Updated again Sunday afternoon
The meeting is now finished, but the reports continue. Earlier reports can be found here and the text of communiqués here.
Pat Ashworth Church Times Primates agree: hold the moratoriums while we talk further (this is not in the paper edition)
Living Church George Conger Conservative Bishops Laud Outcome of Meeting, Archbishop’s Leadership
Martin Beckford Telegraph Anglican church leaders to bring in ‘relationship counsellors’ over sexuality dispute
Colin Coward Changing Attitude Primates meeting – Schism or division? – and refugees
ANiC Anglican Network in Canada responds to Primates’ Communique
Integrity Integrity Responds to Primates’ Communique
Guardian (Nigeria) Anglican primates call for Mugabe’s resignation
Update 13.30 GMT Friday
George Conger Religious Intelligence Anglican Primates agree mediation programme
Update 18.00 GMT Friday
Episcopal Café has further comment, see Conservatives playing possum?
This links to the statement issued by the Chicago Consultation Chicago Consultation Rejects False Choice.
Update 23.00 GMT Friday
Statement of Bishop Robert Duncan on the Alexandria Primates Meeting
Update 0900 GMT Sunday
ENS has a comprehensive roundup of American responses to the primates meeting, in Primates’ communiqué, Windsor report draw praise, criticism. This includes:
The leader of the effort to form a new Anglican entity in North America said February 6, through a spokesman, that he is “certainly open to mediated conversations” called for by the primates of the Anglican Communion, but added that his organization “will need to see what exactly is being proposed and what ground rules can be agreed on before committing further.”
The Rev. Peter Frank said he was authorized to speak on behalf of Robert Duncan, the deposed bishop of Pittsburgh who led the majority of that diocese’s members and leadership out of the Episcopal Church. Duncan is one of a number of individuals and groups who have responded to the primates’ communiqué and an accompanying report from the Windsor Continuation Group issued February 5.
As the ENS report notes later on,
Duncan made no mention of the primates’ call for mediated talks in his official statement responding to the February 5 communiqué issued after the leaders or primates of the Anglican Communion’s 38 provinces ended their five day meeting in Alexandria, Egypt. Instead, in that statement, he portrayed the members of the proposed new “Anglican Church in North America” as people “who are attempting to remain faithful amidst vast pressures to acquiesce to beliefs and practices far outside of the Christian and Anglican mainstream.”
The roundup does not include:
Anglican Journal Marites N. Sison Hiltz welcomes proposed ‘mediated conversation’.
And there is another post from Colin Coward at Changing Attitude Moratoria – who agrees with all three?
Update 1700 GMT Sunday
In a report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Ann Rogers Factions encouraged by Anglican leaders’ statement:
The Rev. James Simons, chairman of the standing committee that governs the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, also was pleased with the statement. But he focused on a footnote that says talks with Bishop Duncan’s proposed province would require a commitment “that they would not seek to recruit and expand their membership by means of proselytization.”
“They specifically ask this new group to stop doing what it is doing so that they can enter into negotiations,” the Rev. Simons said.
“I would take that to mean that the [other] diocese would stop actively recruiting parishes and individuals to join the realignment.”
Deacon Peter Frank, spokesman for the Anglican diocese, said the diocese was not yet sure how to interpret the injunction against “proselytization.”
“We are going to have to see what the intent of the primates is and what they believe they were saying in that. Our main concern is for the tens of thousands of people that are already outside of the Episcopal Church. We are bringing those people together,” he said.
The ANiC states: “We appreciate the Primates’ recognition that members of the Common Cause Partnership and the Anglican Church in North America are fully Anglican…” Where on earth do they get that from in the Communique? It states: “14. The Windsor Continuation Group Report examines in Section H the question of parallel jurisdictions, particularly as raised by the Common Cause Partnership, a coalition of seven different organisations[10] which have significantly differing relationships with the Anglican Communion. The Report identifies some of the difficulties in recognising the coalition among the Provinces of the Anglican Communion. Significant concerns were raised in the… Read more »
Gregory Venables is proof that a valiant flea may breakfast on the lip of a lion.
He can spin all he likes but nowhere in the Primates Communique do I find support for the statement that “A liberal expression of Christianity is not Christianity”.
Many of us would argue that the crude fundamentalism of Venables & Co. is not Anglican in any meaningful way and very possibly not even Christian.
“A liberal expression of Christianity is not Christianity [as we know it],” Bishop Venables said.” Hear that, liberals? You are officially not Christians. But then, I’m probably not a Christian in his eyes either. And note the lack of definition of this “liberal expression of Christianity”. That’s because there really isn’t one. There are various more or less liberal interpretations of certain things, some of them, granted, way out in left field. But you can’t attack and hate a disparate group, so you invent one: the liberal, faithless, “reassessors”. You are then free to make reference to these non-entities as… Read more »
“Commenting on the Windsor Continuation Report, [Rowan Cantuar] said there was a need for a shift of focus, from the autonomy of individual Provinces with communion added on, to communion with autonomy and accountability following from there.” What does he even mean by “communion”? What do any of us mean? Unless we get some kind of definition of this term (beyond mere church-y blather like “We all have communion-in-Christ”: yes, but???), this is going to round and round and round (going NOWHERE) “[Rowan Cantuar] said each province has a procedure for discipline but there is no Communion-wide canon law. He… Read more »
There hasn’t been any “restraint” on the third, JCF.
“Completely ignored! just about sums it up!
Well it is quite nice in passing that the conservative realignment primates did not whip out their weaponized doctrines at the drop of every hat at this last meeting. That said, the real effective changes are still the changes on the ground. Juxtapose. 1.A new backward conservative thinking entity has been born vs. the majority of USA court rulings are going against realignment believer claims to money and property. 2.XDuncan and party continue to claim that antigay is Jesus Way, plain and simple…vs believers in Canada newly asking for dioceses to authorize married couple blessings anyways. 3.Venebles continues to let… Read more »
“Are the coalition members refugees? Earlier in the week, one of the African Global South primates described the dissidents from the Episcopal Church as ‘refugees’. Perhaps dissident is a loaded word and not one they would choose for themselves. They see themselves as ‘standing firm’, mainstream, orthodox – and I would describe the faith of Changing Attitude supporters with exactly the same words”. – Colin Coward, Pruimates’ Conference Report – Like Colin Coward, I think that the word *Refugees*, applied by a Global South Primate to the situation of the departing dissidents, is incorrect – in that it implies an… Read more »
Am I alone in wondering why the Windsor Report already has a ‘continuation group’ when its recommendations have yet to be synodically accepted or approved across the Anglican Communion? If I were to give credance to the WCG’s utterances it would have to follow on from Bishop Victoria Matthews renunciation of her episcopal orders for the sake of ‘unity’ within the Anglican Communion. It is a scandal that she wishes to ban others when her own presence in the Order of Bishops causes as much division and even more theological disagreement. But I fear that this may be too simplistic… Read more »