Second, there is a sense that the Conference has done all its preliminary work, has got to know one another, and is now ready for the final seven days, beginning on Monday (tomorrow, Sunday, is more or less a rest day and that’s how I intend to spend it). The tricky thing now is that there are several different processes going on simultaneously which are designed to come together into some kind of ”˜reflection’, or even ”˜statement’, but nobody (except perhaps the planning group?) has a clear idea of how precisely this will happen. There are several sessions labelled ”˜conference reflection’ as the week develops, and these will presumably be used as plenaries to discuss the major issues that are coming up. +Rowan said, when he invited us all fourteen months ago, that the point of the Conference was to take forward the work of the Windsor Report on the one hand and the Covenant proposals, which nest within Windsor, on the other. We are having ”˜hearings’ and other sessions on aspects of these, which should then eventually dovetail with the ”˜Indaba’ group processes (they report to a central secretariat which will try to pull their insights together). I spoke at a ”˜self-select group’ yesterday on the Windsor/Covenant theme and was subjected to a barrage of anxious and fearful American comments, including two who were objecting that the Covenant seemed to be ”˜anxious and fearful’. That’s the sort of double-edged conversation you tend to have from time to time . . . There is another ”˜hearing’ on Monday to take forward the Windsor process, and we are waiting for that quite eagerly to see what the group who have been working on it will come up with. It’s all supposed to come together towards the end of the week, and this is where, please, you will focus your prayers, that we may be given wisdom faithfully to discern God’s will and the leading of the Spirit, and how our commitment to live together under scripture (which we embody daily in the Bible Studies) will translate into actual policies and healing and life for our beloved Communion.
Ah, i love this brother — “and was subjected to a barrage of anxious and fearful American comments, including two who were objecting that the Covenant seemed to be ‘anxious and fearful’. That’s the sort of double-edged conversation you tend to have from time to time . . .”
But it does not disconcert or anger him, just gives a sense of bemused purposeful looking past it to the real communion of Spirit, such as when the Japanese bishop came forward amid the Koreans in prayerful humility. Plus such a healthy ironic awareness of saying “More coffee, Your Beatitude?”
[blockquote]how our commitment to live together under scripture[/blockquote]
The folks on the left are committed to live together [b]under Scripture[/b]? You don’t say?! Really? Uh huh. Sure. Yeah, right.
Dear +Tom,
First let me decode the American phrase “anxious and fearful” for you. The standard translation is: This is all homophobic twaddle and you are a fool.
Second, do you truly believe, having seen TEC’s reactions to Lambeth 1.10 and the Windsor Report that the American church is committed to living under anything you would recognize as Scripture?
Third, you can keep Gordon, we don’t want him. Sadly for you and others of a left of center political bent there is nothing ironic about Labour’s by-election defeat, New Labour has run its course and run out of new ideas – good or bad.
RSB
Wouldn’t such a letter about relationships and details of such a convention be written by a woman?
I wonder if his wife didn’t write this.
How could a man whose job is theology in the one Holy and Apostolic Church be content to send out such a letter to those to whom he serves under Christ?
I am very confused.
Don
[blockquote]Inevitably some have had niggles[/blockquote]
Good shot of penicillin will clear that right up.
+Wright writes: “…another ‘hearing’ on Monday to take forward the Windsor process, and we are waiting for that quite eagerly to see what the group who have been working on it will come up with.”
‘Take forward the Windsor process’ is a nauseating Anglicanism and the thought of what another group will ‘come up with’ is not something that gives me feelings of eager anticipation. I’ll pass on the fudge this time around.
Who would trust and believe in anything ‘come up with’ by people who have in five years broken as many agreements?
First, bring forth fruits meet for repentance. God always requires repentance before forgiveness. The unrepentant should not come to the table anyway.
My money’s on GAFCON.
Surely the most important thing about this post is that the New Zealanders defeated the Australians in a singing competition!
“Surely the most important thing about this post is that the New Zealanders defeated the Australians in a singing competition!”
Yes, I believe the score was 34-19.
What a chatty letter this was! I’m surprised he didn’t describe the hats. And is ‘your Beatitude’ really stranger than ‘your Grace’ or ‘my Lord’?
A very pleasant letter filled with chit-chat. I don’t suppose a serious theologian has to be serious every minute of every day. I can wait for assessment of results until there [i]are[/i] results.
Glad he enjoyed the political march and rally. Too bad the “global warming” restrictions would make things so much worse for the world’s poor. But aside from the political disagreement, give the guy a break and disagree with him over something serious when it’s over, if need be.
The above comments on Tom Wright’s [url=http://fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=331]letter[/url] to his diocese are somewhat surprising. Maybe they are from people who don’t hold out much hope for the Windsor Process anyway, and are reading his letter from that [url=http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=310#diagram]’Federal Conservative'[/url] perspective.
In response to a ‘Communion Conservative’ bishop – Pete Broadbent – I’ve tried to outline some further key signs of hope, and some key questions, [url=http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/forum/thread.cfm?thread=601]here[/url] (4.26pm).
10, I think you are right. The ABC himself subverted the “Windsor Process” and many of us have given up on that. And the Covenant is a waste of time in so far as TEC is concerned. Now it might be useful in that part of the AC where it is not needed.
That which is done in haste is often done poorly. For those looking for a bombshell that will comfort the reasserters and upset the reappraisers will be greatly disappointed.
It is in the nature of institutions to move slowly. That is necessary for their institutional survival. Something done in haste will likely not garner the kind of support needed to make meaningful change.
Also, don’t expecting a lot of substance from these general letters and blogs. That is not where the work is done. Do look for pointers. Look to see who’s worried and who’s not. The real story from will probably emerge several weeks after the dust has settled. Right now, the dust is being stirred, and I expect more dust to be stirred up this week.
What I found helpful about Tom Wright’s rather chatty letter to his diocese is that it provides a touch of the flavor of what is going on in Canterbury, but mingled with some serious points. I applaud him for telling us these things within the context of a handful of anecdotes that are worth a chuckle or two.
Neal in Dallas #12 – does this mean that the reasserters are the ones trying to make a rash change? I think that reasserters are, in fact, arguing for slow, deliberate, “sober” practice in the church. They are the ones who have put up with endless wrangling over LGBT and they are the ones who have been willing to negotiate over property. The rash destruction of church teaching on marriage, the radical sacramentalization of LGBT and the rush to litigation should be of great alarm to a Communion that wants institutional stability and steadiness.
The fact that +VGR’s consecrators and the crazy lawsuit initiators were invited while the secessionists were not flunks Lambeth on the smell test.
I am thankful for Bishop Wright and for his continual and assertive support for a Covenant. This conservative Episcopalian still holds out hope.
Dear Timothy,
Many of the reasserters have exhibited the patience of Job (while some have exhibited the patience of James and John, the Sons of Thunder). But, yes, the change that is being called for is just that envisioned by the Windsor Report, Covenant, etc. For these to be well done and well received and well implemented, they must be done deliberately and not rashly. The same goes for the “Faith and Order Commission” and the Canon Law proposal and whatever is rumored to be coming down the pike on Monday.
While I still am frustrated over the missed opportunities and obligations of Dr. Williams and the primates’ failure to call TEC into account, I still say the reasserters must trust and work with this process.
+Rowan has a view of history and the obligation of his office that few understand and have to work through. If the Anglican Communion is worth being a part of, it is worth working through these difficult issues well.
Look at the response to the Covenant by some of those in the leadership of GAFCON. By most accounts the response was not well thought through, and it did not have the support of all the primates of their Primates’ Council. The result was embarrassing and potentially divisive.
So I would say that the reasserters have, by and large, been patient, that certain opportunities for a better and sooner and short term resolution have been missed, but that this kind of long-term solution requires even more patience on our parts. Otherwise we could all end up being hoisted by our own petard.
#15 adhunt,
I’m with you. What has me most distressed is the sniping of conservatives against even their own if they don’t convey constant criticism. This was an informational and informal letter directed to the people of his diocese and I found it entirely appropriate and pastoral.
Thanks, Neal iD #16.
You make a great deal of sense and the examples you give are on target… as is your warning about petards!
I guess my frustration is that there’s no “holding place” for orthodox folks while this plays out. In Dallas (as in a few other places), you have a diocese fairly unified to observe orthodox teaching and practice and to stick together supportively. There is some common work and momentum in what you are doing.
But for those of us scattered around the revisionist wasteland, there is no “long view.” The death, disability or retirement of a rector means revisionist deployment in the parish. What do we do for Confirmations? A patient approach would require at least some “safe space” in which one need not be ground up while the gears grind on.
I am admitting weakness here, although it sounds like I am pontificating. I am admitting that I am not able to gracefully endure in a revisionist setting. (I think it was Fr. Baumann in CA who called it “corrosive to the soul.”) It is perhaps better to realign with some hope of eventual healing and reunification than to dissolve in the toxins (unless one has a spiritual ability to survive the toxic soup of TEC… some folks are better at this than others and I just am not good at it).
I don’t see any plan emerging that is any better than DEPO. Even if Lambeth offers a “Communion Partners” model, the likes of the PB, +Sauls et. al. will say, “It is offensive to our unique polity”, which is to say it is a plan unavailable to me.
I’ve sat down with a colleague in this diocese who is a GenCon Deputy among other things. When I talked about some of this, he replied that TEC does not need to listen to those outside because “We fought the American Revolution.” This theme was taken up by the diocesan bishop a few conventions back – TEC is engaged in “A new American Revolution.”
I am yet to understand how to play by the rules (of patient process) in an environment where the rules do not apply.
It was a gracious and articulate Rector on this page who has joined up with one of the African missions who challenged me and asked that I read through the primary papers related to this mess once again. It seems to him that surely by reading those it is simple enough to see that TEC has not and will not play ball.
I did read through them all again, including even the 110pg “The Way the Truth the Life” GAFCON theological handbook. In reading through them again, and looking at where we are and where we might head I have actually come back around again with more vigour to support the Covenant ‘process.’ Not that I am naive (I am up here in one of maybe three Evangelical Episcopalian churches in the ‘revisionist wasteland’ of Minnesota) but that it seems to me to be the godliest way ahead that can preserve some sense of Anglican identity apart from turning the Articles into the Westminster Confession.
I am certain that there are pastors and laity here who have suffered far more than I have, and in that case I weep with you, but I cannot feel exactly what you feel. It seems that there are still more moderate bishops here than we might have originally thought and the continual pressure on the revisionist’s to produce real Christian theological rationale is proving to be great at exposing the unchristian and untheological nature of their arguments. I feel that firm and gentle pressure from reasonable moderate orthodox Anglicans may yet prove, and are in fact producing, results that we can believe in.
#19 adhunt thanks for your post. As you can tell I continue to wrestle with this stuff.
I have tried to engage here… I wrote to the bishop, the entire standing committee and all of our GenCon deputies to raise questions about the lawsuits (the diversion of national church funds has had a direct and negative impact on this diocese). NO RESPONSE from a single one of those leaders. Not a “thanks for writing,” not a “you’re a fascist idiot” – NOTHING. I initiated two lunches to talk about these issues (as you say, to apply “firm and gentle pressure” and bring to light the stuff going on), and got the “American Revolution” response from one and “I’m just going to keep my head down until retirement” from the other. And both of these individuals would probably place themselves in the category you offered: “reasonable moderate orthodox Anglicans.”
Look, the most comfortable path for my family is to find some excuse to stay in TEC. I just don’t see an excuse that would allow me to look at myself in the mirror. DeS would have worked, the the “we need a unique polity in order to shrink the church” HOB wouldn’t have it.
Thank you for engaging with me Timothy Fountain,
I am not sure what to say to that. Obviously you have been experiencing situations that I have not had to face. What I can say, and this may make my statements of less value to some and more to others, is that I am new to Anglicanism. I came from a rather fundamentalist American Pentecostal church in which I found it increasingly uncomfortable to be a moderate Christian. In praying and in searching it became increasingly clear that all of those things which I felt God was calling me to be were regular practices in most of the Anglican church. TEC is the only recognized Anglican church around here and so I contacted Dean Maunday at Nashotah House Seminary and asked where a good church would be. I have not felt so enthusiastic about being a Christian since I began to attend this church. I did not sign up for Anglicanism because it was ‘orthodox.’ If that was the only thing I was looking for I could have gone to any number of denominations. I came to Anglicanism for Anglicanism. I believe that we should be looking not to perserve ‘orthodoxy,’ for God’s sake I can get that most anywhere. But we need an Anglican orthodoxy, which as yet, I have not seen being preserved by GAFCON’s practices nor even in it’s Theological Handbook. I certainly am passionate about reasserting historical Christianity to its rightful place in TEC, and IF there were a better proposal than the Covenant on hand I would wholeheartedly sign up. But I have not yet seen such a proposal which would make me want to remain an Anglican.