Updated Thursday evening
In no particular order:
The Vestry of Truro Church in Northern Virginia issued a Statement on 28 November: The Sources of Division.
…It is our hope and intention to bring clarity and transparency as to how we have come to the reluctant but ultimately firm conclusion that we should recommend that Truro Church sever its ties with The Episcopal Church…
The Living Church has a report by George Conger Archbishop Venables: Primates Coalition Will Support Second U.S. Jurisdiction. The video referred to in this report can be found at Archbishop Greg Venables speaks to Diocese of San Joaquin.
Update The full text of the remarks by Southern Cone Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables is now on the San Joaquin website here. (Scroll down for earlier items). Another copy of the text is now at Global South Anglican.
Beliefnet reported on the San Joaquin convention a bit differently to the New York Times: Calif. Episcopal Diocese Decides Against Split.
Earlier, the Living Church also carried this opinion piece by Jack Estes: Irreconcilable Differences.
And Christianity Today has published an excerpt from Philip Jenkins’ new book, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South. The excerpt is headlined “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?”
While Anlgicans talk, 5 gay rights workers ahve been abducted by the Iraqi police, amid fears they may be been murdered by them.
My heart goes out to them. How I wish the Churches could be helping them and people like them.
Now t h a t would be witness.
It should probably have gone without saying that the “coalition” of “Global South” primates would appeal for an independent Anglican Province in North America, made up of an assortment of non-continguous former dioceses and parishes and parishioners of the Episcopal Church. The question is, how likely is it that two-thirds of the whole body of Primates will approve such a plan, as required by the Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council? As such a “plan” might open the way for division within their own provinces, I am not sure that this supermajority of Primates will be sanguine along these lines.… Read more »
Tobias: What we ought to be seeing is presentments made against bishops in rebellion against TEC, and dioceses being declared vacant with missionary bishops sent in to restore order. Why anyone continues to think you can do business with the likes of Duncan, Iker, and Schofield is beyond me. As Ross Perot use to say: “Time to clean out the barn.”
Father Estes seems to forget how Anglicanism was started. Two groups in England (the Catholics and the Protestants) were unified by a common prayer book. Their theological differences were not greater than the ones we have now. In fact, if it had not been for the development of Anglicanism, they literally would have ended up killing each other.
I think Fr. Estes has provided the most gracious description of the differences that I have seen in recent days. I could wish we won’t need to divide. I still continue to pray for it. I fear there are those determined to have “clarity” that will not allow continuing interaction. I think the excerpt from Jenkins’ book raises some interesting questions. For example, have we on all sides appreciated how relevant the stories of the Patriarchs might be in cultures where tribal structures are important in civil and cultural life? And, do we have any clue what how those cultures… Read more »
I enjoyed reading the excerpt from Philip Jenkins new book. I laughed at the questions, “If I wear gloves, can I still play football” and “Is it okay to have a slave if they come from Canada?” Different theologies will be formed, different theological colleges will develop different “suitable” reading lists. In the meantime, the realities of the AIDS pandemic, global warming and institionalised poverty and corruption will continue to be played out. The theologians who were unwilling to mitigate problems of the environment, colluded with sponsoring globalisation of poverty, and outbreaks of AIDS within their “safe” citizens will expose… Read more »
It is good that Philip Jenkins distinguishes between pentecostals and Fundamentalists. The irony of Fundamentalist-bashing is that it is the bashers who are the simple-minded ones (or among them, anyway) for failing to make distinctions between quite distinct groupings.
Like Marshall Scott, I found the opinion piece by Fr Estes very interesting, but am quite puzzled at his conviction that this split between “liberal Episcopalians” & “conservative Anglicans” is something new. Has he never read any Anglican church history? Things have been ever thus. Why do we have to have a schism NOW?
Perhaps we are having “a schism NOW” because we don’t have a world-wide monarchy to enforce a “settlement”. The lessons and the value of the Elizabethan Settlement seem to have been forgotten.
“Like Marshall Scott, I found the opinion piece by Fr Estes very interesting, but am quite puzzled at his conviction that this split between “liberal Episcopalians” & “conservative Anglicans” is something new. Has he never read any Anglican church history? Things have been ever thus. Why do we have to have a schism NOW?”– Prior Aelred
Good points. My thoughts, too. In the 18th century, for example, there were far more deists in Virginia than there are today. (In fact, “Low Church” and “deist” were practically the same thing about the time of the American Revolution). So why now?
Why now? Something I was reading the other day struck a chord with me. I’ll quote it… from Stephen Toulmin, Return to Reason, it gets at the breakdown of the Peace of Westphalia: “The Peace introduced three novel elements: a new system of States, a policy for Church/State relations, and a concept of rational thought…[large space]… this alliance of Anglican Religion with Newtonian Mechanics and Constitutional Monarchy came in time to form a unitary Ideology, whose attractions only reinforced the sense of God-given superiority that seemed to justify the English in their imperial mission and provided a model for all… Read more »