Religious Intelligence has Anglican Communion moves closer to schism by Ed Beavan.
Stephen Bates has Anglican split comes closer as US church rejects demand over gays in the Guardian.
Ruth Gledhill in The Times has Anglican schism looms closer over gay consecrations.
Episcopal News Service has posted a video report of the Executive Council meeting:
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and President of the House of Deputies Bonnie Anderson offer an overview of the recent Executive Council meeting, held June 11-14 in Parsippany, New Jersey. The Rev. Jan Nunley, deputy for communication for the Episcopal Church, reports.
Go here to watch it.
My memory dims.
Does anyone remember the total number of NAAC, CANA, and AMiA congregations in the USA?
Is it 200 as reported by Mr. Beavan in his article in “Religious Intelligence”?
First of all, all 3 of these reports are sensationalistic: I almost thought that the ExecCounc had actually responded to “gay consecrations”, when this is just about the days-old reports of the rejection of the (artificial deadline-imposed) Primatial Vicar scheme (but ONLY because only GC can make such a decision!) But I want to specifically reply to this (in the RI report): “Responding to the announcement, the Rev Dr Chris Sugden . . . said: “When the authority of the Primates was introduced at the Lambeth Conference in 1998 to deal with the issues in Rwanda, everybody agreed. “But now… Read more »
Yes. it’s rather odd, Chris Sugden’s comment. It is a bit like saying this man is imposing his skin on me when I keep hitting him. Rowan Williams in the recent Time audio release of part of the interview said: “To me it’s very important that this language of the Body of Christ is at the heart of our thinking. Now some people are vary wary of the application of this to Church politics as if it prescribes a kind of top-down or organic or impersonal model. I don’t see that myself.” Given the way things are intended, but hopefully… Read more »
I agree that some iterations of the realignment campaign hype come perilously close to bearing false witness. The way I read the replies to the Primates Communique so far involve a good deal of trying to be clear, measured, and faithful occupants of the traditional Anglican legacies which realignment is so actively denying, all the traditional Anglican big tent parameters. One cannot guess in advance just how far Canterbury will let the realignment folks trash talk everybody else – including these red herring mentions of racism as if objections to Nigeria were about skin color instead of the discovery of… Read more »
I imagine the macho leaders of the Global South growling about “the monstrous regiment of women”!
“When the authority of the Primates was introduced at the Lambeth Conference in 1998 to deal with the issues in Rwanda, everybody agreed.”
Nothing came out of this. The paragraph remains a dead letter.
Also, I don’t think “schism” is coming closer – I think it recedes into the background the closer it gets.
Elsewhere on TA there has been recent mention of Goodwin’s Law (“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one”). In reality, the nuclear option of 21st century polemics is the charge of racism. On no basis whatever, Sugden tars TEC with this brush, stating that the rejection of the Dar es Salaam primatial oversight model without the approval of General Convention “sniffs [suppose he means “stinks”, but what price literacy?] of racism”. In a bizarre take on moral equivalence, he equates TEC’s putting the oversight scheme on the back burner with… Read more »
I hope that I am wrong, but will Sugden’s “racism” charge be the first shot of an attack on TEC, framing its rejection of and litigations against the incursions of AMiA, CANA, and the new Kenya-based “plant” as racist, on the grounds that all three are subsidiary franchises of African provinces.
“Also, I don’t think “schism” is coming closer – I think it recedes into the background the closer it gets.”
Posted by: Göran Koch-Swahne
That, dear Goran, is exactly what I have been sensing and noticing lately…it’s a “house of cards”…I think built by a few overly zealous sorta religious and frantic political grandstanders who will do “anything”–especiially promote fear and hate–for empty prestige, silver and gold!
Many are “readjusting” their mitres and putting on fresher smelling robes as we speak/write…scrub away fellas because you are still welcome at THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH because the EPISCOPAL CHURCH welcomes EVERYONE!
Hmmm – I wonder how good your antenna are, Leonardo since you seem to think TEC may be able to dupe the AC into accepting its innovations and doublespeak.
Have you head of Jeffrey John, TWR, Dromantine, the Tanzania Communique? Remember what the ABC calls “the mind of the Communion” is, he says, very firmly behind Lambeth 1.10 and not persuaded by TEC’s innovations.
What evidence do you have to support your wishful thinking that TEC will be allowed to stay in the AC but deliberately defy the accepted stance of the AC?
Remember though. When NP and the rest of them point to Lambeth 1.10 and to the Windsor Report, they are only pointing to certain bits with which they disagree. Other bits (like that silly “listening” stuff in Lambeth 1.10 or that call to end ecclesiastical encroachments in Windsor) are to be ignored.
That’s hardly surprising, Malcolm, since they read scripture the very same way.
How many times, Malcolm? – people have been listening for decades, ad nauseam….and are not convinced! It may suit some agenda-groups for the AC to listen forever and never make a decision ….but the price for this is the AC blowing up and anyway, it just does not make sense never to make a decision because a small minority wants to make its case forever or until everyone else gets sick of the disruption and leaves. Rowan Williams even wrote some of the “listening” stuff that he is now NOT pushing on everyone else because he sees that the AC… Read more »
But Nigeria has refused to listen at all.
“people have been listening for decades,” Yet again, NP, I ask, how did the listening process play out in your parish? Lambeth asked that you listen to gay people. Since you have been listening “for decades” I assume you have had a large number of gay people come to your parish to explain what their lives have been, how your message is not, in their ears, a call to holiness as you think it to be, but rather a denial of their very humanity. I assume you are quite familiar with the way the propaganda of the extreme right hurts… Read more »