[Katharine Jefferts] Schori pointed to the first Lambeth Conference in 1867 convened as a response to “bishops teaching things that other bishops found uncomfortable.” She said there were also issues of bishops overstepping their jurisdiction similar to issues facing Episcopal bishops today.
“We still haven’t sorted that out,” she said. “This gathering, we’ll continue to wrestle with some of the challenges of living together in a complex and diverse and sometimes challenging family. That is God’s gift to us and we celebrate it.”
Steve Waring, who has covered the controversy for the conservative Living Church Magazine, said resolutions are the “bread and butter of the Anglican church gathering since the beginning.” He believes they have been omitted from the agenda because any resolutions at such a tense time could fracture the church.
“It’s quintessentially Anglican to put things off,” Waring said. “There’s always hope that the end of the world could come first.”
Yes,
solving problems WILL fracture the Church. I’m willing to accept the loss of heretics.
Wouldn’t it be nice if they stopped worrying about being “quintessentially Anglican” and focused on being Christians?
Two comments. First, with regard to the Steve Waring quote toward the end, it’s not just Anglicans who have a tendency to evade issues as long as possible; that perfectly normal and natural human tendency is widespread. But to the degree that Anglicanism is still English in its cultural ethos, it is certainly very English to just try and “muddle through.” Of course, such denial is usually foolish and harmful as the problems only fester and get worse in the meantime.
Second, as the saying goes, “not to decide is to decide.” Although the rationale for avoiding confronting the issue head on is supposedly that this will help avoid creating a sense of winners and losers, that is simply another form of denial. Everyone loses in this situation, as a great opportunity for dealing with a crisis is squandere d and things are allowed to get worse. But all don’t lose equally. It’s the orthodox majority who are primarily thwarted and end up the main losers, IF the heretics like the PB are allowed to be treated as if they weren’t scandalous traitors. Now if the liberal pro-gay advocates were in fact SHUNNED by the orthodox majority at Lambeth and treated as the contemptible, despicable PARIAHs they are, well then matters might be different and real progress toward resolution might be made.
David Handy+
David is right and then some. Failure to deal with hard issues at lambeth is, as he says, to deal with them. What this method of dealing with them does is demonstrate that the church is pusillanimous and lacks leadership in matter of the gravest consequence. When it becomes clear that leadership will not appear, Schori et al will feel, as the Cultural Elite say nowadays, that she is empowered. Empowered, she will move more strongly forward with her agenda and the Anglican church as a whole will continue to fracture, to lose focus, to attenuate is identity, to show scriptural truth as impotent and irrelevant. The result of this course is as predictable as it is painful. Larry
#2 Thank you. My thoughts exactly.
There are tea parties and Tea Parties. Time for a historic Tea Party.
[blockquote]David is right and then some.[/blockquote]
Larry, are you bucking for a position in the New Reformation Fan Club? How about Chief financial officer? (The budget is zero, so the job is pretty easy. Would need approval of our illustrious leader. I believe all members of the organization are officers!)
Seriously, the TEO has now bought another primate, this time in Sudan. Dawani of Jerusalem is so much in the pocket of 815 that they are using his office to spy on GAFCon.
People talk about the GAFCon-ners rejecting a Canterbury centered communion. No, they are rejecting an 815-centered federation which is what is essential taking shape. So the erstwhile Anglican Communion will be an 815 centered autocracy and a Global South centered communion. Guys like +Wright are too smart not to see this.
robroy (#7),
I’m afraid some people will get the wrong idea from your jest above about everyone in the NRAFC being an officer of some kind. So let me set the record straight. The elite NRA Fan Club is indeed a bit top-heavy at the moment with a rather large (though still incomplete) cabinet for its currently small but growing size. Thus, among other things we have dedicated leaders who have volunteered themselves to act as Secretary or War and a Secretary of the Navy, and even, a Dolphin-skinner (don’t dwell on that image too much). But there are numerous others who have accepted no cabinet level responsibilities (OK, numerous in this case means about a half dozen).
But the NRAFC is like the Marines or perhaps even the Navy Seals. We are a very selective, highly dedicated group that’s only for the few, the strong, and the brave. Do you think just anybody can go to Beijing and represent the U.S. on the Olympic team? No, there are rigorous qualifications and only the best of the best make it on the team. And so it is with aspiring Anglican reformers and that Olympic level team of dedicated Anglican reformers, the illustrious NRAFC.
David Handy+
Proud founder and CEO of the NRAFC
We can see the wisdom (or cunning) in calling it TEC rather than ECUSA – it widens the door to globalization and alternative liberal structure, bankrolled by the legacy of Dead White Americans. They’re pretty advanced with this agenda in New Zealand (e.g. putting on useless ‘free conferences’ on church growth, for heaven’s sake!). If what robroy says about Sudan is correct, this is disturbing. Jerusalem is little more than a Potemkin diocese, with more foreign-paid employees than worshipers. I wonder who or what got to Anis – the offer of some money, maybe, for his small and hard pressed church? Gafcon needs to stand ground, and watch out what Dawani may say and do. I’ve no doubt he’ll be reporting to Schori in the great cat & mouse game underway.
A realignment WILL take place. This will be a dilemma for Tom Wright – his old evangelical sympathies are with what Gafcon proclaims but the new ecclesiastical politician in him (which leads him to take up the cudgels against conservative evangelicals) causes him to denounce ‘rebellion’ against English hegemony.
As for tea party, considering Schori’s taste in miters, maybe it’s the Mad Hatter’s?
#8. Well, my chinese is ok for simple conversations so I’ll take the Chinese embassadorship. Howzzat? I have read NewRef’s declaration that we must act strongly, positively, in fresh ways that face the 21st century, ways that bring the good old scripture to the damned new world and take the dnw on mano a mano. If I have had him correctly, where do I sign? Larry
Larry (#10),
Well, well, a new recruit with competence in conversational Chinese. And you volunteer for being the NRAFC ambassador to China (or at least the Chinese churches)? Hmmm. What an interesting motley crew of eccentrics the NRAFC is becoming.
OK, Larry. Let’s see, as for joining, I’ve posted over 1200 comments at SF or T19 in the last six months or so; let’s say if you’ve read at least 100 of them and agree with my fundamental claim that nothing less than a radical overhaul of Anglicanism will do (though the exact nature and extent of that Reformation remains open for discussion), then you are eligible for provisionary membership. As one of the Fan Club’s first 100 members, all dues are waived and you will be officially counted as a “Charter Member.”
First assignment: research the state of Anglicanism in China, which seems to have effectively disappeared and been absorbed into the large, above ground Three Self church (i.e., self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating). As you may recall, ++Akinola and ++Orombi and a few other GS primates paid a visit to Chinese church leaders last year to build relationships. You might start there. Be prepared to report back in a month.
And while you’re at it, brush up on the amazing story of the great PECUSA missionary to China, Samual Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, Bishop of Shanghai, founder of St. John’s University in Shanghai (the first English language college in China), and above all, translator of the OT into easy Wenli (colloquial Mandarin, I’m told). Born a Lithuanian Jew, converted by simply reading the NT while a rabbinical student, Schereschewsky’s feast day in TEC’s calendar is Oct. 14th. I find his story of finishing his translation of the Bible into Wenli despite being almost totally paralyzed from a heat stroke, one of the most dramatic and stunning stories of God’s amazing grace in history. If you’re going to be our emissary to our Chinese brothers and sisters, you should know that spectacular testimony. It shows how God can use the most unlikely people to accomplish his divine purposes. People like say the oddballs in the NRAFC.
Welcome aboard. Glad to have you with us.
(Elves, please pardon the temporary detour off-topic).
David Handy+