Updated yet again Thursday afternoon
Andrew Brown has written this commentary at comment is free: Stand up for yourself, Rowan.
Jonathan Petre reports in the Daily Telegraph what Gregory Venables thinks in Anglican Church in a ‘mess’ over gay bishop row.
Akintunde Popoola took steps to remind us what Peter Akinola thinks when he spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria as reported by the Nigerian Tribune in Akinola Threatens To Boycott Anglican Meeting.
Update
Henry Orombi of Uganda has issued this statement:
On 9th December 2006, the House of Bishops of the Church of Uganda, meeting in Mbale, resolved unanimously to support the CAPA Road to Lambeth statement, which, among other things, states, “We will definitely not attend any Lambeth Conference to which the violators of the Lambeth Resolution are also invited as participants or observers.”
We note that all the American Bishops who consented to, participated in, and have continued to support the consecration as bishop of a man living in a homosexual relationship have been invited to the Lambeth Conference. These are Bishops who have violated the Lambeth Resolution 1.10, which rejects “homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture” and “cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions.”
Accordingly, the House of Bishops of the Church of Uganda stands by its resolve to uphold the Road to Lambeth.
The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi
ARCHBISHOP OF CHURCH OF UGANDA.
See also the Living Church report here.
Further Update see ENS report UGANDA: Archbishop Orombi questions Lambeth Conference participation.
George Carey has written a letter to the Church of England Newspaper which in part says the following:
Sir, Kenneth Kearon suggests (CEN May 25) that the decision not to invite AMiA
bishops, or the recently consecrated CANA Bishop, to the Lambeth Conference
relates to a precedent I set in 2000……This, of course, was before 2003 when the Episcopal Church clearly signalled its
abandonment of Communion norms, in spite of warnings from the Primates that the
consecration of a practising homosexual bishop would ‘tear the fabric of the Communion’.
It is not too much to say that everything has changed in the Anglican Communion
as a result of the consecration of Gene Robinson.The Archbishop of Canterbury’s prerogative to invite bishops to the Conference is a
lonely, personal and important task. Before each Conference a number of careful decisions
have to be taken, with the focus being on the well-being of the Communion. The
circumstances facing each Archbishop of Canterbury will vary according to the needs
of the hour. For these reasons, I believe, that Dr Rowan Williams should not regard
the advice he has evidently received that this matter is ‘fixed’ as necessarily binding
on him in the very different circumstances of 2007.
Thursday afternoon update
The full text of letter of the 20 February 2000 letter from then Archbishop Carey to the Primates on the AMiA consecrations can be found here.
Andrew Brown says of the ABC, “…if he caves in once more, no one will ever listen to him again. Why should we care what he believes about anything if we know he won’t stand up for it?” Not quite true but maybe wishful thinking….maybe some extremem liberals and The Guardianistas won’t listen to the ABC….if they still are now. Maybe bishops from a province with 800,000 and falling people attending on a Sunday may not attend Lambeth 08 (not the end of the world). Maybe, the ABC will gain credibility with 70m Anglicans, even if he loses it with… Read more »
“Canterbury had no right to choose who goes to the Lambeth or not.” Abraham Yisa, Board Chairman of CANA
??
Andrew Brown’s paper is LMOL (laugh more out loud) = as taught through my daughter’s internet chatting. It would be wonderful if a broad tent inclusive anglicanism was boycotted by an extremist puritanical stream, who has woefully inadequate understanding of the bible and appears like a George Bush whenever they take to the media a pretence that they had the moral high ground when only a few weeks before they and their conspirators denied the moral high ground existed. May the Lord continue to let them gloat over their successes and rejoice in their puritan companions. The rest of us… Read more »
The only way the ABC will get the ear of “70 million Anglicans” is if +Peter Akinola finds it useful to do so. It would seem that not a one of the bishops over there has an individual voice or individual choice but to be offended on cue when he says to be. I don’t find that credible. Do you NP?
I think Andrew Brown is correct in that great pressure will be brought to bear on +Rowan to ‘univite’ the TEC Bishops. But what if +Rowan does not back down? The threat made by +Akinola, I believe is wholly tactical. Namely, to pile the pressure on during the coming weeks and months. If the threat does not work there is no way +Akinola will absent himself from Lambeth. Wait for something along the lines from +Akinola that ‘it is too important for the future of the Anglican Communion for Nigeria not to be present’. Why do I think this? Because… Read more »
The plot thickens! I’m now starting to think that ++Abuja is another liberal plant to discredit ConsEv Christianity AND also to wreck its structures…..
See also “Orombi Stands by Road to Lambeth” at http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/anglican_communion/orombi_stands_by_road_to_lambe.html
I see that George Carey has joined the party in the bid to put pressure on RW.
He writes today in the Church of England Newspaper that things have so changed since his day that AMiA and CANA should now be considered kosher.
Actually, I don’t think the pressure will be bought on him to disinvite the TEC lot, but to invite Martyn Minns. See also the letter from George Carey in this week’s CEN.
I anticipate that the busy realignment spin machine will whirl ever faster, giving off Rube Goldbergian sparks and groans, right up until Lambeth or whatever point offers us a marker that catholicity does not include conforming RW in express service of collapsing the big tents of Anglicanism worldwide. Twists, turns, realignment surprises …rather like watching Extreme Wrestling or Bodog fights on the cable. Any piece of the ring, including furniture from outside, can suddenly become a useful weapon for an attack. Are at least some of these leaders taking extra steroids, as they exhibit the doctrinal and church life equivalents… Read more »
It seems that African primates, like Orombi of Uganda, whose province will not be attending Lambeth 2008 as long as TEC’s bishops are included in the Abp. of C.’s guest list, are the victims of an outright desception campaign undertaken by Blog-sites (Stand Firm comes to mind!). To quote, “The very fact that bishops who deny the bodily resurrection, the virgin birth and the second coming will be present is a travesty, not to mention Lambeth 1.10. If the invitations stand Canterbury has lost the ability to discipline and has, therefore, ceased to bear the marks of the Chruch. It… Read more »
John,
Your chronology is a bit confused. That quote came in response to +Orombi’s letter. Further, that remark was made this morning – the hierarchy takes time to react.
Also, I find the implication that an archbishop would be so easily taken in by a web site very condescending.
I suspect the Archbishop of Canterbury may well consider inviting Martyn Minns, but only if he also invites Gene Robinson. In that case, Uganda and Nigeria still won’t come (and, hence, nor will Minns). So it is hard to see it as an outcome.
As for George Carey – what can you say? It’s like Ted Heath, Mrs Thatcher, and the other dismal crew of exes, not realising that the caravan has moved on. He has no authority now, and no influence where it matters, i.e. with those who do not agree with him.
All of this from those who are too pure to be in the same room with TEC reminds me of what my sainted mother would say when confronted with the ‘holier than thou’ contingents in church or elsewhere. She would make a ‘superior’ face and chant: Rooty toot toot! Rooty toot toot! We are the girls from the Institute! We don’t smoke and we don’t chew, And we don’t associate with them as do! I suspect the ABC thought that by disinviting +Gene he would avoid being beaten about the head by Nigeria and others … now he’s got that… Read more »
There is a lot of time between now and then. In a few months, the TEC will have definitively failed to meet another deadline–the same one it has already presumptively failed to meet. There will be more AC meetngs, then more demands, and more failures. By the time next Summer rolls around, who knows where things will stand, or whether the TEC will any longer be incuded or want to be included? In any case, the most foolish thing that the GS could do would be to withdraw. Time is on their side. The growth in the AC is GS… Read more »
Lord Carey writes: “It is not too much to say that everything has changed in the Anglican Communion as a result of the consecration of Gene Robinson.” Not according to the Anglican realignment crowd – they insist this is not all about gays, and that TEC has been apostate, heretic, etc, since well before Gene Robinson’s consecration – hence the foundation of AMiA several years before that event. I can see why Lord Carey would be tempted to think that the trouble started in 2003. He wasn’t the Archbishop of Canterbury then. An alternative view is that the trouble started,… Read more »
The pressure is on, and it will build until ++Rowan gives in, invites +Martyn Minns, and disinvites the Episcopal bishops who had voted to confirm +Gene Robinson or otherwise offended the ultra-right. Then the “parallel province” in North America long sought by the ultra-right will have been established. Then the ultra-right will begin its long-planned grab of the Episcopal Church’s assets. Then it will be the turn of the Church of England. I say: better to let the Communion polity fall apart now. Give it a few years rest. Then allow the organic development of a structure that would prevent… Read more »
Does anyone else find ABP Orombi’s statement rather ambiguous? It seems little more than a restatement of a position already taken, from which there is still room to retreat. Not “Accordingly, the several bishops of Uganda will not attend the Lambeth Conference,” but “Accordingly, the House of Bishops of the Church of Uganda stands by its resolve to uphold the Road to Lambeth.”
Am I parsing this too fine?
At it again?
Anglicans Online at http://anglicansonline.org/index.html makes the following interesting historical points: “Even a cursory acquaintance with the history of the Lambeth Conferences reminds us that the Archbishop of York refused to attend the first conference… In fact only 53% of Anglican bishops (76 out of 144) accepted the original invitation to the Lambeth Conference of 1867 and actually showed up. In 1878 this rose to 58% (100 of 173); and in 1888, year of the famed Quadrilateral, the attendance rate increased to 68% of invitees” [From their inset, it seems that in 1888 143 accepted out of 209 invited.] Presumably some… Read more »
Carey’s idle hands finding mischief still for his successor. Would you (once more) bookmark your June 2004 piece “Pooter’s Book”?
“I like George, but he’d be out of his depth in a font.”
Unless memory fails me, didn’t Orombi deliver an ultimatum to the ABC before Tanzania stating that he would not come if Schori did? or at least his threat “not to sit at the same table” with her was widely read that way. Of course, once the ABC rebuffed him, it was then determined that “not sitting at the table” simply meant not sharing the Eucharist with her. Wouldn’t surprise me if this pattern repeats itself.
Hmmm… ++Orombi won’t come, and ++Akinola is making noises about staying away as well. Maybe this won’t be such a bad Lambeth Conf after all 😉 Now, if we could only find a way to so irritate ++Gomez and ++Venables that they’d absent themselves as well…
Oh, and I completely agree with Charlotte’s post above, esp. her final paragraph.
George Carey Kitchen: Preparation Mixing bowl My big spoon Lots of spoons One of those electrical whirly things We are going to make A Messy Anglican Pudding I know everything I cooked before has poisoned everyone since but it was the right taste for the time. Now tastes have changed and we have new ingredients. And I’m back into the kitchen because I don’t think much to the new chef. Ingredients Half a pound of Akinola Stir Mix Some Robinson Water, Very Good version A Cana Minns (Nigerian sauce) Amia quantity of Tanzanian Tofu For some old meat get that… Read more »
George Carey needs to find a hobby.
Does anyone have, say, some used beekeeping equipment to pass on to him?
Increasingly all of this seem to me to prove Dawkins right. The whole set up is corrupt, wrong headed and perverse, from Wycliff to Abuja and Lambeth. As a long standing Anglican I feel offended, outraged and unheard. But what is the point of screaming my frustration into the void – NP and others show virtually every day that they are only interested in peddling their own peverse, bigoted interpretation of scripture, no matter what the reality I might experience as a Gay man. Equally, those I sincerely hoped might be beacons in this darkness, such as Rowan, my own… Read more »
Wrote Chris in response to my earlier remarks: “Your chronology is a bit confused. That quote came in response to +Orombi’s letter. Further, that remark was made this morning – the hierarchy takes time to react.” The misreprensentations of TEC quoted and, which may be behind +Orombi’s stance, have been all over websites such as Standfirminfaith.com for some time now. To paraphrase the author of St. John’s Epistle, who himself was dealing with a divided church at the end of the lst century AD: “the truth is not in them” (i.e., the reasserters, who blatantly lie and misrepresent TEC and… Read more »
John Thanks for pointing out the slanderous accusations that there are bishops invited who “…deny the bodily resurrection, the virgin birth and the second coming…” Gee, that’s news to me. Or maybe the problem is that they believe Jesus’ words that he was sent by the Father/God and given authority to act on earth and on behalf of its occupants, in conjuction with the Holy Spirit and all levels of creation. Or maybe their problem is they can’t get their heads around the idea of a God that created all of space and time in all universes. A God that… Read more »
You really don’t get it do you?
this is basically the end of the Anglican communion.
Nigeria and Uganda will not come. Sydney will not come. Minns and the ECUSA network bishops will not come. There will be a conference in Lagos and they’ll be there
it’s all over bar the shouting – and the suing – and the consequent collapse of the CoE.
John,
I think Kennedy+ would agree with you that MOST bishops believe these things. His issue is that some bishops do not and none will call them on it.
Why should this call to be defenders of the faith be grounds for discipline against Kennedy+?
Cheryl,
That had to be one of the most shrill posts I’ve ever seen on TA or any other website.
Greg:
I can totally understand your disillusionment. However, don’t leave…if you leave there will be no conversation. You need to stay and be a constant reminder that,”There is unfinished business!”
I’m a ‘new’ Anglican. After 45 years of vowing never to have a Church put their claws in me, I finally found a spiritual home in the Anglican Church. I have found a welcoming and affirming parish in Ottawa, Canada, that lives the principles of what true Christianity is . . . LOVE as taught us by our Lord, Jesus Christ. As a married gay man, I have been vilified, exclused, and abused by the inflexible and antiquated views of a few in the hierarchal ladder of the Church that refuse to see that I am only an ordinary man,… Read more »
Isn’t Andrew Brown’s article predicated on a misperception? Rowan Williams did not definitively disinvite anyone to Lambeth, he has just not yet sent out certain invitations, pending further advice. In what is possibly a brilliant tactical move, this issue takes the attention away from the fact that Rowan has already invited the whole House of TEC Bishops — irrespective of the September deadline set in the Tanzania communique. He has limited the issue of Lambeth participation to the cases of a tiny handful of individual bishops, and drawn all the controversial fire onto that topic. The Global South will waste… Read more »
I feel sorry for Rowan….he’s trying his best. He should issue an invitation to every bishop within a recognised province, and say if you don’t want to come …fine.
As for Carey…he’s rather like Ted Heath with Margaret Thatcher.
Come on Lapin – we should give Dr Carey some respect as a person and a former ABC. Charlotte / David H – since you seem ignorant of how the AC works, what happens is this: a) the ABC tries to set the agenda with his aim of keeping everyone talking forever so they do not split; b)mainstream AC leaders (including +Duncan and other Americans) and also Primates (like ++Orombi and ++Akinola) remind him for the nth time that TEC’s current policies are out of step with the Bible and AC and they will not accept them; c) then, the… Read more »
Lord Carey has led a sheltered life.
Perhaps he hasn’t heard of the solicitors’ old joke of putting on thirteen bishops to prove the party’s intent.
Or the provincial legislator who writes a letter to the justices to set them straight as to the correct legislative intent.
Actually these things are objective facts taken from writings and statements.
the Continuing (and the AMiA and CANA) bishops are just not regularly ordained, as Lord Carey recognized when he was in office.
“Rowan Williams did not definitively disinvite anyone to Lambeth, he has just not yet sent out certain invitations, pending further advice.” There appear to be two cases in which Williams is taking advice: the Bp. of Harare and one other unnamed. The decision has apparently been made with respect to VGR, Minns and the AMIA bishops. “In what is possibly a brilliant tactical move, this issue takes the attention away from the fact that Rowan has already invited the whole House of TEC Bishops — irrespective of the September deadline set in the Tanzania communique.” I don’t think any bishop… Read more »
Andrew Innes, thank you so much for your kind words of encouragement, however I do not think there has been a conversation going on for some time now. Three areas may illustrate what I mean. A number of conservative contributors hold very dear the concept of biblical inerrancy and insist that any debate is conducted within the framework of that book as the primary authority. I find the concept of biblical inerrancy so irrational as to be meaningless and can only therefore regard the Bible as part of a framework for conversation, along with reason and tradition – not a… Read more »
Oh, the CofE won’t collapse, Sinner. Some unpleasant elements may choose to leave for Lagos, but they wouldn’t be missed.
Greg, though I understand some of your sense of frustration, betrayal and all the rest with the Anglican set-up at the moment(even as a middle-aged straight who doesn’t need to leave the desires of the flesh alone – THEY leave ME alone), the survival of traditional Anglicanism (as opposed to the GM import) depends on people like you trying to hang on in there. You don’t have to be gay to be on the receiving end of this entryism. I had an appallingly poisonous letter from someone who neither lives here nor worships here (and who suffers from no psychological… Read more »
Hi Frank Kajfes-
You write that ‘Jesus taught just one lesson: LOVE’. You are correct that he summed up the law in that way. But surely it is helpful also to study his detailed teaching (and example) on a myriad of specific topics. I think you are right on your priorities and wrong on your details.
ruldh – “I think Williams will press for the covenant from the Dar Es Saalam Communique and withdraw the invitation of any bishop unwilling to sign on. The invitation is his carrot and the disinvitation is his stick.”
While I do think the ABC has reserved the right to disinvite bishops as he sees fit, it won’t be because they won’t sign on to the covenant. The covenant won’t even be presented until Lambeth in any form that one could say whether they would sign it or not.
Not to mention exposing your body in the Daily Mail, Mynsterpreost.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=457506&in_page_id=1770
Thank you lapin; I assure you that coming face to face with a predecessor in kit form (as is now possible across the way) is… sobering. As a memento mori it takes some beating!
Greg, your post resonates with me. Your second point is particularly relevant, but I don’t hold out much hope for any understanding of it. Your third point is my impression also. Jesus didn’t tell us to read a book, but that we could judge then true prophets by the fruits they bear. I sincerely cannot see the fruits of the Gospel in the actions of people like +Akinola or +Duncan. I would say one thing, though. While I do not buy into the modern, Fundie “Jesus is my personal Savour” nonsense, I would stress that there is a level on… Read more »
“While I do think the ABC has reserved the right to disinvite bishops as he sees fit, it won’t be because they won’t sign on to the covenant. The covenant won’t even be presented until Lambeth in any form that one could say whether they would sign it or not.” I don’t mean the proposed Anglican Covenant which would give the primates the ability to discipline errant provinces. I’m talking about the solemn covenant that the Dar Es Salaam Communique asks from the US bishops: (1) not to authorize rites for blessing same sex unions and (2) not to consent… Read more »
Our legions of fighting Consevs in the USA are not quite as large as most people expect; otherwise God’s Beloved President would be doing better than 28 to 30% in the polls, and God’s Own Party (or if you prefer, The Party of God) would not have taken such a beating in the last election. They are very militant, fanatic, well financed, and have support from the White House, and therefore, an influence dispropotionate to their numbers. And because of them, and their broadly alienating influence, the single fastest growing religious denomination in the United States is “None of the… Read more »
I too find much that resonates in Greg’s post, in the first and third points he makes. The infallibility of the Bible seems to have encroached through sundry “bases of faith” probably principally those of UCCF and the Evangelical Alliance. It is not an Anglican position as such, but it seems to be rapidly becoming a touchstone of orthodoxy in some Anglican circles. I have no problem with Articles 6 and 7, but infallibility in matters of history and palaeontology is not and never has been part of othodox Catholic Christianity. In the last few days I have been physically… Read more »
“To talk of the Primates disciplining the Episcopal Church of the USA or any other Province for that matter, goes far beyond the brief of the Primates’ Meeting” (++George Cantuar).
++George Carey said it bluntly back then. Now Big Pete et al claim new primatial powers to decide which TEC bishop is IN and which one is OUT, based on the bishop’s voting record at GC2003 and subsequent conventions. In the final analysis, it’s all about Big Pete’s (or Big Henry Orombi’s) powers. (And we mustn’t forget Leviticus 15, which disqualifies ‘unclean’ women from membership in the Big Boys’ Club!)
Greg ; I came to the same conclusion. After the split, i shall reconsider.