The Primates Standing Committee has issued a statement in which they explain what they hope will be the next step, following publication of the Windsor Report. The meat of the statement is the creation of a sub-committee of Primates to try and ensure that everyone reads the report:
We welcome this report as a comprehensive presentation of the tradition and practice of the Anglican Communion. There is much in this report which is challenging, but it points us in a sound direction for the resolution of current tensions. It is an invitation to the entire Communion to reflect on our life together. We are conscious of the concerns of those groups whose expectations have not been met, but we are very encouraged by the broad welcome and support that the report has received from many throughout the Communion.
and
We have established a Reception Reference Group … which will be charged with receiving and co-ordinating initial responses to the Windsor Report in preparation for the Primates’ Meeting [in February 2005] … We hope that all the Provinces of the Anglican Communion … will join in a conversation with this reception group. In particular, the Reception Reference Group will wish to engage as much as possible with the 78 million members of our forty-four churches, and will explore ways of doing this effectively.
Since we have been given the opportunity to reply to the Windsor Report I must say that after all the work that went into its preparation I am terribly disappointed in its conclusions. It seems that the Commission failed to recognize the seriousness of the offences against God. All this has been done in order to preserve the unity of the Communion. This report makes no provisions for those who have remained in the Church by attaching themselves to the Anglican Network. Ten Dioceses at the request of Archbishop Rowan Williams have gone out on a limb in order to… Read more »
Peter Akinola reads the report… Akinola’s statement released today by ACNS is wonderful. At one point he says “We have been asked to express regret for our actions and “affirm our desire to remain in the Communion”. How patronizing! We will not be intimidated.” This reminds me of nothing so much as the People’s Front of Judea: “We’re giving Pilate two days to dismantle the entire apparatus of the Roman Imperialist State, and if he doesn’t agree immediately, we execute her… And of course, we point out that they bear full responsibility when we chop her up, and that we… Read more »
What about the pain of gay and lesbian Christians who constantly have to listen to Akinola’s homophobia – and I use that word in its original sense. I think the aim of the Report was quite simply to hold the Anglican church together. Personally, I think that is something which, in itself, doesn’t have a lot to commend it. If we cannot live with our differences, then walking apart makes sense. My own feeling is that the CofE may be able to sort this one out on a locallevel, but that the communion cannot, and its domination by the fundamentalists… Read more »
Let’s be clear: If we are defining ‘Anglican’ by the doctrine of the Church of England as stated in the 39 Articles (and in submission to the Old and New Testament Scriptures as the Articles are) there is one thing that Akinola most definitely is and that is Anglican. You may not like his directness, but what you cannot say is that he or the Nigerian Church is barely Anglican. I would venture to suggest that it is the Western “Anglican” Church of 2004 which is barely Anglican.