The Presiding Bishop of the American Episcopal Church, Frank Griswold has issued some preliminary reflections on the Windsor Report. He begins:
I write to you from London where I am attending a meeting of the Primates’ Standing Committee. I have had a matter of hours to review the Report of the Lambeth Commission on Communion, thus I will now offer only some preliminary observations. It will take considerable time to reflect upon the Report, which consists of some 100 pages.
Read the rest of his comments in full by clicking the following link
7 Comments12 noon, and the Windsor Report of the Lambeth Commission, chaired by Archbishop Robin Eames, is published. Unless their website is swamped you can read the report online at the Anglican Communion Office.
If their site is overwhelmed (and it appears to be at the moment) then we have a copy of the pdf version here
Updated
There’s already quite a lot of reportage of this story, most of which seems to lead on the request for an apology from ECUSA. Journalists have perhaps not yet had time to fully digest the Report, or to note the more subtle aspects. Stories include:
In a short while the Windsor Report will be published and we will be able to form our own opinions.
In the meantime there is plenty of coverage and comment on what the report is expected to say. No one seems to have disputed the accuracy of the story published in The Times last week.
The BBC has Splits feared in Anglican Church. The Times has Church report to spark gay debate, the Guardian carries a PA story Church report ‘set to fuel gay row’, and the Independent Gay rights report threatens to shatter unity of Anglican Church.
0 CommentsThe Times claims a scoop today on what the Windsor Report will say. Acccording to Ruth Gledhill:
A commission set up to save the Church from schism will propose a binding covenant.
4 CommentsAnglican provinces are to be told they must sign an unbreakable unity agreement which would prevent dioceses and provinces from ordaining bishops such as Gene Robinson in the US again. A “star chamber” will adjudicate when provinces are accused of breaking the agreement.
That’s the headline over a story by Stephen Bates in today’s Guardian, reporting on the Conference of Reform.
Conservative evangelicals flexed their muscles yesterday by denouncing the Church of England and its leader, the Most Rev Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, as sinful and corrupt, and threatening to refuse to recognise the authority of liberal bishops.
And:
Dr Williams was denounced as a theological prostitute by the Very Rev Phillip Jensen, the controversial Anglican dean of Sydney, addressing the 200 clergy and lay members attending the conference.
Dean Jensen was applauded as his sweeping denunciation of the Church of England took in the Prince of Wales — a “public adulterer”; King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, attacked as a “temple to paganism” for selling the records and compact discs of its famous choir in the ante-chapel; and women priests because, “as soon as you accept women’s ordination everything else in the denomination declines”.
More coverage of the Conference in the Telegraph.
2 CommentsThe Daily Telegraph reports that the Church of England may review its policy on ethical investments. Currently, the Church Commissioners are unable to invest in companies involved in pornography, arms, tobacco, gambling and alcohol.
The Church Commissioners, who manage assets worth £3.9 billion, are reviewing their ethical investment policy to ensure that they are maximising their returns. Clerical insiders admitted that any significant changes could prove controversial among the General Synod, who are sensitive about the size and use of the Church’s holdings.
A copy of this Telegraph article also appears here.
0 CommentsAnthony Howard writes in The Times today about the forthcoming Rochester report, due next month, on women bishops. And he doesn’t like what he thinks it will say.
The Bishop of Rochester’s 15-strong working party has come up with what is, in effect, a shopping list. And a pretty ludicrous one it is, too.
And:
Its suggested courses of action for the future range from a kind of ecclesiastical Noddy land in which women could become suffragan bishops but not diocesan ones, through an even greater fantasy world in which they could hope to be full-scale diocesan bishops but never Archbishop of Canterbury or Archbishop of York, to a somewhat dismal and defeated maintenance of the status quo under which our present crop of women priests may become deans or archdeacons but never break through the stained-glass ceiling to sit on the episcopal bench.
(For the benefit of readers outside Britain, ‘Noddy’ is a character in a simplistic children’s storybook.)
As for next week’s Windsor Report he comments:
0 Commentspunitive action hardly looks like an essentially Christian activity and it is impossible to see anything but damage coming out of this particular piece of reprisal. Conceived in panic, it seems doomed to end in recrimination. No situation is ever surer to delight the outsider than the sight of those who purport to uphold standards of forgiveness and charity failing to live up to them.
ACNS reports that the Lambeth Commission report will be published on Monday, 18 October, 12.00 midday in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral. The report is named the Windsor Report after St George’s, Windsor, where it was drafted.
ACNS expects a large media frenzy to surround the report, which will also be available online at midday BST (i.e., GMT +1) on 18 October.
Update 18 October — for more reports and comments on the Windsor Report see the main page at Thinking Anglicans
14 CommentsACNS reports that the Anglican Consultative Council is to have a deputy Secretary General, a new position. Canon Gregory Cameron has been appointed to this position with immediate effect.
Canon Cameron is currently Director of Ecumenical Affairs and Studies at the Anglican Communion Office, and he has been secretary to the Lambeth (or Eames) Commission.
(As an aside, it’s interesting to note that in this announcement Canon John Peterson is described as ‘Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council’, and not as ‘Secretary General of the Anglican Communion’, a phrase which has been used frequently over the last few years.)
0 CommentsToday is St George’s Day. Articles about St George frequently begin with words such as ‘Little is known about St George’, and it is true. Probably he was a soldier living in Palestine at the beginning of the fourth century. He may have been a Palestinian or a Syrian, and he was martyred in about the year 304, during the persecution of Diocletian. If this is true, it means that this is the seventeen hundredth anniversary of his martyrdom — an anniversary which seems to have passed unnoticed, as did that of Agnes, martyred in Rome in January of about the same year. Agnes, though, has a shrine and feast day in Rome to keep her cult alive, but George seems to have gone somewhat out of favour. Even this morning’s Church Times carried an article suggesting he be replaced as England’s patron.
George is mostly remembered for the legends that came to be told about him, most famously his slaying of a dragon, and the consequent rescue of a virgin princess. George is said to have been martyred at Lydda, in Palestine, the place at which Perseus, in Greek mythology, defeated a sea-monster, and it seems likely that the legend has been transferred from the pagan hero to the Christian martyr.
This legend, however, serves us well as an allegory of aspects of the Christian faith. George, a soldier for Christ, puts on the whole armour of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, as Paul writes in Ephesians. Thus armed, he is ready to take action against the dragon, the representative of evil, a deed reminiscent of that of Michael, the archangel, in the great vision in the Book of Revelation. And he does this, not for great glory and honour, but to save the life of an innocent girl threatened by this evil, a girl who has no one else to protect her.
Modernists may mock, or may consider the legends to be sexist or sexual, but here is a parable, an allegory, of our Christian life — whatever our politics or churchmanship: to defend the weak against the onslaught of evil, and to help bring each person that we meet closer to the kingdom of God.
1 CommentLast week’s ‘rumours’ about the appointment of a new Dean of St Albans have been confirmed this morning.
The press release from the Diocese of St Albans reads
It has been announced from 10 Downing Street today (Monday, April 19th) that the Queen has approved the nomination of The Revd Canon Dr Jeffrey John as the next Dean of St Albans.
Canon Jeffery John, who is also to be Rector of the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Albans, is currently Chancellor and Canon Theologian of Southwark Cathedral. He succeeds the Very Revd Christopher Lewis, who became Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, last October, after nine years as Dean of St Albans.
The Bishop of St Albans will be writing to all clergy in the diocese today. The text of the letter will be placed on the diocesan website later today.
0 CommentsMore information on the diocesan website.
A little over a year ago I began to learn bellringing. The bells at our church had been largely silent for several years, and a group of us decided that if we wanted them rung we would have to learn to ring them ourselves. Under the expert guidance of ringers from a neighbouring parish we started to learn the ropes.
This is no easy thing. As the bell turns full-circle on its wheel the rope goes up and down at a tremendous speed and the beginner has to learn to grab it and release it as it flies past, to pull it at the right time by just the right amount, and to feel what the bell mechanism is doing fifty feet above. This must be done for the safety of the beginner, of the other ringers, and to prevent damage to the bell and its mechanism.
After a few weeks practice this all begins to come together, and you can start to ring the bell properly. Now you must learn to ring with others, hearing the other bells as you ring, so that the church bells sound out together, calling people to worship God, or singing joyously in celebration, or sorrowfully at a funeral. Then the bells speak loud and clear, knowing their place among the other bells, singing harmoniously as they weave complex patterns to and fro.
When we try to follow the teachings that we find in the bible and in the traditions of the Church we can follow a similar path. Here there is a complex of ideas, underpinned by some simple principles, and we have to use the skills that God gives us to understand how to apply these concepts. It is not enough simply to pull on a bell-rope and expect to be able to ring a peal of bells — it takes practice, skill and co-ordination. Similarly we strive to deepen our understanding of our faith, and of the words of the bible, and to work out what we are called to do, and how to do it. The message of the bible is not always simple and its application to the world is not always clear-cut, and if we think it is then we risk becoming at best a clanging noise, and at worst a danger to ourselves and others, as when a ringer loses control of the bell-rope.
But when we have begun to understand the good news of the kingdom of God then we can sing out harmoniously, and proclaim the theme loudly, clearly and joyfully to the world.
0 CommentsThe BBC website is carrying this live video link of Canon Robinson’s consecration, starting at 9pm until around midnight or so GMT.
UPDATE
Three protesters came forward to object to the consecration when the Presiding Bishop asked if there were any objections. The PB asked that they be listened to courteously and without approval or disapproval. The PB interrupted the first protester when he began to describe explicitly various sexual practices, and he continued briefly. The third protester, Bishop Bena, suffragan of Albany, read a statement on behalf of 38 ECUSA and Canadian bishops. The PB then responded briefly, thanking the objectors for their concerns, and saying that the basis of their objection has been known to all those involved in the process, the diocese of NH, General Convention, and the Primates. The Primates, he noted, affirmed their desire that we should understand one anothers’ contexts, that this was precisely what was happening here, and that therefore ‘we shall proceed’. The service then continued with the congregational affirmation of the the bishop-elect, and then the Litany. There was no sign of any disturbance or of people leaving the arena, but this may have occurred out of camera.
One of our hopes when we began ‘Thinking Anglicans’ was that it would include news, comment and reflections on a range of topics. We wrote of a spirituality ‘in which justice is central to the proclamation of the good news of the kingdom of God’. Now that the website has established itself as a centre for up to date news, we intend to expand the amount of comment and reflection.
Beginning tomorrow, we will add a weekly feature called ‘Just Thinking’. Each week one of our writers will share their thoughts with us and remind us of the spiritual nature of our task. The title ‘just thinking’ indicates both the desire to think about our Christian faith, and also alludes to the justice to be found in the Christian message — we must think justly. We hope that these thoughts will help provide us with a more rounded picture, a glimpse of God’s kingdom which we are trying to work towards and proclaim in our different ways.
1 CommentAccording to this article, Canon Gene Robinson, Bishop Coadjutor-elect of New Hampshire, has been invited to Lambeth Palace for discussions with the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Revised Update
The same source is now saying “Spokespersons for both bishop-elect Gene Robinson and the Archbishop of Canterbury Wednesday denied British press reports that the two would meet in a final effort by the world leader of the Anglican faith to convince Robinson to step down.”
The website of the diocese of Pittsburgh in the USA, whose Bishop, Robert Duncan, is a leader of the American Anglican Council, has published this extraordinary account of a meeting of members of the AAC with the Archbishop of Canterbury, following the meeting of the Primates last week. (The document is published as pdf file; we have made an html copy here.)
These skeletal notes, presumably by Bishop Duncan, include the suggestion of the breakup of the American Church, and the formation of a ‘Network of Confessing Dioceses and Parishes’ — and that this proposal ‘has Archbishop Rowan?s encouragement’.
6 CommentsFormer Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, urged that no one should leave the Anglican Communion over the consecration of Canon Gene Robinson in an article Anglican discord lamented in the Charleston Post and Courier in South Carolina.
Carey ‘reminded people that the efficacy of the sacraments is not hindered by the unworthiness of the priests, according to Anglican theology. “I strongly resist a realignment of the communion,” Carey said.’
The same article carries quotes from Canon Robinson at a question-and-answer session in New Hampshire yesterday. A fuller report of that can be found in the New Hampshire-based Concord Monitor.
1 CommentTom Butler, Bishop of Southwark, told GMTV’s Sunday Programme ‘One of the strengths of the Church of England is that it’s such a broad church and also one of our strengths is that we can have these kinds of arguments out in the open. We’re an open, transparent church and the fact that we can represent all these different cultures and all these different strands of Christian life is a major strength.’ The interview, with more quotes, is reported by PA and carried in several places, including The Scotsman Bishop Sounds Warning on Gay Clergy Issue
0 CommentsMore comments now from outside the press and media.
The American Anglican Council broadly welcomes the outcome of the Primates meeting and ‘praised the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury’.
On the other hand Forward in Faith in England, referring obliquely to Canon Gene Robinson as ‘a married man’ ‘profoundly regrets the corporate failure’ of the meeting and awaits the action of groups which had ‘threatened substantive action’.
0 CommentsThe Primates meeting has now finished and the Archbishop of Canterbury and others have appeared at a press conference.
Their joint statement can be read at the ACNS website.
Note added on 29 October by Simon Sarmiento
It’s come to my attention that the ACNS copy of the press release omits the footnote that was included in the paper original. This footnote is included in the copy on the Lambeth Palace website. This footnote contains the text of the 1998 Lambeth Conference resolution IV.13 b which is referred to in the statement.
Update
Rowan Williams’ introductory remarks
Update
The remarks of Frank Griswold and Drexel Gomez are now here on ACNS.
The press has been quick to react:
the Guardian has Anglican leaders warned that US
Episcopalians will put the group ‘in jeopardy’
the Telegraph has Anglican bishops have warned that the appointment of a homosexual bishop may ‘tear the fabric’ of the Church
the BBC: Anglicans ‘regret’ gay bishop election
Update
The Guardian now has more comment in Anglican Leaders Warn Against Gay Bishop (an AP story).