Updated
George Conger’s next report for the Living Church was Inside the ‘Ring of Steel,’ Primates Under Intense Pressure to Reach Agreement.
Episcopal News Service has Millennium Development Goals, theological education addressed by Primates and also In Tanzania, Carpenter’s Kids transforms AIDS orphans’ lives.
Changing Attitude had Report from the White Sands Hotel, Dar Es Salaam – Late night extra.
Andrew Goddard on behalf of the Anglican Communion Institute has analysed the Report of the Communion Sub-Group.
Press Conference notes for Saturday are here.
Updated Sunday midday
Latest Associated Press report: Anglican leaders in Zanzibar for Holy Eucharist as row over homosexuality threatens to fracture Anglican Communion.
Reports from the Anglican Church of Canada
The Primates: Moving to a more serious level and Primates’ Meeting: Talks take a turn by Paul Feheley
Andrew Goddard, like many who felt they had already done the work of the Primates sub-group, had fallen into their own trap. I recently sat at a meeting in Liverpool where Blessed Tom rehearsed his dismissal of the GC 2006 response to Windsor. Why, I wondered, have all these people decided to short circuit the “process” laid down by the ABC and undermine any possibility of reconciliation? Why have “requests” been turned into “demands”? Why has “process” been turned into “judgement”? I notice that “requests” has made a come back in Goddard’s piece. Now we are given a raft of… Read more »
George Conger reports as follows: “A second leader of the [Global South] group noted that attempts to gauge the state of play within the meeting by divining a political meaning from the statement of seven primates who refused to receive the sacraments, were unwise. Such opinions were being formed in ignorance of the primate’s personal views on the nature of the Eucharist and the theological significance of receiving the sacraments. The Global South coalition contains a wide range of theological views from Anglo-Catholic to low-church Evangelical, the leader said. “The breach of Eucharistic fellowship in 2005 by 14 primates was… Read more »
Goddard’s bottom line is – if you follow my complex diagram you will see that the sub-group report supports the establishment of an interim “Windsor College” of bishops within TEC recognized by the AC, until TEC comes into full compliance if ever (and when it does not – it will be supplanted by the college). He may be right in that the ABC has given TEC a good report with one hand and intends with the other to give the reasserts some thing as well. By so doing, in the interim it splits TEC which will give the reasserters both… Read more »
Andrew Goddard continues on with this idea of a TEC within a TEC, in that he writes: _the Camp Allen Windsor bishops, and the proposal that they be recognised by the Communion as a ‘college of bishops’, provide the best way forward for the Communion_ By the report of the Sub-Group, this is a dead duck – unless the Primates via some overpowering numbers could reject the report. They haven’t the numbers. When will people recognise that their fantasised outcome has been dissipated? Tom Wright was not proved to be correct, he was proved to be wrong, that he obviously… Read more »
The following from the Living Church article jumped at me as being very damning for the realignment crowd; “… the primate’s personal views on the nature of the Eucharist and the theological significance of receiving the sacraments.” Its “personal views” on the Eucharist, but Windsor “compliant” on the non issue of sex… What a spectacle! ”The breach of Eucharistic fellowship in 2005 by 14 primates was with the person of Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, he noted, arguing that this personal breach did not automatically extend to the new Presiding Bishop … Canadian Archbishop Andrew Hutchison’s strong relations with many… Read more »
I am heartened by the role of +Andrew Hutchison in all this, as George Conger points out his having built bridges to the GS Primates while not compromising his own position (see his blog a few posts back). Within Canada, he seems to have united a once fractious house of bishops (+Yukon and +New Westminster are no longer at each others’ throats, and now my bishop looks forward to rather than dreads HOB meetings). This doesn’t mean that everything is settled in the Canadian church, but that we are closer to agreeing to disagree. It’s too bad he’s retiring next… Read more »
A passing quote of Drexel G. in the Canadian piece struck me, as follows: (Quote) He also commented that the “difficulty of broken communion is more perceived than real.” (unQuote) After spelling out at some length, in some details, the reasons why TEC is outside worldwide parameters, and why the conservatives inside TEC are the only way foward, and dithering a bit about just what the punishment of TEC should be right now since we lack an institutional means of punishment – and hinting that police powers will be somehow available in the new draft covenant – this comment startles.… Read more »
As I read things, both TEC and GS raised the stakes since the last Lambeth compromise (which actually was a humiliation of liberals…who clearly were asked to stomach too much) by not sticking to the (…ok…flawed) agreement. All attempts at REALISTIC compromise by TEC seem to be rejected which reveals simply that the GS and their allies have a wider agenda to do with power politics, and wresting the Church for themselves. The Bishops of Durham, Winchester and Rochester all signed up to this madness and have had their fingers badly burned. They misjudged the mood of England and of… Read more »
The descriptive point I do take from A. Goddard’s long discussion is that Anglicans more or less fall into four clusters as a worldwide communion. And that the realignment campaign is about determining which of the four groups is correct, with the other three groups by definition being partly or wholly wrong. And with the correct group being innately empowered to punish the other three groups until they come into line, or define them out if they do not come into line. (Don’t we already know which one of the four groups is correct and in charge? Can’t you guess?)… Read more »
Martin – I cannot quite see how providing your own analysis necessarily means that you’re trying to short-circuit the “process” or doing the work of the sub-group for them, as you seem to imply. Pluralist – sure, measured by the report of the sub-group Tom Wright got it “wrong” (and the same would apply to Robin Eames). But did Tom Wright (or Andrew Goddard, for that matter) imply that the analysis of the sub-group would necessarily have to agree with their own? And are you yourselves willing to declare whether you consider the report accurate – or is this a… Read more »
I am sorry you cannot quite see this point, Thomas.
But it is possible you will as matters develop.