This is a crucial week for the Anglican Communion. This afternoon, we get the third document from the Windsor Continuation Group. That could be a reiteration of Windsor, or an attempt to enforce Dar es Salaam, in other words, the removal of rebellious Primates from the councils of the church. Both conservatives and liberals could then be at risk. Then there are the Covenant and human sexuality debates. Liberals are deeply unhappy about the Covenant, in particular the appendix. Read it here and you’ll understand why. Conservatives are even more unhappy about TEC resistance to rowing back on human sexuality, as made clear by Bishop Mouneer Anis in his letter back home to Egypt. (Dr Anis pictured here by George Conger.)
Then on Sunday afternoon we get the Archbishop of Canterbury’s final reflections.
Even Anglican bishops are human beings. It might be going too far to make of the weather here a pathetic fallacy, although the Bible does it often. In any case, the latter-day prophets that man the Met Office might have got it wrong. But if we do get some horrible British weather here over the next few days, as sadly seems likely, I just can’t envisage the bishops continuing to get along as well as they have begun to do. The weather vane will turn, again.
Interesting headline. I wonder if Ruth is reading the website devoted to Praying for Lambeth, http://www.praylambeth.org.
The reason I say that is because of what I read yesterday at the site, in preparation for our own parish intercessory gathering for the Provinces and the bishops at Lambeth. At the end of [url=http://www.praylambeth.org/content/view/28/2] Post 10[/url]
you will find the following, complete with graphic of the big tent:
[b]GLOBAL INPUT: Storm clouds loom over Canterbury[/b]
A group of SOMA UK / Crosswinds intercessors for Lambeth had the following picture come to them:
They saw storm clouds gathered over the Tent of Meeting (or alias Big Top – a venue that came about because the University of Kent did not have an auditorium large enough).
The prayer group had an apprehension that the clouds were close to being riven by lightning. However, they also felt the storm may ‘pass over’ – and presage blessing rather than disaster.
Please pray for discernment as to the meaning of this picture. Send us feedback as to what you sense the Spirit may be saying to the churches.
In this context, we have remembered the story of how Elijah sent his servant to the Carmel mountain top to pray for rain. He saw a cloud the size of a man’s hand, and knew the promised rain was coming. The fierce drought was coming to an end. (1 Kings 18:41-45.)
Soon the storm clouds brought an abundance of rain – the fierce drought was coming to an end.
[img src=http://www.praylambeth.org/images/stories/lambeth storm clouds col_350.jpg]