Updated again Monday evening
Mail and Guardian Africa welcomes US gay-bashers
Sunday Nation Split in Anglican faith now inevitable
Jamaica Gleaner Behind the gay issue. This lengthy article reflects an interview with Chris Sugden who was recently in Jamaica.
Update Sunday afternoon
First reports of the Ugandan consecration:
Reuters Uganda consecrates U.S. conservative as bishop
BBC Uganda church to anoint US bishop
And the BBC Sunday programme has an item. Christopher Landau is in Uganda. Initial URL is this one, and go forward 32.5 minutes. Better URL tomorrow. Or you can download the podcast.
NEW URL: Listen (3m 54s) and the BBC blurb reads:
Anglican Uganda disagreement
White Anglican archbishops used to travel to Africa to consecrate black bishops. Last week, however, white American Anglicans have gone to Uganda to be consecrated by black Archbishops before returning to lead their congregations in the States.Does this mark another step in the disintegration of the Anglican Communion? Or is it a welcome diversity of approach for a strife-torn organisation consumed with disagreements about homosexuality and episcopal oversight? Christopher Landau was on the line from Mbarara in the West Ankole Diocese of Uganda.
Updated again Sunday evening
New Vision Gay row: Uganda consecrates American bishop
Daily Monitor Orombi consecrates anti-gay US bishop
And, reverting to the Kenyan consecrations:
Nation Kenya Anglicans and Episcopal Church pull apart over gay issue
The full text of Archbishop Drexel Gomez’s sermon in Nairobi is available here.
Monday evening
Episcopal News Service has UGANDA: Archbishop consecrates former Episcopal priest as bishop
Why didn’t the two dissident new bishops join up with the Nigerian faction in the ordination they sought? Are there pickings and choosings going on with what primate one wants to associate with? We can infer an obvious answer. This is ANOTHER sect of schismatics.
Curtis
I am not so sure it is a schismatics issue, but rather a funding of the payroll issue. Are African dioceses are underpinning US salaries, at what expense to their local populations? If the funding is not coming from them, then where is the wages money coming from?…
There is an inconsistency in the Jamaica Gleaner report – this is that Chris Sugden suggests (from where?) a 70% middle ground and then refers to Bishop Peter Lee of Diocese of Virginia making an effort to create a kind of middle ground. Presumably this isn’t necessarily the same middle ground as the 70%, but what I cannot see is why the proposal of Peter Lee (according to Chris Sugden)… _we can do nothing and we should do nothing that gives any signal to our active gay and lesbian members that they are anything else but fully members of this… Read more »
Cheryl The funding won’t be from Africa. I don’t doubt there’s money involved. But it isn’t African money. It’s American. One could almost guarantee that these American separatists have studied the financial strength of their dissident groups before doing this. If indeed they had to study it at all. It seems, what with the religion business here in the states being booming like it is, that the conservatives would stick together in a unified front. They aren’t doing that. They pick a primate and align with them. I’m SURE of nothing here. But it seems clear enough, there’s more than… Read more »
Quite frankly, this is just fine with me. Soon these clowns will be denouncing each other with the same fervor that they now denounce American Episcopalians.
There is little or nothing new in the USA rightwing influences – except – now they seek to lay sole claim to being good Anglican believers. Everybody else mentioned, the queer-lefty extremes and (significantly?) any and all middles – can just go jump in their cleverly constructed presuppositional secular humanist lake of fire where nothing is or can be known for certain and where, as the trash talk would have it, anything goes. If you wish to predict where the new Anglican right will lead, or try to lead, all Anglican believers globally? – just review where the USA religious… Read more »
>”This is not about sexuality, it’s about scripture,” Barfoot said.
Really? According to Gomez’s sermon in Kenya it was most definitely about both.
Only 600 people turned up for that service, leaving lots of empty plastic chairs outside for the expected crowds which didn’t materialise.
Anglican TV will no doubt provide us with footage for today’s open-air service too. It remains to be seen whether “thousands” will attend as predicted. Surely there would be a fair representation from the congregations represented by Guernsey in his “diocese”? Or is this just another high-profile fancy-dress party with mitres and croziers?
Mail and Guardian “Africa welcomes US gay-bashers”
While I very much commend the accuracy of the second part of the headline, the first part would MUCH better be characterized as “A *few* African Anglican muckety-mucks welcome…”
drdanfee Your comments do not seem so far fetched when we consider some of the conduct that has been expressed within TA itself. For example, those that desire that sites such as this are shut down, because we destract them from their “real” work. Similar souls who claim that spreading the gospel and worshiping Jesus is somehow in antithesis to examining our own or our chuches’ infrastructures and their conduct. I would argue that it is more unbiblical to not be examining and refining ourselves and our instructures. Their theology is on par with a husband who bashes and rapes… Read more »
I’ve written a bit more on this Jamaica Gleaner (too much for here) with the addition of a couple of computer coloured cartoons.
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/09/itma_02.html
I’d say here the use of language in part matching that of Chris Sugden’s most recent tract – as in his use of “dumbed-down” for the Lambeth Conference:
http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/?p=2046
In other words, it is all part of a campaign now to replace Rowan Williams and (because they can’t) set up an alternative communion (alternative because only so many boundary-crossing Churches – plus Sydney – will set it up).
The voice of christian charity and sanity :- Trevor Mwamba, the Anglican bishop of Botswana, when asked whether more US clerics would be coming to Southern Africa to be consecrated, said, “I hope not”. Mwamba recalled the positions reached at the Lambeth Conference of 1998, which recognised that there are people “who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation”. This conference decreed that the church commit itself to “listen to the experience of homosexual persons”. While it rejected “homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture”, it called “on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual… Read more »
Does anyone doubt – even for a moment – that if (or when?) ++Rowan recognizes the the new landscape of Anglicanism in the US, that there will be an even greater flood of refugees from TEC seeking oversight from these “schismatic” bishops? Yeah, yeah, I know…TEC has lots of lawyers. I don’t get it…really. TEC liberals (many of whom hang around here) don’t like or want these conservatives around. So, why not bless the concept of overlapping jurisdictions and all will be well? As I’ve said before, TEC has shown itself to be evangelistically dysfunctional (or at least inept) and,… Read more »
“TEC liberals (many of whom hang around here) don’t like or want these conservatives around. So, why not bless the concept of overlapping jurisdictions and all will be well? As I’ve said before, TEC has shown itself to be evangelistically dysfunctional (or at least inept) and, so, perhaps the Africans can help. Seriously, where’s the threat?”
Because the conservatives don’t want just the people who agree with them…they want the buildings, they want the land, they want the endowments, they want the money.
They’re not entitled to that. Not by canon law, not by civil law.
Right-wing homophobes, for starters, Joe? Let’s pass on your first sentence, which is pure NP fantasy. When you write perceptive analysis of the level of “TEC liberals (many of whom hang around here) don’t like or want these conservatives around”, I wonder whether you take in anything posted to this site that does not fit your preconceptions. Broadly speaking, the only folks hot to trot for cultural cleansing hereabouts are gung-ho, slogan-parroting evos. The “TEC liberal” ethos, Joe, is pretty much a “live and let live” one – for the most part they are quite prepared to live alongside these… Read more »
You miss the point, Joe. The schismatics are people who refuse to abide by the very standard (the Windsor Report) that they demand TEC abide by; they scream that TEC must become “Windsor-Compliant” yet ignore the Windsor Report themselves. They obviously have little regard for any authority but themselves, or any rules, unless they can make them. They continue to broadcast far and wide their hatred of gay individuals – in defiance of calls for pastoral care in Lambeth 1.10, and in the WR, and every other agreement for the past 20 years – and to bear false witness against… Read more »
Joe, I don’t see the schismatics as a “threat,” really. It is true that the schismatic American bishops and their Global South backers believe, or used to believe, that they were constructing a new province which would replace the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion. This isn’t going to happen. So they and theirs will shortly be outside both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. (Because, Joe, no Anglican can possibly “bless the concept of overlapping jurisdictions.”) The beauty of it all is that the schismatics are doing it to themselves. Which is a little like the way that… Read more »
Where is the threat? There isn’t one, if there are two communions, but the intention is to replace the Archbishop, maintain the Communion under new management and shop premises. See Chris Sugden and his interview in Jamaica. There is no threat if people leave and leave behind the property. It is regrettable that there cannot be a loose confederation that is a spiritual communion, but there it goes. Plans are in motion and those who are aggressive about this “presenting issue” will just have to set up their institutions and proceed. The Jamaica Gleaner says that Archbishop Akinola is a… Read more »
“TEC liberals (many of whom hang around here) don’t like or want these conservatives around.”
I would qualify as a TEC liberal. My parish has people who are more liberal than I. It has a lot who are in the middle. It has a considerable number who are more conservative than I am. That’s called church. That’s fine by me. I would regret if any left the parish.
Joe posted: “I don’t get it…really. TEC liberals (many of whom hang around here) don’t like or want these conservatives around. So, why not bless the concept of overlapping jurisdictions and all will be well? As I’ve said before, TEC has shown itself to be evangelistically dysfunctional (or at least inept) and, so, perhaps the Africans can help. Seriously, where’s the threat?” Boy, is he off the mark, at least in any of the twenty or so Episcopal parishes that I have visited during my business and vacation travels in the US. As for my own parish, we have quite… Read more »
“Does anyone doubt – even for a moment – that if (or when?) ++Rowan recognizes the the new landscape of Anglicanism in the US, that there will be an even greater flood of refugees from TEC seeking oversight from these “schismatic” bishops?” Um, er, well, yes. OF COURSE many rational and informed observers doubt this — both the part about ++Rowan “recognizing” the dissidents’ New Continuum / Alphabet Soup, and (especially) this wishful thinking delusion that hordes of Episcopalians are just waiting to follow Minns et al. and their Puritan Golden Calf and go streaming en masse from TEC. But… Read more »
Kurt, your spot on. I’ve already heard people from Fifna who denounced evangelicals who favor the ordination of women. Our Bishop, Bob Duncan said, “women will always be welcomed as long as I have anything to say about it.” Of course it looks as if Akinola, Nzimbi, Orombi and crew want their own people controlling things. They must not think much of Iker or Duncan otherwise why appoint these new gentlemen (notice, no women)? Joe, I don’t think TEC is so much opposed to these other people having their own Anglican Organization as much as people are opposed to having… Read more »
Joe Some of us are happy to have multiple communions. To our surprise many have indicated that they don’t want us in a separate communion, they want us in their communion on their terms. That means shut up, wear the sunglasses and long sleeves to hide the bruises, always smile in public. If you are going to cry, at least do silently out of public view. If any of you dare to refuse to be silent, or stand up for the others who are being hurt, then we will denounce you as either delusional, attention seeking, or possessed by the… Read more »
Have a look at the ‘Brooks Memorandum’ – http://episcopalmajority.blogspot.com/2007/09/who-has-power.html – which is basically arguing that any decision on TEC by the primates or ABC after the Sept. 30th deadline has no validity. The only written Constitution in the Anglican Communion is that of the ACC (one of the instruments of unity), adopted by all provinces in 1969, which lists all members of the Communion. That can only be changed by agreement of the ACC and ratification by two-thirds of the provinces’ synods or conventions (or permissively by two-thirds of the primates). Neither the primates nor the ABC can act alone… Read more »
I love how you can never predict which threads are going to take off in TA. For example, Pluralist wrote: “In other words, it is all part of a campaign now to replace Rowan Williams and (because they can’t) set up an alternative communion (alternative because only so many boundary-crossing Churches – plus Sydney – will set it up).” Not sure about that, but I have just come from one of my Anglican google browse to find this http://news.google.com.au/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1120178541 This article http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKL3172055920070831 cites Tutu’s regret with South Africa’s early botched attempts to deal with HIV/AIDS. South Africa is the country… Read more »
Yes, Chapman, but more to the point: Alison Barfoot’s “Draft Proposal for Overseas OEO” to Ekklesia Society Primates and Bishops NACDP {original acronymn for the Network} March 3, 2004: She states “After several conversations with Bill Atwood of Ekklesia, John Guernsey, Martyn Minns, and some clergy seeking ‘offshore AEO, this proposal is being considered as a draft for consideration for a process and protocol for establishing Overseas OEO as an interim stage on the way towards the realignment of Anglicanism in North America…” The proposal goes on to describe the phases by which this will be done. Barfoot’s scheme has… Read more »
A very inspiring and helpful post this. Thanks Cheryl.
‘Some of us are happy to have multiple communions. To our surprise many have indicated that they don’t want us in a separate communion, they want us in their communion on their terms…
Posted by: Cheryl Clough on Monday, 3 September 2007 at 7:13am BST
South Africa is the country that Sydney sponsored a “real church” in 1987, as the church that helped heal Apartheid without a full scale revolution was apparently immorally incompetent and unworthy of being called “Anglican”.
An excellent, very telling historical point, Cheryl. History about to repeat itself ? …
Yes, Chapman, but more to the point: Alison Barfoot’s “Draft Proposal for Overseas OEO” to Ekklesia Society Primates and Bishops NACDP {original acronymn for the Network} March 3, 2004: She states “After several conversations with Bill Atwood of Ekklesia, John Guernsey, Martyn Minns, and some clergy seeking ‘offshore AEO, this proposal is being considered as a draft for consideration for a process and protocol for establishing Overseas OEO as an interim stage on the way towards the realignment of Anglicanism in North America…” Posted by: EPfizH on Monday, 3 September 2007 at 12:54pm BST This is very informative. And shameful.… Read more »
Many thanks and prayers of blessing to St. Stephens Wilkinsburg and Calvary Pittsburg – for their efforts to litigate the covert guerrilla warfare that Duncan and others in the realignment campaign are so arduously trying to accomplish while said folks cover up and lie about their guerrilla warfare campaign, all at the same time. More light, then. If the realignment is NOT about laying dubious claims to property and funds in order to remove them from TEC, why all the concerns about just how they will look when/if they finally appear in civil courts before judges with the Duncan canon… Read more »
Regarding the BBC blurb – it is not an attempt at diversity and choice is it, the consecrations are an intended replacement. They hardly believe in diversity; they believe that what they are replacing has got it wrong.
I agree Pluralist, “…they they believe that what they are replacing has got it wrong.” There are some who refuse to countenance the idea of Jesus returning to heal all the peopleS of all the nationS. They have a vision that their paradigm is the divine paradigm, and when sufficient numbers have embraced it, Jesus is going to come, send everyone else to hell and give their “pure” souls a brand new earth. Apparently this brand new earth is going to involve ongoing miracles on an ongoing basis. Manna from heaven, housework miraculously done, buildings constructed from dreams. Apparently there… Read more »
Do the primates know about the cache of documents so clearly demonstating the nature and the of guerilla warfare.? Do they know of the Memo called “Mainstream Mtg 11/20/08” (presumably a meeting with Cris Sugden’s Anglican Mainstream)? These are some of its entries: Section 1: “what we ask of the Global South Primates ” Some sample points: “#1 Recognize the Network as those Anglicans in the US with whom the Global South Primates are in full Communion. We suggest using the language that the ‘primates applaud the suggestion of the Archbishop of Canterbury that there should be a Network of… Read more »
EPfixH The guerilla tactics would have eventually been exposed, but the damage would have been much worse. God bless the TEC leadership for believing their community is worthy of defending, much better than someone who offers up others as a sacrifice in lieu of themselves. At the moment it is a bit like just after the Titanic was hit. Why would you get into a lifeboat in freezing waters when the Titanic is so big and secure? Apparently many of the earliest removed lifeboats were pretty empty. Then all hell broke loose and the ship went down, real fast. It… Read more »
It is interesting, isn’t it, to work out the likely tactics of the schismatics after September 30 and in the period running up to Lambeth. The document is an insight – but basically it will be an attempt at replacement, against which will stand well established The Episcopal Church. In the end the schismatics will end up as just one more denomination, assuming they can organise themselves from the multiplicity of oversights when things go not as they intend and they start to argue.
I see some of the earlier comments being a little confused about the role of these other provinces in consecrating bishops. This is not further schism in the realignment faction. This is the most committed GS Primates spreading the risk of retaliation. The US end will be pleased to work together in whatever structure they eventually define. But it places several more provinces on the ground with not all of their bishops being invited to Lambeth should the ABC take the same position with them as he has with Minns and the AMIA bishops. I noted one of the recent… Read more »
Pluralist…those you call “schismatics” appear to be pretty mainstream in the AC
One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom-fighter and all that but if someone is a “schismatic” in TEC but mainstream in the AC, what does that make TEC in the AC?
“Pluralist…those you call “schismatics” appear to be pretty mainstream in the AC”
Says who? Once again, you mistake the pronouncements of a handful of bishops for the beliefs of the people in their provinces. By that reckoning, under Queen Mary, all of England was Roman Catholic.
Well, NP, here is the rather obvious comment you might have been avoiding. The schismatics are as standard to the Anglican Communion as Holy Trinity Brompton is standard to the Church of England.
Before you groan at that, think about it. If you believe that Holy Trinity Brompton is standard for the Anglican Communion but not standard for the Church of England, and a number of other Churches, then this actually makes my case, even if you think it might relate to some Christianities elsewhere in the Anglican Communion.
And this is the point.
Pat – there were more than “a handful of bishops” at Lambeth 1998……and ALL the Primates issued Dromantine and Tanzania…..you do realise that, right?
Pluralist – I have never said any single church is “the standard”……
– I have been suggesting my radical view that vicars should keep their vows to uphold the teaching of the church and provinces of the AC should not just ignore the rest of the AC when they want to breach any particular agreed position……many different churches in the CofE agree with this radical view!
“Pat – there were more than “a handful of bishops” at Lambeth 1998……and ALL the Primates issued Dromantine and Tanzania…..you do realise that, right?” Yes, and neither of those calls for the creation of a new province in the US. What they call for is “listening” and “thinking”. Unfortunately, your side stopped listening to anyone but themselves long ago, before either of those documents was adopted. As for thinking, well…if you can keep ignoring the scientific developments on this issue, then thought obviously isn’t a strong point. Nothing you cite to support your arguments has the power of law, of… Read more »
Well I am suggesting the radical view that theology does not stand for nothing, that education into biblical criticism and the history of the Churches, and the philosophies behind theology should count, and that such honesty of expression is more important than legalistic approaches to belief. The BGroad Church has existed for as long as the rise of the Oxford Movement, and before that there was the Latitudinarians and other relgious lefties, almost all of whom showed continuing loyalty to the Church of England, its worship and its traditions, and they are part of the breadth of the Church of… Read more »
“The CofE has always tolerated a wide variety of publications and expressions, and no late stage Puritanism should be allowed to overturn this.” The problem is that this tolerance is scary for the late stage Puritans. As NP continually says, two opposite statements can’t both be right. For them, to tolerate differences of belief means one of two things. Either they are tolerating people who are wrong, and in this case such people put themselves against God, so to tolerate them is to tolerate rebellion against God. The other possibility is too monstrous for them to contemplate: that they themselves… Read more »
Pat – do you take everything you do not agree with and write it off as powerless?? (you can pretend all you like that Lambeth 1.10, TWR, Tanzania and the upcoming covenant are not real…I am still happy with the ACTIONS of the ABC and all the Primates in the last 4 years) Pluralist – yes, theology is important but when very few are persuaded by a particular view, it does not mean that the minority who support a view must have the right to do whatever they like……people with strong theological arguments might be able to persuade more than… Read more »
“when very few are persuaded by a particular view, it does not mean that the minority who support a view must have the right to do whatever they like” Right. So when the Arians were in the majority for more than a century, it was the Trinitarian Christians who should not have been allowed to keep preaching their falsehood. We should all stop saying Jesus is God because the majority 1500 years ago were somehow bullied into submission by the minority who dared to believe the preposterous idea that God could be three persons, yet one God? And when Henry… Read more »
Bishops have a function and theologians have a function. That the two may not relate is one of the problems of the age. Fulcrum is having a good debate about this at the moment, with Pete Broadbent handling the defence.
When the statements of bishops are out of keeping with the theologies, and those who are members and followers, then their statements are even more hollow than sometimes they seem to be.
NP says two opposing statements can’t be right.
Lionel Blue tells a story of the married couple having troubles who went to see the rabbi.
‘Tell me your side,’ said the Rabbi.
so the wife told him all the things that she had problems with about the husband.
‘you’re right,’ said the Rabbi. ‘Now,’ to the husband, ‘tell me your side of the story.’
so the husband gave a completely different version.
‘You’re right,’ said the Rabbi.
‘Hang on,’ they said. ‘We can’t both be right.’
‘You’re right,’ said the Rabbi.
Ford – you prove my case….the Trinitarians won through by making their case from scripture – right?
Henry deserved opposition…..but maybe some wily bishops used the situation to break away from false Roman teaching – still, it is a shame to be linked into Henry’s sins as we are
What in G-d’s name has this kind of ‘rightness’ (whatever that may be) to do with a spiritual life , journey or quest ?
Many would find ( / have found) a psychoanalysis or Jungian analysis of far much more use spirituall than loads of theology and churchy guff — believe me (!)
BTW
loved the rabbi story ! ………….Baruch haShem !
Never forget Adonai Echad — ECHAD — so maybe all the opinions and opinion holders are encopassed in this ONE this Oneness
this Pleroma ?
NP,
wrong again. you can make probably a better case for Adoptionism from the bible than you can for the trinity. it’s all politics of the early church.
“the Trinitarians won through by making their case from scripture – right?” Not entirely. They were seeking to use their REASON to explain their EXPERIENCE (heresy!!!). Trinity is a difficult concept to base on Scripture and owes more to the tension they felt between Platonic Paganism and Semitic religion. Face it, Christianity is Judaism put through a Greek strainer. This doesn’t mean it isn’t true, of course, just that Truth was arrived at in a different way from your little fantasy. Second, the explanation is quite elaborate, and I can’t help but think that, had you been alive during that… Read more »