Updated twice Monday 10 April
Ephraim Radner has a detailed analysis of the report on the ACI site.
Michael Watson has an analysis of the resolutions wording.
The Guardian has US church offers olive branch to Anglicans on gay clergy by Stephen Bates
The Witness has published A Personal Reflection on the Special Commission’s Report by Sarah Dylan Breuer
This report was issued too late on Friday for Saturday’s British newspapers.
Associated Press Rachel Zoll Episcopal Panel: Use Caution in Elections
Reuters Michael Conlon Episcopal Church gets a caution flag on gays
Religion News Service Episcopal Panel Advises Caution on Gay Bishops
The Living Church Windsor Report Resolutions Released
Somewhat surprisingly, neither the American Anglican Council nor the Anglican Communion Network has yet issued any press release. Other press releases have come from Integrity and from Oasis California.
Blog comments have come from Fr Jake and Mark Harris and Blog of Daniel.
British church press coverage, written prior to the release of the report:
Church Times Douglas LeBlanc ECUSA shows signs of bowing to pressure on gays
Church of England Newspaper George Conger Over half of US bishops regret gay consecration Note: this headline and the first paragraph of the report are somewhat misleading, as regular TA readers already know, nevertheless the report is referenced by Reuters at the end of the story linked above.
Why should it be surprising early this Saturday morning that neither the American Anglican Council nor the Anglican Communion Network has yet issued any press release in response to a report published late on Friday?
Is it not more suprising that press releases have already come from Integrity and from Oasis California? Unless they had prior knowledge of the paper, there was hardly time for more than a quick read through and two phone calls…
Well Thomas, in the past AAC (though not ACN) has often been most impressively quick off the mark with its press releases. I waited until Saturday morning before making that comment. The report was of course published in the USA where the time varied (depending where you measure it) but was all during the business afternoon of Friday. The delay between report issue and the press releases you mention was in fact about an hour and a quarter, according to my records. Although the document is nominally 61 pages, in fact about half of it is copies of previous documents… Read more »
You are quite right, Simon, pointing out that about half the document copies previous documents. The new material is no more than thirty pages. Still, I expected that it would take more than a few hours to digest a report of this significance and come to an agreed response. But of course this depends, among other things, on the size and structure of the organizations mentioned. And you know more about this and have greater experience of the history (and politics) of such press releases than I have.
Yes, Thomas. Take the Windsor Report itself as a prime example. The AAC/ACN press release came on the same day as the report itself. That report is over 100 pages of original material. Not a word of which had been leaked in advance, unlike in this case.
The initial statements from both Integrity and Oasis are quite brief, and about what I would expect someone could do after very quickly reading the document [and skimming a lot of the BOMFOG verbiage as well as skipping the appended copies of previous documents]. Neither press release is a detailed, point by point analysis. I expect Integrity may produce such a document later. There’s nothing sinister in two organizations whose members may be directly – and negatively – affected by the report wishing to respond quickly.
If this report is just another step in our ongoing conversation, who cares how fast or how slow someone is among us to get their thoughts together? What matters is how clear the reponses are, and how much sense (or not) they make to everybody else who is talking things over. I think Integrity and Oasis were probably paying more anticipatory attention, just because they were the potential subject of at least part of the nastiness invited by the conservative Anglican call to repent. At minimum, the invited language would have repeated, Homosexual acts are incompatible with scripture – and… Read more »
Cynthia
I love acronyms. Please tell me what BOMFOG expands to.
Thanks
FWIW I went directly to the resolutions, and formed an opinion relatively quickly. I am a deputy to the Convention, so knowing the actual text of the resolutions is important to me. I could have had comments on my blog within 15 minutes if I cared to. I’m more interested, now in particular as we enter into Holy Week, to pray and reflect. I’ll read the full report and so on when the print copy arrives, along with all of the other 450+ pages of preparatory material for the upcoming Convention!
BOMFOG – It means Pious Filler or boilerplate. This comes out of American politics a while back, when Nelson Rockefeller was actively running for President. Reporters who followed him developed this shorthand for the non-substantive pious filler in his standard speeches, in which he routinely, at the outset, in those pre-feminist days, invoked and affirmed the Brotherhood Of Man and the Fatherhood Of God. It’s BOMFOG. A lot of the lead in to the substance of any joint document in the church seems also to involve a lot of BOMFOG, updated to include the buzz words of the day. I… Read more »
Loci communes?
Thanks for the explanation of BOMFOG. I cannot think of a more apt acronym for much that comes out in so many official statements. When you read them they are so often circular, concentric and eventually disappear. We used to describe sermons in this mode as about the “thisness of that.”
Time for both substance and authenticity not fog.