3. As we reviewed the current situation, we recognized that the fabric of the Communion was torn at its deepest level as a result of the actions taken by The Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church in Canada since 2003. As a result, our Anglican Communion is currently suffering from broken relations, a lack of trust, and dysfunctional “instruments of unity.”
4. However, we trust in God’s promise that the “gates of hades will not overcome” the church. Holding unto this promise, we believe that we have to make every effort in order to restore our beloved Communion. Therefore we took the following decisions:
a) We request and will support the Archbishop of Canterbury to call for a Primates Meeting in 2015 in order to address the increasingly deteriorating situation facing the Anglican Communion. It is important that the agenda of this Primates Meeting be discussed and agreed upon by the Primates beforehand in order to ensure an effective meeting.
b) We decided to establish a Primatial Oversight Council, in following-through the recommendations taken at Dromantine in 2005 and Dar es Salam in 2007, to provide pastoral and primatial oversight to dissenting individuals, parishes, and dioceses in order to keep them within the Communion.
c) We realize that the time has come to address the ecclesial deficit, the mutual accountability and re-shaping the instruments of unity by following through the recommendations mentioned in the Windsor Report (2004), the Primates Meetings in Dromantine (2005) and Dar es Salam (2007), and the Windsor Continuation Group report.
A Statement from the Global South Primates Steering Committee Cairo, Egypt 14-15 February 2014
Posted in * Anglican - Episcopal, * Culture-Watch, * International News & Commentary, - Anglican: Primary Source, -- Statements & Letters: Primates, --South Sudan, Africa, Anglican Provinces, Anthropology, Church of England (CoE), CoE Bishops, Ethics / Moral Theology, Global South Churches & Primates, Same-sex blessings, Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion), Sudan, Theology, Theology: Scripture, Violence
Just for clarification. This was a meeting of the Steering Committee of the Global South. The statement is not from “some Primates” who happen to live in the GS, but from that specific entity.
Thanks, Dr. Seitz. That answered one the questions I had. And why did the Nigerian abstain? Who exactly decided about the Primatial Oversight Council — did the ABC concur? What has the ABC agreed to concerning a 2015 Primates Meeting? Is this just another “statement” the like of which we have often seen for the past 10 years, or does it have any teeth in it?
The very best thing that could happen is for the Anglican Communion to just end in its present form. That will help set in motion the break-up and ultimate renewal of the Episcopal Church. The majority of the Communion has neither the attention or respect from the rich, misguided, and self-defeating minority. The best of all worlds is for Canterbury to be relegated to the place of long-ago greatness and guided tours. TEC is headed down the drain as an institution and many of its top-heavy churches along with the brand. The bull-horn toting LGBTQXYZ123 lobby at General Convention will strong-arm a new Prayer Book into being which erases the meaning of marriage and that will be it. The largest parish (St. Martin’s – Houston) will reject it and pull out when such a Book is forced, along with other notable parishes and that will hasten the end. The now-dead dream of a full-time priest in each church has also set the clock ticking on the ultimate demise of the National Church. The smaller parishes and part-time missions will survive without a diocesan structure because they’re used to self-sufficiency. Jerusalem needs to arise now as the new locus of unity. This will set the break-up of TEC in motion much faster than dying through more General Conventions. Enough of the piddling already.
It’s nice that they put the names of each of the ones signing the statement — often this doesn’t happen on various statements and we’re left to wonder who exactly was at the meeting.
This is interesting — I don’t know if I recall a formal abstention on one of these ever.
[blockquote]This statement was abstained by:
The Most Rev. Nkechi Nwosu, representing the Primate of All Nigeria[/blockquote]
I would guess that the primary issue with the COE Bishops statement was that it restated a commitment to allowing laypeople *of a certain class* to engage in one particular scandalous sexual sin — engaging in sexual relations with the same sex — while not formalizing that allowance for any other class of layperson who engages in scandalous sexual sin.
It just seems like a bizarre formal “exception” for certain types of laypeople.
I have two questions.
First, on the statement, there are letters “OBJ” (in very small font) next to Section 5 of the statement. Section 5 appreciates the “costly” opposition of the English HOB to the Government’s introduction of same sex marriage, and the Pastoral Statement. The letters “OBJ” appear again (also in tiny font) at the end of the statement, below where [blockquote] This statement was abstained by:
The Most Rev. Nkechi Nwosu, representing the Primate of All Nigeria[/blockquote] is printed, and just above a line that marks the beginning of the “FAQ” section.
My question is: did Bp. Nwosu object to the entire statement, or only to Section 5?
Another question is: did the ABC agree to call a Primates Meeting in 2015? The statement notes his presence, but is vague about that point. If the ABC is going to call a Primates Meeting on the terms requested by the Gobal South Steering Committee, that would be significant.
Publius, I think the little [OBJ] is just some detritus left over from creating the HTML page, a sort of web-page editing artifact. I could be wrong, but I’ve seen it happen in other contexts because of inadvertently changing the character set for a page or document.
#2, I am not a spokesman for the GSSC.
“Who exactly decided about the Primatial Oversight Council—did the ABC concur?” — the text is clear. The GSSC decided. There is no indication that the ABC has opposed that. When someone does oppose it, then we will learn something one supposes.
As for the abstention of +Nigeria, again one supposes he will explain that. Point #5 may have indeed been where he had pause. But as for the rest of the statement, I should not think there would be any objection. The retrieval of previous Communion statements has long been a concern of +Egypt and his colleagues in the GS. The one thing they all agreed was that the Dublin meeting set these earlier statements back. So naturally they would want to see to their return to the field of wider Anglican Communion play.
The abstention reads “representing the primate of Nigeria” – Doesn’t this mean he is not the Primate of Nigeria. Perhaps he thought he should discuss this with the Primate prior to approving it – and the Primate was not available prior to the release of the statement?
I am inclined not to worry about the abstention by Nigeria, as the Nigerian stance on all these matters is very clear, and if there are any concerns, we will learn their nature soon enough.
What is important about this statement is that this is not Gafcon, but the whole of the GS. What they say here is very clear. They have done with waiting for Canterbury or the ACO to get around to following up on the decisions made 7 to 10 years ago. So now they will act without those bodies.
I am reminded of the address that ++Anis made a few years ago to another GS meeting, in which he said (in essence, if not exactly) “We (the Global South) are the Communion.” The GS steering committee represents about three times as many people as the “official” Anglican Communion standing committee- which for all intents and purposes represents only the some churches in the Americas, Great Britain and Australia. Nigeria, by itself, has more people in the pews than all of those combined.
What an interesting time in which we live. Because of their ineffectiveness in holding the center, the traditional instruments of Communion have now become as flotsam. I think we are watching the emergence of new instruments of Communion in GAFCON and the Primatial Oversight Council.
I hope very much that Jill Woodliff, #10, is correct. This is the emergence of the real instruments of communion. The old ones are obsolete and will die.
An inaccurate and unhelpful statement. The HOB have done nothing of the sort. They have opened the way to generous pastoral accomodation of the sort we have seen used as a half way house along the road taken by TEC and ACoC. Clergy can now mark same sex unions and marriages in any way they like, including in church, provided they do not use the word ‘blessing’ or the church’s liturgy. The HOB statement needs to be read for what it glaringly does not say, as well as what it does say.
That is of course as the ABC intended so that the CofE find some way to recognise “the immense quality and profound love and commitment of many same-sex unions”.
While it is certainly true that there will not be gay marriages or blessings in church, well for at least the next two years, a process of softening up has begun in the CofE by bringing in Facilitated Conversations instead of the Bishops affirming publicly the doctrine of the Church of England on this matter.
#9. I believe you have caught the significance. “What is important about this statement is that this is not Gafcon, but the whole of the GS. What they say here is very clear.”
Pageantmaster, Anis has personally suffered the machinations of the Anglican Communion leaders and, as a consequence, resigned from the SCAC four years ago; he knows what is afoot. I wondered if it would have been preferable for the Council to call the primates meeting, rather than ask Canterbury to.
My speculation is that he is inviting the participation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but closely guarding the parameters (like setting the agenda), with the intent of preserving the faith received. I hope a public statement regarding the legal expenditures of TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada will be on the agenda.
Thanks to many commenters above for their helpful observations. I particularly liked 9, 10, and 11, while I also think that PM’s cautionary warning about inflated hopes in his #12 is apt. If the GS primates who have been abstaining from the corrupted official insturments of unity/communion are willing to give the most promising of those de-legitimated instruments, the Primates’ Meeting, another chance, but only on their own terms, i.e., with the Primates themselves setting the agenda and leading the meeting (not the worthless and untrustworthy ACO), I see that as a positive and hopeful sign. However, personally, I think the Anglican Communion as we have known it heretofore has already passed the point of no return. The “unsinkable” Titanic has already had its hull pierced in too many places, and its doom is sealed (humanly speaking).
Therefore, what I like best about this important new GS Steering Committee statement is its clear, forthright declaration of its intention to set up new means of dealing with our “ecclesial deficit,” by creating an Oversight Council that can provide the episcopal and primatial oversight so desperately needed by orthodox groups within the increasingly apostate provinces of the Global North. Very encouraging. “It is meet and right so to do.”
However, I myself am quite sure that this is a matter of “too little, too late.” Our Anglican “ecclesial deficit” is too large to be remedied by such minimal, half-way measures. So I will dare to suggest, once again, my own proposal for starting to address and correct that infamous and undeniable deficit in our system at the international, inter-provincial level.
It’s high time to bite the bullet and admit that our lack of a central magisterium with binding powers over the various provinces is killing us. We can no longer afford that Protestant luxury. We face a situation very like that chaotic state lamented in the final verse of the book of Judges, where precisely because there was no king in Israel, “every man (read: every bishop, diocesan synod, or province) did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25).
Speaking only for myself, certainly not for the diverse GS or its honorable Steering Committee, I’ve come to the point where I don’t fear the “tyranny” of Rome half as much as I’ve come to fear and dread Protestant anarchy. Not just Protestant chaos, mind you, but outright anarchy, the rejection in princiiple of all binding central ecclesial authority (of whatever form).
I unhesitatingly affirm that what we need in Anglicanism is not just a new set of “Insturments of Unity/Communion” to replace the uselss and corrupted ones we’re currently stuck with. No, what we need is nothing less than a new central magisterium that can IMPOSE discipline upon rogue dioceses, bishops, and provinces, and FORCE compliance, or stubborn violaters of true Anglican doctrine, discipline, and worship are EXPELLED from worldwide Anglicanism and shunned as the reprobate, apostate, heretics that they are. And I mean that literally. I’m totally in earnest.
The only real question therefore is this: What kind of central magisterium shall we develop for 21st century Anglicanism, so that it is prevented from becoming tyrannous? IOW, given that having such a central magisterium is now a clear necessity, however revolutionary and unpallitable the notion must seem to many of us, how shall we devise a system of checks and balances that will keep Anglicanism from falling into the trap of over-centralized authority of the familiar Roman/Curia model??
And once again, I suggest that the wisest and best place to begin is by creating, for the first time ever, an Anglican judiciary branch at the global level, a sort of Anglican Supreme Court. Such an Anglican judiciary would have the power to overturn and declare null and void the unbiblical actions of rogue diocesan or provincial synods. And that body’s rulings would be final, and binding (though open to future change, as the decisions of the US Supreme Court are also reversible).
Nothing less radical than this will suffice. Nothing less than such a revolutionary change in Anglican polity at the global, inter-provincial level will adequately address our “ecclesial deficit.”
So I welcome this positive step in the right direction. But much bigger and bolder steps will be required in the future. It is not the “Anglican Communion” that needs saving; it’s Anglicanism, as a distinctive Protesant-Catholic hybird. It’s not the Communion that really matters, it’s Prayerbook religion. Let’s face it, the Communion as we have known it is doomed. Its fate is sealed. For the “progressives” have crossed a Rubicon, and there is no turning back now for them.
But Anglicanism, as an ism, as a unique and precious hybrid system of Christianity, needs to be preserved and its future safeguarded for a post-colonial, post-Christemdom age. For that to happen, nothing less than a full-fledged New Reformation will do.
David Handy+
David Handy+,
I always enjoy your thoughts and ideas for reforming Anglicanism as you say as an -ism and not necessarily the Anglican Communion we have today. I have read your idea of an Anglican Magisterium before in various posts. I am always wary as to how another document will solve any problems when certain rogue church and provinces will just ignore it and continue on their merry way. However, I do like the idea of an Global Anglican Judiciary as a final authority in the Communion. At the very least, those provinces found in violation of Anglican and Biblical principles could be ousted and we would not have to play “we are Anglican but you are not” game which TEC likes to play simply because they are still members of the Communion although their theology is no longer recognizable as Anglican or Christian.
Thanks, SC blu cat lady (#16),
I appreciate your kind words. I realize, of course, that at this point I’m very much a lonely voice crying in the wilderness, “Repent…” Hopefully, I’m not as idiosyncratic as I might seem to many readers, but time will tell. Some might even perceive me as a religious Don Quixote kind of guy, futilely jousting with windmills, etc. Again, time will tell.
I mentioned the idea that Anglicanism needs a judiciary branch or Supreme Court to provide a final adjudification of bitterly disputed matters in my very first post on T19, way back in Nov., 2007. Alas, I can’t say that my radical proposal has seemed to convince many readers of its plausibility, much less its necessity or even its advantages over our present decentralized system where every province in effect has complete authonomy. My revolutionary proposal hasn’t gained much serious attention or developed much momentum as yet. But who knows? The idea’s time may yet come…
Gratefully,
David Handy+
Any sort of Anglican Magisterium is an invitation to disaster, because it is always vulnerable to take-over by a small group. Consider what would have happened if Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams or Canon Kearon had had true legal or coercive powers over the Anglican Communion over the last ten years.
The best defence against heresy in Anglicanism is its conciliarity, where each province is independent. That is essentially what we have seen over the last two decades – despite huge resources at their disposal, and great political nous, the apostates have been largely restricted to their own provinces of Canada, USA and the British Isles.
The gospel and the Anglican formularies usually produce strong and godly leaders – we have seen a succession of them all over the world. So long as our system permits each leader of a national church to have his say, it will remain healthy overall.
At the same time, the strong witness of orthodox provinces has helped to foster the faithful in the dodgy provinces. In the USA and Canada we have seen the extreme step of starting a rival province, but this has always been seen as extreme. There is ample encouragement for the province of England to step back from the brink, so that it won’t be necessary to do the same thing there either.
I tend to agree with tjmcmahon. The abstention by Nigeria may have been simply because the proxy rep did not have the opportunity to discuss some issues with his primate before a vote was taken. In any case, Nigeria’s attitude is well known.
I think anything that serves as a public reminder of some of the great communiques of the primates meetings at Dar, Dromantine etc (back when Primates meetings meant something) is a good thing.
The job of the steering committee of the Global South is to do what it can to implement resolutions of the GS Encounters, in the years between each GS Encounter. That gives them a fairly restricted mandate, which they seem to be sticking to.
The real issue is whether ++Welby will have any clout to accomplish anything when he gets home to England. The Steering Committee can “request” the ABC to call a Primates Meeting in 2015, but in practical terms that depends on the Anglican Communion Office, which is part of the Lambeth bureaucracy and beholden to the CofE establishment. Welby can make all the encouraging noises he likes in Alexandria, but that doesn’t mean any of his commitments will actually happen.
Michael A,
I am inclined to think that the current situation may be a bit different than “business as usual.” First, the ABoC was “in the room” when the program outlined in the communique was being developed. So he cannot pretend to be unaware. He does have a unique position- if he publicly states that there will be a Primates meeting, then there will be one. The ACO cannot very well stop one from happening AFTER the ABoC announces that it will happen, no matter what their mistress on the standing committee says.
The GS have made clear that they will set the agenda for the meeting, and I daresay that will happen. And from the look of their mood in 4b and 4c, there will be a Primates meeting in 2015, even if the ABoC does not call one, although he will probably be invited.
tjmcmahon, re ABC not being stymied after he has publicly called a meeting, I *almost* agree with you, although I wouldn’t be certain even of this.
“The GS have made clear that they will set the agenda for the meeting, and I daresay that will happen.
This is where I am much more cynical than you. It would be classic Rowan Williams style to call a primates meeting when he feels he has no choice, but in such a way, and at such a place and time, that the ACO controls the agenda. I appreciate that Justin Welby does not appear to have half the political ability of Rowan, but still ….
“And from the look of their mood in 4b and 4c, there will be a Primates meeting in 2015, even if the ABoC does not call one, although he will probably be invited.”
100% agree.
What I find disappointing about all these statements over the past several years is how those rogue churches may initially sign the document and then go ahead and do whatever they want in violation of the document they sign. That is why I am not sure another document whatever its name will be helpful. Too easy to ignore it.
I do like David Handy+’s idea of Anglican Judiciary. Like any group, it could be taken over by a minority. However, think of this situation….. an Anglican judiciary that is representative of the Communion as a whole had been in place when TEC and ACofC had started playing fast and lose with theology and practice. At the very least, that body could have issued a stern warning and then followed it up with expulsion of them from the Communion if they did not change their ways. That would have been a huge warning. If an individual diocese can say whether a parish is in unity or not with the other parishes (and missions) and the bishop, why not have the same power at a global level involving entire nation,churches, or provinces.
There is no perfect to way organize humans as we are just too imperfect. However, all human organizations including churches function optimally if the humans involved agree to and abide by the rules. That is what is happening here- not all involved in the WWAC are agreeing to and abiding by all the rules. In fact, it is clear they are not and are pleased with that regardless of the angst and persecution it causes for the rest of us. A long as they are happy, all is well!
You may recall the discussion previously within the GS. They were also suggesting that the Primates elect their own President for the purpose of the Meeting. It will probably take things like this, and control of the agenda, to get the 12 who stayed away last time to attend at all. So I doubt it is a matter of the ABC taking something back he gave/presumed to giave in Cairo, but whether there can be a Primates Meeting at all that fails to meet the concerns of those who stayed away last time.
Hmmm…. Is this the GS primates essentially telling the ABC if you want us to show up at the Primates meetings, then certain things need to happen. Otherwise, we won’t be coming.
“… At the very least, that body could have issued a stern warning and then followed it up with expulsion of them from the Communion if they did not change their ways. That would have been a huge warning.”
Which is precisely what the Archbishop of Canterbury and the ACC could have done. But its fairly clear with hindsight that both instruments were already nobbled.
Agreed. Missed opportunities indeed. Instead more *talk* and more discussion. Really…..how much more needs to be said ?? Many provinces in the Global South have spoken that they are no longer in communion with TEC. I don’t think it could be more plainly stated than that.
I think that the initial request to the ABC notwithstanding, the remainder of the statement makes it relatively clear that, so far as the global south is concerned – indeed, the vast majority of Anglicans by number – the Archbishop of Canterbury is not going to be in the lead, though he is welcome to follow.