The hope of the Anglican hierarchy is to drag the agenda of this week’s Primates’ Meeting away from the…[sex outside of marriage] issue, which has been unresolved since 2003.
Archbishop Justin Welby will undoubtedly have some success in this aim. For one thing, three Primates of the most outspokenly orthodox provinces have confirmed they will not attend the meeting. They are the Archbishops of Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya.
For another thing, the powers-that-be have already determined that the Scottish Episcopal Church will follow the North American Churches into the naughty corner. In other words they will not be allowed to sit on the standing committee or represent the Anglican Communion on ecumenical or doctrinal committees.
The fact that this discipline clearly doesn’t work in that it hasn’t brought provinces back into line with Christian teaching is all part of the plan for ‘good disagreement’. In other words, ‘discipline’ is merely a fig leaf to hold enough people at the table until those pesky traditionalists have got bored and wandered off.
–From the Church of England Newspaper, Octpber 7, 2017, edition; subscriotions are ecnouraged