Very — and [url=http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/8374/#158477]properly[/url] — optimistic. One can only hope they are right, and that one of their fine evangelical minds will publish a more detailed discussion of the letter in the very near future, though it seems that like most across the pond in the CoE — including ++Rowan — they do not fully understand the urgency felt by many in the American church, which is not all due to mere Yank impatience.
[blockquote]urgency felt by many in the American church, which is not all due to mere Yank impatience.[/blockquote]
Hello. As I said on another thread…There was 39 to zero consensus. With the machinations using the JSC report as a smoke screen, Rowan Williams, managed to take this consensus to a 50-50 muddle (really and 33-33 muddle with 33% reject the sham polling outright). How is not clear that the ABC does not want true discipline? He could have not sent the early invitations. He could withdraw today the invitations from those that participated in the ordination of VGR. Could we stop giving credit where none is due?
The naivete of communion conservatives continues to amaze me.
Time has already run out. San Joaquin has left as well as the sizable fraction of the orthodox (majority?). Many bishops have been consecrated. The TEC is totally committed to their lawsuits. The die is cast. The dogs of war are let loose. The pitiful, “Hey, guys, let’s have another committee meeting” is not going to stop it.
If +++RW confronts the extreme radical element in TEC(MA, NH, DC, Los Angeles, Newark, just to name a few) and they refuse to endorse Windsor and thus forfeit their Lambeth invitation, it may be only Windsor TEC bishops attending Lambeth in a constituent sense and that could make for an interesting Lambeth.
The SF thread on the AB of C’s letter is so full that my old system here can’t handle it and I can’t post…as it’s a related thought, I’ll use the opportunity to remind Matt Kennedy and co. that while it is true that the AB of C controls the Lambeth invites and thus who is in Communion with Canterbury, he is not the only one/”thing” if you will that determines constituent membership. That “rule” was bent a little previously when the authors of the Windsor Report, at the behest of the AB of C and the primates, included in the report that TEC should at least temporarily withdraw its representation from Communion councils until a lot of this mess was cleared up. In my view, that produced at least a state of “impaired Communion” for all of non-Windsor TEC, and it had nothing to do with edict or “invitations” from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The only way the Advent letter “scheme” can work is if the Archbishop acts quickly to communicate with radical TEC bishops and sets up his primates’ council in a TIMELY fashion…we could possibly get somewhere if all of this moves along.
I hope the Archbishop exercises his privilege of disinvitation–the radical bunch does not care at all about conciliarity or catholicity, all they care about is rampant unilateralism and the “agenda”. Mine is just a peon word and viewpoint, but I can tell you for a fact THEY WILL NOT TURN BACK, regardless of what they say. Watch their actions, not their lips. For someone like Bruno to actually say, in public or otherwise, that blessings have taken place in his diocese without his knowledge has got to be the biggest joke of the century.
Rowan Williams is someone who likes to see the good in people–I can respect that, but it hasn’t looked to me like there has been much integrity in the radical faction.
God help us all; I hope God works through it and it moves along–
I really appreciate the way the Fulcrum folk have highlighted a passage that I had read too quickly.
[blockquote] The matter is further complicated by the fact that several within The Episcopal Church, including a significant number of bishops and some diocesan conventions, have clearly distanced themselves from the prevailing view in their province as expressed in its public policies and declarations. This includes the bishops who have committed themselves to the proposals of the Windsor Report in their Camp Allen conference, as well as others who have looked for more radical solutions. Without elaborating on the practical implications of this or the complicated and diverse politics of the situation, it is obvious that such dioceses and bishops cannot be regarded as deficient in recognisable faithfulness to the common deposit and the common language and practice of the Communion. If their faith and practice are recognised by other churches in the Communion as representing the common mind of the Anglican Church, they are clearly in fellowship with the Communion. The practical challenge then becomes to find ways of working out a fruitful, sustainable and honest relation for them both with their own province and with the wider Communion. [/blockquote]
This support of the Bishops and Diocese such as San Joaquin, Fort Worth and Pittsburgh should come as a welcome spiritual boost in the face of the treats from 815. It does also indicate that the “division” is real, which seems to have been a core argument in the Virginia court arguments.
A whole lot of American impatience is not even yet recorded–parishes are steadily bleeding members who have grown impatient waiting for a Communion solution to the embarrassing decisions of TEC, or who have tired of being asked to fund legal fights, or who just need to worship where they can be fed, or can attend a church free of the conflict that so permeates the rest of their week…in other words forty years of having our collective eye off the ball while arguing about liturgy, women, gays, abortion, etc. has emptied the pews of many people who are still recorded as active members.
Just this week a rector in Alabama refused to transfer their former members to our CANA parish. So now this family who has left and who worships with us still is counted among those supporting TEC innovations.
Those from our own parish wishing to remain in TEC claim 500 of our former congregation–although with a Sunday attendance of only about 80–but even giving them the 500, that is a TEC lose of 2,000 in 2007 from our departure alone.
I think it is good to understand as the phalanx of which so many are speaking and to which +++Rowan’s letter makes reference in the broadest possible terms–it is wide spectrum of pressures that have helped to bring us to what can be claimed to be an optimistic interpretation of this letter.
When the Windsor Bishops group was in the birthing process all the major players were involved from Bishop’s Minns and Duncan to even folks like Wallace Ohl. In the ensuing months people have played out different roles from saying nothing at all to leading the development of a new province. All of these have worked together for good.
These folks have each added pressures that have brought about this hopeful place where we now stand, not any one would have been as effective without the others. To develop an oppositional view between Windsor Bishops and Common Cause would serve to diminish our collective effect.
We are all part of a whole and need a victory, not for a point of view we have long held and now want to prove to have been correct, but to rather play our own role in the various pressures and perspectives that will have led to a victory for Christ, his Church, and the truth.
TEC is on notice, and for that we should be thankful–it vindicates our various contributions to this end–let us pray that God will protect our Communion, and having cleansed it, will now bless it ministry and worship.
‘Camp Allen Bishops’ and conservative bishops and dioceses who have left, or are planning to leave, The Episcopal Church for other provinces are not deficient in Anglican character and are in fellowship with the Communion, if another province recognises them
I read the letter this way also. The ABC draws a very precise distinction between Camp Allen bishops and those who are pursuing a “more radical solution” and says both “clearly” remain within the fellowhip of the Anglican Communion.
But whatever accuracy this letter contains, it certainly is not “decisive”, as Fulcrum puts matters. In fact, Fulcrum accurately portrays the current dithering at Lambeth Palace, and reveals [i]no decisions[/i].
Very — and [url=http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/8374/#158477]properly[/url] — optimistic. One can only hope they are right, and that one of their fine evangelical minds will publish a more detailed discussion of the letter in the very near future, though it seems that like most across the pond in the CoE — including ++Rowan — they do not fully understand the urgency felt by many in the American church, which is not all due to mere Yank impatience.
I join in Fulcrum’s prayer for Lambeth.
A holy Advent to all,
[blockquote]urgency felt by many in the American church, which is not all due to mere Yank impatience.[/blockquote]
Hello. As I said on another thread…There was 39 to zero consensus. With the machinations using the JSC report as a smoke screen, Rowan Williams, managed to take this consensus to a 50-50 muddle (really and 33-33 muddle with 33% reject the sham polling outright). How is not clear that the ABC does not want true discipline? He could have not sent the early invitations. He could withdraw today the invitations from those that participated in the ordination of VGR. Could we stop giving credit where none is due?
The naivete of communion conservatives continues to amaze me.
Time has already run out. San Joaquin has left as well as the sizable fraction of the orthodox (majority?). Many bishops have been consecrated. The TEC is totally committed to their lawsuits. The die is cast. The dogs of war are let loose. The pitiful, “Hey, guys, let’s have another committee meeting” is not going to stop it.
[i] Slightly edited to delete sarcasm. [/i]
If +++RW confronts the extreme radical element in TEC(MA, NH, DC, Los Angeles, Newark, just to name a few) and they refuse to endorse Windsor and thus forfeit their Lambeth invitation, it may be only Windsor TEC bishops attending Lambeth in a constituent sense and that could make for an interesting Lambeth.
The SF thread on the AB of C’s letter is so full that my old system here can’t handle it and I can’t post…as it’s a related thought, I’ll use the opportunity to remind Matt Kennedy and co. that while it is true that the AB of C controls the Lambeth invites and thus who is in Communion with Canterbury, he is not the only one/”thing” if you will that determines constituent membership. That “rule” was bent a little previously when the authors of the Windsor Report, at the behest of the AB of C and the primates, included in the report that TEC should at least temporarily withdraw its representation from Communion councils until a lot of this mess was cleared up. In my view, that produced at least a state of “impaired Communion” for all of non-Windsor TEC, and it had nothing to do with edict or “invitations” from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The only way the Advent letter “scheme” can work is if the Archbishop acts quickly to communicate with radical TEC bishops and sets up his primates’ council in a TIMELY fashion…we could possibly get somewhere if all of this moves along.
I hope the Archbishop exercises his privilege of disinvitation–the radical bunch does not care at all about conciliarity or catholicity, all they care about is rampant unilateralism and the “agenda”. Mine is just a peon word and viewpoint, but I can tell you for a fact THEY WILL NOT TURN BACK, regardless of what they say. Watch their actions, not their lips. For someone like Bruno to actually say, in public or otherwise, that blessings have taken place in his diocese without his knowledge has got to be the biggest joke of the century.
Rowan Williams is someone who likes to see the good in people–I can respect that, but it hasn’t looked to me like there has been much integrity in the radical faction.
God help us all; I hope God works through it and it moves along–
IC,
Geek
I really appreciate the way the Fulcrum folk have highlighted a passage that I had read too quickly.
[blockquote] The matter is further complicated by the fact that several within The Episcopal Church, including a significant number of bishops and some diocesan conventions, have clearly distanced themselves from the prevailing view in their province as expressed in its public policies and declarations. This includes the bishops who have committed themselves to the proposals of the Windsor Report in their Camp Allen conference, as well as others who have looked for more radical solutions. Without elaborating on the practical implications of this or the complicated and diverse politics of the situation, it is obvious that such dioceses and bishops cannot be regarded as deficient in recognisable faithfulness to the common deposit and the common language and practice of the Communion. If their faith and practice are recognised by other churches in the Communion as representing the common mind of the Anglican Church, they are clearly in fellowship with the Communion. The practical challenge then becomes to find ways of working out a fruitful, sustainable and honest relation for them both with their own province and with the wider Communion. [/blockquote]
This support of the Bishops and Diocese such as San Joaquin, Fort Worth and Pittsburgh should come as a welcome spiritual boost in the face of the treats from 815. It does also indicate that the “division” is real, which seems to have been a core argument in the Virginia court arguments.
A whole lot of American impatience is not even yet recorded–parishes are steadily bleeding members who have grown impatient waiting for a Communion solution to the embarrassing decisions of TEC, or who have tired of being asked to fund legal fights, or who just need to worship where they can be fed, or can attend a church free of the conflict that so permeates the rest of their week…in other words forty years of having our collective eye off the ball while arguing about liturgy, women, gays, abortion, etc. has emptied the pews of many people who are still recorded as active members.
Just this week a rector in Alabama refused to transfer their former members to our CANA parish. So now this family who has left and who worships with us still is counted among those supporting TEC innovations.
Those from our own parish wishing to remain in TEC claim 500 of our former congregation–although with a Sunday attendance of only about 80–but even giving them the 500, that is a TEC lose of 2,000 in 2007 from our departure alone.
I think it is good to understand as the phalanx of which so many are speaking and to which +++Rowan’s letter makes reference in the broadest possible terms–it is wide spectrum of pressures that have helped to bring us to what can be claimed to be an optimistic interpretation of this letter.
When the Windsor Bishops group was in the birthing process all the major players were involved from Bishop’s Minns and Duncan to even folks like Wallace Ohl. In the ensuing months people have played out different roles from saying nothing at all to leading the development of a new province. All of these have worked together for good.
These folks have each added pressures that have brought about this hopeful place where we now stand, not any one would have been as effective without the others. To develop an oppositional view between Windsor Bishops and Common Cause would serve to diminish our collective effect.
We are all part of a whole and need a victory, not for a point of view we have long held and now want to prove to have been correct, but to rather play our own role in the various pressures and perspectives that will have led to a victory for Christ, his Church, and the truth.
TEC is on notice, and for that we should be thankful–it vindicates our various contributions to this end–let us pray that God will protect our Communion, and having cleansed it, will now bless it ministry and worship.
I read the letter this way also. The ABC draws a very precise distinction between Camp Allen bishops and those who are pursuing a “more radical solution” and says both “clearly” remain within the fellowhip of the Anglican Communion.
But whatever accuracy this letter contains, it certainly is not “decisive”, as Fulcrum puts matters. In fact, Fulcrum accurately portrays the current dithering at Lambeth Palace, and reveals [i]no decisions[/i].