Updated Wednesday evening and Thursday evening
There was an interview this morning with Lord Carey on the BBC radio programme Sunday . You can hear the 8.5 minute segment (Real Audio required) some 35 minutes into the programme at this link. (Better link now available from the BBC.)
The interview was concerned with the letter originally published last Sunday in the Sunday Times newspaper along with this report. The Sunday Times report did not claim any bishops had already signed the letter. It did not reveal its Australian origins either.
Letter original with signature list.
Lord Carey issued a statement. I found it at this location.
The story behind this was explained in Friday’s Church Times in Carey rebuts open letter as ‘mischievous and damaging’ by Pat Ashworth and Muriel Porter.
Sadly for Mr Ince and his colleagues Roger Bolton’s radio interview omitted any reference to LEAC.
Update Monday
The Guardian this morning says Lord Carey hits back at critics’ open letter. (Link to original commendation.)
Update Wednesday
The Australian press has caught up with this matter:
Sydney Morning Herald Anglican liberals pen rebuke to former head and Rent asunder as brawls replace talk
Melbourne Age Anglicans furious at former archbishop
ABC Radio The Archbishop of Canterbury and George Carey
Update Thursday
Ekklesia Anglicans need more jaw and less war by David Wood originator of the letter and
Lord Carey says ordaining a gay bishop verges on heresy
It was written by some Aussies? Oi Oi Oi. It might not have been the wisest piece of correspondence but their hearts are in the right place. Now what we need to do is start move from faction fighting to a bigger agenda – world peace. Working at both the macro and the micro, as individuals, as parishes and as a broader communion. If you want to stop the cycles of war and oppression, then you need to stop the agenda being controlled by those who profit from arms sales, sickness and narcissism. It’s time to move to a positive… Read more »
You know, I’ve been thinking about this overnight. The difficulty is that there are some things that no matter what one side does, the other can say it is mischievous and damaging. The people who wrote the letter could equally argue that they were responding to mischievous and damaging behaviours. Suppression for the sake of appearances can be a form of repression, yet talk without boundaries can degenerate into slinging matches (especially when some people will inflame the argument to muddy the waters). Somehow we need to find enough emotional wisdom to recognise and not respond to red herrings thrown… Read more »
One might take a cue from group relations models, in which our group efforts to accomplish a worthwhile task fall off course when we take up defensive positions in the (most unconscious) assumptions that distract us: fight-flight, dependency, pairing, or me-ness external compliance. Of course each defensive position is our typical ways of disconnecting from the difficult tasks at hand – either we shall be able to agree, or we shall have to work out the painstaking ways in which we can agree to disagree. So far as the Anglican group task goes, that is pretty much it for the… Read more »
drdanfee
Great posting. One of things that I’ve liked about some of the TA threads is that there have been times that people have tried “..is clearly call attention to the specific defensive positions, and perhaps also to the game ploys being enacted, at any given moment in which the group as a whole is going off task”. It usually incites a vitriolic response from the guilty party, but that then surfaces the underlying paradigms driving their behaviour and choices. Maybe if you hang around long enough you can help us identify and understand some more of these patterns?
Lord Carey says: “With regard to General Synod’s vote on disinvestment and Israel, I at no time criticised the Archbishop of Canterbury. I opposed the decision of General Synod in my capacity as President of the International Council of Christians and Jews and as an active participant in the Alexandria Process which brings together people across religious divides in the search for peace in Israel and Palestine.” He should after his own fairly unfavourable experience of the media have had a better idea how this would be perceived. Is this a little faux naivete? He draws attention to the good… Read more »
RE: Doug Chaplin’s post. Just on a point of information. The statement was not posted by my father on Anglicans for Israel’s website. He merely sent the statement out to those who contacted him about the matter. In fact, the statement can be found on his website at:
http://www.glcarey.co.uk/Speeches/2006/OpenLetterResponse.html?.html
Many thanks Andrew.
I did not know that your father had his own website until this moment 🙁
From Lord Carey’s press release: “In conclusion, it is mischievous and damaging to the Anglican Communion to suggest that I am opposed to the ministry of Dr Rowan Williams. The vast majority of my commitments and interests in retirement are low-key…” That explains why he has just (copyright 2006) launched a website posting everything he has said since he retired from office, and promising more to come. Saying you are “ashamed to be an Anglican” because of a resolution supported by your successor doesn’t strike me as particularly supportive but I suppose that makes me mischievous and damaging to the… Read more »
It may be a tiny, insignificant thing but it’s getting old. Newsapers and even Archbishops tend to forget one small thing that is part of this whole thing. ECUSA bishops are *elected*, not *appointed*. Each diocese has the right and responsibility to choose their shepherd. ++Griswold as PB does not appoint bishops nor, truly, does General Convention. It adds an entirely different dimension when people remember that ECUSA is run on a much more democratic principle than most other provinces. Here the lay people have voices that are welcome and votes that count in the processes. That isn’t true for… Read more »
It’s an imposing website. More in keeping with his illustrious past than a low key present and future, it has a sort of “business as usual†feel about it. But having said that I tend to think the “split†scenario is waffle and hype. Perhaps coming at this time it might be helpful though, Bishop Carey, like some of his predecessors has a difficult job steering a course between being a useful servant of the church and a focus for more (if that’s possible!) disunity. He will be contacted to comment on many issues and where he agrees with the… Read more »
I’ve thought carefully about this, and I put it out here without comment. Interview on ‘The Religion Report’ ABC Radio (linked above) Stephen Crittenden: You mentioned the Lambeth Conference there. I know it’s the view of some of the signatories to this letter that the division over this issue that the Anglican communion worldwide is experiencing now, does indeed go back to that Lambeth Conference. They would see it as something that you helped create at that Lambeth Conference, that in a sense the church is suffering for that further down the track. George Carey: Well not suffering from. What… Read more »
Perhaps George Carey needs some basic education about alcoholism, as he seems also to need it about sexuality issues. Maybe someone can send him some AA information. Or perhaps he should refrain from discussing things he does not know anything about.
“And here is a man who is now an alcoholic, as well, and so all of these issues combine to question that position” George Carey And here checks-in George Carey who has now informed us that recovering from alcoholism is another moral question that should be “combined” on the list of “issues” that reveal MORE “questions” against the propriety of “electing” V.G. Robinson and/or supporting the Lambeth Resolution which he, Carey, sloppily mishandled and railroaded into being according to some present (including Bishop Spong). It is Lord Carey who exhibits manipulative behind-the-scenes Alcoholic “like” thinking and compulsive/toxic behavior when he… Read more »
Dear Cynthia and Leonardo, George Carey was quite in order to mention what VGR said in his statement from clinic:- that he had suffered from alcoholism for a long time. This *is* a substantive matter because St Paul said that an overseer (Bishop in Anglican speak) must, among other things, be “not given to drunkenness” – 1Tim3:3. I’m surprised that you didn’t know that!
Dear Dave, St Paul did not write 1 Tim 3:3. I’m surprised that you didn’t know that!
Especially since I have told you so a hundred times over the years ;=)
Dear Göran, that is your *opinion*. You have also mentioned that you are partial to wine… I prefer beer ! 😉
I am sorry that Dave and the former Archbishop do not rejoice that +Gene is seeking recovery, and do not commend him for his courage and honesty. +Gene is by no means the only recovering alcoholic in the House of Bishops and certainly not the only recovering alcoholic among clergy generally in ECUSA. At our diocesan council [annual convention to some of you] we always set aside a room for AA to meet, as I suppose General Convention does as well [I’ve never been]. In fact, one of the co-founders of AA was an Episcopal priest. I suppose Dave and… Read more »
Cynthia said. “+Gene is by no means the only recovering alcoholic in the House of Bishops”
Dear Cynthia, what a sad mess some of ECUSA’s bishops are in! But you misrepresent me when you state that ” Dave and the former Archbishop do not rejoice that +Gene is seeking recovery” – that is not true, and I never said such a thing !… though I do like to see you quoting my name next to “the former Archbishop”! 🙂
“What a sad mess some of ECUSA’s bishops are in!”
Would you prefer they not in recovery?
What if I had said that [and this is statistically quite likely] some members of the HOB are diabetic, and need frequent insulin injections? Would they be in “a sad mess” too, because they were actively treating a potentially deadly disease? What if there were a bishop with epilepsy who took medication to control seizures? Also in “a sad mess?”
Dear Cynthia, I would prefer that Bishops were selected who were mature commited followers of Jesus Christ, expounders and defenders of the Faith once revealed, and good examples of Christian lifestyle and morality. I think that you are missing something if you equate addictions with involuntary diseases. Finding oneself being drawn into an addiction ideally requires maturity and discipline to find appropriate preventative actions – dramatic if necessary. Treatment in clinic shows that you are unable to control it yourself; which is better than nothing of course!! Personally I would ask for non-diocesan duties if I were a Bishop that… Read more »
Addictions to substances ARE involuntary diseases. The nature of these diseases is that the vast majority who suffer from them cannot go it alone: treatment centers for detoxification, therapy, and connecting with a support group like AA is the only hope for probably 95%. Asking someone to recover from alcohalism by sheer will power makes about as much sense as asking a diabetic to will her body to produce insulin. “…mature commited followers of Jesus Christ, expounders and defenders of the Faith once revealed, and good examples of Christian lifestyle and morality” are exactly the kinds of bishops dioceses try… Read more »