It is the decision that 77 million Anglicans around the world are waiting for: who will become the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
But nine days after the successor to Dr Rowan Williams was expected to have been named, the Crown Nominations Commission remains silent.
Its work is shrouded in secrecy, but a Sunday Telegraph investigation can reveal that its 16 members are split, not over women bishops or same sex marriages, but the future of the Church itself.
Read it all. Also, there was an earlier Evening Stndard article there.
I am honestly trusting the Holy Ghost to have a say in the work of this group.
What if the Holy Spirit spoke in the forming of Anglicanorum Coetibus….
[blockquote] “Mr Archer, who helped choose six bishops during his time on the commission, said: “The chairman has to knock heads together. If I was him I wouldn’t have let the commission break up last week. I would have kept going for as long as necessary, until the job was doneâ€.” [/blockquote]
Since Lord Luce has plenty of experience at successfully running panels and commissions, that would imply that he let it break up because he felt he had no choice, perhaps that keeping them there would simply have made existing divisions more bitter, and not provided a resolution.
Mr Archer is perhaps not giving sufficient credence to the fact that this panel has had to think very carefully about where the CofE is now, and where they want it to go. The reality of their problems and divisions may have been just too much for them.
Unfortunately #1, the appointment of ++Morgan of Wales as the representative of the Worldwide Anglican Communion has made a mockery of the process – he is completely out of step with the views of leaders of most of the world’s Anglicans. If they can’t listen to their fellow Anglicans, then the odds of the Holy Spirit being given a hearing are slim.
The CNC does not wish to consider the views of the rest of the Communion, which is short-sighted since the rest of the Communion is already working within England, and will do so more in the coming months and years.