Archbishop Justin has placed a particular emphasis in the first couple of years of his Archiepiscopate upon his responsibilities in relation to the wider Anglican Communion. He is travelling widely, as well as meeting numerous people; and Archbishop Bob has been among these people on several occasions in several places, and I know he will look forward to developing his relationship with Archbishop Foley.
It is apparent that there are no easy fixes as far as the current fissures in the Anglican Communion go. In these circumstances we need to keep all available channels of communication open, and to listen patiently and above all prayerfully to each other. When there is division in the church it is only by digging deeper into the life of God, which He graciously shares with us, that we will understand anew, the true bonds of unity in our one Lord, one faith and one baptism.
Archbishop Justin sends his warmest fraternal greetings to your Assembly. He is holding the Assembly in his prayers this week along with the wider worshipping community at Lambeth Palace.
Introduction: Without further ado, it is my pleasure to invite Archbishop Bob to come up to introduce Bishop (Peter) Forster who is representing the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Archbishop Duncan:…It’s my great joy to introduce to you all a dear friend Peter Forster, the Bishop of Chester. He’s actually number 40. I’m only number 7 in these parts. He was ordained bishop in the same year that I was.
We met in the Bible study at the Lambeth Conference ’98. We were there together. Nara of course met Bishop Peter in a pub crawl that same year. Back in December, when Archbishop Justin Welby and I were talking about how it was that he might bring greetings to us, I suggested that maybe the Bishop of Chester would come. And so the Bishop of Chester is here. Peter we welcome you.
Bishop Peter Forster: I am sorry if I can’t do the Southern accent but I will do the best I can with what I’ve got.
It’s a real pleasure to be here with you in your Assembly and to bring greetings from Archbishop Justin. Thank you for the very generous and kind welcome which you have shown to me this week. It is some years since I was in America last, but I’ve instantly felt at home. You truly have the gift for hospitality.
Now as Archbishop Bob was saying, he and I have been firm friends since the 1998 Lambeth Conference when we were in the same small Bible study group. And to be with the same person studying the Bible for an hour and a half every morning for three weeks you really do get to know somebody, and our firm friendship was sealed both by that and also in the pub crawl, because I should add that he came with Nara and I on that pub crawl [laughter].
Since those days I’ve enjoyed my ministry in a peaceful, stable and indeed rather tranquil part of the Church of England, the Diocese of Chester. I guess some of you will have visited Chester on the grand tour of the British Isles, but if you are not quite sure where it is, you may have heard of Manchester United or Liverpool Football Clubs and they’re not far away.
But this period since I first got to know Archbishop Bob has been difficult for the North American Anglican Church with the separation between TEC and the Anglican Church in North America here assembled. I have followed these events in a regular and supportive dialogue with Archbishop Bob with much sadness, and yet also in the hope and trust that through your struggles, Christian truth and a stronger church will emerge anew. And all my experience here in this Assembly so far has entirely supported that judgment.
Archbishop Justin has placed a particular emphasis in the first couple of years of his Archiepiscopate upon his responsibilities in relation to the wider Anglican Communion. He is travelling widely, as well as meeting numerous people; and Archbishop Bob has been among these people on several occasions in several places, and I know he will look forward to developing his relationship with Archbishop Foley.
It is apparent that there are no easy fixes as far as the current fissures in the Anglican Communion go. In these circumstances we need to keep all available channels of communication open, and to listen patiently and above all prayerfully to each other. When there is division in the church it is only by digging deeper into the life of God, which He graciously shares with us, that we will understand anew, the true bonds of unity in our one Lord, one faith and one baptism.
Archbishop Justin sends his warmest fraternal greetings to your Assembly. He is holding the Assembly in his prayers this week along with the wider worshipping community at Lambeth Palace.
But thank you again for inviting me to participate in your deliberations, and to bring these greetings. I regard this week as a time of great blessing for me in my own journey with the Lord.
++Welby wants us to forget the last 10 years ever happened.
Yup.
“In these circumstances we need to keep all available channels of communication open, and to listen patiently and above all prayerfully to each other.”
Which only serves to remind one that an option considered for the 2008 Lambeth conference was to invite both TEC and ACNA bishops, notwithstanding that the direction of the Windsor Report would have lead to the exclusion of TEC bishops in general (not just Robinson). Williams did not do that, of course, after TEC threatened to withdraw monetary support if he did so. A bluff which he should have called. I realize that many of the global south would have had problems with TEC being there even if ACNA was invited, but I still think it would have been a lot healthier and counciliar in a church to have had such a “debate”. However, Williams instead chose the path of trying to address the tear in the communion by excluding the ACNA and inviting the global south to exclude themselves as well. That the politics of exclusion of the orthodox was obviously going to do a fair amount of destruction to the church was one of many, many misjudgments by the prior Archbishop of Canterbury.
In this instance, suggesting that “all channels of communication” be kept open sounds like inclusion, but Welby has much work to do to overcome the effects of Williams’ policies of exclusion – if Welby is truly interested in that.
The ABC should just go and pound sand.
+Peter Forster is a good man and bishop.
However, turning from the messenger to the message:
1. when the ECUSA Presiding Bishop has ongoing actions against 5 dioceses and umpteen parishes including those of the ACNA;
2. when even today I read her lawyers are attempting at the last minute to add Bishop Lawrence and three other private individuals in an appeal to delay the South Carolina case due to start in a few weeks in July;
3. when the Archbishop of Canterbury and Canon Porter have supported her regime publicly, referred to her as “compassionate” and taken money from her Trinity Wall Street parish and TEC Budget to support keeping “channels of communication open” and “patient listening”; and
4. when they use that money to invite Bishops Bird, Ingham, O’Neil and Sauls to Coventry to infiltrate African bishops with their propaganda, the very worst and continuing persecutors in the US and Canada of faithful Christians, indeed the scum of North America:
Then Archbishop Welby appears to present himself not as a peacemaker, but as a Quisling
++Welby appears increasingly to resemble ++Rowan Williams.
Since pretty much the same people chose him, that’s not surprising.
I have also heard that +Chester is a good man and bishop. That means Canterbury chose their messenger well – someone that ACNA will listen to with respect. But as PM points out, it doesn’t change the problems with the message. I hope ACNA keep their wits about them.
I mean no disrespect to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but… Especially after reading Charles Raven’s lectures (next rung below, on this blog), I ask myself, what could be more irrelevant than “greetings” from this Archbishop to the ACNA? I suppose it’s better than his not greeting the Assembly. But with the same mouth he praises the PB, on the occasion of her honorary degree, for “her remarkable gifts of intellect and compassion, which she has dedicated to the service of Christ,” ignoring her acts of vandalism and sponsorship of “strange and erroneous doctrines.” Are both greetings just requisite formalities for one in his position?
Waste of time, energy, CO2 – in fact, a perfect mimicry in miniature of the whole ABC under Kate’s thumb. So much for carbon footprints, environmental caring, and upholding the status quo with a *wink*wink*nudge*nudge. The Gozpell of incluzion strikes again. The Gospel, not so much.
Listen, it’s time to face facts. Justin Welby doesn’t give a damn about real Christians anywhere in the world. Oh sure, he’s probably a good man and has a real prayer-life and so on. But he’s like Caiaphas, who thought it best that one man die to save the nation. Welby would rather see every true confessing Christian be sent into exile than to damage his precious established church.
All of the Scriptures point to people who had to face a choice – if Welby were Abram, he would have died in Harran. If he were a Levite woman in Egypt, he would plunge the newborn son in the Nile instead of giving Moses a chance. If he were waiting on Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai, he would have built a golden calf. If he were at Kadesh Barnea, he would have said not to enter the land. If he, … oh why bother to go on.
Welby has had every chance to do the right thing and he has turned his back on God and his people. I don’t know why people continue to look for these meager scraps from the Archbishop – he will never sustain you. He will always betray you.
“Warmest fraternal greetings” Oh brother, what a dysfunctional family this must be when one must send a surrogate brother to convey one’s warmest greetings.
#3- While I think you make some valid points, for the sake of historical accuracy it need to be said that there was no ACNA yet in 2008. San Joaquin had exited TEC, but Pittsburgh, Ft Worth and Quincy were still TEC dioceses. Bishops +Duncan, +Iker and +Ackerman were all invited to Lambeth 2008 as TEC diocesans, and I believe all of them attended. Bishop Schofield was invited, and then sort of uninvited, and then (IIRC) +Greg Venables intervened, and then the ABoC was no doubt relieved that health issues prevented +Schofield from attending in any case, since he had invited 2 bishops of San Joaquin, one recognized by TEC (Lamb) and one recognized by the majority of Anglicans (+Schofield). Bishops consecrated by AMiA or serving in the US under the jurisdiction of various Anglican Provinces under the Dar agreement (reneged upon by the ABoC and TEC) were not invited.
+Welby is just trying to be polite, sending greetings. I am sure he sends greetings to all sorts of church folk all the time. Probably working on the one he will send GC next year, about how “great” all their gay marriage stuff is, and how difficult it will be to find a successor to KJS who can bring unity to the church the way she has.
As I recall, the GS (not Gafcon per se, but the entire GS) gave +Welby until 2015 to hold a Primates Meeting. Any word on that? A couple weeks after GC would be perfect timing. He will no doubt try to pull the same guff that RW pulled at Dar “Hey, look, TEC has a new PB, I am sure the new one will be completely different…”
Same old, same old stuff from ++Welby. But as a resident of Chester, VA (a suburb of Richmond), I’m happy to hear all the good things about the current Bishop of Chester. FWIW, one of my alltime favorite English bishops is John Pearson, who was Bishop of Chester from 1672-1686. Pearson was arguably the greatest patristic scholar of his generation, from any nation or any religious tradition. His classic [b]Exposition on the Creed[/b] is a 400 page treasure trove of patristic knowledge. Most pertinent to this thread, +Pearson, although very High Church, was a good, personal friend with the great Purtian leader, Richard Baxter. The two were both godly men, who respected each other highly. Most important, however, is that both +Pearon and Baxter+ were soundly orthodox Christian leaders, so that they could have genuine fellowship in Christ.
Alas, that is precisely what is NOT possible today with many of our foes on the left, who are heretics, and thus no genuine fellowship is possible with them since they are pseudo-Christians, or ex-Christians. Sad, but true. That is the essential point that ++Welby is missing, or doing his best to minimize.
David Handy+
“He will no doubt try to pull the same guff that RW pulled at Dar “Hey, look, TEC has a new PB, I am sure the new one will be completely different…” That is, assuming TEC has a new PB. I am told that KJS is not prohibited from seeking a second term. — But of course, there is really no hope that a different one who could be elected would be much better.
#11 – Thank you, I stand corrected. It would have been CANA at the time (e.g., Minns, Bena).