There are times when you’re not in the mood to see people – you’re having a fat day, you’re exhausted, upset or simply antisocial – but you have to.
However difficult it may be to drag your sorry self away from the house there are always more advantages to going out than staying in. If only someone had told the Gafcon bishops this.
At the Lambeth conference, few are bemoaning the absence of traditionalist Africans – except journalists scuttling around to make bricks out of hay – and the Americans are left calling the shots and, boy, are they doing it with gusto.
Not content with bringing a battalion of pro-gay lobbyists to the sprawling University of Kent campus, the efficient US episcopal machine is also churning out daily – informal – briefings on what the mood is like and what is being said by whom. Think of it as a bishop a day keeps the schism away.
They are also blogging as if their lives depended on it. It’s great for gossip-starved media, but bad news for organisers who were praying for a non-eventful event.
Read it all. She is right, and it is a big strategic mistake. At a time in the world when America’s leadership is highly questioned and in many places resented, at a time in the Anglican Communion when American unilateralism has caused unprecedented damage to their church family, TEC’s leaders are taking exactly the opposite approach than they should be–KSH.
This article mentions the daily briefing by US bishops. I think it is interesting that T19 has blocked comments on the first one of these from S. Sauls. Is it because the piece immediately invites such scorn that comments couldn’t have been controlled by five elves?
Now, you can easily delete this comment, but the question is to the point–what in the world are we looking at as our future (immediate future) in TEC. When the tea party is over, TEC leadership will have absolute free reign to wreak vengeance on all their reasserter trouble-makers.
[blockquote] When the tea party is over, TEC leadership will have absolute free reign to wreak vengeance on all their reasserter trouble-makers. [/blockquote]
An assertion worthy of further comment, I’m certain. Gator, this is also my view of the position that TEC leadership has worked hard over the last 30-40 years to attain — liberalistic autocracy and the ouster of orthodox conservationists. To say TEC’s immediate future post-Lambeth is grim would be an understatement.
The comments were not blocked, they were asked to be submitted by email (there is a difference). There are certain people and subjects which seem to elicit from some commenters unhelpful reactions–the writer of that blog entry is one example. It is simply an example of trying to be a good steward of the site and the church.
When the tea party is over…? [i]When???[/i] What in heavens name are you waiting for?
Kendall–Thanks for the reply, but the Sauls post has “Comments are closed” at the bottom, without your alternative “I will consider…by e-mail.
http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/14363/
I say let the revisionists pour forth like locusts. The more they talk the worse they sound. Let them build up enough flase confidences to actually demand SSBs in the next Prayer Book. The giant swooshing sound will be deafening as the people get out of their churches…oh, wait. Chane already has that going on in DC.
I am ashamed for my country.
Actually, don’t you think this over-bearing behavior is just “what the doctor ordered”? If all the GAFCON bishops were there, standing valiantly for Truth, the headlines would read “Combative Conservatives Create Conflict….” This way, it becomes obvious to our European and non-North American friends just how obnoxious these Revisionist can be. The behaviour of some of these folks would seem to lend good credence to the Post-Modern dictum, “It’s not about truth, but it is all about a power-struggle to control the paradigm.”
I thank you Kendall for closing, or prescreening if you will those topics that elicit such emotions. I for one feel compelled to express myself on those areas in a way upon reflection does not uplift the Body of Christ. Your mechanics are one of a loving priest who does not want us to harm ourselves in God’s eyes.
Intercessor
Or maybe the absence of the GAFCon bishops is not such a mistake.
Since TEC is emboldened to show its true colors with [i]gusto[/i], then its true colors will be well and truly seen in all their brilliance. And their arrogance and bullying may finally be understood, especially by the British bishops who find such displays ever so distasteful.
The Africans are so underestimated. They are not stupid. TEC may very well be happily shooting itself in the head even now. ([i]sigh[/i] I hope…)
The liberals running TEC have become exactly what they profess to hate: Imperialists, unilateralists and fascists. To them, on their agenda, the “ends justify the means”.
I agree with #10 above, I think the decision of so many bishops not to attend Lambeth was not a strategic mistake, as Kendall suggests, I think it was very wise. Their collective absence says far more than anything they could say if they were at Lambeth. There are enough orthodox bishops at Lambeth to carry the torch and say what needs to be said. Had the many GAFCON bishops not attending Lambeth actually shown up, are we to think that the Americans would be doing any less blogging or forcing their opinions on everyone else? The presence of the many missing bishops would simply have further validated the legitimacy of what is going on at Lambeth. I think absence was ABSOLUTELY the right call in this case. After what happened in New Orleans last September, it became VERY CLEAR that the historic Communion and especially the ABC had failed. Faithful Anglican leaders really had only two choices: (1) go down with the ship or (2) chart a new course forward for Anglicanism. They chose the second option and in Jerusalem they began to act upon it. In 1998, when ALL those missing bishops were at Lambeth, they spoke with a clear voice about these issues. Did that make any difference Kendall? What possibly would have been achieved at this circus called Lambeth 2008 — especially given its structure, which is most certainly NOT to clarify, but to obscure?
Chris Taylor (and Kendall),
I’m sorry if I misunderstand, but I don’t think Kendall was suggesting that the “big mistake,” as he calls it, is the GS Bishops staying home. I believe that he means that the Americans “calling the shots” is the “big mistake” that will backfire on them.
William Shontz
Correction: Kendall’s exact quote is “big strategic mistake.”
Whatever Canon Harmon meant, Rizat Butt is clearly saying that it was the GAFCON bishops who made a mistake by staying at home instead of going to Lambeth.
As Winston Churchill said when putting Dunkirk into perspective: “Wars are not won by evacuations”.
I suspect GAFCON was much like D-Day, and the war is all but over. Time will prove that TEC and the ACC have merely propelled themselves more quickly to their own demise. In a few decades all that will be left of the current Anglican structures in TEC, the ACC, and the C of E will be some fancy Slabbinck vestments, property and cash, and a new vital Anglicanism will have become formally established in the world, no doubt with a Global South Archbishop prayerfully chosen by his peers as its symbolic head.
I am guessing they are regretting now going to the small grop discussion model. If they had stuck with the parliamentary procedure model, the ECUSA big wigs might have gotten more effective statements and such passed.
[blockquote] She is right, and it is a big strategic mistake. At a time in the world when America’s leadership is highly questioned and in many places resented, at a time in the Anglican Communion when American unilateralism has caused unprecedented damage to their church family, TEC’s leaders are taking exactly the opposite approach than they should be–KSH [/blockquote]
Kendall, spot on. It should have some interesting repercussions in the final outcome. I hope so anyway…. Lets see, the Americans come, they dominate the news coverage with Gene Robinson, they stir up controversy bringing division throughout the communion, they bypass the official press channels, their numbers far outweigh their real presense in the communion, they dominate the small groups forcing their agenda, etc, etc…. I’m sure the rest of the communion is going to appreciate their contribution and reward them accordingly.
If all the bishops of the Communion had turned up, perhaps TEC wouldn’t be calling the shots if indeed it is. As the bishops are presently on retreat, there’s nothing much to call the shots about. Blogs won’t shape the agenda. Lobbies won’t shape the agenda. What actually happens when these bishops are mixed up into their groups, day after day, in the context of prayer and Bible Study may shape the agenda. We shall have to wait and see.
You must be sure to read Dr. Chris Seitz’s piece on Enlightened American Episcopalianism before reading this news story and Kendall’s comments. Note especially how the following quote plays into Kendall’s comments:
(emphasis added)
I think that the GAFCON bishops absenting themselves from the Lambeth Conference might turn out to be a really postive and wise move. It takes the focus off of the conservatives and puts it squarely onto an arrogant, elitist, condescending group of overrepresented Americans.
I don’t suppose anyone in TEC’s heirarchy asked themselves “Now what could go wrong with that?”
GAFCON should have gone to Lambeth only as long as they were willing to go to war, and to make this fight bitter and final. If they were not so prepared, the liberals would have colored their coloring books with their own crayons precisely because they were not willing to fight. Civility will NOT solve the problems before us; niceness is not a solution in this case, it is cowardice. Civility is not the unicorn’s horn that will draw the poison from this English Tea. This is precisely why the ABC will fail and Lambeth will fail. No one has the courage to make the fight open, clear, focused, and terminal. Why can we not admit this simple truth, that with friends like this, we don’t need enemies?