Bishop [Michael] Hough said he returned to Australia a “Rowanite”, convinced by the message and approach to managing the church taken by Archbishop Williams.
“Rowan was pilloried, attacked and mocked – but he got on with being the Archbishop of Canterbury,” Bishop Hough said.
He said the approach taken at the conference to ensure all bishops had a chance to speak was to divide the 800 bishops – about 300 bishops boycotted the conference – into groups of about 40.
This was, Bishop Hough said, an African model of reaching consensus called Indaba.
“The term that Rowan used were `the bonds of affection that bind us’,” Bihsop Hough said.
“If we can’t build on those then what are we doing here?”
“Rowan said God’s watching us, the world’s watching us. If we don’t handle our heritage with integrity then we fail in God’s eyes.
“If we don’t handle conflict then we have failed in the world’s eyes.”
“If we don’t handle conflict then we have failed in the world’s eyes.” And Lambeth did what exactly?
Bishop Hough’s comments seem to arise more form his own personal background (as a former RC Franciscan who wishes to represent himself as an orthodox Anglo-Catholic) and from the situation within his diocese (Ballarat) since his election as bishop there.
If I were to go into detail about the latter factor I would probably annoy the Elves and be accused of leading the thread “off topic.” Suffice it to say that the Ballarat diocese (together with those of The Murray and Wangaratta) has historically had the same predominant theological complexion as Quincy or Fort Worth in the USA, but under Bishop Hough (as in Wangaratta under its current Bishop Farrer) he seems to be leading it in the direction of Eau Claire or Fond du Lac.
[i] convinced by the message and approach to managing the church taken by Archbishop Williams.[/i]
Which is….? Ignore it and hope it goes away?