Canterbury: A “bombshell” report is expected to be delivered to bishops attending the 14th Lambeth Conference on July 28 that is expected to call for the Episcopal Church to abandon its push for gay bishops and blessings.
Lambeth: Is Inquisition on the cards?
The request is expected to come in the third presentation of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) to the bishops at Lambeth and follows a call for the creation of an Anglican Holy Office to police the boundaries of the faith.
Backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican “Faith and Order Commission” will be a fifth instrument of unity for the Anglican Communion.
Plans for were disclosed on July 23 during the second of three briefings on the work of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) chaired by the former Presiding Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East, Bishop Clive Handford.
In its briefing paper to the bishops, the WCG commended the creation of an “Anglican Communion Faith and Order Commission that could give guidance on the ecclesiological issues raised by our current ”˜crisis’.”
[b][i]Nobody[/i] expects the English Inquisition![/b]
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
To see Andrew Goddard’s comments on this, click [url=http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/forum/thread.cfm?thread=7945]here.[/url]
Silly idea really. The only people who would vote for it are the conservatives and they aren’t there! More of a pop-bang than a bombshell.
…if this does get suggested, the TEC will compare this “inquisition” with the Spanish Inquisition…and say that this time, the homosexuals are being persecuted…
Usually these sorts of reports are blown all out of proportion and greatly exaggerated prior to their release. When we actually see the final documents, more often than not, they are very timid and much weaker than originally reported. Even if this one doesn’t turn out to be a paper tiger, does anyone imagine for a moment that the majority running TEC would pay any attention to it?
Thank Goodness! More Words. And the promise of further promises. Let’s give this mechanism a decade or so to prove itself, and then convene a decade or so of discussions prior to modifying those words. GAFCON, good riddance!
Nobody expects the Anglican Inquisition…to work.
I totally understand the overwhelming sense of distrust evinced in comments like Chris Hathaway’s. But sometimes I feel that of course “Plan A” will not work — because we reasserters say it won’t work. We’ve totally dismissed it from the start. Before the start in this case.
While we blow this idea of a fifth instrument of communion off, over at Episcopal Cafe, Jim Naughton seems to be doing some serious hand-wringing. He writes:
“This is a politically skillful move on the part of moderate conservatives in the Communion who have been working hard to marginalize the Episcopal and Canadian churches. There are enough dioceses led by moderate conservative bishops to form a substantial American province in communion with Canterbury if the Episcopal Church decides it cannot sacrifice its convictions on homosexuality to maintain its membership in the new, rapidly centralizing, bishops’ club previously referred to as the Anglican Communion.”
But what really is startling is that in one of the comments on that blog, a reappraiser says it won’t work primarily because the people who would really push for it (the theological right-wing which the commenter dubs Gafconites) aren’t there…..
Now, I have to ask in all honesty:
(1) Wouldn’t we like an alternative province that includes not just Common Cause Partners but also dioceses like Dallas, Albany, heck, South Carolina as Jim Naughton suspects could happen?
(2) If such a Faith and Order Commission (which my goodness the full report is not coming out until later) does fail, what would be the reasons for its failure? Sure a limp-wristed Abp of Canterbury is one reason….. but there may be others.
The “conservatives” would not vote for it, because: 1. There supposedly aren’t going to be any votes at this Lambeth Conference (remember, the rules have changed now that the Global South is in the majority) and 2. since the current so-called instruments of unity are dysfunctional why in world would you add another one? and 3. whose rules would this new committee enforce? Would it be the rules of their banker, the US Episcopal Church?
#9 Your (2) and (3) are excellent questions! Let’s see what the third WCG paper to be given on Monday actually has to say…
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am kind of over it with all these multiplying “instruments of unity”. For me the Bible, the Prayer Book (1662) and the Articles of Religion are sufficient instruments of unity. If we cannot agree on these, what are we doing wasting time with all these additional instruments of so-called unity?
Poo! DES has no effect because the other two instraments would not back it even though one other participated. What would make anyone think yet another “instrament” would help. Wasn’t it one, ABC, that said in response to GAFCON we don’t need another instrament, we need to improve the ones we have?
Why would a 5th work when the others do not?
The solution is that the bishops TAKE their authority and run with it.
Really, this is so simple that it must be God’s idea….
Oh! I believe that it is!
Don