This is the process that will be adopted:
At the heart of the Lambeth Conference 2008 are the fifteen indaba groups. After two days of meeting together, each group will be asked to nominate the member of their group whom they believe to be most capable of carrying their views and the fruit of their discussion into the reflections process in a way which expresses the aspirations outlined above. This ‘Listener’ will then join a Listening Group made up of all the listeners under the chairmanship of Archbishop Roger Herft of Perth, in Western Australia. Working with the summaries of the fruit of indaba arising from each group, it will be their duty to generate a common text which reflects authentically the indaba and is loyal to the considerations set out above.
That text will be tested by the conference through two main routes. First, preliminary drafts of the Reflections document will be circulated to the indaba groups as the work progresses at regular intervals throughout the conference. It will be possible for bishops to respond to the developing text through their listener and the discussions within the indaba groups.
Secondly, on four occasions the Listening Group will meet in open session before any bishop who wishes to attend to invite comment on and response to the developing text. These hearings are an advertised part of the conference programme, and will take place on the Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the second week of the Conference.
It is hoped that in this way every bishop attending the conference will be given the opportunity to shape the Reflections document which arise out of the conference. The hope of the Lambeth Design Group is that this process will permit the development of a Reflections Document which will meet the objectives set out for it, and be available on the last day of the conference to be received as an authentic account of the engagement of the bishops together in the service of Christ.
Forgive me, but it strikes me as trying to summarize a veritable babel of voices. There is also a faint whiff of the Delphi Method and hence the risk of manipulation. Everyone attending is likely to have their name attached to a document that is a wash of many conflicting opinions that, I suppose, will be picked up by the press and suddenly become the direction of the rudderless Anglican Communion. I hope everyone has a good time at the Queen’s garden party.
The “risk of manipulation”? Given the history of ACC’s actions at the Primates’ Meeting and Kearon’s personal behavior at the HOB meeting nearly a year ago, what we have is a deliberate exercise in manipulation.
Sounds like a painful offsite meeting, are they going to do the ropes course together?
Is gerrymandering so uniquely American a practice that the Archbishop is not familiar with it?
Or is he so detached from the roots of the current crisis as to be ignorant of the role bad faith and manipulation have played in causing it?
Is there any precedent at all for “delegates” of “indabas” to be gathered into such a ‘Supreme Indaba’?
Obviously, if the opinions of the Supreme Indaba match those intended by “Design Group”, the outcome will be spoken of with hushed reverence for authority. If they do not, the exercise will be systematically described as an “experiment”.
This is an amazing object lesson in how fundamental tradition is to the rule of law and how fundamental the rule of law is to unity.
If he tried to create a system that would result in maximum frustration and disaster, he succeeded.
[b][i]”This is the process that will be adopted'[/i][/b]
Well. There you are. Kearon has spoken. The process is set in stone, and the bishops [b][i]Will Conform to It!![/i][/b]
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
If anyone walks into this thing thinking the conlusions have NOT already been determined…. well, just wake up.
Important to keep in mind that TEC bishops will make up nearly one-fourth of all Lambeth attendees. That will give them a lot of clout and voice in this process, hugely disproportionate to TEC’s size in relation to the whole Anglican Communion.
A follow-up to my #9. If we do the math, it means that if equally dispersed, each Indaba group will have something like 8-10 TEC bishops out of something like 40 bishops per Indaba group.
No other Province will be even close to having that kind of clout and weight. Incredible.
#1 wrote:
[blockquote] I hope everyone has a good time at the Queen’s garden party.[/blockquote]
Yes, and Elizabeth will probably throw a good party also.
[The Elf on duty giggles as s/he deletes this comment as below T19’s standards.]
# 10,
I agree that it is frustrating to see this sort of imbalance, however it seems like two remedies were/are (maybe?) available in either A) financing the attendance of Bishops from more conservative provinces who cannot attend because of financial concerns and b) conservatives who have stated they will not attend actually going ahead and showing up. While the financial limitations on some cannot be “blamed” on anyone (though perhaps a lack of charity can be seen in the more affluent provinces for not making it easier for them to attend), a decision to not attend is, simply put, a vote for TEC.
I might also add that one of the possible (I’ll admit slim) hopes in all of this is that there will not be a repeat of the sort of blind adherence to parliamentary procedure (If it’s anything like Dioceses, I’m sure it was selective) that resulted in Bishop Macleod Ochola of Kitgum being told he could not speak at the last Lambeth conference. CMS used to have an article detailing the event but I was unable to find in on their web site.
Jody+, I can’t quite agree. We all know the fix is in.
Why is it that the word “indaba” in this context stirs in me a desire to throw up? Why am I so sickened by this – what is the word I want – trendy, Urban Cultural Elite, fashionable pandering to the image of blackness/so coolness, uppercrust condescending to the cant and jargon of the elite-who-wear- workingmans’-clothing….. well, I can’t find it. It sounds as if these… these preciosities are now wearing baseball caps which they have on three-quarters backwards which means they are SO WITH IT. Oh toss my cookies on my pointy toed shoes! I just want to give their pasty faces a good whack! Larry
Mr. Michael,
We can still hope (and certainly pray) for a miracle. Just wanted to point out that it isn’t necessarily the dumping of parliamentary procedure that’s the bad thing as some seem to think, as it has been used in the past for negative effect as well. When all is said and done I have a feeling we’ll all be waving at each other from our various dinghies… with a few folks looking over the side of the good ship Roma.
Br. Michael,
Sorry about that.
For a sense of the severity of the problem the Elves are onto, let’s look at how bishop-intensive a selection of provinces are (diocesans and archbishops only, no assisting or suffragan):
Wales 10,714
Korea 12,500
Philippines 19,786
Rwanda 20,000
USA 20,522
Scotland 28,571
Ireland 32,500
Central Africa 40,000
England 40,909
Kenya 50,000
Canada 56,528
South Africa 82,759
Nigeria 135,338
Australia 144,556
Uganda 274,438
I just did this in a back of the envelope fashion, and I’m still stunned.
Sorry – the number associated with each province is numbers of communicants per bishop.
I don’t understand the complaint over numbers. Bishops are not elected representatives of equal sized dioceses the way congressional representatives are. Lambeth, as a conference, has always been designed for bishops of the communion, not x number of bishop per y number of baptized members.
I seriously, seriously doubt that any bishop who wants to go to Lambeth would be prohibited from doing so for financial reasons. There are enough wealthy traditionalists in the west to cover the cost of impoverished traditionalist bishops, and enough funds available from wealthier provinces to cover funds for other impoverished bishops who don’t believe accepting support from the West imperils their souls.
I also don’t understand that people are “shocked, shocked!” that TEC bishops make up a higher percentage of attendees when several hundred Global South bishops have said they aren’t coming – and are lauded for doing so in the conservative blogosphere. As they say, those who show up get to vote (or, in the case, at least speak). You don’t want TEC to to have such a high percentage? Then get the boycotting bishops to attend.
#20 – I’m sure your description of Lambeth is correct. But let’s not conflate two issues: TEC’s episcopal top-heaviness; and TEC’s disproportionate presence at Lambeth. The first is a general observation, and TEC is not the most-bloated province by far (Wales is twice as swollen). I do find it conspicuous that top-heaviness is inversely related to orthodoxy (note, this is correlation, no comment on causation). The second point – which is in part a function of the first – casts doubt on the overall “authenticity” of the indaba process (hard to even type that with a straight face). Even if all the “impoverished bishops” (your label, not mine) showed up, they’d still face between 10% and 15% TEC bishops in each indaba group – and TEC has about 3% of Anglicans worldwide on a good day. Makes it hard to take seriously.
TWilson, just out of curiosity, what source did you use for number of bishops and number of communicants per province?
I don’t doubt your figures, but I wanted to do some further “back of the envelope” calculations myself and just wanted to know a good place to get the starting data.
#21, I don’t find argument with the question of top-heaviness, though some might see that as a strength if closer relationships between bishop and congregation are desired. One could make the same argument that TEC, and probably Anglican churches in general, are bloated with priests when looking at the priest/parishioner ratio – especially compared to the RCC. Thus, my position is that labels like ‘top-heaviness’ may matter to some and not others.
As to the correlation between ‘top-heaviness’ and what some might call ‘orthodoxy’ or ‘heterodoxy,’ I’m not convinced that you can find anything particularly heterodox among Anglicans in TEC’s official formularies (BCP and Canons), at least in terms of doctrine defined by the first 4 ecumenical councils and the accepted breadth of Anglican liturgical practice. I may take issue with positions held by some people at both ends of the spectrums of conservative/traditional to liberal/progressive, but I haven’t found a way to link that directly to too many bishops.
Finally TEC bishops are still in a minority at Lambeth. If TEC is so far removed from the mainstream of Anglican thought as the conservative blogosphere generally holds, then 1 voice/vote out of 4 is generally going to be marginalized. You’re also assuming that every TEC bishop present represents what the conservatives don’t like. I think Central Florida, Springfield, Albany, Dallas, Forth Worth (if he’s going, can’t remember) Quincy (ditto), Pittsburgh, Rio Grande, Kansas, Louisiana, Western Louisiana, South Carolina, Ed Little’s diocese and, I’m sure, several others, would take disagreement with that. With those voices, we’ve just reduced the ‘liberal TEC’ voice by 1 at each of 10 tables to 9 out of 40 from 10. See, the odds are getting better? Imagine what you could do if the boycotting bishops actually attended!!
Remember, the design group that came up with this format was chaired by Melanesia, and included reps from Indian Ocean, Southern Africa, Central Africa, Hong Kong, Cuba, England, and US.
The seminary that advised the design group included the Middle East, North India (2), Pakistan, Egypt, Congo, Paraguay, Ceylon, Nigeria, South Africa, Southeast Asia, and Melanesia, in addition to a the usual handful from England, New Zealand, and Australia.
The very derisive comments made about indaba (not necessarily by #21, but certainly in this thread and in a similar thread on Stand Firm, come across to me as patronizing and dismissive of a culture that many on the design group would have been familiar with. I guess I don’t understand why the process calls for such derision when such a diverse group of folk put it in place.
“seminary” in penultimate paragraph above should be Seminar, or more correctly, “St. Augustine’s seminar.” Apologies for typo.
Larry,
Bravo! You have stated my reaction to this “Indaba” silliness in spades. These sorts of behaviors make me apoplectic.
A follow-up post to TWilson’s very helpful calculations is now posted above.
http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/14145/
#22 – I used a combination of anglican communion website, wikipedia, and individual province websites then dumped that into a spreadsheet. I’ll send to you if you post an email address.
#23 – If TEC formularies and canons were actually followed, I suspect the situation would be very different. But as the formularies have been drained of traditional Christian content (1979 BCP), and as individuals have simply ignored them without consequence (or worse, with tacit approval), they don’t reflect facts on the ground for many. Speaking only for myself, the issue is trust. At one point, I believed my (former) bishop was trustworthy, even if to my left theologically. I was proved wrong. After KJS’s “agreement” in Dar Es Salaam followed by her subsequent disavowal, I see no reason to trust her – and her recent actions have shown just how far she is willing to bend canons and formularies. Same goes for many other sitting bishops, and I don’t see those setting the agenda for Lambeth as much different, frankly. So when the planners select a concept that, while interesting and maybe worthwhile, has no connection to historical Anglican polity as far as I can discern, my reaction isn’t, “wow, that’s creative.” My reaction is “what do they hope to achieve by departing from the usual setup?” And this is not a new move – taking a concept or idea that enjoys cultural cache, detaching it from its cultural context and historical meaning, and using it to further an agenda…. where have we seen that before? Each time KJS refers to “ancient traditions” of the church? VGR referring to his acts of love with his partner as “sacramental”? Words have meaning, but I do not trust today’s institutional Anglicanism to preserve and respect them.
I don’t write this with any joy. During my 20s, TEC was the one form of Christianity “within reach” and it kept me from abandoning organized Christianity altogether. The liturgy is a marvellous work of art, and the veneer of reasonableness is very appealing, as is the alleged continuity with historical Christianity. But as the liturgy has gotten “corrected”, and reason has become merely subjective assertion, and the ties with historial Christianity have weakened, what I thought was stable ground has proven to be otherwise (or maybe it always was, and my via media illusions got in the way of my perception). And the stakes have risen – with a family and children, and with life just getting more complex, I’m less concerned about whether my spiritual home is tasteful and museum-quality, and more about whether it offers the tools for leading a Christian life: sacramental means of grace, relationship with Christ, solid theological and moral teaching (and the guts/courage to go against the culture when warranted), and clear continuity with the ancient Church.
#27, fair enough. And I certainly understand how a lack of trust influences one’s perception of events. I sounds like from your experience, you have very little reason to trust the leadership.
I like your comment about via media illusions getting the in the way of your perception. My personal opinion is that every one of us is having our concepts of Anglicanism totally torn down and rebuilt. I think each one of us has generally felt our particular party (high, low, catholic, evangelical, broad, progressive, civil religion, what have you) dominated Anglican thought. I think the lest 10 years have shown that there is no one singular Anglican ethos. The question is how many of those different parties or approaches can hold together in one body, and which can no longer do so.
When Canada celebrated their centennial, a commentator on NPR said that the definition of what it means to be Canadians is to be in the process of becoming Canadian. I think that’s the same thing for Anglicanism. What it means to be an Anglican is every evolving. There are certain markers along the way (for me, it’s the elements of the Quadrilateral with the BCP thrown in as the framework for those markers), but everything else seems to be in the process of coming to be.