Updated Tuesday evening
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s comments at the final press conference in Tanzania.
BBC Gay ultimatum for Anglicans in US
George Conger has this report in the Living Church Primates Elect New Standing Committee Members and Alternates
Time The Episcopals Under Fire Over Gays
Bishop Christopher Epting on Anglican Primates’ “Pre Meeting”
Updates Tuesday evening
Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori via ENS A Season of Fasting: Reflections on the Primates Meeting
Also Audio: Presiding Bishop reflects on Primates’ Meeting from ENS
Jan Nunley at epiScope Answers to reporters’ questions
Jane Lampman in the Christian Science Monitor After Anglican meeting, Episcopal Church on notice
The Church Times updated its report entitled Primates’ meeting ends.
I read ABC’s comments with interest, I was glad that he noted it was an experiment to be prayed for. Just quickly, my one concern is that liberals outside of the US do not seem to have been acknowledged and thus their needs not addressed. That being the case, my concerns continue about a super organised group determined to expunge liberal forms of theology by cherry picking off unorganised opponents. I would thus welcome the continuing developments such as the Inclusive Church and similar activities. I don’t see this needs to be a problem in a broad tent perspective. In… Read more »
I bet the ABC wouldn’t be so bloody opposed to litigation if someone tried to occupy and steal Canterbury Cathedral and Lambeth Palace. Butt out.
I wonder how an ultimatum can be gay…
Typical Williams-style response. Not acceptable, and if gay people are still stupid and naive enough to stay within Anglicanism,more fool them
Happily few do. Young gay people can;t be bothered with church homophobia and are managing quite well without it.
Bishop Katharine’s statement seems to me a generous and considered one which does her great credit. I hope those of us on the “liberal” side will support her. What is needed is more persuasion and perseverance in the hope that change will come.
What if the HoB begins with a request that the primates who have interfered in the internal affairs of TEC apologize & return episcopal oversight to the duly constituted ordinaries of the dioceses by July 2007. If they fail to do this, we will acknowledge their claim that they are no longer in communion with TEC & all legal expenses incurred because of their uncanonical actions will be taken from our funding of the WWAC. Secondly, the HoB will impose: a permanent prohibition on the consent to the election to the episcopate of anyone who is not willing to affirm… Read more »
Today I was reading “Undergoing God by James Alison & found the following painfully pertinent (BTW — Alison is English — former Dominican — RC priest — gay): from Chapter twelve, “yes, but is it true?” p. 189-190 “In the first place, I would like to say this to you: don’t allow yourselves to be provoked. This sort of document and the language it uses hits us in the gut, and then we find ourselves reacting in ways which are not reasoned. In fact, part of the provocative nature of such documents is that they tend to take people out… Read more »
I am very, very, very happy to hear PB KJS speaking out. What we need to hear is just how refraining from critical inquiry into the legacy negative positions, and just how maintaining traditional Status Quo negatives, will honor and nourish all believers by avoiding any opportunity to ask overt questions or ignoring any opportunity to attend to the daily good, decent lives of people who are not in fact straight. This is clearly legacy advice in a way. It has us turning to the runaway slave, or the woman who mistakenly thought she could manage medical school, or the… Read more »
Fasting from justice? Strange idea.
++Katherine’s comment is pastorally brilliant, as she often is, but the question is whether she can convince the rest of our church that the fast is wise. At the same time, it remains to be seen whether the Akinolites will stop their intrusion into the US. Also, the withdrawal of legal proceedings against those who have removed themselves from the Episcopal Church could set a precedent in law that reduces TEC’s property rights should this experiment fail. Risky all ’round, but it was probably the best ++Katherine could get.
ABC, Primates, please here/read this:
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
This represents the exact number of LGBT people that I KNOW PERSONALLY who have been harmed/murdered because of YOUR inability to face Gods reality (or simply because you worship at the alter of exclusion, fear and hate) and say no to BIGOTS like +Akinola of Nigeria.
You are cowards.
The problem w/ ++KJS’s “fasting/forebearing—for a season” model (as biblical, traditional and reasonable as it *sounds*)… …is that LGBT Episcopalians (and our allies, at home and abroad) KEEP ON FASTING AND FOREBEARING, season after season, and have precisely *bupkuss* to show for it. * Remember how Jeffrey John+ promised celibacy? What did he get for that? (His appointment withdrawn, and his name humiliated!) * Remember how TEC *didn’t* authorize SSBs at GC ’03? What did we get for that? (Windsor!) * Remember the episcopal-consecration moratorium before the last GC? What did we get for that? (Dromantine! And border-crossings!) * For… Read more »
Merseymike wrote: “Typical Williams-style response. Not acceptable, and if gay people are still stupid and naive enough to stay within Anglicanism,more fool them” Dear Merseymike, I can’t imagine why people who choose to live in same-sex sexual partnerships (or just have uncommitted sexual encounters) should want to stay in the Church either.. unless they are hoping to come nearer to God, and are prepared to countenance offering up their sexuality at some point! There *are* quite a lot gay people in the Church, even in very conservative churches, who have done just that (or are aiming to).. It is not… Read more »
Bishops Jefferts Schori gives a truly Christian response. Tanzania is not just carnevale, though; it also tastes of ashes. The epiphanal tableau that will remain in memory is of a group of bullying males forcing a woman, in tears, to sacrifice her proteges. Title: “Schori’s Choice”. In the sixteenth century the Jesuits decided to stop accepting people of impure, i.e. Jewish, blood into their ranks. At the meeting where this was decided, were any Jewish voices heard? People of Jewish blood would have been thought of as pushy lobbyists, and holding the line against their contamination seemed normal. Now Jesuits… Read more »
Joseph O’Leary – you do realise that what the Jesuits were doing was going against scripture……….but now you want the AC to make the same mistake they did
Some of the debate has become bogged down in whether or not homosexuality is nature or nurture, whether it is a corruption or natural. After God had made it clear that I was going to backed up, even though I had told God in advance of the Nias Easter earthquake that if God kept confirming me that is what I was going to do, I then trusted that God wanted me to help GLBTs out. So I went looking through the bible for the passages that are helpful. The passages in the bible relating to eunuchs are useful. e.g. Isaiah… Read more »
“Joseph O’Leary – you do realise that what the Jesuits were doing was going against scripture……….but now you want the AC to make the same mistake they did”. I doubt if any Jesuit at the time would have thought even for a moment that what they did was against Scripture. Many Anglicans, on the other hand, see the acceptance of gays and of loving relationships between gays as an expression of the highest values of Scripture. Those who balk at this could also balk at our current friendship with Jews, for the same reason: biblical fundamentalism. “You are of your… Read more »
Excellent writing Joseph O’Leary . Thank you ! You done good !
“…is that LGBT Episcopalians (and our allies, at home and abroad) KEEP ON FASTING AND FOREBEARING, season after season, and have precisely *bupkuss* to show for it.” (JCF) speaking of the Jews, it’s amazing how many Yiddish words have come into the American English lexicon. I’m not sure if they’re understood by Brits, and we surely have readers from other parts of the world here, so bupkuss is (my dictionary says) actually spelled bupkis: noun (informal), nothing at all, eg you know bupkis about fundraising. as for John Thorpe’s comment: “Fasting from justice? Strange idea.” let’s see it instead as… Read more »
PS. to NP: TEC does not need to go global. Progressive believers are already dispersed throughout the planet, including many other Anglican provinces. What we probably may do, unless institutionally prevented by conservative prejudice and/or force, is get quite a bit more organized in how we continue to support and link with one another. Already Changing Attitude is connecting with Nigerian citizens who are not straight. And progressive folks in other provinces have been put on high notice that they are included among the conservative target groups for purging. As realignment campaign pressures demonstrate: Progressive believers took their historic Anglican… Read more »
why are liberals always so scared to launch a liberal church?
clearly, there is a lack of confidence in your minority view or you would not be in the same organisation with Akinola after all that has happened since 1998 and 2003 – and even now KJS thinking about how you can stay!
For once I agree with NP.
I find it thoroughly offensive that I am expected to be in communion with those who hold the views of Akinola.
Its about time that liberals recognised that the Anglican Communion cannot be reformed. It is simply rotten. We need to do something new – outside the malevolent influence of conservative Christianity.
NP wrote: “why are liberals always so scared to launch a liberal church?”
Dear NP, I don’t think that they have the courage to try it any more. Most liberal churches have failed and are emptied out. And if we didn’t have the constraint of a liberal elite we would probably grow so rapidly it would show up how much of a hindrance they were!
I predict that, if TEC goes independent, it will be smaller than the new Anglican province of America within 5 years, nearly die out and eventually becomes more christian again.
“It is not homophobic to try to live by Christian behavioural standards..”
You are absolutely free to live however you please, dear Dave – for yourself.
“You are absolutely free to live however you please, dear Dave – for yourself.”
But not in Sweden, apparently, as you’ll be arrested if you criticize homosexuality from the pulpit. Same thing’s happening in Canada, & seems to be coming to Britain – the police will visit you (remember the bishop of Chester).
Well we – believers and unbelievers alike? – are starting to ask the question: IF we keep preaching a God who is violent, are we implicitly imaging violence as a sacred act? Can we continue to valorize a violent God without wanting to be violent in that God’s footsteps? If the first divine perception/reaction to sin is holy violence, only later moderated by divine mercy or compassion or forgiveness, can we avoid having just that deep spiritual or theological perception shape us, just as deeply as we affirm it reveals God to us? This would have been almost inconceivable to… Read more »