Updated at 5.00 pm
A video of yesterday’s Primates Meeting press conference is available on YouTube.
Anglican Mainstream offers these Notes from Primates Press Conference.
Ruth Gledhill Christian Today The sacrificial grace of Bishop Michael Curry of The Episcopal Church
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry interviewed on BBC Radio 4 Anglican church ban ‘will bring great pain’
Kimberly Winston Huffington Post Episcopal Church Won’t Back Down On Gay Rights Despite Censure
Laurie Goodstein and Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura New York Times For Now, Anglicans Avert Schism Over Gay Marriage
Responses from two primates
Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church
Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada
[I will be posting a separate article on a fixed Easter later today.]
Update
Anglican Journal (Canada) Censure of US church will weigh on Canada, says Hiltz
Archdruid Eileen Primates 2016 – Your Questions Answered
The President of the US House of Deputies has written to members of the House: On the Primates Meeting: A Letter from President Jennings
Ruth Gledhill writes about the letter for Christian Today: Leading member of US Church pledges to continue Anglican Communion work.
David Allen Episcopal Café Who are TEC’s representatives to Anglican Communion bodies?
I’m torn between being impressed with the graciousness of the Primates of TEC, ACoC and SEC and disappointment that they’ve not loudly denounced the injustice done by the primates’ meeting, both to TEC and to those gay Anglicans living under oppression elsewhere in the world. It’s an amazing thing that these three Primates can have such grace in the face of the smug self-righteousness of the GAFCON crowd, but I can’t help the little bit of me that want to see them loudly and vehemently excoriate the homophobia and bigotry they’re faced with.
The milksop responses from the Scottish and Canadian primates illustrate why Gafcon are so bold. The only credible response to Primates 2016’s “consequences” would be to condemn the decision unequivocally, and stand in solidarity with TEC. Instead, hedging, hand-wringing, and hits about upcoming Synod votes on equal marriage. If you did to Gafcon a fraction of what they’ve done to progressives, the Communion would’ve splintered decades ago. It’s not a virtue to refuse to stand up to bullies. Yes, Jesus of Nazareth probably did say turn the other cheek. It shouldn’t be elevated to dogma, and certainly shouldn’t be used… Read more »
Criticizing the Canadian and Scottish Primates for not blasting Gafcon or the result of the Primates’ Meeting is inappropriate and unfortunate. It’s not just a matter of turning the other cheek. To leave a meeting where one has assented to the proceedings and then to attack those who were there and the agreement reached is pure hypocritical, mean-spirited, and backstabbing. How does it look to the Communion and the world when Christian leaders behave that way? I am unhappy with the result, but adding more bitterness and anger by disavowing the meeting and those present gets the Church nowhere and… Read more »
The comments from the Canadian and Scottish primates indicate that the boys have been given their marching orders.
Thankfully secular human rights groups will continue to keep before the world’s conscience the human rights abuses occurring in many of the countries where there are Anglican churches. Check out Uganada, for example, from the perspective of Human Rights Watch.
It’s almost as if the debates and final votes on the Anglican Covenant in the C of E never happened. The biggest controversy during the two General Synod debates and subsequent diocesan synods concerned the ‘relational consequences’ invoked by Section 4, which the Primates’ Resolution now seeks to carry out. This section of the Covenant restricted the participation of a Province in an Instrument of Communion as a result of course of action ‘incompatible with the Covenant’. But crucially, ‘participation in the decision making … in respect of Section 4.2 shall be limited to those members of the Instruments of… Read more »
Look, Adam Armstrong is right – even our friends went along! We. Are. Not. Wanted! Okay? We have different values and they can’t be reconciled. British value stability and harmony first while American liberals value justice action and upfront differences first. Africa is desperately poor and torn by war and corruption and the stability of tribalism, requiring assigned roles and punishing difference is the only way to survive. ACNA are of the prevalent US culture of guns, God, the Prosperity Gospel, and rigid dogmatic formulae. There are irreconcilable differences. We are without voice influence or a home in the AC.… Read more »
@ Adam Armstrong, “Criticizing the Canadian and Scottish Primates for not blasting Gafcon or the result of the Primates’ Meeting is inappropriate and unfortunate.” No, it really is not Adam. Canadians were told beforehand, for example, that this was not a “decision making” body. Turns out it is presenting itself as if it were. Also, the points made by Andrew are well taken in this regard. The criticism of the Primates is warranted. They have been complicit in participating in a meeting that, technically anyway, is probably ultra vires. And, there has been confusion from the beginning as to whether… Read more »
To Andrew’s point, it seems that at the ACC meeting, the ABC is going to have to make a choice.
Is he Primate of All England — which rejected “relational consequences” and supraprovincial disciplining by voting the so-called Anglican Covenant down to its deserved death?
Or is the ABC the head of a new Primates’ Curia that will soon exercise its newfound powers to “require” things of the Church of England?
“But [Gay Clark Jennings] went on to say that the Primates do not have authority over the Anglican Consultative Council. … She wrote that she had no intention of not taking part in her own work for the council, on which she is a representative to that body, along with Bishop Ian Douglas of Connecticut. “I am planning to travel to Zambia for our scheduled meeting in April and to participate fully,” she said.” Go Gay! Go Gay! Go Gay! 😀 [“It’s not a virtue to refuse to stand up to bullies. Yes, Jesus of Nazareth probably did say turn… Read more »
It seems to me as a Scottish Episcopalian that our Primus has done well to comment quickly and graciously.
It seems to me to be unfair to expect more at the moment as the polity of our church is that he can’t speak as Primus without discussing matters with the Scottish College of Bishops.
He isn’t an archbishop and I don’t want him to be.
There’s also a fairly strong-looking leader from The Times.
“Unholy Split: On gay marriage, Justin Welby misreads history, morality and his job description”
Of course it’s behind a pay wall.
Anyone know what the “job description” point might be?
Is someone at last chiding Welby for putting his global role ahead of his duties to his own province?
@MarkBrunson @rodgillis I am not saying that the Canadian and Scottish Primates “went along” as mere toadies. They simply had to own the decision, since it is the right thing to do. How would a parish function if a significant decision was made at parish council and then the church warden or rector walks out and publicly disowns it? I essentially agree with both of these posters and I am a Canadian. However, in the case of Fred Hiltz, how would it look if he returned to Canada and from a safe distance disowned a decision made by a group… Read more »
Kelvin, I can understand why Chillingworth’s hands may be tied.
I responded at I did mainly due to the combination of his lack of condemnation with the dog-whistle phrase “issues of human sexuality,” linked to appeals to “unity.” I also remembered him and other bishops issuing “guidance” on equal marriage that prompted many Scottish clergy to write back in protest.
That said, following your comment here about SEC polity, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, and apologize for the strength of the comment.
If a grave injustice is being committed and a group is trying to exercise power way beyond its remit then any duty to stand by a decision is utterly void.
I didn’t mean that they were toadying, merely that they did assent, which indicates that TEC has no support or place in the AC. Indeed, I would assume their assent was sincere, which indicates such a great gap in priorities as to be unbridgeable.
@ Adam Armstrong, you parish council analogy is not a good one. This was a meeting of Primates which has probably acted ultra vires. There was a vote with a majority and minority split. A better analogy would be a commission in which a minority report is issued or a Supreme Court case in which there is a majority minority decision and one or more judges writes for the minority. The moment was lost. As soon as the decision was leaked ( a politcal PR manipulation) minority Primates could have stepped outside with their own statement focusing, not so much… Read more »
“As soon as the decision was leaked ( a political PR manipulation) minority Primates could have stepped outside with their own statement focusing, not so much on the decision itself, but on their dissent from the whole illegitimate process”
That!
Thank you, Rod Gillis.
That would still have enabled TEC to be saint-like and accept the illegitimate conclusion, but it would at least have set the official record straight.