ACNS
Resolutions of ACC-13 from June 22 and 23
ENS Neva Rae Fox and Matthew Davies
Women’s voices affirmed in international reports to ACC
ACC considers listening on sexuality issues, Christian-Muslim ties, environment
ACC continues dialogue on Israel-Palestine, ecumenism, sexuality issues
Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking central in Anglican network report
Also, the page containing audio and video links has been updated to include the addresses of the Chairman of the ACC, the Secretary General of the ACC, and the presentation of the Anglican Communion Environmental Network.
TLC George Conger
Primates Included as Ex Officio ACC Members
ACC Opts for Compromise on Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
ACC Lauds Church’s Ethical Investment Program
Before the vote (on which we reported yesterday) the Telegraph had this report by Jonathan Petre on Thursday:
Church may black firms over Israeli ‘occupation’
and this leader:
Anglicans target Israel
which starts “The Christian West has a marked, and growing, prejudice against the state of Israel that the government of that country ignores at its peril.”
Not surprisingly the passage of the resolution yesterday has resulted in a lot of press coverage around the world including:
Anglican council hardens its stance on investment in Israel in The Times
Anglican share vote angers Israelis in The Guardian
Church urges action over Israel on the BBC
Anglicans Consider Divesting in Solidarity With Palestinians in The New York Times
Anglicans urge action against Israel in The Jerusalem Post
Jewish Anger as Church Votes on Israel in The Scotsman
Church rules out share sale ‘gesture’ in the Financial Times
Update
The BBC Sunday radio programme had this:
Anglican Divestment
The Anglicans found themselves involved in another controversy this week. “Anglican Divestment Decision Damages Interfaith Relations.” That is the headline of the press release from the Jewish Board of Deputies issued in response to a resolution of the Anglican Consultative Council, the executive body of the Anglican Communion. The Council backed a resolution calling for the Anglican provinces to reconsider their investments with Israel. It stopped short, just, of a direct call for disinvestment, apparently after the intervention of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Even so The Board of Deputies said it was “bitterly disappointed” by the decision.
Listen (6m 5s) Real Audio required.
1 CommentThe ACC passed this resolution today. Official press statement here
Wording changes from the initial draft are also shown. Italics added strikethrough deleted
ACC Draft Resolution on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict
The Anglican Consultative Council:
(a) receives and adopts as its own welcomes the September 22nd 2004 statement by the Anglican Peace and Justice network on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (pages 12 & 13 -14 of the Report)
(b) commends the resolve of the Episcopal Church (USA) to take appropriate action where it finds that its corporate investments support the occupation of Palestinian lands or violence against innocent Israelis, and
(i) commends such a process to other provinces having such investments to be considered in line with their adopted ethical investment strategies
(ii) encourages investment strategies that support the infrastructure of a future Palestinian state
(c) requests the office of the Anglican Observer to the United Nations, through association with the UN Working Committee on peace in the Middle East, as well as through this Council, and as a priority of that Office, to support and advocate the implementation of UN resolutions 242 and 338 directed towards peace, justice and co-existence in the Holy Land.
(data taken from titusonenine)
0 CommentsThe Co-op Bank does not want to hold an account for Christian Voice. The Bank is taking this stance because of the organisation’s attitude to homosexuals. It says ‘99% of Christians would not support the level of discrimination against homosexuals urged by Christian Voice’
In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme Simon Williams for the Bank said ‘They are extreme views. They are not mild views… They simply do not fit with our ethical policies… such as… “Homosexual policemen are corrupted by what they do. How can they investigate cases of corruption?”’
Having seen the Christian Voice web site, which has a large section devoted to the participation of police in gay pride marches, it does appear that Christian Voice has an obsession with homosexuality which seems unusual. They do not, for example, suggest that divorced police officers should not investigate matrimonial disputes, or that police officers who commit adultery should not investigate cases of corruption. And whereas they may consider that homosexual activity is a crime against God, it is not, like adultery, also a crime against the spouses of those who engage in adulterous relationships.
It looks as though homosexuals are being singled out for hatred as the Co-op Bank say.
The Archbishop of Canterbury referred to this kind of behaviour in his presidential address to the Anglican Consultative Council on 20 June 2005. He said:
We are always in danger of the easiest religious technique of all, the search for the scapegoat; Paul insists without any shadow of compromise upon our solidarity in rebellion against God, and so tells us that we shall not achieve peace and virtue by creating a community we believe to be pure. And these words are spoken both to the Jew and the Gentile, both to the prophetic radical and the loyal traditionalist. The prophet, says Barth, ‘knows the catastrophe of the Church to be inevitable’ and he knows also that there is no friendly lifeboat into which he can clamber and row clear of the imminent disaster.’
‘We are all butchers pretending to be sacrificers. When we understand this, the skandalon that we had always managed to discharge upon some scapegoat becomes our own responsibility, a stone as unbearably heavy upon our hearts as Jesus himself upon the saint’s shoulders in the Christopher legend’. Not Barth this time, but René Girard, the French philosopher (A Theatre of Envy: William Shakespeare, p.341), once again paraphrasing Paul’s central theme.
I’d like to ask why Christian Voice should particularly choose to scapegoat the gay community. In one sense, the question has no rational answer. It is as incomprehensible as the idea which erupted in many parts of Europe in the middle ages that Jews took Christian boys to sacrifice at Passover. Both are just examples of a group finding solidarity in turning their corporate wrath on to a scapegoat. We can possibly appreciate how people in the middle ages might have perceived those of different faith or customs to be a threat. But what threat could a homosexual person possibly pose to heterosexual people? The gay man is not going to steal my wife, and I know that sex with any other person, male or female, breaks the marriage vows which I took before God and in the eyes of the state.
So is the problem for Christian Voice precisely that the gay man does not want my wife? He doesn’t envy me for having an attractive wife, or see me as a rival for someone he desires? Reading the Archbishop’s references to Girard, is the perceived problem about gay people the fact that they seem often so envy free in comparison with those whose role model is the dominant male? Is that why they are victimised?
Or is it particularly for men who see themselves as dominant, a fear of being raped? Often they are the people who maintain that the Church must be led by men, and that women should “submit” to their husbands. Such men enjoy dominance, and see that view supported by scripture. For such a person, homosexual rape is the ultimate humiliation. This is the story of the men of Sodom in Genesis 19 and one can see how repugnant it is. But Lot’s solution ‘Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please.’ is even more horrific: he appears to treat his daughters as property which he can give for anyone to abuse.
Within a Christian context the situation in Uganda where in 1885 King Mwanga had three pages dismembered and burned for rejecting his homosexual advances is almost equally well known. The young men are rightly regarded as martyrs.
Homosexual rape is an extreme example of male domination, with a specific intention of humiliating the victim. Of course, fear of this kind of activity should give men an insight in to the horror which any woman has of being raped, and this danger is much greater than the danger to men. It is at least arguable that throughout the Bible what is condemned about homosexual activity is that it is not seen as an act of love but of repugnant male violence by a dominant person against an unwilling, weaker sexual partner.
But a loving partnership of two people of the same sex is completely different from that. For, just as one would hope that in a marriage the partners should seek each other’s greatest good and happiness in their sexual activity, one would suppose that the same intentions would be present in a homosexual couple. The law provides protection against rape both for homosexual and heterosexual couples, even where the latter are married. It is for the individual to judge whether sexual activity is consensual or abusive.
To my mind that should be the limit of the church’s concern about homosexual couples. After all, in Britain today, we have far more unmarried heterosexual couples, and they aren’t the recipients of abuse and hatred all the time from ‘Christian Voice’.
In my view the Co-op Bank was right to draw attention to the bigoted homophobic victimization of the gay community by ‘Christian Voice’. Would that others might adopt a similarly ethical stance.
88 CommentsThe Church Times has a report on the Wednesday vote:
ACC resorts to secret poll to modify ejection plan
And Power is the issue, as well as sex and scripture, Dr Williams tells ACC by Pat Ashworth
Other extensive reports on the ACC, in the paper, are subscription-only until next week. They will be linked when they are available.
The Church of England Newspaper has these reports:
Archbishop’s plea for unity over gay row
Americans and Canadians find few converts to their theology
and Andrew Carey comments on the Presidential Address here
The Radio 4 breakfast programme Today had these segments:
0609 Is the Anglican Church moving closer to a split over the issue of gay priests? Robert Pigott reports.
Listen with Real Audio here
0750 Rev Susan Russell, president of America’s gay Christian movement, Integrity, and Canon David Anderson, discuss the divisive issue of gay priests.
Listen with Real Audio here
The news story US Church excluded for gay stance has been updated to include quotes from these interviews.
0 CommentsInclusive Church Press Release
Wednesday 22nd June 2005
Inclusive Church welcomes the reinstatement of the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada within the bodies of the Anglican Communion.
The grassroots network of Anglican Christians and various church interest groups and bodies regrets that the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Nottingham today was not able to include the North American churches unconditionally. However, that the vote taken failed to achieve a clear majority is an affirmation of the diversity of the communion and a powerful reminder of our identity as Anglicans. Now, we can move forward to the listening process called for by the 1998 Lambeth Conference and begun at the Anglican Consultative Council.
The Revd Giles Goddard, Executive Secretary of Inclusive Church said: “The landscape has changed. The Church is not polarised in the way people have assumed. The simplistic characterisation of the Global South and the West has been shown to be false. Inclusive Church looks forward to building on these creative dialogues formally and informally to combat the many forms of exclusion within and beyond our Church.”
LGCM – see below the fold.
41 CommentsReports of today’s events will be added here as they are found.
Canadian Press Canadian Anglican church plays down exclusion from two communion panels
National Post Anglicans ‘expel’ Canada
Anglican Church of Canada press release ACC decision regrettable, but of little practical consequence, Canadian Primate says
TLC George Conger Council Somber After Vote to Exclude North Americans
Official text of Resolutions Passed Today At ACC-13
The Times Ruth Gledhill American churches shown door as gay row deepens
Telegraph Jonathan Petre has a one sentence summary at the foot of a preview of Friday’s session:
The Anglican Consultative Council yesterday reaffirmed its commitment to traditional Church teaching on homosexuality following efforts by liberal Americans and Canadians to justify their consecration of a gay bishop and sanctioning of gay “blessings”. The council also narrowly voted to exclude Americans and Canadians from key committees of the Council, at least until the 2008 Lambeth Conference.
Anglican Journal Solange De Santis
Council votes to include primates
Council narrowly supports censure of Canada, U.S.
ENS
Matthew Davies and Bob Williams ACC affirms Communion-wide listening process, members’ voluntary withdrawal
(this includes comments from the Presiding Bishop)
Neva Rae Fox ACC votes to add Primates to membership
TLC George Conger ACC Suspends North American Churches
BBC US Church excluded for gay stance
Associated Press Jill Lawless Canadian, U.S. Anglicans avoid censure
This report also appears in many US papers under other headlines such as Conservative Anglicans fail in bid to censure North American churches over gay issue or Anglicans won’t censure wings of church
Bishop Duncan’s Blog Entry (item dated 22 June)
TLC George Conger Vote on Resolution to Expel North Americans Scheduled
6 CommentsPassed by 30 votes to 28, with 4 abstentions. A secret paper ballot was used.
The Anglican Consultative Council
(1) takes note of the decisions taken by the Primates at their recent meeting in Dromantine, Northern Ireland, in connection with the recommendations of the Windsor Report 2004;
(2) notes further that the Primates there reaffirmed “the standard of Christian teaching on matters of human sexuality expressed in the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10, which should command respect as the position overwhelmingly adopted by the bishops of the Anglican Communion”;
(3) endorses and affirms those decisions;
(4) consequently endorses the Primates’ request that “in order to recognise the integrity of all parties, the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference”;
(5) further requests that the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada withdraw their members from all other official entities of the Communion for the same period.
interprets the reference to Anglican Consultative Council to include its Standing Committee and the Inter-Anglican Finance and Administration Committee.
Proposer:
Stanley Isaacs (South East Asia)
supported by
Peter Akinola (Nigeria)
Henri Isingoma (Congo)
Amos Kiriro (Kenya)
Andres Lenton(Southern Cone)
Gerard Mpango (Tanzania)
Samson Mwaluda (Kenya)
Bariira Mbukure (Uganda)
Damien Nteziryayo (Rwanda)
D Okeke (Nigeria)
Elizabeth Paver (England)
Humphrey Peters (Pakistan)
Enock Tombe (Sudan)
In response to the request of the bishops attending the Lambeth Conference in 1998 in Resolution 1.10 to establish “a means of monitoring the work done on the subject of human sexuality in the Communion” and to honour the process of “mutual” listening including “listening to the experience of homosexual persons” and the experience of local churches around the world in reflecting on these matters, in the light of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, the Anglican Consultative Council requests the Secretary General:
1. To collate relevant research studies, statements, resolutions and other material on these matters from the various provinces and other interested bodies
2. To make such material available for study, discussion and reflection within each member Church of the Communion; and
3. To identify and allocate adequate resources for this work, and to report progress on it to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the next Lambeth Conference and to the next meeting of this Council, and to copy such reports to the provinces.
Passed unanimously.
8 CommentsENS reports:
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
ACC votes to add Primates to membership
By Neva Rae Fox
ENS 062205-3
[ENS, Nottingham] — After discussion in three business sessions, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) voted June 22 to change its constitution to include the 37 Primates as ex officio members, thereby increasing the membership from 78 to 115.
Originally introduced at Monday’s session, the action included a provision to attempt to ensure balance for clergy and lay members. Under the new configuration, laity representation would no longer be the majority of the ACC, one of the four “instruments of unity” within the Anglican Communion. (A detailed ENS report will follow.)
link to ENS report here (covers a number of other items as well)
7 CommentsThis is the planned agenda item for the afternoon session. It now appears that at 2.30 pm discussion of this item will be preceded by the closed session mentioned in an earlier item, as requested by Peter Akinola.
Proposed Resolution from the Joint Standing Committee on the listening process as requested by the Primates at Dromantine
In response to the request of the bishops attending the Lambeth Conference in 1998 in Resolution 1.10 to establish “a means of monitoiring the work done on the subject of human sexuality in the Communion” and to honour the process of mutual listening including “listening to the experience of homosexual persons” and the experience of local churches around the world in reflecting on these matters, this Council requests the Secretary General:
1. To collate relevant research studies, statements, resolutions and other material on these matters from the various provinces; and
2. To make such material available for study, discussion and reflection within each member Church of the Communion; and
3. To identify and allocate adequate resources for this work, and to report progress on it to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the next Lambeth Conference.
4 CommentsArchbishop Akinola wants the following document considered, in closed session. See also his cover letter here.
The ACC has just decided to go into closed session at 2.30 pm to do so.
Document text:
A Global South statement regarding the request for listening
The Primates Meeting asked ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada to explain the thinking behind their recent actions.
The presentations that we heard from ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada did not explain that thinking with reference to the teaching of the Anglican Communion as expressed in Lambeth 1.10 and statments from Primates Meetings in Brazil, Lambeth and Newry.
They also failed to explain why they have chosen to:
– depart from the received and agreed teaching of this Communion
– ignore all four instruments of unity
– disregard the processes by which we come to a common mind, and
– overlook the specific request described in the Windsor Report.
Instead they advocated a position that reinforces our current divisions.
The proposal that the Communion “listen to the experience of homosexual persons” is an ongoing concern but must be preceded by an affirmation of Lambeth 1.10 and the Primates Communiqué at Dromantine.
17 CommentsDraft Resolution on the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada
The Anglican Consultative Council
(1) takes note of the decisions taken by the Primates at their recent meeting in Dromantine, Northern Ireland, in connection with the recommendations of the Windsor Report 2004;
(2) notes further that the Primates there reaffirmed “the standard of Christian teaching on matters of human sexuality expressed in the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10, which should command respect as the position overwhelmingly adopted by the bishops of the Anglican Communion”;
(3) endorses and affirms those decisions;
(4) consequently endorses the Primates’ request that “in order to recognise the integrity of all parties, the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference”;
(5) further requests that the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada withdraw their members from all other official entities of the Communion for the same period.
Proposer:
Stanley Isaacs (South East Asia)
supported by
Peter Akinola (Nigeria)
Henri Isingoma (Congo)
Amos Kiriro (Kenya)
Andres Lenton(Southern Cone)
Gerard Mpango (Tanzania)
Samson Mwaluda (Kenya)
Bariira Mbukure (Uganda)
Damien Nteziryayo (Rwanda)
D Okeke (Nigeria)
Elizabeth Paver (England)
Humphrey Peters (Pakistan)
Enock Tombe (Sudan)
Again today, reports will be linked here as they become available. My apologies for misplaced items yesterday.
Full text of Stephen Andrews’ presentation
Full text of Peter Elliott’s presentation (PDF FILE)
Full text of Bishop Jenkins’ presentation
Anglican Church of Canada press release Canadians address Anglican Consultative Council
ENS Canadian Anglicans speak to same-gender blessings
ENS More that unites than divides, Episcopalians tell ACC
Full text of Susan Russell’s presentation
Associated Press Jill Lawless U.S. Episcopals Defend Openly Gay Bishop
(note: this is not in the Guardian newspaper, only on its website, it is of course in hundreds of US newspapers)
AP Photos here
Washington Times N. American wings defend stances on gays
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Steve Levin U.S. Episcopal leaders defend ordaining gays
TLC Communion’s Spotlight is on Presentation Panels
Anglican Journal Solange de Santis Canada, U.S. tell Council about debates on gay issues
The Times Ruth Gledhill US Anglicans bless ‘sacred’ gay unions
BBC US Church defends gay bishop move
Guardian Stephen Bates Vengeance in the air as churches face expulsion
ENS Audio streams: Episcopalians respond to Windsor Report
Canadian presentation: ‘Key messages’ for the Anglican Consultative Council
Kendall Harmon “liveblogged” the American presentation here
ENS Theologians offer response to Windsor Report request
PDF download of the report To Set Our Hope On Christ
Associated Press Jill Lawless U.S., Canadian Anglicans Gather in England
Washington Times Julia Duin Alexandria seminary official to defend gay clergy
0 Commentspress reports and releases will be linked here as they become available.
TLC Archbishop Says Common Ground Still Exists
also a series of photos from Nottingham
ENS Theological education: Archbishop of Canterbury underscores global importance
(this report covers other events of Monday as well)
Guardian Stephen Bates Williams pleads for Anglicans to hold together
Press Association Gay Bishop Decision to Be Discussed
TLC Status Quo at ACC Holds on Second Day
ACNS Anglican Consultative Council begins its work
ENS Audio, text links offered for Archbishop of Canterbury’s ACC presidential address
Anglican Church of Canada Rowan Williams stresses value of friendship in opening address to Anglican Consultative Council
Not a report on today, but a preview of tomorrow, Ruth Gledhill US church leaders justify ordination of gay bishop
0 CommentsThe full text is now available from ACNS here, or below the fold.
I recommend reading the entire document carefully.
6 CommentsRowan Williams was interviewed for an hour (less commercial breaks) by Melvyn Bragg. This was recorded last Thursday, and was shown today, Sunday, at noon on ITV1.
No transcript of this interview is available as yet.
The following news stories have appeared:
Press Association Archbishop Threatens to Reopen Rift on Women Bishops
Observer Woman might head church, says Williams
Telegraph Homophobia is rife, says Archbishop
Further news reports today on the ACC meeting will be posted here, newest items at the top.
TLC Withdrawn Status of North Americans Noted
TLC ACC Opening Session Surprise
ENS Archbishop of Canterbury celebrates ACC opening Eucharist
ENS Bob Williams Anglican Consultative Council opens Nottingham meeting under theme ‘Living Communion’
TLC George Conger ACC Meeting Opens with Dinner and Orientation
0 Comments