Do Lambeth participants not see that there is a total contradiction between the WCG (Windsor Continuation group)’s and Rowan Williams’ sense of the size of the problem and the consequences if it is unaddressed on the one hand and the formation, status, and decisions of the Episcopal Forum being proposed on the other?
If Anglicans need to act “speedily” and if the present (quite serious) situation will get worse over time unless there are these multiple moratoria, then something needs to happen AT Lambeth 2008 itself to improve things. Not to decide is itself a decision.
And the band plays on
It’s a bit like reading “Madame Bovary,” isn’t it, where you can see the horrible tragedy coming but are powerless to change the outcome.
Well the ball’s in GAFCON’s court. I do hope they can move quickly.
Is anyone surprised that nothing much at all is coming out of Lambeth? Indeed, the whole thing has been more conversation under a new name – Indaba – which turns out to be no Indaba at all. Instead we get an expensive two-week all talk and no action confab. There will likely be less substance coming out of Lambeth 2008 than the muffled incoherent sounds of adult conversation on a Charlie Brown video.
Of course, “not to decide is itself a decision”. But in order to not decide, it was necessary to spend millions, gather in indaba groups, watch videos produced by the Episcopal Organization, have tea with the Queen, meet with the Archbishop-President, have “plenary sessions” where the only substantive content of Lambeth was presented by Roman Catholics, and gather at the end for a great big group hug. What a “church”. Clarity has reached a new sharpness, but we’ll keep on wading in the big muddy. For my soul’s sake, I will seek the safer shore.
At the confluence of the Three Rivers October 4th can’t come soon enough
I have little doubt 2009 will finish it off. By then I hope to be in GAFCON’s North American Province, if not I’m looking seriously at the Eastern Othodox.
Br Michael #3
May I respectfully suggest that GAFCON is the only venue in which courage and clarity have been displayed?
Point taken Old Soldier. You are right of course.
Little has been said at this conference about the deeper, more fundamental issues, of which sexuality is but one issue. As one issue it marks the breaking point within the communion and also the awakening of many traditional reasserters to the seriousness that preceded 2003 as ECUSA’s radical departure of our faith, beliefs and the revision of biblical interpretation.
AMEN Kendall…a decision has been made to allow matter to continue to deteriorate.
Honestly, now, do y’all really expect much else from people who are overwhelmingly academics?
In just about any business environment I can imagine this type of situation would [i]not[/i] have been allowed to persist. In widespread companies the distribution network is almost always a problem requiring stringent — occasionally harsh — discipline.
So, too, it was in the early church — [i]e.g.[/i] the Council of Jerusalem. You get moving in the same general direction and that’s that. Such also was the basis of the Reformation, and when the Romans wouldn’t reform their un-Biblical practices the churches went in different directions.
Having grown up in the Episcopal Church, I’ve seen the rot since encountering my first liberal Berkeley seminarian apprenticing as a youth leader in our church almost 50 years ago. This is not new.
After two generations of secularist rot there’s nothing ECUSA [i]would[/i] do that could ever bring me back. They have become evil, bitter fruit.
That academics such as ++Williams continue to dither in the matter only makes it worse in our day, but does not change the final outcome.
“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” For those looking for living faithful Anglicanism at Lambeth, we might ask the same question: Why do you look for the living among the dead? To find the living hope of the future you need to look towards Jerusalem, not Lambeth.
Dr. Harmon, you are right. In this current situation, not to decide is a decision in itself.
We can guarantee that within the next two months there will be more gay blessings in TEC and no discipline will be applied. In September, Duncan will be preemptively and uncanonically “deposed.” The response will be the withdrawal of the Pittsburgh and Ft. Worth Dioceses. The Anglican Communion may not be officially dead, since the conservative provinces have not officially withdrawn and may not do so for years as they grow (while being in impaired or broken communion). But the traditional branches in North America are by this failure to act irretrievably broken.