During the last eighteen months or so I have had the opportunity to visit thirty-six other Primates of the Anglican Communion at various points. This has involved a total of 14 trips lasting 96 days in all. I incidentally calculated that it involves more than eleven days actually sitting in aeroplanes. This seemed to be a good moment therefore to speak a little about the state of the Communion and to look honestly at some of the issues that are faced and the possible ways forward.
A Flourishing Communion
First of all, and this needs to be heard very clearly, the Anglican Communion exists and is flourishing in roughly 165 countries. There has been comment over the last year that issues around the Communion should not trouble us in the Church of England because the Communion has for all practical purposes ceased to exist. Not only does it exist, but almost everywhere (there are some exceptions) the links to the See of Canterbury, notwithstanding its Archbishop, are profoundly valued. The question as to its existence is therefore about what it will look like in the future. That may be very different, and I will come back to the question.
Secondly, Anglicanism is incredibly diverse. To sit, in the space of a few months, in meetings with the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Primate of Australia, the Primate of South Africa, the Moderator of the Church of South India, the Primate of Nigeria and many others is to come away utterly daunted by the differences that exist. They are huge, beyond capacity to deal with adequately in the time for this presentation…
…..
In an age of near instant communication, because the Communion exists, and is full of life, vigour and growth, of faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and love for him, everything that one Province does echoes around the world. Every sermon or speech here is heard within minutes and analysed half to death. Every careless phrase in an interview is seen as a considered policy statement. And what is true of all Provinces is ten times more so for us, and especially us in this Synod. We never speak only to each other, and the weight of that responsibility, if we love each other and the world as we should, must affect our actions and our words.
…..
At the same time there is a profound unity in many ways. Not in all ways, but having said what I have about diversity, which includes diversity on all sorts of matters including sexuality, marriage and its nature, the use of money, the relations between men and women, the environment, war and peace, distribution of wealth and food, and a million other things, underpinning us is a unity imposed by the Spirit of God on those who name Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. This diversity is both gift and challenge, to be accepted and embraced, as we seek to witness in truth and love to the good news of Jesus Christ.
Thirdly, the potential of the Communion under God is beyond anything we can imagine or think about. We need to hold on to that, there is a prize, the quest for which it is worth almost anything to achieve. The prize is visible unity in Christ despite functional diversity. It is a prize that is not only of infinite value, but also requires enormous sacrifice and struggle to achieve. Yet if we even get near it we can speak with authority to a world where over the last year we have seen more than ever an incapacity to deal with difference, and a desire to oversimplify the complex and diverse nature of human existence for no better reason than we cannot manage difference and dealing with The Other.
…..
the future of the Communion requires sacrifice. The biggest sacrifice is that we cannot only work with those we like, and hang out with those whose views are also ours. Groups of like-minded individuals meeting to support and encourage each other may be necessary, indeed often are very necessary, but they are never sufficient. Sufficiency is in loving those with whom we disagree. What may be necessary in the way of party politics, is not sufficient in what might be called the polity of the Church.
In this Church of England we must learn to hold in the right order our calling to be one and our calling to advance our own particular position and seek our own particular views to prevail in the Church generally, whether in England or around the world. We must speak the truth in love.
In practice that has to mean the discipline of meeting with those with whom we disagree and listening to each other carefully and lovingly
…..
I have not called a Primates’ Meeting on my own authority (although I could) because I feel that it is necessary for the Anglican Communion to develop a collegial model of leadership, as much as it is necessary in the Church of England, and I have therefore waited for the end of the visits to Provinces.
If the majority view of the Primates is that such a meeting would be a good thing, one will be called in response. The agenda for that meeting will not be set centrally, but from around the Primates of the Communion. One issue that needs to be decided on, ideally by the Primates’ meeting, is whether and if so when there is another Lambeth Conference. It is certainly achievable, but the decision is better made together carefully, than in haste to meet an artificial deadline of a year ending in 8. A Lambeth Conference is so expensive and so complex that we have to be sure that it is worthwhile. It will not be imposed, but part of a collective decision.
The key general point to be established is how the Anglican Communion is led, and what its vision is in the 21st century, in a post-colonial world? How do we reflect the fact that the majority of its members are in the Global South, what is the role of the Instruments of Communion, especially the Archbishop of Canterbury, and what does that look like in lived out practice?
Read it all from CofE General Synod 17th to 18th November 2014 Links.
RE: “Another example, a conference in Oklahoma City, in which from people around The Episcopal Church, with patience and courtesy to one another, there was discussion over the issues around the use of firearms and the meaning of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, in practice in the modern-day USA.”
Yep — a bunch of TEC liberals met and talked about guns, listening with “patience and courtesy to one another” as they show tolerance to people like them.
RE: “which includes diversity on all sorts of matters including sexuality, marriage and its nature, the use of money, the relations between men and women, the environment, war and peace, distribution of wealth and food, and a million other things . . . ”
I always enjoy the little lists that different revisionists come up with about our “diversity” — it’s always a list of communion dividing, false-gospel issues coupled with non-communion dividing issues — a nice melding together and blurring of the distinctions. Calculated and transparently obvious rhetorical flourishes there.
And then Archbishop Welby just basically makes different assertions [while confirming the Jefferts Schori’s cover-blowing remarks of a month ago and more]. The only possible response is to simply make assertions otherwise.
RE: “underpinning us is a unity imposed by the Spirit of God on those who name Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.”
No. No there’s not such a unity at all.
RE: “The biggest sacrifice is that we cannot only work with those we like [that is, share the same Gospel with, which Archbishop Welby has once again blurred by claiming just personal animus], and hang out with those whose views are also ours.”
Yes. Yes actually we [i]can[/i] only work with and hang out with those who share the same Gospel in the Anglican Communion.
RE: “In practice that has to mean the discipline of meeting with those with whom we disagree . . . ”
No. No it doesn’t.
So we’re back to the precise same thesis he pitched in his little article in the “Via Media” newsletter he wrote several years ago which is that matters of sexuality are not intrinsically communion dividing and clearly indicative of a false gospel.
And yes. Yes they are.
It will be interesting to me if Archbishop Welby manages to Restart The Game with those Primates of the Anglican Communion who believe the Gospel.
[blockquote] There is a prize of being able to develop unity in diversity and also with deeper and deeper ecumenical relations demonstrating the power of Christ to break down barriers and to provide hope for a broken world. [/blockquote]
That train left Shining Time Station long ago. I’ve been out of L.A. for over a decade, but before I left, they dumped express language about “unity in diversity” for express language of “beyond inclusion.”
“…to look honestly at some of the issues that are faced and the possible ways forward.”
If your address requires self endorsement as “honest,” then we can rest assured that it probably is not. And indeed, there is simply no biblical requirement to “work” with those who oppose the gospel – regardless of how often bishops say so.
“So let us here, in the Church of England and above all in its General Synod, be amongst those who take a lead in our __sacrificial, truthful and committed love__ for the sake of Christ for His mission in His world.”
We know precisely who it was that the CoE sacrificed in synod. I cannot imagine that his efforts at the communion level would somehow be beneficial for reasserters.
🙄
Thanks to Sarah and Tim Fountain of SFiF for contributing their frisks of this pathetic talk by ++Welby. To paraphrase Jer. 6, it amounts to “Peace, peace, when there is no peace.” Or unity, unity, when there is no unity. Only diversity, because two mutually exclusive gospels and worldviews are contending for the soul of Anglicanism.
The archbishop’s stock continues to fall in my eyes, and the eyes of many.
David Handy+
“If the majority view of the Primates is that such a meeting would be a good thing, one will be called in response. The agenda for that meeting will not be set centrally, but from around the Primates of the Communion. One issue that needs to be decided on, ideally by the Primates’ meeting, is whether and if so when there is another Lambeth Conference.”
I fail to see this as anything but an improvement over prior operating procedures. The Primates having a greater role is precisely what this Communion needs right now, in my view; as well as their seeing to it that they are genuinely setting the agenda.
The world is increasingly becoming a Potemkin Village in the hands of the liberals and their media. This is one example.
Dr. Seitz,
While I agree with you that the Primates need to be allowed to make decisions, that is clearly NOT the intention of the ABoC. Abp Welby has made it clear that full recognition of TEC as a legitimate church is a prerequisite, and indeed that all must accept the TEC (and forthcoming CoE) innovations as legitimately Christian. Since he knows full well that the Primates will not accept such a precondition, everything he says is just rhetorical. He has no intention whatsoever to allow a Primates Meeting, except on his own terms. Indeed, it appears that he fully intends to let the GS deadline for such a meeting pass, thinking (wrongly, I predict) that he has called their bluff.
The Primates have begun acting on their own to take hold of the agenda. The question will be whether they invite the ABoC to their meeting, not the other way around.
The “million other” ways that we are diverse existed before the consecration of Gene Robinson, but the Communion was not fractured as it is today. Heresy tore the fabric of the Communion asunder, as forewarned by the emergency meeting of the primates.
I haven’t finished reading yet, nor have I read any other commentary on this yet… but I really just needed to write what I’m thinking and pose a question:
Was anyone else really struck by and/or annoyed by this sentence where he’s talking about his travels and describing the diversity of the Communion?
[blockquote][i]To sit, in the space of a few months, in meetings with the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Primate of Australia, the Primate of South Africa, the Moderator of the Church of South India, the Primate of Nigeria and many others…[/i][/blockquote]
I was so offended that he would list TEC first, and then throw on Nigeria at the end as kind of an afterthought. Truly that is how it came across in reading it, as if he was deliberately listing those he was closest in affinity and relationship to first, cozying up to TEC. YUCK. Couldn’t he have gone just a little out of his way to mix up the list or perhaps depersonalize it?
Instead maybe he could have said something like, “meeting fellow Primates whose theology is as diverse as their cities and cultures in Abuja, New York, Chennai and Sydney…” or something like that.
Anyway, I’ll keep reading. But that one sentence seems SO symptomatic of the problem of cronyism and colonial legacy in the Communion, a tendency to always treat the Global South leaders as 2nd class citizens, even if their provinces make up the vast majority of active members in the Communion now. Sigh. Perhaps he could have listed Primates in order of the size of their churches in his list of those he spoke to!
This talk of getting along with people of differing opinions on a variety of subjects is how we relate to our neighborhoods, cities, and the larger world. The essentials of agreement among people who put their trust in Jesus Christ are not like this. When was the last time Jefferts Schori spoke of her “faith and trust in Jesus?”
RE: “The agenda for that meeting will not be set centrally, but from around the Primates of the Communion.”
Yes, this is always what Rowan Williams said too.
No, the Primates meeting with KJS [and Canada] simply means that they acknowledge them as brothers and sisters in Christ, just as is Archbishop Welby’s thesis. But that is not the case. They are false teachers, and meeting them as equals and fellow workers is fraudulent and false.
1. Rowan Williams never said this. Agenda set by ACC and his team.
2. If the Primates as a group declare the terms under which they will attend, including how the US and Canada are to be handled (reconnect with Dar es Salaam), the majority are in the driver’s seat.
The GS arrangement for SC bodes well as it demonstrates something Rowan Williams would never have allowed.
Is there cause for concern re: next Communion season? You bet.
Dr. Seitz,
With all due respect, it’s useless to put any trust in the Primates’ Meeting, because the primates themselves are utterly and hopelessly divided. Even if a solid majority of primates are in the global south and would support even more vigorous measures than came out of the Dar es Salaam meeting in 2005, it would still be to no avail, because the liberal primates (primarily in the global north) would simply disregard whatever the majority wanted, and there is absolutely no way to FORCE compliance.
That is the Achilles Heel that renders all the current so-called “Instruments of Unity” into worthless Instruments of Disunity. We simply HAVE to get over our exaggerated Protestant fears about creating a central governing group with the ability to issue and enforce BINDING decisions at the global, inter-provincial level. We can no longer afford the sort of anarchy that now prevails. It is high time to create the sort of new institutional wineskins.that can IMPOSE meaningful discipline on rogue provinces (and rogue dioceses and bishops).
Of course, the global north provinces won’t go along with that. Well, so what?? Who cares? I admit that I don’t. It’s time to vote them off the Anglican Island.
Kiss “the Anglican Communion” goodbye. It is already hopelessly shattered, torn to pieces by the reckless actions of well-meaning but spiritually blind and self-deceived promoters of a new gospel that is no gospel at all. Forget your dreams of saving “the Communion” and concentrate on saving ANGLICANISM. Prayerbook religion can, and will, I trust, survive the demise of the old, make-shift, ad hoc, highly colonial and fatally flawed “Instruments of Communion” that were a noble first attempt at forging a global fellowship among the far-flung, highly diverse provinces that looked to the CoE as the Mother Church.
But Anglicanism has outgrown the limits of the CoE, and even the wider limits of the former British Empire. Prayerbook religion is no longer confined largely to white-skinned, English-speaking people. Anglicanism has outgrown the narrow, temporary confines of the institutional pot it was originally planted in. Thanks be to God.
The shoe must not tell the foot how large it can grow. Nor should the pot tell the flourishing bush how large it can grow. Of course, I fully recognize that there is a very real danger that Prayerbook Christians will not divide into merely two new groups, for there are deep faultlines within both the Global North and the Global South, and we could easily end up with not just two major new Anglican bodies, but three or four (divided over churchmanship, WO, the charismatic gifts, and the degree of central control, etc.). Am I worried about that grim potential for fragmentation? You bet I am.
But we will make no substantial progress toward building a better future for Anglicanism until key leaders can agree on the present state of affairs in the Anglican world. And the crucial starting point in diagnosing the root ailments that have made global Anglicanism so weak and sick is to come out of denial and openly face the FACT (and it’s not a matter of opinion but a plain FACT) that Anglicanism is hopelessly divided in our time between two worldviews and agendas that are mutually exclusive and utterly incompatible. It’s futile to hope that oil and water will ever mix. They simply cannot and never will.
David Handy+
P.S. Let me be explicit about the revolutionary nature of the changes implicit in my approach to saving Anglicanism, as an ism, as a unique BCP-based synthesis of Catholic and Protestant elements. The most important and most radical of those changes is in moving beyond the Erastian, Constantinian roots of Anglicanism in a state church like the CoE. Prayerbook religion was birthed in the era of Christendom, the millenium and a half or so when the Church made an alliance with the powers that be in Europe.
That era is now over. Global North culture has now clearly and openly turned its back on its Christian heritage. Everywhere in the global north, the message that its leaders have sent to faithful Christians is essentially that western civilization wants out of the long marriage to the Church and the Christian faith. The culture wants a divorce, because it has already, in fact, taken a new lover and moved out of the house. All that’s left is the fight over dividing up the property, but it’s beyond dispute that the long marriage between Christianity and Western Culture has already ended, de fact, if not yet de jure everywhere.
It’s now imperative for us to recover from our long Anglican addiction to the support of wider culture (not just its financial or formal support, but its approval in all sorts of formal and informal ways). In a post-Christendom era, we are now FORCED to modify our fundamental ecclesiology, at least when it comes to our relationship with the wider society. The root change that we are now compelled to make, like it or not, and it will be exceedingly hard on us, is to abandon our Erastian, Constantinian roots, and to embrace an openly adversarial relationship with an increasingly godless, pluralistic, relativistic, and even hostile culture. IOW, I am not just advocating a New Reformation. I am openly espousing a radically new Anglican ecclesiology, a frankly and unashamedly “gathered church” eccleiology.
That does NOT mean embracing a Baptist, Mennonite, or Pentecostal ecclesiology (or any other free church Protestant model). Instead, it means going back and recovering (and adapting as necessary for our times and circumstances) an ancient patristic ecclesiology of the Pre-Imperial sort.
Traditionalists will balk at that, I know. But our culture is leaving us no choice. Our foes on the left simply take it for granted that the Church is incapable of swimming or boating upstream against the powerful currents that are pushing our society relentlessly in an ever less Christian direction. It is simply unthinkable to them that we Anglicans could ever become truly counter-cultural and adopt an openly confrontational approach to the dominant culture, similar to that of Roman Catholic Church. But that is precisely the fundamental need of the hour. Our future as prayerbook Christians depends on making that fundamental shift, because of the momentous sea change in western civilization from a basically pro-Christian to an ever more anti-Christian stance.
So let me amend my earlier comment significantly. What is the Achilles Heel of Anglicanism? Yes, I stand by my claim above that our current dysfunctional polity system at the international level is a devastating weakness that MUST be completely overhauled (not just revised but replaced with something more centralized that can IMPOSE real discipline on rogue provinces and leaders). I do not fear Roman style tyranny half as much as I’ve come to fear and abhor Protestant anarchy. But that isn’t our deepest and most dire problem.
Rather, our root problem as Anglicans has always been, from the break with Rome in 1534 onwards, our WORLDLINESS. Our addiction to the wealth, prestige, and sheer comfort that comes from the support of “the world” and cultural elites is our deepest and most severe problem. So what if Christianity’s “cultured despisers” (to use Schliermacher’s famous phrase) have forsaken us?? Like the rich young man/ruler in Mark 10, let us sorrowfully let them go their way.
That need not mean retreating into a cultural ghetto (like medieval Jews), much less a return to the catacombs. But it does require us to develop the internal strength and will to stand bravely against the world, for the sake of the world, that it might be saved.
David Handy+
Open advocate of a “gathered-church” style Anglicanism
For what it is worth I agree with David Handy.
Thanks, Br. Michael.
For the rest of you, I’m sorry for being so verbose and perhaps stifling the conversation by my prolix comments.
David Handy+
Two addresses.
One, Justin Welby, 2014:
[blockquote] During the last eighteen months or so I have had the opportunity to visit thirty-six other Primates of the Anglican Communion at various points. This has involved a total of 14 trips lasting 96 days in all. . . This seemed to be a good moment therefore to speak a little about the state of the Communion and to look honestly at some of the issues that are faced and the possible ways forward.
First of all, and this needs to be heard very clearly, the Anglican Communion exists and is flourishing in roughly 165 countries.[/blockquote]
Two, [url=https://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/archive/files/havel-speech-1-1-90_0c7cd97e58.pdf]Václav Havel: New Year’s Address to the Nation 1990[/url]:
[blockquote] My dear fellow citizens, For forty years you heard from my predecessors on this day different variations on the same theme: how our country was flourishing, how many million tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were, how we trusted our government, and what bright perspectives were unfolding in front of us. I assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you.
Our country is not flourishing.
* * *
But all this is still not the main problem. The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. [/blockquote]
If Justin Welby wants to move forward, he needs to stop lying to us.
However, I can’t help adding that, no matter where you may stand on women’s ordination or whether or not women are allowed to teach men anything, I find it striking that some of the most astute comments made on this thread are by women (Jill, Karen, Katherine, and Sarah).
David Handy+
(quitting now)
At least two of whom, David Handy+, are opposed to women’s ordination (Sarah and myself).
Wow Bill – your #17 just floors me. Thanks for finding that comparison. So striking, and I think all too apt…
Has the ABC been on a recent purchasing visit to a legal marijuana state recently? He certainly seems toked or brownied!
It seems to me that there is a lot of Welby’s reconciliation rhetoric (analyzed well enough by Sarah and others) here and then the following:
If Justin Welby knew that there was no realistic chance that a primates’ meeting or Lambeth Conference were going to be held, what would he say to General Synod? Would he say “sorry guys, it ain’t going to happen. I failed.” No, he would not. He would probably say something exactly like this. He is trying to put this square in the laps of the primates and not his own (“If the majority view of the Primates is that such a meeting would be a good thing, one will be called in response.”). What he is basically saying is laying out his reconciliation vision, and then essentially admitting that the primates are irreconcilably divided. In other words, he is saying “if only everyone had my views, we’d be one happy family, but not everyone (ahem, the conservatives) have my broad and reconciling views, and so we are at a stalemate.”
He then lays out some questions (decent questions but he gives no hint of an answer) before declaring that even if the stalemate continues, nevertheless, the Anglican Communion is still “flourishing.”
In other words, this strikes me as a very artfully written CYA.
I am just not buying the ‘its all up to the Primates’ and openness to changes in behaviour of LamPal/ACO in reflecting ‘the fact that the majority of its members are in the Global South.’
Want proof? Look no further than the latest ACNA news article in which Tengatenga informs the Communion that he and fellow TEC tools, Jefferts-Schori, Ian Douglas and the rest on the ‘Standing Committee’ will be deciding who the replacement to Kearon as General Secretary of the ACC will be.
No decision-making role or involvement for the Primates, although they are inviting ‘thoughts’ to be forwarded to the ‘Standing Committee’.
So, Welby’s collegiality fails at the first hurdle, within two days of Welby’s speech. It is hard to give his words much credibility.
– a pretty obvious climb down from his comment on ACNA not being connected with the Anglican Communion, and while not an apology, perhaps bowing to the reality of the clear message the Global South Primates and GAFCON Primates sent in response. Not exactly repentance, but something-or-other I suppose.
[blockquote]almost everywhere (there are some exceptions) the links to the See of Canterbury, notwithstanding its Archbishop, are profoundly valued[/blockquote]
Still, it seems, it is all about me me me me me
Well, if there are serious fractures coming, they are in no small part thanks to the actions of TEC and ACoC, and Welby and his predecessors’ actions in trying to give a pass to them. But I don’t think that. As Welby says the Communion is growing and doing just fine. TEC and ACoC are not fine, and are heading down the pan, and by allying with them LamPal and ACO and now it appears the CofE will be heading the same way. Will we be content with that to follow Welby’s leadership into irrelevance?
Not much of a vision is it – The Church of Functional Diversity?
Oh well.
I suppose properly it would be United Church of Functional Diversity. All very Wobbly.
All these tiresome statements are nothing but sound and fury, signifying nothing. Ten years ago, I might have cared, but now I don’t.
RE: ‘Every careless phrase in an interview is seen as a considered policy statement’ . . . a pretty obvious climb down from his comment on ACNA not being connected with the Anglican Communion . . .”
Actually I think Welby’s comment on ACNA not being a member province of the Anglican Communion was very considered, very methodical, and ultimately very planned. I think recognizing that is one smaller reason why the public relations pushback on that was so immediate and desperate [the larger being the internal issues within ACNA].
RE: “I suppose properly it would be United Church of Functional Diversity.”
By all means we should a version of the word “Unity” in there!
Because if there’s one thing we all clearly are is “unified!” . . . Because we’re in the same organization. . . . Which makes us Unified!
Archbishop Welby states:
[blockquote]The agenda for that meeting will not be set centrally, but from around the Primates of the Communion.[/blockquote]
I simply do not believe that.
Pageantmaster has noted (#23) that the Standing Committee of the ACC is busy picking the next General Secretary of the Anglican Communion Office. [Note: the ACC itself has no power outside the Standing Committee.] It is simply incredible to think that any “official†Communion meeting would not be initiated, scripted and funded by the ACO. When has such a meeting happened – ever – over the past 50 years? The only exception was Dar es Salaam 2007, when Peter Akinola wrenched the agenda out of their clutches – and we all know how that turned out.
If Abp. Welby wants a genuinely free Primates’ meeting that reflects the primacy of the Global South in the Communion, let him request the Global South Primates’ Steering Committee to arrange and staff a meeting with NO input or funding from the ACO and its enablers and to choose which Primates are welcome.
Such a move would indeed be courageous and sacrificial! Otherwise, it’s business as usual.
“… let him request the Global South Primates’ Steering Committee to arrange and staff a meeting with NO input or funding from the ACO and its enablers…”.
I suspect versions of this will take place. I know the Chair is concerned above all to return to the logic of Dar es Salaam. This was stated publicly as well at Toronto in 2013.
It is worth remembering that Kenneth Kearon was, according to the press release at the time, Rowan Williams’ appointment in his capacity as “President of the Anglican Consultative Council.” It is not clear why this has been devolved to Tengatenga, leaving on one side how hopelessly conflicted he is and unfit as a resigned bishop and now a kept TEC pawn
#28 Dr Noll writes:
Nor do I – Archbishop Welby said:
What does Welby mean by ‘a Collegial Model of Leadership’? Well, not what you would think of the Primates having the agenda and the say, given the ‘Collegial Model of Leadership’ Welby is bringing into the Church of England.
By Collegial Model of Leadership in the Church of England, Welby means the manipulative indaba facilitated conversation model used in Synod to push through the Women Bishops legislation, now being extended to bring in sexual immorality through the Pilling Report facilitated conversations being rolled out in the English dioceses. Welby is a determined man in a hurry, confident of his and of his team’s ability to get their own way through the psychological warfare and group manipulation techniques they have pioneered in other areas at Coventry.
In England, with a few exceptions, people in Synod are unaware of what is being done to them, though there were protests in Synod that their role as a legislative body was what they were there for, rather than to engage in other activities and play-role acting. This is much as those few Primates who turned up at the Dublin Primates meeting including +Burundi were unaware that the childish exercise they were asked to undertake to list the sort of things the Primates Meeting might do was in fact a way of diverting them from the role and authority they exercised under the Windsor Process of managing the TEC and ACoC situation, into emasculating themselves into a council to make suggestions to the Archbishop of Canterbury. What appeared to be a participatory and collegial exercise of leadership was in fact controlled and cynical psychological manipulation. Welby of course was one of the Facilitators in this travesty.
Had Welby wanted to have collegial responsibility he could have called a Primates Meeting rather than travelling at vast expense round the world to grab each Primate in a grip session to try one on one to divide and rule.
So that is what I believe Welby means by a ‘Collegial Model of Leadership’ – anything but what you would imagine the words mean in ordinary usage.
There is no future for the Communion until the Primates take charge themselves, and put Welby back in his box as ‘first among EQUALS’ otherwise he and his TEC backers will manipulate, scheme and continue business as usual as Dr Noll rightly observes.
In my view there should be a Primates Meeting, with the Primates setting the agenda themselves, and by all means inviting Welby, as ‘first among EQUALS.’ The GAFCON and Global South Primates should get their heads together, with the unity they were able to display in their letter from Archbishop Beach’s Installation, putting aside the rivalries and jockeying which has bedevilled such a unity in the past. Otherwise, it will be divide and rule, as usual – business as usual, as Dr Noll observes.
It is worth remembering that Kenneth Kearon was, according to the press release at the time, Rowan Williams’ appointment in his capacity as “President of the Anglican Consultative Council.” It is not clear why this has been devolved to Tengatenga, leaving on one side how hopelessly conflicted he is and unfit as a resigned bishop and now a kept TEC pawn
#28 Dr Noll writes:
Nor do I – Archbishop Welby said:
What does Welby mean by ‘a Collegial Model of Leadership’? Well, not what you would think of the Primates having the agenda and the say, given the ‘Collegial Model of Leadership’ Welby is bringing into the Church of England.
By Collegial Model of Leadership in the Church of England, Welby means the manipulative indaba facilitated conversation model used in Synod to push through the Women Bishops legislation, now being extended to bring in sexual immorality through the Pilling Report facilitated conversations being rolled out in the English dioceses. Welby is a determined man in a hurry, confident of his and of his team’s ability to get their own way through the psychological warfare and group manipulation techniques they have pioneered in other areas at Coventry.
In England, with a few exceptions, people in Synod are unaware of what is being done to them, though there were protests in Synod that their role as a legislative body was what they were there for, rather than to engage in other activities and play-role acting. This is much as those few Primates who turned up at the Dublin Primates meeting including +Burundi were unaware that the childish exercise they were asked to undertake to list the sort of things the Primates Meeting might do was in fact a way of diverting them from the role and authority they exercised under the Windsor Process of managing the TEC and ACoC situation, into emasculating themselves into a council to make suggestions to the Archbishop of Canterbury. What appeared to be a participatory and collegial exercise of leadership was in fact controlled and cynical psychological manipulation. Welby of course was one of the Facilitators in this travesty.
Had Welby wanted to have collegial responsibility he could have called a Primates Meeting rather than travelling at vast expense round the world to grab each Primate in a grip session to try one on one to divide and rule.
So that is what I believe Welby means by a ‘Collegial Model of Leadership’ – anything but what you would imagine the words mean in ordinary usage.
There is no future for the Communion until the Primates take charge themselves, and put Welby back in his box as ‘first among EQUALS’ otherwise he and his TEC backers will manipulate, scheme and continue business as usual as Dr Noll rightly observes.
In my view there should be a Primates Meeting, with the Primates setting the agenda themselves, and by all means inviting Welby, as ‘first among EQUALS.’ The GAFCON and Global South Primates should get their heads together, with the unity they were able to display in their letter from Archbishop Beach’s Installation, putting aside the rivalries and jockeying which has bedevilled such a unity in the past. Otherwise, it will be divide and rule, as usual – business as usual, as Dr Noll observes.
It is quite interesting what else turned up on a google search including the Presiding Bishop’s approval and the way Kearon conducted himself as her paid stooge and to do her bidding as ACI pointed out
It is hard to believe a word these people say.