Dr Jensen’s confirmation of his diocese’s boycott came after Nigeria’s Archbishop, Peter Akinola, declared that Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda and some other African churches would not go to Lambeth, which he called “a three weeks’ jamboree” that would sweep issues under the carpet.
Instead, Dr Jensen, Archbishop Akinola and other conservatives are planning their own, rival “global” conference in Jerusalem in June. This despite appeals for them to attend Lambeth from 21 evangelical English bishops and the West Indian Anglican archbishop, who is drawing up a document designed to resolve the dispute.
Dr Jensen says the Anglican communion is now in a “tumultuous” state, but insists he and his allies remain “totally committed” to its good health. Yet their present tactics seem likely to deepen the crisis and widen the division. They are not so much taking their bat and ball and going home as refusing to go on the field at all, preferring instead to play among themselves.
Much better, surely, to go to Lambeth and put their case.
“Yet their present tactics seem likely to deepen the crisis and widen the division”
While I agree with the thrust of the article that all bishops should go to Lambeth, I find this statement to be in error. The groups that are deepening the crisis and widening the division are those who persist in doing their “new thing” and those who do not see a problem with the “new thing.” They are the ones who have refused to enforce any attempt at discipline or to abide by discipline and they have made the problem worse.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
One has to wonder who is walking away from whom… I find this terribly disheartening. Covenant is on the table, Communion is not yet broken — trust is impaired, but Communion is not yet broken. Why choose this most critical of moments to resort to this? I don’t question the sincerity, but I do question the judgment. God be with Rowan and all our bishops.
Elves, Kendall,
When I go to the linked article, I’m getting an American government article, not the one referenced here. Is it just me, or is anyone else getting the same thing?
Mugsie
While I think the fix is in on outcome of Lambeth and that attendance is therefore pointless, a part of me would still like to see the GS Primates attempt a gleeful defenestration of ++Rowan’s risible agenda and substitution by that of the GS. If it should fail, hey, Heathrow is open 24/7.
#3, here is the full text:
THE old adage that the absent are always wrong is not necessarily true. But in matters of tactics, it remains a useful rule of thumb: you cannot win a debate by boycotting it. Yet this is precisely what Sydney’s Anglican Archbishop, Peter Jensen, and the bishops of his diocese are proposing to do by refusing to attend this year’s Lambeth Conference – a once-in-a-decade meeting of the world’s more than 800 Anglican prelates. It is the latest development in a potentially schismatic dispute over church attitudes to homosexuality between the conservative leaders of the strongly evangelical Sydney diocese and their allies, notably in Africa, on one side, and more liberal Anglicans elsewhere (including Australia).
The argument exploded in 2003 when the US Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire, but it involves wider issues of sexuality, including gay priests and gay marriages. The imminence of the Lambeth Conference, opening in Canterbury on July 20, has brought matters to crisis point.
Dr Jensen’s confirmation of his diocese’s boycott came after Nigeria’s Archbishop, Peter Akinola, declared that Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda and some other African churches would not go to Lambeth, which he called “a three weeks’ jamboree” that would sweep issues under the carpet.
Instead, Dr Jensen, Archbishop Akinola and other conservatives are planning their own, rival “global” conference in Jerusalem in June. This despite appeals for them to attend Lambeth from 21 evangelical English bishops and the West Indian Anglican archbishop, who is drawing up a document designed to resolve the dispute.
Dr Jensen says the Anglican communion is now in a “tumultuous” state, but insists he and his allies remain “totally committed” to its good health. Yet their present tactics seem likely to deepen the crisis and widen the division. They are not so much taking their bat and ball and going home as refusing to go on the field at all, preferring instead to play among themselves.
Much better, surely, to go to Lambeth and put their case. There is no risk that they will be ignored – not when Nigeria and Uganda account for about half the Anglicans worldwide. Besides, nobody is asking them to abandon their biblical interpretations, simply to allow other Anglican communities to abide by theirs.
[b]One has to wonder who is walking away from whom[/b] Akinola and SC and GS are doing their own “new thing.” Go in peace, I say.
Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
[blockquote] Besides, nobody is asking them to abandon their biblical interpretations, simply to allow other Anglican communities to abide by theirs. [/blockquote]
#5 Thanks for putting the whole text up for us. This excerpt from the article which I’ve blocked out above is pretty much where the problem is. These primates who are truly Biblical in their beliefs CANNOT allow other Anglican communities to abide by their non-biblical beliefs. That is contrary to Scripture. Jesus has commanded us all to spread the Good News which is HIS Gospel. NO true Christian can allow any other interpretation to co-exist within the church and still call the church a Christian church. Either it’s a Christian church, or it’s not. The primates realize it’s not a Christian church due to very clear actions by the leaders of the church around the communion, including the very questionable position of ABC, himself, as evidenced by his actions of late. They know it’s a joke the way Lambeth is being set up. They know there can be no compromise on the Gospel of Scripture. Believe me, these same primates have attended meeting after meeting for the last 5 years or so, trying to solve this problem. Each and every successive meeting became even more fruitless and a waste of valuable time and resources from each province. Is that good stewardship of the Lord’s resources? I don’t think so. I call it satan’s playing games with the minds of the leaders of the church, and their being totally sucked into satan’s deceptive methods.
These primates realize that a stand needs to be taken in defense of Scripture to protect the faithful from the wolves. I can only pray for them in their mission. I can’t, in good conscience, say them, “Go to another meeting.” The blind are clearly leading the blind in the AC. That needs to stop, and I believe these faithful servants of Christ are trying to stop it.
Mugsie
#6 What is the “new thing” that the SC and GS are doing please?
But that’s just it: “you cannot win a debate by boycotting it . . . ” — the debate was won in 1998.
There is no further “debate” — the issue is discipline — and since there is no discipline, there’s no point in going to “win another debate” when winning the first one did no good.
What’s the point of “winning a debate” when it doesn’t matter whether one wins or loses — TEC goes on doing what it wishes?
#9…you’re kidding, right?
#9 (and #11) the “new thing” is changing the Church Order, not changing the faith. They have determined (wrongly, I perceive) that it is better to not be involved in Lambeth while those who flout the Lambeth resolutions are heavily involved. They refuse to “make nice” and say that it doesn’t matter. They long to say “I forgive you” but to say that requires first hearing “I am sorry, please forgive me.”
One of the issues is that Americans have developed a different “forgiveness” where, instead of acknowledging that we are hurt (and can be hurt), we lie to the other and to ourselves that we were not really hurt after all and that “it doesn’t matter” or “it’s no big deal” or “it’s not a problem.” Thus, no forigiveness nor reconcilaition is necessary.
On the other hand, the Global South (and orthodox Christians) [b]were[/b] by TECUSA’s open contempt for the rest of the communion. They want to hear “Please forgive me” but keep hearing “It’s no big deal.” They don’t want to hear that because it [b]is[/b] a big deal!
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Unfortunately, it appears ABP Jensen and the other organizers of GAFCON no longer wish to reform the Anglican Communion. Instead, they want to create a new something which they will call by the old name. Meanwhile, the real Anglican Communion will be wholey taken over by the revisionists. Sad. Stay engaged. Go to Lambeth. Fight for the old Anglican Communion.
The drum beat to go to Lambeth is loud. Yet all the ABC had to do to get everyone there was tell everyone that Lambeth would result in a solution and final discipline. The desperation to have a meaningless Lambeth so that we can pretend that all is well is palpable. And it would show that those Primates, who warned that they would not go, cannot be relied on to keep their word.
They are right to stay away, unless the ABC puts discipline on the table and completes Dar es Sallam.
I believe with all that is in me that this is a division that needs to be widened…to the utmost. I stand firmly behind the GAFCON group and pray that God will use them to create a new communion.
Why is everyone making such a big deal out of this? Both sides positions make sense. The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that this meeting – Lambeth – is just a time for fellowship. No more no less.They are saying that they have no interest in participating in this fellowship at this time. Everyone involved has said the “why” (of not participating) won’t be dealt with at this time. It is unclear to me if the “why” will ever be dealt with. The covenant is nice, perhaps even helpful – but it certainly isn’t directed at the “why” question. Perhaps the Neil Clark Warren quote focus’ more directly on the why than the covenant will.
Evan, I don’t get your comment here: “Sad. Stay engaged. Go to Lambeth. Fight for the old Anglican Communion.”
I thought that you had left? Why urge people to engage in a “fight” in the “old Anglican Communion” then?
It seems odd not to allow the same freedom for others that you have allowed for yourself.
The “new thing” is nothing but arrogant pride and selfishness run AMOK. It matters not to reappraisers that they stand squarely OPPOSITE most of Christianity – notwithstanding Unitarians. These are the people that you dreaded all of your life. Those who couldn’t get enough attention. Those who knew more than the teacher. Those who love to punce on issues as long as they are in your face. They got themselves ordained because fewer people of quality were wanting the job. Here we are. Sinking by the bow. I say that nothing less than an ALL OUT, GUT-BUSTIN’, OPEN REBELLION, ANGLICAN CIVIL WAR will rid us of the pestilence that these people have become to the Lord’s Church. Let it start by Lambeth boycotts. Let another NEW Canterbury arise in opposition to the scholastic malaise in Kent. The hints, pleas, begging, compromising, petitions, growling, enduring, and waiting haven’t and won’t work. Get on with it.
The original link appears broken so [url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/editorial/warm-relations-to-hot-seat/2008/02/04/1202090317556.html?page=2]here’s an updated link[/url] to the original SMH article.
re 10: Well, if they don’t go to Lambeth, there certainly won’t be any discipline.
And how is that any different from the past 10 years since they went to Lambeth?
21….Epsecially since the ABC has already turned off the lights by saying that the Lambeth Musical Chair party has no authority, and no legislative teeth. Especially since the TEC acolytes seem to love the Draft Covenant, because it, too, is toothless. Stay home. Ignore Lambeth like the reappraisers. Do “the old thing” and drain the dense TEC dry in court. In the end, if you lose, let them have dozens of distressed properties: empty, decayed, hard-to-move buildings that can’t even be turned into gyms or steakhouses. Let them be the abomination and embarrassment to Christianity that they strive to be.
Don’t sugar-coat it Choir Stall..give it to us straight.
The Communion is in a “tumultuous state” in part because those who plan to create now the church which didn’t emerge in Elizabethan times have used the present crisis as an excuse to divide the Communion. In the course of this pursuit they have made it much more difficult for the Instruments of Unity to discipline TEC. They may succeed in preventing such discipline and then use the lack of it to justify their creation of a designer church, made in their own image and likeness -although I predict there will be a good deal of quarreling about the details in due course.
Despite all this it may be, just may be, that wiser counsels will prevail and an agreed Covenant will be ratified by the Provinces after Lambeth which defines clearly the breadth and limits of the Anglican comprehension for mission and witness to the Gospel in the 21st Century. Such a Covenant would make it possible to call TEC to heel or to some perhaps vaguely associated state and grant status for Windsor compliant dioceses and parishes. Dr. Williams may have pointed the way towards such an outcome in his letter to the Bishop of Central Florida.
Go to Lambeth and state their case? If anybody attending Lambeth is unaware of “their case” they should be removed from the gene pool for lack of mental activity. They know the case. ABC and the other liberal loonies simply insist on having it their way. Never forget that ABC was appointed by a far left government–not elected by any body of the Anglican Church.
Re 24:
But WV: The ABC hide in the smoke and points in EVERY direction. Eventually he sides with everyone and no one. I clearly understand now what it means when one is educated beyond their intelligence. Clearly the ABC has great scholastic skills, but SAYS and MEANS little. Every blind hog finds an acorn, so I’m not impressed that ABC flirts with a few and chastizes a few more. Wait for it and he will turn around the other way soon enough.
[blockquote]Such a Covenant would make it possible to call TEC to heel or to some perhaps vaguely associated state and grant status for Windsor compliant dioceses and parishes. [/blockquote]
The triumph of hope over experience. Ain’t happening, WV, now or in the future.
[i]The Communion is in a “tumultuous state†in part because those who plan to create now the church which didn’t emerge in Elizabethan times have used the present crisis as an excuse to divide the Communion.[/i]
Fr Clavier, I do not think that your continuing trope of “Anglican vs Puritan” (cf. comments here and essays on your own and the “Covenant” weblogs) to describe the divisions between those known variously, but probably most popularly, known on Anglican blogs as “Communion conservatives” and “Federal conservatives” is at all applicable. To be sure, there are some perhaps superficial resemblances in the more Calvinistic theological tendencies of some (most?) “Fedcoms” – but surely no more Calvinistic than a good deal of happily conforming 18th and early 19th century clergy and laity in the Church of England – and in Archbishop Jensen’s tendency to appear in public in ([i]quelle horreur![/i]) shirt and tie. But I don’t see anyone wanting to dismantle the 39 Articles (far from it), the historic episcopate (in fact, I suspect that many Fedcoms hold a higher view of the historic episcopate than Archbishop Cranmer did), or the Prayer Book – to say nothing of purging the sign of the Cross in baptism, the ring in marriage, and the surplice. And all those Sydney bishops at last weekend’s diaconal ordination were notoriously arrayed in precisely the episcopal choir vestments to which Bishop Hooper so strenously objected.
But of course, you surely mean something other than mere externals of liturgical vesture and rubrics; viz., theology. Again, I have difficulty understanding how the dissenting Global South’s/Pittsburgh’s/Fort Worth’s/San Joaquin’s theology – or rather, the breadth of Anglican theology that they represent – puts them in the Presbyterian, or even Puritan, camp. Perhaps the Puritan touchstone is their belief in discipline as a mark of the Church; specifically their willingness to separate from the revisionist Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada, or indeed even from the See of Canterbury – so long as that see’s occupant fails in what they understand to be appropriate discipline. But if that be the case, then they have as much in common with some of the Nonjurors as they have with the late 16th and early 17th century Puritans with whom Hooker and Laud [i]et al.[/i] fenced intellectually and ecclesiastically.
I am a “Communion conservative” myself, and I grieve at what appears [i]to me[/i] (I try not to confuse my own discernment with that of the Church whole and entire) to be a grievous mistake in withdrawing from Lambeth, in failing to make every effort to arrive at Lambeth ready and willing to commandeer the agenda so that discipline and mutual, covenantal discernment are dealt with. And I grieve, too, at the continued intransigence of The Episcopal Church, an intransigence that has driven what I think are overhasty decisions about what God could still do, through faithful bishops, clergy and laity, with the Anglican Communion (and even with The Episcopal Church). I grieve – and can only shake my head in mute astonishment – at Dr Williams’ alternate lack of action and his missteps (the greatest of which is in still structuring Lambeth to be a jamboree rather than a deliberative conference, yes, even a synod, of bishops), whether these arise from his own plans or are finally the manipulations of a political naif by well-placed TEC sympathizers in the Anglican Communion Office.
And in the midst of this grief – it is the grief that struck me most forcefully, perhaps more forcefully than it has in the past five years, after reading your latest weblog essay yesterday – I am astounded at the seeming venom and contempt evident in some of your recent critiques and in those of colleagues posting at the Covenant website.
Surely there is a better way forward than this.
Say what you will, and though the assertion may have a hint of self-justification about it, but Bishop Duncan is correct when he says that Anglicanism is disintegrating.
And that not only practically, with all the intransigence and fractiousness and impatience that we all can muster, but theologically as well, as a notional “comprehensiveness” – foisted on us by F.D. Maurice and gladly taken up by anxious late 19th and early 20th century brokers of compromises between theological parties (cf. Stephen Neill’s [i]The Integrity of Anglicanism[/i] on this point – unravels from the steady tug of the incoherence of conservative and progressive understandings of the Gospel.
RE: “In the course of this pursuit they have made it much more difficult for the Instruments of Unity to discipline TEC.”
LOL.
What a scammish comment.
The Instruments of Unity have been well capable of disciplining TEC — mainly the ABC. He just wouldn’t.
That comment reminds me so much of that group formerly known as the Windsor Bishops attempting to claim that they reason why they weren’t able to issue a minority report or indeed any form of organized leadership at the HOB meeting in New Orleans was because four Common Cause bishops left early. . . . So the remaining 15 or so couldn’t lead.
Wisdom everywhere, but WHERE IS THE BRAVERY? It’s time for Windsor bishops to stand stripped barefoot in the snow and howl and wail about the wrath that God will visit on this mediocre Church.
Stop meeting. Stop talking. Stop writing. Take a lesson from the Reappraiser Playbook: Chapter 1…”KICK UP A STINK AND SHOW YOUR BEHIND UNTIL PEOPLE HEAR YOU and MOVE!!!!!!!!!!”
#28, Todd Granger,
I’m sure when you cited the well-known book “The Integrity of Anglicanism” you meant the provocative study by Prof., now Bp., Stephen Sykes (not the late great +Stephen Neill, who died in 1984). But that’s minor. I’m glad you challenged Fr. Clavier.
This dispute has been argued on many threads at SF and T19 in recent weeks. The recent open letter by some 20 or so English evangelical bishops urging attendance at Lambeth prompted a fresh wave of discussion/debate on the subject, along with the highly influential +Tom Wright’s earlier appeal along the same lines. But since I myself have strenuously urged attendance at Lambeth in the last few weeks, for quite different reasons than the Brits, let me clarify my current thinking on this controversial matter.
I have come to recognize that the sharp division between the “inside” and the “outside” strategy wings of the orthodox camp almost certainly dooms the kind of plan I originally advocated, i.e., that the conservatives should attend in force and then simply take over the Lambeth Conference in order to FORCE resolution of the issue there (I won’t rehearse the details here, doubtless a lot of regular readers of T19 and SF saw mention of it too many times already). I have reluctantly conceded that instead of there being “little chance” for success for my bold plan to overthrow the current international structures of the AC and to start replacing them with quite different ones that would leave the GS firmly in charge, well, I’ve come to see that the many commenters on my audacious proposal were right who cautioned that “little chance” should be restated as “no chance at all.” And of course, there is little surprise in reaching that conclusion; it always was a wild and crazy dream.
I think it was the marvelous speech by +Bob Duncan the Lion-Hearted in Charleston recently that tipped the scales for me and prompted me to seek for a plan B. For after all, the Moderator of the ACN and the CCP knows so many of the principal leaders of the GS very well. I don’t. I accept the virtual certainty that the largest orthodox provinces (Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya) as well as some others (Rwanda, Sydney etc.) simply won’t attend. Not unless Cantaur does a sudden about face (most uncharacteristically) and agrees to let Lambeth be the great showdown where this fight gets resolved once and for all, with drastic discipline finally being meted out against the heretical, schismatic western bishops who have brought all this agony and disasater upon the Communion. That means, of course, squarely facing that we need to start thinking the “unthinkable,” that not only is schism on a massive scale inevitable; it has already happened. TEC has crossed the Rubidon and won’t go back, nor will Canada etc. So Civil War has already begun. As Julius Caesar said so aptly and succintly on that momentous occasion, “The die is cast.” Indeed it is.
My proposal, after all, had virtually nothing in common with the modest hopes of the English evangelical bishops who still cling to the delusion that the Windsor and Covenant processes can do the job. By now it’s painfully obvious to an ever growing number of us that this is plainly a mirage, an appealing and tempting illusion, but one that has absolutely no substance to it.
What I had called for was much more drastic: the immediate trashing of the ACO agenda and its replacement by one drawn up at GAFCon in June, the ramming of a MUCH stronger Covenant down the throats of the western provinces, one that explicitly addressed the issues at stake and firmly and emphatically declared that homosexual behavior is flatly “CONTRARY TO THE WILL OF GOD,” and the creation of an international Supreme Court to be adjudicate future controversies of this sort (e.g., over the admission of unconverted, unbaptized people to Holy Communion) and so on. And if there was massive resistance by the western leaders, so what? Our conservative juggernaut would just steamroll them and we’d tell them it was our way (God’s way of course) or the highway.
I continue to think that would be the ideal scenario. I want to see the western heretics publicly humiliated, shunned and forced out. But I no longer entertain that fantasy in my mind anymore, not at Kent anyway this summer. So what alternatives are left?
Well, since we are on the cusp of Lent, let me harken back to the obvious liturgical and biblical analogy, i.e., that we appear destined to participate in Christ’s saving death and resurrection as a worldwide fellowship by experiencing the death of the Old Anglicanism in order for the New (and better) Anglicanism to emerge like a butterfly from its cocoon. This post is long enough that I’ll delay clarifying what I mean for another time.
But I’ll give this hint in the meantime. One of the primary reasons why we so desperately need this New Reformation (or as +Duncan called it in SC, a “New Settlement” to replace the obsolete Elizabethan one) is because the Elizabethan Settlement was tied to the old Christendom social world that has now virtually disappeared. The primary new reality that we are still loathe to face is that we live in a post-Christendom world (I do NOT mean “post-Christian,” but post-Constantinian). And that literally changes everything. And as a result, Anglicanism must be re-invented and completely overhauled now, and totally remodeled from the ground up.
David Handy+
Passionate Advocate of High Commitment, Post-Christendom style Anglicanism
More sure than ever that the New Reformation is here to stay
Thank you, David.
I am not so sure than Anglicanism must be reinvented. Rather, I would put it in the language you do in your earlier paragraph: Anglicans must prayerfully be willing to participate in what God is doing with Anglicanism. We must ask ourselves, what is God doing? before we decide what it is that we are to do. And, despite several years of praying and reading and thinking and writing and talking about this, I’m still not entirely sure what God is doing.
And I did indeed mean Stephen Sykes when I wrote Stephen Neill. Thank you for the correction. I consider that slender volume required reading for those who want to understand the theologically incoherent situation into which we Anglicans have gotten ourselves.
My, my. Did not the author of this article read what the ABC said of this Lambeth and the issues before the Anglican Communion? “There will be no resolution of this issue…”. The ABC was speaking English. The sentence was written in English. The author of the article writes in English. What’s the problem with the author’s understanding of English?
For those who have perused the agenda for the meeting, it is just as promised in September 2007 premonitory statements that there would be no engagement of the issues on any substantive basis. The ABC has given that agenda as well as the ECUSA/TEC aberrations his imprimature (such as it is). The ABC has willfully subverted the Instruments of Communion and the Windsor Report. His “there will be no resolution” and his actions are congruent with his inactions.
Why should the carbon footprint of any bishop of the AC be large enough to get to Lambeth in the face of the pre-arranged, published, agenda-ed, and minuted-in-the-press outcome? It’ll take a hell of a lot of lightbulb changing and plastic bags to offset that! Especially for a declared outcome from the Curia (ACO) under the Babylonian Captivity of the ECUSA/TEC.
Smart move, ecologically and theologically and practically.
The ABC has wasted all the carbon expended in Windsor and Dar et alia. Why further abuse the planet? Why, indeed, abuse the concept of dialogue or listening? The outcome is predetermined. The Covenant will be as enforced as Windsor, Dromantine, the ACC renderings (remember those?), or Dar es Salaam.
Jesus said “Count the cost” before building the tower. Why, really, to to Babel?
#17
Sarah,
I left because during the period when my parish was in the process of searching for a new rector, the vestry was dismissed by +Sauls, the parish was downgraded to a mission, and the bishop placed his people in charge of it. At this, ALL of the reasserter parishioners, between 75 and 80% of the membership, walked out to form an Anglican church which was accepted into the Anglican Church of Uganda. I would never have left if the others hadn’t all left. If there had been another orthodox parish around, I would have gone there instead. I think those in solid parishes and solid dioceses should stay and fight. I think orthodox primates and bishops should stay and fight. For every one who leaves, the plight of inidividual within TEC becomes more untenable. I thinkg all should attend Lambeth and make an all-out last effort, much as Fr. Handy describes in his “Plan A” course of action he’s posted elsewhere. should that fail, perhaps a mass departure would be necessary, but it should only be as a last resort and I don’t think the last battle will have been fought unless it takes place at Lambeth. Not to attend is to run away. I’m not happy or proud at having left our lovely old parish property to the heretics, and I don’t think the bishops and primates should leave our lovely old AC to them either.
And Sarah, I had two children at home who I couldn’t keep in a revisionist mission or parish with me had I elected to remain as a minority of one. I chose the lesser of two evils.
Attend, make our case, be flat-out lied to again, and again, and again, and keep coming back for more. Sure…whatever.
Evan, I wasn’t questioning your need to leave.
But one man’s “solid parish” or “solid diocese” is another man’s “unsafe parish” or “unsafe diocese.”
I appreciate your need to leave. It just seems as if you attempting to deny other people’s perceived need to leave, and enjoin them to fight the battle for the Anglican Communion.
It does not seem fair to me to leave and then enjoin others to stay and fight.
Again — I’m not questioning at all your need to leave.
By the way — how’s your old parish doing? I wouldn’t think too well! ; > )
re 33: Cantuar was speaking English, but that is not what he said. Here is an accurate quote from the Living Church article:
It is of course possible to spin this another way, but it seems clear that he is forbidding reconsideration of the 1998 statement, not saying that the conference isn’t going to do anything.
C. Wingate: you may certainly (mis)interpret it that way, I suppose. However, given the ABC’s alleged and actual intellectual attainments in theology and ecclesial achievements, I believe he meant exactly what was said about the exact subject he was talking about at the moment of vocalization. Your mileage may differ.
Yes, and that subject was homosexuality, not disciplining ECUSA or restructuring the communion or any of the issues that acutally have to be dealt with. And if you are saying, “he personally is a liberal, and thus has to be assumed to be working in the liberals’ interests,” well, that runs quite contrary to what he has said all along. Indeed, if you have been watching what the liberals have said about him, they have been mad at him from the beginning for not being an advocate for their side. For he has indicated from the start that he is going to allow the communion to act against the Americans.
It keeps coming down to impatience. The conservatives have nothing to lose from going to Lambeth, from my point of view. Even if they lose there, they will simply be able to state flatly that the communion cannot deal with these issues, and that they are fully justified in taking their communion elsewhere. If they win there, well…. It is hard to avoid one of two really quite negative conclusions. Either they are simply too damned impatient to put off their program for a few months, or they don’t want to risk the consequences of winning at Lambeth. And the one consequence that matters is that winning pulls the rug out from underneath their plan to secede.
That leads me to a really damning conclusion: secession was their intent all along– or at least, it was the intent of the Americans, and they have been agitating the Africans to join them. They really are schismatics, exactly as the liberals (not to mention a lot of the moderates) accuse. And you know, that cures me of any desire to go along with them, because I don’t want to be stuck with a different group of controversialists.
Well, C., I see that you get long mileage on allegations and innuendo and conspiracy theories but no mileage from actual statements by the ABC. Clearly, our mileage differs considerably.
Dwstroudmd, the Chapman memo is real; your version of what RW said is not real. I quoted him; you paraphrased him inaccurately. Of course, he can make all manner of promises now about what will or will not happen at Lambeth, and you can make all manner of predictions; and neither need be realized. I am hardly the only one who has begun to suspect that the GafCon faction had made definite plans to leave well before now. It is not beyond question that the Chapman memo records the beginning steps of such a plan, in which case the liberal accusations about it are absolutely correct.
Personally, I’m beginning to think that the best outcome would be for the conservatives to stay away and for the remaining moderates to still chuck the Americans out; it’s just that the politics of the thing make that unlikely. I do not count church affiliation as to be reckoned unto righteousness; if God can make sons of Abraham out of stones, he can do the same for churchmen. Taking the “right” positions on litmus test issues isn’t good enough. It doesn’t counterbalance personal attacks founded in misrepresentation.
You never addressed the substance of my suppositions; nor for that matter do I see others making the attempt. If the conservatives change their minds, and go to Lambeth, and win, then what?
C., since you have an ardent affection for conspiracy theories, pray tell how the “conservatives” are to go to Lambeth and -this is important- seize control of the agenda and take over the agenda; then, do what?; and, finally, “win”. I’m all agog to to hear how it would be accomplished in the face of the ACO agenda as published and the absolute statement of the ABC that there will be no resolution of this matter at Lambeth.
Here’s TLC’s report: http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2008/1/23/archbishop-outlines-lambeth-goals
“Asked how the conference would address the issue of homosexuality, Archbishop Williams said one day on the schedule was reserved to consider “sexuality questions as they affect the ministry of bishops,†including a report on the listening process from the Rev. Canon Phil Groves of the Anglican Communion Office. “It [also] is inevitably going to be part of the conversations informally, day by day as people will bring to the conference what their anxieties are and what their hopes are. There will not be a resolution on this subject.†”
I admit to one of your apparent persuasedness by conspiracy theories that the substitution of ‘issue’ for ‘subject’ is, no doubt, rife with meaning, but I fail to see the significance of the alleged difference. You could, perhaps, enlighten me on that.
And, how do you deal with the ABSOLUTE “There will not be a resolution on this subject.”
a) no statement by the assembled bishops at this Lambeth?
b) no final answer at this Lambeth?
c) no final statement at this Lambeth?
d) no end of listening and dialogue ever?
e) some combination of, or all of, the above?
Ever the artful Dodger, I believe the ABC could have meant any one of the above and all of the above at the same time. Postmodernism does allow that possibility. In view of the ABC’s failure to deal with the matter per the Windsor Report and the subsequent Primates’ Communiques, the abysmal Panel of Reference, and his recent comments on “hate speech legislation” and “sharia in the United Kingdom”, I say he opts for (d) as his primary goal and takes (e) to accomplish the goal of retiring before any answer is made.
Of course, I have actual data in the form of words and deed and mostly inaction on his part to buttress my answer. What have thou?
Into the wayback machine:
He said, “There will be no resolution on this subject.” [homosexuality]
Your version, back in 33: “There will be no resolution of this issue…” [the issues before the Anglican Communion]
Really, the only common meaning is in the phrase “There will be no”. Even the word “resolution” has completely different meanings between the two versions. His statement is very small, limited, and clear: Lambeth is not going to produce another statement on homosexuality. That is a long way from saying that Lambeth isn’t going to do anything about anything. Indeed, one might infer that RW meant to imply that the statement we already have is quite sufficient– and acting on that statement surely must lead to discipline of the Americans.
As far as conspiracy theories are concerned: back when the Chapman memo first hit the blogwaves, I rejected the theory of a conservative conspiracy that was being pushed by Jim Naughton (who exposed it). In the last few months, though, the behavior of CANA bishops has cast doubt upon that assessment. Indeed, when us central folks were hoping that GAFCon was just going to be a pre-Lambeth coordinating session, we now find people saying, “No, its purpose is to found a separate denomination,” or words close enough to that as to not make a difference. At this point the conclusion that decision to make a schism had been decided on some time ago, and that Lambeth now represents a threat to that decision because it could render void the justification for leaving.
You’re heaping a lot of ridicule on me, but (at least in this exchange) you haven’t confessed your investment in the issue. Are you already departed from the communion? Do you advocate a split?