I received a note late today from a faculty member of Trinity Schol for Ministry informing me that John Rodgers has personally told him that he is NOT the author of the SPREAD document to which I have responded. (As I noted, no author was cited.) Another name was mentioned as the author, but rather than potentially further confusion by passing along second-hand information, I will not repeat it. According to the note, John Rodgers is NOT the convener of SPREAD either, as David Virtue reported. What he will say at GAFCON, I am told, is not known.
I apologize for associating John Rodgers’ name with a document he apparently did not write, and with an organization for which he is not the convener.
As early as 2005, however, Rodgers was one of two signatories to a Petition to certain Global South Primates (still on the SPREAD website), where he was listed as “Chairman” of SPREAD. Perhaps he no longer is. He seems to know the author of this particular piece. The Petition he did put forward, however, and which he signed certainly covers the same ground as the “Urgent Call”. It describes Rowan Williams as a an “anti-Scriptural” “threat” to the Gospel and to Anglicanism who refuses to “repent”, and the like””the Petition also likewise lumps in Abp. George Carey into an equivalent camp, quite misleading readers as to Carey’s actual views””and so on. The main difference between the two pieces is that, in the earlier one, the need for a new Communion is laid out as implicitly necessary, now it is laid out as absolutely so. My arguments apply in each case across the board””so I have no apologies to offer on that score in the least. The Petition, I would note, lists several items where Williams is imputed views on the basis of his sitting on the editorial board of something. I don’t know whether this should apply, by analogy, to the SPREAD documents.
I shall have my piece revised so that Rodgers’ name is changed to “the author”, and make other related adjustments.
Meanwhile, I find it interesting that in the thread of one post ”“ the present one ”“ the topic is tied to the dean of one seminary associated with a writing that itself associates the Abp. of Canterbury with “anti-Christ” (and yes, “the author” does indeed “associate” him in this way), with many apparently agreeing that this is a fair characterization, while just above is another posting, from a member of that dean’s own faculty, commending Rowan Williams’ fine theology (pace the Petition’s unmitigated condemnation of his orthodoxy), based on an invited paper delivered at an Eastern Orthodox seminary conference. I’m glad it’s all so clear to everybody ”“ including seminary faculty, the Eastern Orthodox, and the Global South ”“ since apparently Williams has “guaranteed” everybody else’s actions in a decisive way, through his failures””proleptically initiating, it seems, the AMiA itself and its vision even before he was Archbishop of Canterbury””and thereby managed through the deployment of his moral vacuum, to set the course for the New Future.
The whole thread is quite important and I encourage your participation therein. I am closing comments on this entry so that any further comment will continue on the thread below–thanks.