The Anglican Communion News Service press release is headed Archbishop of Canterbury: Better Bishops for the sake of a better Church:
The Archbishop of Canterbury today set out his hopes for this year’s Lambeth Conference in a video message addressed to Bishops and Dioceses across the worldwide communion…
The Lambeth Palace website has Video: Lambeth Conference ‘08
The Archbishop reflects on the forthcoming Conference in July ‘08 in an exclusive video message. The decennial event ‘has been a place where Bishops come to pray together, to read the Bible together and quite simply to help one another to be Bishops’.
Both pages lead to the video and to a transcript of the video.
If you have a problem linking to the video from those pages, try here.
Has this any relevance to the “letter” the Archbishop was sending to the attendees? It hardly sounds like a “stay away unless…” but rather an invitation to quiet reflection.
Whaddya know? No conditions attached that Covenant-skeptics can’t come.
Rowan’s still too enamoured of this dead-end Covenant scam, but it turns out he’s not quite as mad as it seemed.
My Lord of Durham, though, seems to have over-reached himself.
I’ve already commented. http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/04/doing-conger.html Last Friday we saw one of those times when wishful thinking overtakes blogging/ journalism, and it was a report that the letters were going out because a spokesperson told George Conger that they will presently. Then the rest of his report said much from his understanding of the Advent Letter. The MCU blog suddenly catches up, and taking a secondary report on the report says the letters have gone out. Not that I can see. Presumably they will, but they clash with other intentions of Lambeth as pulling a disparate lot (desperate lot?) together. So is… Read more »
Have I correctly understood the Archbishop? There are at least three ways of building a covenant. The first on agreed upon doctrine. The second, an agreed upon protocol for how we do things and third, a combination of the two. Clearly the GS is not interested in a covenant that is not doctrinal. Clearly Canada and the US are not interested in one that is overly so. The Archbishop’s video seemed to indicate a strong interest in one that focuses on relationship and how those in relationship choose to work with each other, in essence, one that could work for… Read more »
Agreed and agreed. The orthodox have been Rowan-ed once again (or Lucy has pulled the football away from Charlie Brown – again.)
What the video shows is that the Covenant is about process and ordering, but it will still be based on expectations and for that we have the Advent Letter. The issue is less to do with what the plastic Archbishop wants and more to do with what the Churches can and will accept. And they will not accept much. There is no Anglican Church, no one authority, and so far the authorities, when they have bothered, a minority, have given a largely no or not likely.
Why am I reminded of Lucy Ricardo, at this point…Crying WHAAAAAaaaaaaa!!