [/blockquote]
They actually weren’t before either, within the meaning of the WCG recommendations. It called for a moratorium on further interventions, but did not call for existing cross-border relations to be abandoned. Hence ++Isingoma’s reference to not *initiating* cross border interventions.
[blockquote] “It seemed clear to me that he was referring to what the Windsor Continuation Group/Covenant meant which was not intruding on TEC.” [/blockquote]
Perhaps. The formal Recommendations of WCG did not restrict their language to TEC, even though they singled out TEC in the commentary. But my point was only that the Archbishop’s comments should be considered in the light of Province of Congo’s history. For example, when the Archbishop says:
[blockquote] “The Anglican Church of Congo is still in the Anglican Communion; it stands on the biblical foundation teachings and until now, it has never think operating against the Anglican Communion tradition,†the archbishop said. [/blockquote]
this is quite true IF understood in a particular way: Congo sent delegates to the Jerusalem Conference, endorsed the creation of ACNA and recognised ACNA. So I do wonder precisely what he means by his comments above. His various comments about Rwanda may indicate that Congo would consider extending oversight to AMiA if Rwanda agrees. But I don’t know, and its just speculation on my part.
What does seem clear is that no oversight will be extended to AMiA ahead of the meeting of the Congolese House of Bishops.
RE: “They actually weren’t before either, within the meaning of the WCG recommendations.”
The WCG was very clear that the current cross-border arrangements of the time were anathema. It really really — and rightly — irked many of the cross-border adherents of the time and believe me they scoured the document for the slightest hope, and left it quite frustrated. I just don’t think you can possibly read it as saying that the then-existing cross-border relations did not have to be abandoned to exist within the confines of the WCG.
I didn’t *agree* with it either.
Of course, had TEC been willing to live within the WCG’s recommendations, they wouldn’t have needed the cross-border interventions.
What Church of the Congo has said is that they will not initiate oversight of an Anglican group (AMiA Pawley’s Island) outside of their own province. They did not say they would not recognize other churches (ACNA) outside their own province.
Pursuant to the WCG recommendations, and indeed the original intent of the “cross border” oversight as an emergency and temporary measure, most of the GS Churches have given over direct oversight of congregations to ACNA. The remaining direct oversight situations appear to be the remaining Rwandan congregations and perhaps the CANA congregations (at this point, I will admit I am unclear as to the eclesiology of CANA and whether it is under ++Duncan’s primacy or just under his administration, and considers ++Okoh as its primate).
As to the idea that recognition of ACNA being “border crossing” that is patently ridiculous. TEC border crosses itself by recognizing ELCA, not to mention tromping all over provinces in Central and South America, and several of the Scandanavian churches and “Old Catholic” churches in full communion with CoE have offshoots in the US. TEC also maintains full communion with (? forgotten his name), the deposed renegade bishop in Uganda, and had him touring TEC churches a couple years ago, celebrating Eucharists and raising money for his “church.”
Within the Anglican Communion, you can be in communion with whoever else you want. The WCG report just doesn’t want you consecrating bishops to go to work in the geographic borders of another ACC province. The ABoC and CoE are in full communion with EVERY gay bishop on earth, more even than KJS (TEC is not yet in full communion with all those Porvoo churches, although they are working on it). Somebody explain how THAT is in keeping with the Windsor report and WCG.
“Somebody explain how THAT is in keeping with the Windsor report and WCG.”
I think the point at issue here is not that you can’t be in communion with a non windsor-compliant body, but that you can’t be a non windsor-compliant body.
The ‘Windsor Continuation Group’ – well, there’s a blast from the past. Joel in the comments to the Ink article linked above makes the point that Congo has received the attentions of some interesting visitors! Come to continue to ‘Indaba’ I expect.
Sarah, I had a think about this but I can’t get a response to under about 30 lines and I went a bit off-topic with it anyway. The real issue after all is not what I think the WCG report means, but what ++Isingoma thinks it means. Given the issues that he has to deal with on a day-to-day basis, I suspect we aren’t going to hear much more from him on the topic.
Tjmcmahon, I don’t think you have to worry. Congo was one of the first provinces to recognise ACNA and they have been openly critical of TEC’s liberal bent since 2003.
They have never had the resources in their desperately poor (and until recently war-torn) country to be directly involved in the ministry to North America, but they have always been supportive. They are recipients of pastoral assistance: Nigeria has a missionary bishop permanently in Congo (with full concurrence of Congo HoB) and some of the Congolese bishops can only run an office with active support and facilities from Uganda or Rwanda. But the same Holy Spirit seems to be working there as here.
MichaelA,
I am not worried. Which was more or less my point (perhaps for an American I am sometimes understated, since I did not open with “they do so recognize ACNA!!!”, or some such, as is expected of Americans by our Brit and Aussie friends). Other than a couple of liberal bishops foisted on South Africa, and the token TEC run diocese in Liberia (and I am not at all certain that they are nearly so revisionist as portrayed by ENS), I don’t worry about about the orthodoxy of African provinces at all. I certainly don’t buy the TEC spin on the KJS trip to Africa last summer. And I do keep up on who recognizes ACNA and who does not.