I am in Auckland, NZ, at the 15th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC15). The agenda moved into high gear today with presentations on “The Bible in the Life of the Church” (BILC), the Network for Interfaith Concerns (NIFCON) Report “Promised Land?”, an Anglican Communion resource for addressing Israeli-Palestinian relations, and the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) report on The Instruments of Unity.
I believe that the discussion on BILC revealed an important major conclusion that tips the hand of the ACC’s leadership: that the process of how Anglicans interpret scripture is as important as the substance of scripture. Two conclusions will follow from this premise: (1) Context reigns supreme in how people interpret, and in the diversity of interpretations that flow from diversity of contexts NO interpretation is better than another (a point made by the preselected TEC leader of one of the small groups), and (2) There are no “limits” on faithful interpretation (point made by the preselected Church of England rep from another reflection group).
In this discussion, initial enthusiasm for the affirmation of Bible study gave way to sharp differences over the language in the proposed resolution, and then to frustration that there was not enough time to consider the resolution.
I was going to comment on the dearth of information coming out of this ACC meeting, so I was especially thankful to see this report posted here. It is worth a full read and confirms what I think most of the readers of Kendall’s blog would suspect: the rot at the top is complete. It is also additional evidence that there are two Anglican Communions becoming more distinct from each other.
Acc 14 in Jamaica just 3 years ago permitted the deceit and chaos to be seen in a way that was utterly catastrophic. No wonder the ACO has gone with the “indaba” style to make sure such can’t happen again. Of course such had already occurred to both the Lambeth Conference and Primates meeting.
If one were to look where decision making authority has relocated would want to look at which bodies haven’t been indaba-ed. The Standing Committee still seems to have fairly straight forward meetings….
And Canon Kearon wonders why orthodox Anglicans do not listen to him anymore… ?!
[blockquote] “The process of AAC15 is being intensively stage managed and choreographed by ACO staff. There have been few opportunities for delegates to actually address the body. Plenary sessions moved immediately into regional or reflection groups. In the reflection groups, each group responded to a different question that was designed by the ACC leadership for them to answer.
During the Bible in the Life of the Church report-back from reflection groups, an ACO staff member carefully called upon what appeared to be preselected delegates from mostly Global North provinces. Resolutions were presented by PowerPoint on a screen for a vote, and not distributed in advance.” [/blockquote]
The Anglican Consultative Council is going down the same path towards irrelevancy that the Lambeth Conference went down four years ago. Its hardly surprising that the same people are involved – Rowan Williams, Kenneth Kearon, James Tengatenga:
[blockquote] “There is simmering frustration among many deputies at the near Orwellian manner in which Kenneth Kearon and the ACO seem to be managing this meeting. The bottom line is that the real issues of the Anglican Communion are being completely dodged, especially the failure of the Instruments of Communion to address violations by The Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada. [/blockquote]
All evangelicals and anglo-catholics should ask their clergy and bishops to have nothing to do with anything run by Canon Kearon – especially the ACC. It is a waste of time.
3. Yes, MichaelA, the ACO is being “intensively stage managed and choreographed by ACO staff”…….and you can be sure they are also heavily financed by TEC, and therefore they continue to do their (Schori’s) bidding.
In other words: post modern BS. The reader controls the text and all readers’ interpretations are equally valid. In other words the text is meaningless. One might as well buy a blank journal and read in Church.