Two further contributions to this week’s Guardian Question series.
Julian Mann wrote Nazir-Ali is right.
Dr Michael Nazir-Ali has been of one of the well-informed voices that has exploded the myth that the Qu’ran really belongs to moderate liberal Muslims and not to the militants who ex animo believe it.
But I would respectfully argue that Nazir-Ali would be better placed to counteract the persecution of Christians by Muslims as a diocesan bishop than he is in the peripatetic role he is anticipating for himself. It is difficult to see how an ex-bishop hopping on and off airplanes can influence foreign governments, such as Pakistan’s, to provide proper protection for their Christian minorities.
Apart from a newspaper editor, who is more “ex” than a diocesan bishop?
Jim Naughton wrote The right gains ground.
The Anglican Covenant may never come to pass. Or its doctrinal statements may be so unobjectionable, and its enforcement mechanisms so weak, that every church in the communion will hastily sign on. Or the gay-friendly churches threatened with diminished status may realise that they will always have more opportunities than resources for mission within the communion, and happily agree to run their trains on track number two.
Yet if Rowan Williams succeeds in his misguided effort to establish a single-issue magisterium that determines a church’s influence within the communion, a significant risk remains. That risk is run not by the Anglican left, which has nothing practical to lose, nor by the Anglican right, whose leaders embarrass less easily than Donald Trump and don’t fear public opprobrium. Rather, the parties at risk are the Church of England and the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which may find themselves at the head of a communion synonymous with the agenda of the American right…
Oh Rowan, do not go to bed with the American Right- it is a Fearsome Fate to contemplate!
Jim Naughton writes:
“The American donors who helped fuel the Anglican schism – Howard Ahmanson, Richard Mellon Scaife, the Coors brewing family – have been losing interest of late thanks to the Episcopal church’s recent string of legal victories and the Anglican Church in North America’s failure to lure away any more than about 3% of the Episcopal church’s membership.”
Spot on. The ACNA are getting far more attention than they deserve. A look at their numerical distribution in the US shows how great swathes of the country have shown no interest in it:
http://liftingtherock.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/fun-with-numbers/
Would it not be interesting to see a joint press conference with Newt Gingrich and Rowan Williams? Or how about Lindsay Graham? Or better yet, John David Schofield! Politics make truly strange bedfellows!
“the Anglican Church in North America’s failure to lure away any more than about 3% of the Episcopal church’s membership.” But, but, but, this can’t possibly be right. I mean, our conservative brethren and sistren are always telling us how popular their message of exclusion, hatred and judgement is, how people flock to churches where they are told that they can buy their way into God’s favour and get to play in the Eternal Sandbox if only they are self loathing enough and sincerely promise to maintain an outward facade of adherance to 1950s social mores and late 20th century… Read more »
Finally! I’ve been silently screaming inside myself for someone to identify what Jim Naughton has said about the American right. There are gas bags over here that don’t care about the Anglican Communion at all. A good many American right wingers are sociopaths who get their jollies on political intimidation; some of them are bishops. Now, wouldn’t it be a tragedy if they dictated a diminished communion simply because they can yell louder than everyone else?
Thank you, Jim Naughton! Why “is” the ABC silent about ++Akinola’s actions?
If TEC is banished completely from the Anglican Communion or relegated to a subordinate track because of its desire to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being”, I think it will find more support among the various Anglican provinces than the Akinolites and others believe.
“Dr Michael Nazir-Ali has been of one of the well-informed voices that has exploded the myth that the Qu’ran really belongs to moderate liberal Muslims and not to the militants who ex animo believe it.”
I wonder how the Christian Right would feel if someone wrote that some apostate Evangelical had “exploded the myth that the New Testament really belongs to fundamentalist Christians and not to the liberals who ex animo believe it.”
“Apart from a newspaper editor, who is more “ex” than a diocesan bishop?” – Julian Mann –
It’s amazing though what damage certain of them might be doing to world-wide Anglicanism. Just look at George Carey!
The stake through the heart of the Covenant: One of the reasons that I have trouble getting very distressed about the proposed Covenant (and its attendant two-track system of exclusion for those who dare to be inclusive) is that the Covenant is doomed, it seems to me. I invite all of us to scroll down the TA website and review the action taken by the British Quakers to solemnize same sex marriages in their churches, and report these marriages to the civil registries on the same basis as opposite sex marriages. Inevitably, the new Quaker practice will set up the… Read more »
“The loudest and most frequently-quoted voices in the Anglican communion, then, would be stridently anti-gay and anti-Islamic; supportive of American military adventurism; against a two-state solution in the Middle East; in favour of teaching creationism or intelligent design to school children; sceptical about climate change; and adamant that homosexuality can be cured.” – Jim Naughton – Jim Naughton is here warning us about the probable consequences of an Anglican Communion under a Covenantal relationship without the full membership of TEC and those provinces of the Communion which might follow them in not signing up to the Covenant. Anglicanism without its… Read more »
I continue to be amazed and disappointed that Rowan Williams remains silent regarding the actions and words of men like Akinola. Could it be that Rowan sees communion with the Church of Rome as more important than inclusion of glbt Christians in the shared ministry of the Church? Very disturbing that Canterbury continues its’ silence. Shameful.
I think that Rowan Williams would see himself as condemning homophobia and prejudice in a way that encompasses some of Akinola’s positions, without naming him or singling him out.
On another topic, I wrote a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury about his “Communion, Covenant and Our Anglican Future” reflection in July. I got no reply, or even acknowledgment of receipt. It was simply ignored. Is this inefficiency, discourtesy, or both?
I’m with Naughton so far. I see little or no signs at all that Rowan Williams will genuinely enjoy presiding over church life in the collapsed small tent, dumbed down global conservative Anglicanism he is so periplegically helping to emerge. Just as he has maintained a particular and deafening silence about the massacres of Yelwa, antigay Nigerian laws, and improper fiscal meddling – he will find in his new improved global communion that he needs to be particularly silent and unknowing about a wide range of dodgy rightwing USA-type business. Replicated, dressed up to the nines in spin doctoring, and… Read more »
Not sure, badman, I am in the same boat. I was (and am) unapologetically angry, but I think I observed basic courtesy enough to deserve a response.
And I knew as soon as I posted that, I was going to make an eejit of myself! Got the response Saturday morning, it was a stock answer from one of his officials, but that was all I expected, and given the volume of correspondence they have undoubtedly received, all I could reasonably expect. I saw no (as in zero) evidence of any sympathy with me as a gay man, though. The “Church” apparently will not accept a gay bishop. Well, as some of our Roman brethren reminded us, we are the church, not the Primates Meeting and the ACC,… Read more »
Three cheers for Gerry Lynch !
The gospel is far too important to be left in the hands of the clergy (I should know!)
“Dr Michael Nazir-Ali has been of one of the well-informed voices that has exploded the myth that the Qu’ran really belongs to moderate liberal Muslims and not to the militants who ex animo believe it.”
I wonder how the Christian Right would feel if someone wrote that some apostate Evangelical had “exploded the myth that the New Testament really belongs to fundamentalist Christians and not to the liberals who ex animo believe it.”