Updated Tuesday evening
Robert Pigott of the BBC has published his final entry in Lambeth Diary. Read DARING THE EXTREMES TO LEAVE.
Anglican TV has Archbishop Orombi clarifies The Times letter.
The Living Church has What the Lambeth Conference Accomplished by Steve Waring.
Regarding the final press conference, there is now a transcript of it here (thank you Lichfield), and ENS has video recordings here (navigate by date to two segments dated 08/03/08).
ENS also has two further reports by Mary Frances Schjonberg:
Lengthy reflections document called ‘narrative’ of Lambeth experience and
Reactions to Lambeth Conference span the spectrum.
Tuesday evening additions
Yesterday’s Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 had a segment at 8.53, which includes both a report by Robert Pigott and an interview with Bishop Nick Baines.
And Premier Christian Radio has two segments: Lambeth Conference draws to a close and Anglican Church looks to the future. Those interviewed include Graham Kings and Rod Thomas.
I watched the whole press conference and had to admire the consistency of the ABC’s policy and the way it has held and given itself body at Lambeth. It is a triumph for the middle ground. The closing words “I hope and pray” might have wider application than the commitment of Anglicans to the civil and human rights of gays. Americans are asked to accept the moratoria “unless and until a wider consensus emerges”. One could hope and pray also for a “sacrificial” response from TEC or, failing that, for a willingness to continue warm relationships in a situation of… Read more »
“The crisis in the Communion is about authority – biblical authority and ecclesiastical authority.” +Orombi’s right, in a sense. It’s about people, both in Africa and otherwise, who need well delineated lines of authority with strong centralization. Perhaps he doesn’t see the irony in some members of a Church that rejected late medieval style Papal authority seeking to return to something very similar. He obviously doesn’t see the irony in the fact that those same members are the very ones who consider themselves children of the Reformation. They want the power structure of Rome, while rejecting the teachings that go… Read more »
Things will get worse before, or even if, they get better. There is already too much momentum built up. No one is in any position to force or enforce a “full stop” in the more liberal parts of the AC, and (likewise) no one is positioned to force or enforce a “full stop” on the more conservative portions of the AC. Until there is a “full stop” on the first front, it is highly unlikely that there will be a “full stop” on the second. Time will tell, I suppose. But, this strikes me as too little, too late.
Religious life on the ground, here in the U.S., is rife with loudmouthed conservatism. That talk is cheap and easily had on free radio and television. Most of them are doing it better than Anglican bishops. It’s a defining and poignant move for the American bishops to have taken the stance that they have taken. I believe that, if they stay with it, they will survive a mass exodus of weary Christians no longer willing to tolerate that noise.
Ah, I think Robert Pigott has been well briefed!
He gives a careful account of what he has been told and shows a clear grasp of the situation.
I have sent this to others as a good summary.
I can’t see how anyone can expect a ‘full stop’, when the two sides are convinced they are doing what is right for their province.
The problem is that there isn’t really a middle ground. Sometimes the question is: can two opposing views live together given that neither side will alter their stance.
I agree with Steven that the full stop is not likely to occur on either front – and its the other way round too, as the conservative blogs make absolutely clear.
I don’t agree with Martin about Robert Pigott on the BBC. I think he misses the Archbishop’s own Catholic Church agenda, the centralisation that he wants to see. Pigott just sees it as some sort of balancing operation, hoping to hold enough in at the centre.
Orombi has said no to the Pastoral Forum, that the Primates Council GAFCON set up will do the job. Plus, of course, the Pastoral Forum starts to operate long before any Covenant has been decided upon, and will start interventions of its own that have not been agreed.
And I can’t imagine that any genuine liberal or believer in gay and lesbian equality would want to remain in a communion with a permanent conservative majority….but then, Anglican liberals are notoriously short of backbone. maybe they will prove me wrong.
The Americans and those who support them would be better off as outsiders, and I am sure they will be only too pleased not to have to keep propping up the conservative-dominated communion financially.
“Anglican liberals are notoriously short of backbone”
Only if you define Christian charity as lack of backbone.
“And I can’t imagine that any genuine liberal or believer in gay and lesbian equality would want to remain in a communion with a permanent conservative majority…”
Maybe it helps if you don’t think that everyone needs to hold the same opinions that you do.
The first post hopes for a “sacrificial response” from TEC.
But what are we being asked to sacrifice? Our gay and lesbian sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and neighbors.
I thought God already decided that one with the story of Abraham and Isaac. No more human sacrifice.
TEC would lose its soul if it “sacrificed” in this manner, and God would not bless us, for such a sacrifice would be to collude with great evil.
Does anyone understand what the Bishop of South Carolina is saying in the ENS article about Reactions to Lambeth? It is a very odd quote that makes little sense to me. It almost sounds as though he is waiting to sign up with some sort of Antichrist. Is conservatism rotting some peoples’ brains? Or am I just too obtuse to “get it?”
I am all in favour of Christian charity, Ford, but not at someone else’s expense. Charity towards the bibliolators is at the expense of the gays. Its a zero-sum game.
How long before we realize that you cannot do business with Duncan, Akinola, Iker, & Co.? They are dishonorable and are intent only on purifying the cult and turning the clock back to the 1950s. They will stoop to anything, accept money from anyone no matter how sinister, and continue to tie up our time and money until we decide to hold them accountable. We’re going on what…five years since GC 2003 and we’re still pouring incredible amounts of energy and money into this black hole, hoping we can reach some accommodation with the Rebellion. They don’t want accommodation–they want… Read more »
Merseymike, if a “permanent conservative majority” is so intolerable one might as well opt out of the human race. In any case, the majority can swing in Christian circles as it has in society at large toward a more liberal understanding of issues. Liberals in Anglicanism are asked to be patient and they are ready enough to be so because they are confident in the intrinsic rightness of their position (whereas the conservatives show a nervous defensiveness by their clutching at scriptural fundamentalism). Lambeth leaves the door open to the “liberal” understanding of human sexuality and gay/lesbian rights, which is… Read more »
Lambeth may have sounded the death knell for liberal Anglicanism, but provinces are going to be allowed one last liberal innovation before the drawbridge is finally raised: women bishops. Having spotted that liberal polity allows not only women’s ministry but also gay rights – especially where that polity is most democratic, in North America – conservative opponents of gay rights are determined to ensure that liberal polity is abolished in order to prevent pro-gay policies taking hold. It’s a race against time for TEC. Will the Covenant be ratified preventing full inclusion? Or, as seems more likely, will they go… Read more »
“I think Robert Pigott has been well briefed! He gives a careful account of what he has been told and shows a clear grasp of the situation.” Are you kidding me Martin? What’s so “well briefed” “careful” or “clear” about the following? “radicals on both the liberal and conservative wings of Anglicanism have developed their attitude towards homosexuality into an article of faith.” The BLATANT FALSEHOOD of “moral equivalising”: radical liberals (Pigott’s term) have NOT “developed their attitude towards homosexuality into an article of faith”—otherwise, TEC would be DEMANDING all other Anglican churches adopt policies of full (sacramental) inclusion of… Read more »
Phyllis, if you go to SC’s diocesan website, they’ve got his remarks in full at http://www.dioceseofsc.org/mt/archives/000363.html . I think “the prince” is some purer Anglican Communion, sprung from the brow of GAFCON.
“Liberals in Anglicanism are asked to be patient and they are ready enough to be so because they are confident in the intrinsic rightness of their position….”
This sounds remarkably like what the mainstream politicians of the late ’50s and early ’60s were telling Martin Luther King–“be patient…time is on your side.” Had he taken their advice, blacks in the American south might still be waiting for the chance to drink from the same water fountains as whites.
It is the acceptance of women bishops that will change the Church of England, so that it won’t have the punitive edge it needs to join in the enforcement Rowan Williams’s Catholic centralisation strategy. And in any case, the C of E cannot accept rule from outside itself: it is not clear that such a Covenant will get through. However, it is the Pastoral Forum that will come first and quickly, and it will operate against the US and Canada – likely so without any right to do so. And yet it is opposed by Orombi and company, who would… Read more »
The apparent triumph of Rowan’s middle Anglicans, built on the trash talking traditionalists and mild satisfaction/dissatisfaction with mistreating, say, queer folks – or women who get too uppity? – will be short-lived as the world turns. (Dissatisfaction? Well, mistreatment must escalate, because dear church life fans, neither queer folks nor many women are currently in the apologetic mood to put up with this or that flat earth theory about how innately awful they are. Let alone, in queer folks cases, willing to stay silent when faced with all the self-righteous exclusively straight mistreatment to which queer folks are religiously said… Read more »
Excuse me, but I thought that HM Govt had already made it plain that the C of E by law established cannot sign any “Anglican Covenant” — perhaps they are expecting that Commons will do it for them. The “results” from Lambeth makes it appear to have been rather a waste of time & money — no changes in any positions — bad North Americans must accommodate the good Third World — expectations already rejected all around. Two quotations come to mind — Oscar Wilde on the Shakespearean critics of his day arguing whether Hamlet was mad or only pretending… Read more »
“And I can’t imagine that any genuine liberal or believer in gay and lesbian equality would want to remain in a communion with a permanent conservative majority…” merseymike
I fear that’s the same attitude that some conservatives hold about liberals.
We’re supposed to be in communion with Jesus Christ, not just those we like…
This sort of attitude breaks my heart.
“The first post hopes for a “sacrificial response” from TEC.
“But what are we being asked to sacrifice? Our gay and lesbian sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and neighbors.”
No, all that is asked is that celebration of gay unions be held privately rather than publicly. Exaggeration like this is part of the problem.
You are all so entirely unrealistic. The point where the conservatives are absolutely right is that conservative and liberal Christianity is simply not the same belief system. You can try and convince yourself otherwise, but the links between the two are largely historical, not based in substance.
The communion should split, and frankly, if you are all so wimpy that you are prepared to let the conservatives walk all over you, then you deserve everything you get
The past week has simply confirmed to me that I was right to depart from Christianity altogether. Sometimes, compromise is not acceptable.
“…all that is asked is that celebration of gay unions be held privately rather than publicly…”
And the first time word of a “private” celebration leaks?
I call this rank hypocrisy.
The rankest of rank hypocrisy. The usual anglo-catholic (majority) approach
“The first post hopes for a “sacrificial response” from TEC.
“But what are we being asked to sacrifice? Our gay and lesbian sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and neighbors.”
No, all that is asked is that celebration of gay unions be held privately rather than publicly. Exaggeration like this is part of the problem.
Posted by: Spirit of Vatican II on Wednesday, 6 August 2008 at 9:00am
“No, all that is asked is that celebration of gay unions be held privately rather than publicly. “-Spirit of Vatican II
That’s called the closet, and it is a dangerous and unhealthy place to be.
Spirit, not so. For starters, it is an oxymoron to propose the idea of a ‘private’ blessing, unless you’re talking about renting out pretty chapels. Commitment ceremonies take place within community. They are celebrations; they are not cause for shame. If you read the commentary from the reactionaries in the USA, the only thing that would satisfy them is that there are no such blessings (though apparently we can keep at it with pets, houses, ships, etc.) In addition, some of our family are called to ordained ministry, yet they are supposed to ignore that call, also, because of whom… Read more »
Public vs private has been long resolved in NA, particularly Canadian queer culture. Silence=Death emerged from the AIDS struggles of the 1980’s as a haunting rallying cry. Silence, darkness, and closets, like tombs, are about fear and death. How ironic that Anglican queers are being asked to return to a metaphorical tomb when the central event of our faith is the bursting of the bonds of death, the resurrection from the dead, the emptying of Hell, the discovery of the empty tomb. The moment when which Jesus freed us all is dishonoured and disregarded in this request to not rock… Read more »
The point is that the whole notion of “sacrifice” here is a gravely mistaken theological way to go about the matter to begin with.
A lot of sacrificial language has been thrown around by our bishops lately. Mostly that language, now masked as the language of generosity, at heart asks others to offer certain people, lgbt people. And in the face of such a decision, lgbt people are simply to acquiesce, give up, not to have selves or hide ourselves away, to deny we have vocations given by the Holy Spirit, i.e. sacrifice ourselves, to put away or downplay our loves, and ask for nothing from the community because we are undeserving, a problem, an offense, only worthy of derision or as useful for… Read more »
Phyllis,
This is a very “liberal” way: you can set yourself above scripture and historic Christian teaching. Indeed as some others on this list you can “channel” God’s voice and directly speak for him. Amazing!
And the rhetoric about sacrifice – more than a little over the top. This might be turned around, you are quite prepared to dismiss anyone who does not simply accept your views and to sacrifice them!
Ben W
“…all that is asked is that celebration of gay unions be held privately rather than publicly. Exaggeration like this is part of the problem.” Rather more is being demanded than this, not least the continuation of a moratorium on elevating gay and lesbian priests to the episcopate–despite what the people of a particular diocese might want. In any case, I’m not clear on how this distinction between “privately” and “publicly” in relation to same-sex-blessings would play out. And it strikes me as a call for appallingly un-Christian hypocrisy … as if the folks who think we’re blessing sin would be… Read more »
Spirit of Vatican II wrote: “No, all that is asked is that celebration of gay unions be held privately rather than publicly. Exaggeration like this is part of the problem.“
But surely Spirit, you must know by now that what the anti Moderns and Gafconites react to and oppose, is not that blessings are being done “privately” or “publicly” but that they are being done at all.
The blessings moratorium will be interesting. In the US, the tactic has been to allow such blessings without ever authorizing them. This gives the bishop a certain deniability which even the proposed moratorium may not be able to pierce. In Canada, we have not formally adhered to that particular casuistry. The bishop and diocese authorized such blessings in New Westminster. The other dioceses that are on the verge of proceeding have done so in the same manner – which rejects the prospective casuistry of deniability. Good to hear from Alison on this. You and Joyce have shown tremendous leadership on… Read more »
This notion of sacrifice. Sacrifice is done for a purpose, and the Christian view is that it is very real and yet allows for a breaking-free and a blossoming out that overcomes the original giving way. This asking, by a primate, for a sacrifice, on to one social group, is so that a perceived institution can can not only hold its parts together – and it may not even then – but develop in his particular direction. This isn’t sacrifice for anything, other than a form of bureaucracy and a change in Anglicanism towards something it has never been. The… Read more »
Goran, of course that is true. But if they are done privately – as they so frequently are – conservatives won’t have the obvious ammunition that they have when they are done openly.
Equally of course: I am delighted that some (most? we will see) of the American bishops have already made it clear that they aren’t going back.
I found the second week of Lambeth rather depressing. Nevertheless, there is all to play for here. ‘History is on our side’, as the Marxists used to say (and will say again).
“you can set yourself above scripture and historic Christian teaching … you can “channel” God’s voice and directly speak for him. Amazing!”
Looking into a mirror, BenW?
***
Spirit of Vatican II, I’ve long considered you a friend on this board.
That you would seriously propose the CLOSET as a solution, is extremely disappointing.
Lord have mercy!
MerseyMike, I think it’s time for you to move on from this board, and not look back. See you round the (secular) fight for justice? Vaya con . . . whatever!
Orombi and Venables have already made it clear that they are not going to cease their piracy. Therefore, the moratoria are already dead. They were dead before the conference was even finished.
Why is anyone still talking about this proposal as if it were still somewhere in the realm of possibility?
Merseymike: I agree that the two positions cannot be reconciled. Consequently, the two sides must split unless one side will compromise. And, given the level of distrust, even that may not be enough. Plus, I don’t see much desire to compromise on the part of liberals. So, from that standpoint, my ancient plea to try and make an amicable division stands, though it was and remains overly optimistic. Still, since the alternative is a messy and ugly divorce . . . Steven PS-Since you have now given up on Christianity, I have to wonder what brought you to it in… Read more »
“MerseyMike, I think it’s time for you to move on from this board, and not look back. See you round the (secular) fight for justice? Vaya con . . . whatever!”– JCF
Don’t listen to that, Mike. The fact that you are still around and take a real interest in what goes on shows me that if more Anglican/Episcopal liberals showed some backbone on this issue, and really put up a fight internationally, you might re-consider your de-affiliation.
It comes at no surprise that those who are quick to call on others to make sacrifices are usually unwilling to follow their own admonitions. Talking about sacrifice is far easier than undertaking it personally isn’t it? If we are going to talk about sacrificing, Rowan Williams and indeed all of us would do well to remember Martin Luther King, Jr, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, and thousands of unnamed people who have put themselves on the line. If you are telling someone else to make sacrifices, then you’ve already missed the point and also the opportunity to speak with credibility.
Rowan’s private letters when / as archbishop of Wales, are now in the possession of The Times.
The private has a tendency to become public at times.
‘Gay relationships like marriage’ – ‘my conviction’
wrote Rowan Cymru
I should withdraw the word “sacrifice” and say instead “compromise”, as in the case of Paul circumcising Timothy. There is a difference between blessing a gay union in private and giving it the official stamp of a public church liturgy. According to Rowan Williams (press conference) there is no strong current of objection to the former within Anglicanism whereas there is no consensus on the latter. Of course he may be wrong and GAFCON may object to any recognition at all of gay couples, public or private. But he is trying to draw them into the circle of discussion. “neither… Read more »
“I should withdraw the word “sacrifice” and say instead “compromise”, as in the case of Paul circumcising Timothy”. – Spirit of Vatican II. I’m not sure that, if I were Timothy, the threat of circumcision would be seen as ‘compromise’ rather than ‘sacrifice’. In the event, the result would have been the same – painful! Reflecting on your original post, however, I am not certain that the demand of the moratoria on both sides is equal. And, anyway, the prospect of the Primate of Southern Cone, and some of the African Primates, withdrawing from their stated goal of ‘evangelising’ the… Read more »
Spirit: Thank you for being reasonable. The kinds of comments I’ve been reading these past few days would only fan the flames. To be honest, I’ve been trying to listen, but I’m beginning to wonder whether the reasserters are right after all. I don’t want to see gays and lesbians back in the closet. I would like to see civil unions. But in the long run, when uncertainty about the economy and the way our society is going plagues us all, what will most of us value? We can choose our friends and allies, like you chose ++Rowan at the… Read more »
“…all that is asked is that celebration of gay unions be held privately rather than publicly. Exaggeration like this is part of the problem.”
I know — why not make all straight “unions” private and all queer marriages public — just until the numbers even out? Via media, wot wot Rowan?
Spirit of Vatican II, consider the following (posted by Susan Russell+ today, home in California http://inchatatime.blogspot.com/2008/08/theres-no-place-like-home.html ): “And I worked on the liturgy for the wedding I’m doing on Friday for two fabulous men who shared with me they cried their eyes out when they got their rings this week and it “sank in ” that they were REALLY getting MARRIED!!” Is THIS what you would deny these two “fabulous men”? That they must *involuntarily sacrifice* their “REALLY getting MARRIED” experience (sacrament), because half a world (OR half a block) away, there’s no consensus? No, SpiritVat2: imposing such a sacrifice… Read more »