As we begin our work together, we’re bound to be very much aware of people’s eyes upon us. There are expectations among our own people ”“ both hopes and fears. There are expectations among the representatives of the world’s media ”“ and plenty of stories already which seem to know better than any of us what is going to happen. I saw the headline “Is this the end of the Anglican Communion”. No-one has told us here. And there are our eyes on each other ”“ perhaps not quite sure yet how it’s going to feel, who we’re going to be alongside, whether everything will come out right in the sense that after two weeks we shall be able to say something with real integrity that will move us forward in God’s way.
We know all that; but we need also to know what most matters ”“ that God’s eyes are upon us and that God has entrusted something to us. In the last few days, we have had a chance to hold that firmly in mind as we have shared our time of retreat. We have reminded ourselves that God has entrusted something to each one of us as a bishop, the care of his people and the taking forward of his purpose for humankind through our share in God’s mission. We have been caught up in the infinite consequences of Jesus’ life and death and resurrection. We are part of God’s way of making those consequences real and liberating for all humanity. So all that is said and done in our context here is in some way to do with this fundamental agenda, deepening our commitment to God’s own vision of the world’s future in Christ.
I read it all. If ++Rowan can thread this needle, he’s the genius he’s been rumored to be. At some point, however, he will need to descend from the wooly, woozy, gauzy platitudes of 40,000 feet and land somewhere. And that’s where the fun begins.
Well, it seems the majority of the bishops are right behind him. According to one who was there (Bp David Walker):
“When Rowan rose to give a Presidential Address he got no more than a few words out before conference stood spontaneously to give him a prolonged ovation. He was visibly moved.
It is actually very helpful that this has been released in full. I will have to re-read this carefully.
[i] Comment edited. [/i]
He presents the potential for the glory of the Anglican Way and the hope I held when I was received into the Anglican Communion. I pray that it can come to pass.
To use an adage,
“Its not what a man says, its what he does that counts.”
So I’ve read what he has said, I’ve appreciated his positive statements, I’ve detected some troubling statements, and I will wait for what he does and for what he doesn’t do at Lambeth.
[i]That’s why a Covenant should not be thought of as a means for excluding the difficult or rebellious but as an [b]intensification – for those who so choose – of relations that already exist.[/b] And those who in conscience could not make those intensified commitments are not thereby shut off from all fellowship; it is just that they have chosen not to seek that kind of unity, for reasons that may be utterly serious and prayerful.[/i] (emphasis added)
It seems to me that what ++Rowan says about how he views the Covenant is in reality what GAFCON is all about. Thus, I find it quite frustrating that Abp. Williams was so quick to attack GAFCON.
–elfgirl
[b]wait = -1, talk = -1, action = +1[/b]
wait + talk + wait + talk + wait + talk = -6
Keep waiting and keep talking and it gets more negative…
only action can make things positive again.
As far as I can tell, no action is being placed into the equation.
I am not impressed. It does nothing but abandon us us in the TEC .
Unfortunately, Rowan Williams doesn’t seem to realize how serious the conflicts are. If the reasserters are right, those who bless same-sex unions (abominations, in this view) are bringing down the wrath of God on the church, to total destruction (a la 586 BC). If the reappraisers are right, then those who exclude the homosexually active are guilty of excluding Jesus himself, and to the extent that reappraisers believe in judgment, are in danger of being cast into Hell as evildoers (Matt. 25).
I pray that +Rowan will be able help Lambeth come to conclusion on the need for a covenant that lays out the responsibilities of communion and mutual interdependence.
I believe that +Rowan will not exclude anyone, but that he will let TEC exclude itself by not agreeing with the Covenant that comes out of Lambeth.
While this is not how I would handle the crisis, I am not the Archbishop of Canterbury.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
#11, But what will be consequences of not agreeing to the covenant? What will happen to those who choose not to sign it? If the excluded are still included in Lambeth, the Primate’s meeting and the ACC mwhat is the point?
Jon R
TEC will agree to the Covenant. It will then do what it pleases, secure in the knowledge that there is no pointed end of the stick.
Jeffersonian wrote:
I think he has already touched down — in 2006 he declared that the Episcopal Church had met the Primates’ requests. Ever since then he has been taking action against both Americans who disaffilate from the Episcopal Church.
I’d have to agree, Randy, that this is like Dr. Johnson’s view of second marriages, a triumph of hope over experience. I don’t see trust in ++Rowan running particularly high among mossbacks right now, so anything he proposes that has diminuition of “intensification” as its most dire consequence for trampling the Communion isn’t getting off the ground.
Jeffersonian is right. KJS signed the DES accord in front of all the primates present, then reneged, saying her agreement was only to the point that she agreed to bring it before the HOB.
So why shouldn’t she sign the Covenant? It will be to the same result.
Utter hogwash! Only action as suggested by the DES report is going to take the Communion forward. Anything less is not going to repair what TEC broke. Surely the ABC knows this. Just what is his hope?
Once again the ABC’s statement focuses on listening and patience. It assumes that the problem is that people really aren’t listening to each other. Unfortunately, that’s NOT the problem. People have listened, they understand each other only too well, and they cannot bridge the gulf that separates them. The problem is not listening, the problem is what happens when the Communion reaches a sense of its mind on an issue, as it did a decade ago on this issue, and a few provinces decide to go their own way — and claim that they discern something “new” that the spirit is doing — although they cannot point to anything in the sources that Anglicans have historically turned to to determine such things as evidence that the spirit is, in fact, doing something new? Once again the ABC is totally ignoring the crux of the issue. He’s most certainly not a fool, which again leads me to the conclusion that the the real design intent of the Lambeth Conference is simply to kick the can down the road yet again. Look at what the ABC says about the presenting issue for the current crisis: “We cannot ignore the fact that whet is seen to be a new doctrine and policy about same-sex relations, one that is not the same as that of the vast majority at the last Lambeth Conference, is causing pain and perplexity.” I find this amazing. He totally ignores the fact that the last Lambeth Conference took a clear stand on this matter and then the mind of the Communion was completely ignored! It’s not the “new doctrine” is a problem, that was dealt with at the last conference a decade ago, the problem is that a tiny minority of the Communion ignored the clear will of the Communion and went right ahead with its “new doctrine” as if the will of the Communion meant nothing. The ABC here TOTALLY ignores the central issue, which isn’t the “new doctrine” is “seen” as such by the vast majority of the Communion (to say nothing of the vast majority of Christians globally), but that the Communion he heads has shown itself completely unable to exercise any meaningful discipline. This is sort of like suggesting that Arius and Athanasius simply weren’t listening to each other and the Council of Nicea made a huge mistake by reaching a consensus on a critical matter of doctrine. Absurd! What the ABC is still avoiding is that all through the history of the Church there have been competing ideas about issues of doctrine. The Church has always had a way of dealing with such conflicts — they’re usually not because people aren’t listening to each other, they have to do with fundamentally different visions of truth. The failure here has not been a failure to listen, it has been a failure to discipline. The design of this entire conference is clearly intended to skirt that central fact and obscure the core problem. More listening is NOT what is needed to revive the Communion. Fortunately, bishops representing the VAST majority of faithful Anglicans globally are beginning to act as faithful bishops have always acted. They met a month ago in Jerusalem to chart forward a path that begins to tackle the key issue which the ABC would prefer to obscure. They are acting as orthodox bishops have always acted, and their actions will ensure a future for Anglicanism. This Lambeth Conference is a side show, a monument only to the failure of the ABC and the current instruments of communion to deal with heresy and to enforce the clearly expressed will of the Communion over the past decade.
This is pablum for the toothless. That we should be spoonfed thus is a patent insult, a oblique declaration that the conservatives will be obliged to eat anything they are fed. And so far, is he wrong? LM
The ABC is saying that when the covenant is finished, those who don’t agree with it will self exclude. That will be how the covenant will be “enforced”. By the time the covenant is finally finished, TEC will have made Canterbury Anglicanism over in it’s own image and GAFCON will self exclude. Western Christianity has very little influence in the lives of Europeans. As Pope Benedict stated in “Christianity and the Crisis Cultures”, “…a culture has developed in Europe that is the most radical contradiction not only of Christianity, but of all the religious and moral traditions of humanity.” The ABC and The C of E must ask themselves to what extent they have allowed this to happen.
So 50-75% of the Communion are to self-exclude are they?
How ridiculous!
The inmates have taken over the asylum, and are asking (demanding) the staff to vacate the premises.