Apart from the Communiqué, several other documents have been published:
The draft report was commissioned by the Primates of the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA) in February 2006; it was received with gratitude by the CAPA Primates on 19 September 2006 and commended for study and response to the churches of the provinces in Africa.
Global South Anglican theological Formation and Education Task Force, Kigali September 2006
Global South Economic Empowerment Track Summary Statement, Kigali September 2006
Ethical Economic and Financial Covenant – Global South Primates, Kigali September 2006
Who are they trying to convince, with this avalanche of paper ?
I have read The Road to Lambeth. It starts: “The Anglican Communion is at a crossroads. The idea of a crossroads – a meeting and parting of two ways – is woven into the fabric of Scripture. The people of Israel is confronted with the choice of ways – the way of the Covenant or the way of idolatry” Now this is very creative exegesis. “Crisis” is a Greek, a Hellenist concept, not a Biblical one. In the Bible there is always one Way – a narrow one – but Idolatry is n e v e r presented as “a… Read more »
Section IV of the education task force includes this: “We also propose that each province establish within their dioceses active boards that can monitor situations of conflict and facilitate conflict resolutions and management, as well as proactively work for the creation of an environment that promotes social transformations.” It will be interesting to see how they handle conflict with “unworthies” such as GLBTs and also conflict with other religions and philosophical streams. The challenge will be to see if their think tank becomes an insular propoganda machine or a genuine platform for growth and maturity. I was reading some other… Read more »
This is a careful document, what I would regard as “A Very British Coup”. Its authority comes from the claim that these Primates “represent” the overwhelming majority of Anglicans in the world. It judges the existing structures of the Anglican Communion as unable to govern effectively without the standing committee of the GS and promotes this body into the heart of all further decision making and governance. The Covenant idea promoted in the Windsor Report was immediately leapt on by the GS and the “Covenant of Understanding” that was produced by CAPAC in the summer of 2005 gave us a… Read more »
I’d ask my fellow Episcopalians to scroll down past the insults to our own Church and read the threats against the Archbishop of Canterbury, in which the future of this Communion can be read.
We have just a few months to wait now. We will all wake up one morning soon to discover that ++Akinola and a handful of CAPA members, along with six or seven American bishops, have formed their own Communion. And then the bullies and schismatics will be gone, and the Churches of the Communion can begin to heal.
Martin Reynolds —
If Simon will permit a personal comment on my part (which I do believe does concern these Global South documents) — it seems obvious to me that the “consequences” that Archbishop Morgan describes as “disastrous” are precisely what these Global South leaders want.
My difficulty is that I see no way both to avoid these consequences & simultaneously witness to the truth.
The Presiding Bishop elect of TEC – Katharine Jefferts Schori should not be too disheartened by the lack of welcome she is promised at the next Anglican Primates meeting in Tanzania on February 14th – if she wants to get the boys to welcome her with hearts and flowers she just has to take a few tips from the Rowan Williams book. She has made a good start – throwing her weight behind the last minute resolution at the American General Convention blocking the ordination of any more partnered gay bishops. All she has to do now is follow the… Read more »
Prior Aelred, given I too don’t see a way of avoiding this unless we simply submit to a totalitarian absolutist faith (perhaps the Pope should redirect his comments to these folks including his own bishops in Nigeria), it seems to me its time to start sketching out a vision for what it means and looks like to nurture folks through the breach. Do you have suggestions? I think we need to move beyond a crisis mentality, and perhaps by hearing from the religious and those whom we call spiritual directors, we can begin to shift our vision?
Yes, the great and glaring failures of much of these new (yet how deeply familiar sounding) prounouncements is their failure to engage, openly, generously, in an invitation to customary historic Anglican mutual inquiry – open, open, open, open, open, open, open, open – through best practices of scripture reading, abstract and applied reason (including the consistently neglected empirical research parts), and comprehensive discernments of tradition as open to a coexisting variety of approaches/legacy resources. (Yet again, open.) Eveything is two-sided, exclusively. There is nothing but right in one closed frame, the authors’, and nothing but wrong in any other (closed… Read more »
(Martin — I assume sarcasm is being used here) *Christopher — Well, we need to stop thinking in terms of winning & losing & more in terms of reaching out to all who need help, without demanding that they meet certain criteria — the MDGs are certainly good here (although they will likely be swamped by Malthus like the last Green Revolution) but there is certainly a danger of them becoming “cheap grace.” To embark on this path is to seek to undergo detoxification — seeking a love beyond our control, for the God of Jesus Christ who gives life… Read more »
Fr Prior I see two issues – 1. The plan to create a world-wide denomination from the Anglican Communion. 2. The huge growth in areas of the world where Calvinism is the dominant force within Anglicanism. I think it fair to say that when the ACC responded to the Virginia Report http://www.anglicancommunion.org/documents/virginia/english/chapter6.html back in 1999 http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/acnsarchive/acns1800/acns1890.html , they voiced many of the problems we are grappling with today. The Virginia Report deserved the rough ride it received at the ACC (the arguments on “reason” in the Ratzinger context are interesting), and while it was “shelved” its central analysis of the… Read more »
Sarcasm? Fr Prior!
How I wish it were …….
‘Krisis’ means judgement. I can scarcely think of a more Biblical concept.
“‘Krisis’ means judgement…”
The link between the noun Krisis and the verb Krinomai is Dividing in the sense of Analysis; taking things apart.
So Krinomai is not Hitting your Neighbour on the Head with a Club, but Taking things apart, Analysis.
;=)
Martin Reynolds — I concur completely with your analysis, but I am not interested in playing the power game & I think that the leadership of TEC isn’t either — Akinola doesn’t want us & increasingly we don’t want to be associated with him either (& not only because it means being controlled by him) — if it were a matter of provinces chosing, the formality of the schism would be rather simple. But the fault lines are far more complex than that. Eight dioceses here have asked for ALPO & yet they all include people who want to remain… Read more »
“speaking in tongues is a requirement for ordination”
What!?!?!?! How is this in any way Anglican?
Concepts from a book by Erich Fromm keep crawling into my imagination ready comments posted here. There’s a recurring theme many of us have noticed. The book, Escape From Freedom comes from Fromm’s experience with the totalitarianism of the Nazi’s and the willingness of a populace to give away their freedom in favor of an authoritarian dictator. I can’t help noticing how rigid authoritarians rely on crisis as their breeding ground for fomenting a need for their services. It worked in the US when 9/11 was a believable crisis. Will it work on us with the gay issue? How much… Read more »