‘With regret, the Archbishop and Bishops of the Diocese of Sydney have decided not to attend the Lambeth Conference in July. They remain fully committed to the Anglican Communion, to which they continue to belong, but sense that attending the Conference at this time will not help heal its divisions. They continue to pray for the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conference.
–The Most. Rev. Peter Jensen, speaking after the service of ordination of 48 deacons at St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney
I’m very sad to hear this. While I understand his (their) discontent with so much of what has transpired over the past few years, I do not think this is at all the way to faithful solution or reconciliation.
These bishops and all others like them who refuse to go to Lambeth remind me very much of Jonah.
Actualization of the reality that the Lambeth Jamboree 2008 is a foregone institutional reality as portrayed by the realities since 1998 in total ignoring of its moral authority and the failure of the ABC to hold to that is not giving up or being like Jonah. It is rather Jesus’ instructions about sandals and dust, IMHO.
Of course, it shall not be long before we see them attacked as others are:
http://inchatatime.blogspot.com/2008/01/truly-orthodox-anglicans.html
The invective of the left is especially reserved for those who stand against the new thang gospel @ ECUSA/TEC.
While I am saddened by this news, because it appears to me that the agenda of this and recent Lambeth Conventions do not allow for the resolution of significant problems, the prospect of not attending becomes a practical one. Why attend Lambeth when the only output is pretense? It IS the object of Archbishops and bishops to arrive at solutions. They seem to be aiming at solutions.
God bless them.
So, Jensen and his bishops should be going to Lambeth and proclaim the following:
#2: Are you saying RW is the king of Nineveh?
& do you know what Assyria did to Israel?
Be careful how you choose your rhetorical analogies.
Maybe Lot & Sodom might be neaer the mark?
Forty-eight deacons ordained – including Chinese, a Vietnamese, an Aborigine – to serve widely in Australia, not just Sydney.
The diocese of Sydney represents about a third of Aussie Anglicans, and generally the livelier third.
#1 [blockquote]”the way to faithful solution or reconciliation”[/blockquote]
It has become very apparent that there are divided minds about who and what is “faithful” or whether reconciliation is desired, much less possible. Over and over again TEC has been called to repentance, but they would not.
I’m of two minds here. On one hand, I’d like to see the GS Primates show up at Lambeth, give the stated agenda the push into the Thames it so richly deserves and assume control of the conference with all that portends. On the other, I understand the complete lack of trust in an ABC that, when he can be roused from his lethargic inertia, has stabbed the orthodox in the back at every opportunity. Why dignify this underhanded man’s jamboree with one’s presence?
Whatever the GS Primates do, they need to do it with one voice.
500 (?) will be there, 3 (?) from Australia will not.
Powerful statement.
Jeffersonian,
[i] On one hand, I’d like to see the GS Primates show up at Lambeth, give the stated agenda the push into the Thames it so richly deserves and assume control of the conference with all that portends.[/i]
That would ROCK!
Very sad.
Very sad that +Jensen’s voice will not be heard, and that he apparently will not hear voices that he may not want to hear. That, of course, is the great excess of evangelicalism anyway.
#10: more like 6 or so from Australia. The ‘500’ or so will include >100 from the US, c. 30 from Canada, c. 100 from the UK and Ireland etc, together representing far fewer churchgoers than those from Uganda alone. All chiefs with not many Indians.
Is this the first group that has definitively said they are not going? I know others have implied it.
Per the published agenda and the remarks of the ABC, “there will be no resolution” of the issues confronting the AC at this Lambeth. This has been common knowledge since the ACO statements last September. The orchestration has been finalized to prevent another unmitigated disaster like Lambeth 1998 where the Western postmodernist elitists lost control to (egads) Bible-believing “Third World” bishops. The consolidation of the 2008 meeting to conform to the ECUSA/TEC/GCC and ACCanada wedge by the embarrassed elites who support them and their agenda in the matters at hand – as well as the underlying more serious matters of Scriptural authority and hermeneutics and perverse eisegesis in place of exegesis – is proof of jamboree nature of the event. Attendees had just as well have tea or whatnot with the Titanic captain and enjoy the sinking to the hilt. That will be the inscription over Lambeth 2008, ” agood time was had by all present.” At least some people believe that ECUSA/TEC/GCC and ACCanada and their supporters mean exactly what they say they do …(actions, you know)… and explicitly intend to export it to the whole communion. Why spend thousands upon thousands of pounds or dollars for twiddling thumbs? There are real outcomes for that money in terms of ministry and evangelism and soul-winning and medicine and purposes of the MDGs locally. Why should they waste the time or the money when the proof of the pudding is already the past actions and persistent actions of the ECUSA/TEC/GCC and ACCanada and inactions of ABC?
Some Lambeths have ended up being little more than expensive “jamoborees”, to use favorite word of the current detractors. Some have accomplished quite a lot. So, I wonder — has generally been possible to predict which would be which before the event? And I wonder — what does it say about someone’s beliefs about the way the Holy Spirit works when he says that nothing can possibly be accomplished by all those people praying and reading the Bible together because there’s no legislative agenda or enforcement mechanism?
MarkP, the answer would be the historically determinable actions of ECUSA/TEC/GCC and ACCanada and their fellow travelers in response to the “moral authority” of Lambeth. What you will get is what you have gotten. IF ECUSA/TEC/GCC, ACCanada, and their fellow travelers had demonstrated anything other than direct line behaviours repudiating Lambeth 1998, dissimulation in response to the Windsor Report and various Primatial Communiques, you might have an argument. As it is, actions speak louder than words. The words spoken have been unreliable, untrustworthy, and unheeded by the speakers even when spoken over and over and over again.
#17 I agree with your conclusions! The “continued conversation” that the liberals really mean is “you conservatives listen until you agree with us”. TEC and her ilk no longer command respect from orthodox due to their actions (actions speak louder than words as you so aptly put it). My wife and I are considering Antiochian or Greek Orthodox.
He doesn’t have to come to the party if he doesn’t want to. Taking his complaints seriously afterwards, however, will be harder to do.
It’s not a party, John.
It’s merely a gathing of Lucy and her football. Peter & co. have said that they are not going to kick.
It is sad. They are abandoning the rest of the AC to the heretics. They should go and stand with ++Gomez and fight for Anglicanism.
Of course, some of the things that come out of Sydney make one question their Anglicanism. Sounds more like “Saddle Back Down Under.”
# 21: ‘Of course, some of the things that come out of Sydney make one question their Anglicanism. Sounds more like “Saddle Back Down Under.‒
As opposed to “Brokeback Up Over”? Actually, there’s nothing of pop evangelicalism in the Diocese of Sydney.