Updated – now 8 bishops
The Private Members Motion which has been tabled at the General Synod reads as follows.
Anglican Church in North America
Mrs Lorna Ashworth (Chichester) to move:‘That this Synod express the desire that the Church of England be in communion with the Anglican Church in North America.’
This has signatures from over 100 synod members including these bishops:
Blackburn
Winchester
Europe
Rochester
Beverley
Burnley
Also:
Ely
Willesden
For an explanation of the PMM process, see here.
Meanwhile, the Bishop of Sherborne has written about FCA at Cif belief. Read The Queen, the church and the Fellowship.
From across the pond – for some context. How many members are there in General Synod?
This is an extraordinary document for the Bishop of Gibraltar-in-Europe to have signed. His Anglican Communion mission partners in Europe are the jurisdictions of the Episcopal Church and the Spanish and Lusitanian Episcopal churches which overlap geographically with his own. He has an agreement with the Episcopal Church’s Convocation in Europe (as also with the Old Catholic Church, which is equally “liberal”) under which no “competing” mission work is undertaken by one jurisdiction in a place where another one already operates. Surely his signing of this document tears up that understanding?
Just you wait until you see the ACNA press release on this! You will see a demonstration of the saying that if you give certain people an inch they will take a mile (and try to steal the family silver while they’re at it).
This motion is almost unexceptionable. We desire to be in communion with other churches and Christians. You could replace this with “The Methodist Church” or “The Roman Catholic Church” [even “The Episcopal Church”] and it would pass without a peep. The question is the basis on which this is done – if desire were sufficient, we would have united with the Methodists, and the call based on the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral would have led to the reunification of the Christian Churches. The irony is in desiring (and I think the intention here would be more than ‘desire’) communion with a group… Read more »
I fear this motion might put me and my Parish out of communion with my own Church.
“Mrs Lorna Ashworth (Chichester) to move: ‘That this Synod express the desire that the Church of England be in communion with the Anglican Church in North America.’”
O Happy Chance for Mrs Ashworth, that it already is! {Pssst! They’re called, respectively, The Episcopal Church and The Anglican Church of Canada}
I gather that over the past 3 days the motion has gained the support of approx 25 per cent of synod members. I suspect that many more are likely to sign and that a number of bishops who were not present may do so. A qustion was asked at synod as to how many individual bishops considered themselves to be in communion with ACNA – the official response was that this information was not yet available!
A PS to Fr Mark’s comment, in the Diocese in Europe we also work closely with the Scandinavian Lutheran churches (Porvoo Agreement), sometimes even sharing clergy.
Not to mention The Anglican Church of Mexico, whose presiding bishop is called Touche, Mrs Ashworth.
All I can say is, after D025 passes, I can imagine that it won’t just be 100 signatures. I might as well hope that the Porvoo churches who support the full inclusion of gays and lesbians would seriously reconsider their relations with the Church of England as a consequence of this decision.
Prayers ascending for all, especially as relationships are both strengthened and broken by this moment of crisis.
Fr. Simon, yes, unfortunately, I think now for the first time there will be a split in the Church of England also. Graham Kings openly says he wants TEC out of the Communion because TEC accepts the possibility that God may call gay and lesbian persons to ministry. Pete Broadbent openly says the same. Others in the C of E openly say they want to break communion with the Porvoo Churches over their acceptance of the ministry of gay and lesbian persons. Their C of E is headed toward isolation, breaking its ties with the existing Communion and its ecumenical… Read more »
Interesting that the Bp of Willesden has signed. ACNA has within it dioceses and other jurisdictions which reject WO and also dioceses which accept it. Might he see the case for similar provision with the English provinces?
Why it can’t simply be accepted that evangelical Christianity is an inherently and thoroughly homophobic belief which is simply beyond change without becoming Not Evangelical is beyond me
Merseymike, I take your point about Evangelical homophobia, but I think the problem really lies with the hermeneutic Evangelicals bring to Scripture. That hermeneutic rests on pure subjectivism, a kind of “it seems to me” that offers up incorrigible readings, but leaves them with no room for divergent opinion and no way of changing their minds on any disputed point. I can’t imagine today’s evos have any way of stopping to ask just how it was that gay sex became of such overriding importance to them, or whether there aren’t other issues they might appropriately consider on their way to… Read more »
…and most interesting to see Bishop ‘I’m a socialist, me’ Broadbent of Willesden supporting and encouraging institutionalised homophobia in a way he never seemed keen to do when a Labour councillor in Islington!
All the hidden or subterranean nastiness towards queer folks must surely come right out now, into every open. Is there a nasty name in the book that somebody has not already spoken? Do these constant, loud repetitions really rub it all in deep? Or hasten the coming of a day when the trash talk loses even more of its powers? Such dynamics begin to describe how these sorts of sea changes work, more or less. Expect it to grow thick, dark, and hectic with the impending rush to put some sort of condemnation and distance between any sort of conservative… Read more »
In response to Charlotte… I would respectfully disagree with her comment that “in the evangelical world, there are no second-order issues, no areas of legitimate disagreement, nothing waiting on further discernment.” I am a committed evangelical and neither myself nor the vast majority (if not all) of my evangelical brothers and sisters of whom I know are not correctly defined by this comment. There are many secondary issues that we would dissagree on whilst enjoying communion with each other as well as many from other traditions within the Anglican Church and beyond. This is not the place for me to… Read more »
“we do dissagree and this is then followed by a desire to lovingly, graciously and humbly come back to Scripture together” This post was quite gracious. I, however, read it through the blinkers of an admittedly sinful anti-Evangelical bigotry, that causes me to read into such comments things that might not be there. For instance, I NEVER understand myself to be included in the “we” of Evangelicals. I am too accustomed to people who identified as Evangelicals telling me I am not a Christian because I am not an Evangelical. Honestly, my immediate reaction, and I apologize for this, is… Read more »
AGPH, Thanks for your thoughtful, respectful and, in my view, very helpful response re. evangelicalism. Your characterization of evangelicalism conforms with my past experience. You are quite right to emphasize that evangelicals DO see a number of issues as “second order” and allow for diversity of belief and practice. It isn’t fair to suggest otherwise. What I think frustrates many non-evangelicals is the seemingly inconsistent selectivity in what will be regarded as a “second order” issue. For example, many non-Anglican evangelicals take a very a “low” view of the necessity and efficacy of baptism, a view that clashes with Scripture… Read more »
Dear Ford, thank you for your honest and deeply humbling post. With regard to your second point, I would agree that there is certainly a place for Reason and Tradition and I would desire to use both. However I would say that whatever conclusions we may draw from these two sources would work in support with the divine source we have in Scripture. The reason I say this is that the Bible is not subject to human error, it is God’s divine word (2 Timothy 3:16) for us (although our reading of it may be!), whereas there is the danger… Read more »
AGPH, you couldn’t read a word of that Bible –if you didn’t speak and read the English language –if you didn’t use a commentary to help you over the hard passages and point out the words whose meaning has changed –if you didn’t make a choice (even a passive one) to adopt one commentary over another –if you didn’t choose to adopt one or another translation of the Bible as your standard –and make some choice as to the sources on which your preferred translation is based. The Textus Receptus or a later critical edition of the sources? — and…… Read more »
AGPH wrote: “…the Bible is not subject to human error, it is God’s divine word (2 Timothy 3:16)….” ————————————————– There are several problems with this claim. First, many honest readers of the Bible have recognized that it IS “subject to human error.” At several points, it simply gets its facts wrong. For example, how did Judas die? Suicide (Matthew 27:5) or accident (Acts 1:15-18)? It can’t be both, despite ingenious (and desperate) attempts to harmonize the two contradictory stories. Please NOTE that this is just ONE simple example. There are many, many more. Second, 2 Timothy 3:16 doesn’t actually say… Read more »
“the Bible is not subject to human error, it is God’s divine word” But, from my point of view, Jesus is the Divine Word. This is not a small thing for me. At most, the Bible is the Words of God. Second, it is clear that the earliest Christians accepted the stories they were told, not the documents they read, since the documents weren’t written at that point. So, the Gospel must be more than what is contained in the gospels. Third, as I said, I do not believe the Bible contains all there is to Christianity. It was written… Read more »
3 comments to reply to and only 400 words?! Many thanks for your comments, I have read them with great interest and am enjoying this opportunity to discuss such issues in this manner. I don’t think I have the space or brain power to take issue each by turn within the space permitted and much could be written, discussed and debated on each. This is not me trying to avoid giving answers rather I don’t want to make summarizing statements of what I think and have the danger of leaving confusion or frustration in its wake. I would therefore, if… Read more »