Today’s paper edition of Church Times has about ten pages devoted to the Windsor Report. Just three of the many articles are on the free part of the paper’s website.
There’s an overview news article Windsor report proposes new Covenant for Anglicans, a report Furious Akinola slams report about one person who is not happy, and More or less our last chance, says Eames, an interview with the chair of the Commission.
The comments by Archbishop Akinola suggest that the real issue upsetting him is not sexuality but some post-colonial resentment directed at the western world. I suspect Archbishop Akinola is right in saying that the ECUSA did not sufficiently consider the reactions of the Anglican Communion at large. I guess the practise of polygamy in some areas of Africa has a sufficient Biblical basis not to be an item of concern for the Anglican Communion at large.
Re +Akinola: “He also criticises the fact that the report was published without first being debated by the Primates.” Was this ever even at issue (that the Primates might get to debate the Report before its publication)? It’s certainly true that its specific publication date was announced a month in advance (w/ no possible Primatial review before then). Can there be any doubt that the Most. Revd. would not be criticizing lack of Primates’ debate, had he completely loved it? This just sounds like, since he didn’t *entirely* get his way (and I agree w/ him, BTW, re “equal treatment… Read more »
Repentance is a part of Christianity. Repentance is not part of modern western society. If a call to repentance has no part in the report, is it Christianity or modern western society that is being considered more important?
I think it is important to be clear about what the Eames Commission was, and wasn’t, required to do. The Report states very plainly: “we have not been invited, and are not intending, to comment or make recommendations on the theological and ethical matters concerning the practice of same-sex relations” And Tom Wright makes the same point in his interview: “We must stress, and I think the report says this two or three times in italics, that we were not set up to talk about sex .. We were set up to talk about the issues of communion.” So I… Read more »
The first comment by Mr. Gross implies that the only way ++Akinola’s criticisms have any legitimacy is if African culture is sinless.
Western promulgation of easy divorce and homoerotic practise would then imply that Americans cannot say anything worthwhile on this matter, no?
The bottom line is that the African Church is already planting mission parishes here in the USA. That is a trend that will continue as Western Anglicansim morphs into Gnosticism, whether the ECUSA likes it or not.
For Tom Wright’s comments in The Guardian, Radio 4 Sunday programme and a page with personal reflections on various responses to the Windsor Report, see:
“http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk”:http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk
For Christopher Seitz’s comments on Windsor, Prof of OT at the University of St Andrew’s, see
“http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.org/”:http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.org/
For two November conferences which will include discussions of the Windsor Report see:
“http://www.eclecticsconference.org.uk/”:http://www.eclecticsconference.org.uk/
(Dr Esther Mombo, member of the Lambeth Commission, is a speaker)
“http://www.pwm-web.org.uk/features/latest.shtml”:http://www.pwm-web.org.uk/features/latest.shtml
(Dr Rowan Williams is a speaker)
Isn’t avoidance of ethical issues the very thing that is at the root of the current unhealthiness in Anglicanism?
Tom Wright’s comments on fulcrum website seem spot-on. He distinguishes between regret for one’s own actions (e.g. ECUSA unbiblical unilateralism) and regret for unavoidable results of those actions (e.g. the responses of others to the aforesaid unbiblical unilateralism). It is beside the point whether or not messrs Griswold and Robinson regret others’ hurt and dismay; this hurt and dismay would never have arisen in the first place if they had not acted as they did. They must know that this was not the kind of ‘regret’ that was sought from them. One has confidence in those who respond plainly, not… Read more »
The report seems to suggest the sin was horizontal – against the larger communion, involving a discourtesy of failing to appropriately collaborate. In fact the sin is vertical, against God – a contempt for his word and his Spirit. The Anglican communion’s unwillingness to call a spade a spade is killing it.
I wonder if anyone who is in the slightest sympathetic to the unfaithfulness of the ECUSA can still feel sympathy in the light of this incredible idolatry:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/143/21.0.html
Akinola is right: it is another religion. And what a disgrace that there should have ever been the slightest suggestion that it is the Africans who are primitive! 🙁
“He distinguishes between regret for one’s own actions (e.g. ECUSA unbiblical unilateralism) and regret for unavoidable results of those actions (e.g. the responses of others to the aforesaid unbiblical unilateralism).” . . . or, if I may translate in the language of the schoolyard: “You started it!” “No, you started it!” “No, you started it! “No . . . ” {repeat _ad nauseum_} It doesn’t matter how it started, there’s only one way it ends: *the cross*. Keeping our eyes on the cross of Christ, and taking up our own. That the Two-Third’s World has so much (righteous) anger at… Read more »
The trouble is that if no-one’s allowed to say (sometimes quite correctly) ‘You started it’, then people will be able to ‘start’ anything and everything.