Anglican Mainstream has issued a Statement on the Outcome of the Primates’ Meeting at Dar es Salaam in February 2007.
It includes the following among other points (emphasis added):
We are concerned that…
We pledge
What is most interesting about the response though is its total omission of any reference to the Covenant draft. Graham Kings of Fulcrum has already commented that:
The word ‘Covenant’ is nowhere to be found in the Anglican Mainstream response to the Primates’ Meeting, published yesterday:
This is very strange in that the discussion of the Anglican Covenant was a key feature at Dar es Salaam and was published the same night as the communique. It is crucial to the whole Windsor Process.
Maybe the clue is in Chris Sugden’s article about the so called Covenant for the Church of England, ‘A Covenant for a Confused Church’ in the Church of England Newspaper, 5 January 2007. In the following paragraph concerning the Communion, ‘NTW’ refers to the Bishop of Durham:
Who will provide the new consensus? It will not just be a matter of writing a theology or covenant that all can agree and everything will work. NTW’s project will not deliver the goods. It is not possible to solve these problems by getting agreement on the substance, on one agreed theologically orthodox correct statement.
It would be good to hear Anglican Mainstream’s views on the Covenant now.
The cynic in me has me thinkng your emphasis added in the following… “We are concerned that… in all dioceses arrangements should continue to be made for ministry to homosexual persons, including their care and support, that is scripturally based and pastorally sensitive. To this end Anglican Mainstream is sponsoring with others a two-day conference later this year to contribute to the Listening Process…” might be better placed on the real agenda. The ministry to homosexual persons is to be SCRIPTURALLY BASED. My guess is that the scriptural basis will not be one of unconditional love and acceptance. Lambeth 1:10… Read more »
Notice also that the span of response regarding TEC goes much wider than the specific concerns of Tanzania. They include the more general doctrinal issue, as they see it; they criticise use of consensus and majority contrasted with the message ‘once delivered to the saints’, they contrast a process of delays and prevarication with now setting a deadline, state that the Global South continue to support breakway congregations (which is contrary to a decided more communion based overseeing) and indeed set their sights on more progressive or progressive-including provinces. As for their conference, it sounds more like a talking to… Read more »
The ministry to homosexual persons is to be SCRIPTURALLY BASED.
And shall accordingly include stoning to death at some point in the listening process.
I never thought human activities like listening, caring, sex and love could be subverted in this way.
Well, methinks “scripturally based” means “once for all” no listening of any sort required.
And yes, there are those that want a stoning (and I don’t mean Monty Python ;=)