A working group of the Mission and Discipleship Council of the Church of Scotland is to present the General Assembly with an in-depth report on ‘same-sex partnerships as an issue in theology and human sexuality’.
Read the official press release here:
…The report, which is entitled A challenge to unity, takes as its starting point an acknowledgement of the strength of feeling that has already been expressed on the issue of same-sex relationships. However, the considerable body of work that is to go before May’s Assembly does not seek only to study the two sides of the debate – indeed, the idea that the debate has only two primary viewpoints is specifically rejected. A challenge to unity seeks to give a flavour of the wide range of views held within the church, and to identify areas of common ground around which the church might unite…
Read the full text of the report here (RTF).
Read the Ekklesia news article: Church of Scotland admits institutional homophobia:
An influential group of ministers in Scotland’s largest Protestant church has said that its clergy and congregations have been “sinfully” intolerant of gays and lesbians in its ranks.
In a report on homosexuality, a working party has concluded that the Church of Scotland has been institutionally homophobic for much of its history…
Other news reports:
Scotsman Ten years, hundreds of hours of debate and the Kirk finally decides on homosexuality: ‘It’s up to you!’
Guardian ‘Sinful’ Church of Scotland told it must accept gays in its ranks
Updated again Thursday
Dr Rowan Williams today delivered a Wilberforce Lecture in Hull.
Last Sunday, the Sunday Times printed an advance extract from the lecture which you can read at Down with godless government and about which Christopher Morgan wrote Archbishop tells MPs to rediscover their moral mission.
Today, Jonathan Petre previewed the lecture in the Daily Telegraph in Archbishop attacks ‘erosion of Christian values’.
The official press release about this lecture is available on ACNS as Archbishop of Canterbury – moral vision should be at the heart of politics.
The full text of the lecture will no doubt eventually be now is available here.
Guardian People column commented:
Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, was lecturing politicians in his Wilberforce lecture in Hull last night on the importance of rediscovering their moral energy. He also stressed the necessity of C of E bishops retaining their position in the House of Lords to continue offering “independent moral comment”. Meanwhile, central Africa’s Anglican bishops have taken a different moral line by saying the west ought to give Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, a break and lift sanctions. Their number includes the Bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga, a Mugabe crony accused by parishioners of inciting murder and seizing land, in contrast to the call by the country’s Catholic bishops for Mugabe to stand down. No sign yet that our archbishop plans to disinvite them from next year’s Lambeth conference.
Ekklesia said Williams says democracy not enough to determine ‘moral vision’
Update
The BBC interviewed the archbishop on Newsnight and carried this report of the interview: Williams urges political ‘morals’. The earlier BBC report of the lecture is here.
Update 5 May The transcript of the 25 April Newsnight interview is available here.
Religious beliefs give no right to discriminate against gays is the title of an article in The Times today, written by David Pannick QC. This article is concerned with the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007. (PDF of print version here.)
Mr Pannick is a barrister at Blackstone Chambers and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He writes a fortnightly column for The Times Law section.
Part of what he says:
59 Comments…The regulations do not prevent anyone from believing whatever they like for whatever reason they wish. But although freedom of belief is absolute, freedom to manifest belief is strictly limited. This was confirmed by the law lords last year when rejecting the claim of the schoolgirl who wanted to wear a particular form of religious dress in defiance of the school uniform policy.
The right not to be discriminated against on the ground of sexual orientation is a fundamental right, any interference with which requires substantial justification. That the discriminator is acting by reference to his or her religious beliefs cannot of itself provide a justification, any more than if the provider of the services (perhaps Boers who emigrated from South Africa after the National Party lost power) have a religious objection to dealing with people of a different race.
No doubt the State should interfere with the manifestation of the religious beliefs of others only where that is justified. But the religious objector is entitled to no special protection in this respect. If I run an adoption agency and believe that it is wrong for children to be adopted by homosexuals, the fact that my views are based on logic, careful study of reports, and an expertise in child psychology cannot make my beliefs less entitled to respect than if they are based on a belief that God told Moses or Muhammad the right answer…
Updated Friday
The Reverend Professor Marilyn McCord Adams delivered a lecture with the above title last Saturday. Its subtitle was Spiritual Temptations and Ecclesial Opportunities.
The occasion of this was the LGCM Annual Conference in London.
You can read the text of this at Episcopal Café the new version of Daily Episcopalian.
It is here at Leaven in the lump.
You can also listen to it by downloading a podcast file that is 17 Mbytes (large, but then it took 42 minutes to deliver). That file is here.
Update
My report of the lecture is in Friday’s Church Times at Primates seen as dictatorial.
Updated yet again Sunday
The bishops of the Province of Central Africa have issued a Pastoral Letter. The text of the letter can be read here.
This news has been reported widely, see Associated Press African Anglican Bishops Support Mugabe and the Angola Press African Anglican bishops support Mugabe.
Magic Statistics has plenty of background links in Anglican bishops support Mugabe after Catholics call for his departure.
Here is what the Roman Catholic bishops said: Repent And Listen to the Cry of Citizens as reported in the Zimbabwe Independent.
The pro-Mugabe Herald in Zimbabwe reports it this way: Anglican Bishops Support Mugabe.
Update
Episcopal News Service has republished this report from Ecumenical News International
ZIMBABWE: Anglican bishops want sanctions on country’s ruling elite lifted
Thursday
Some further reports related to this:
The Zimbabwean Trevor Grundy Not in our name say Anglicans
Anglican Mainstream The Director of Zimbabwe Christian Alliance speaks of their role in Zimbabwe
Friday
There is a report by Pat Ashworth in the Church Times Anglican statement not meant to be pro-Mugabe, says bishop
…light has since been thrown on its context by a respected signatory, the Bishop of Botswana, the Rt Revd Trevor Mwamba, and by the Bishop of Croydon, the Rt Revd Nick Baines, who returned on Wednesday from a diocesan visit to Zimbabwe.
… Bishop Mwamba, who gave a keynote address to senior judges and others at the Ecclesiastical Law Society Conference in Liverpool earlier this year (News, 2 February), said on Tuesday that the letter had to be seen in the context of the Anglican situation in Zimbabwe. The spirit in which it had been sent was to support the progressive forces and the need for change, and was not in any way meant to be pro-Mugabe, he said.
Choosing his words carefully, the Bishop commented: “As you can imagine, in Zimbabwe there are divisions within the Church itself, and so there was a need to wean certain hearts and minds to be able to put forward a statement all the bishops could subscribe to.
“In that sense, yes, it does not appear as sharp as the pastoral letter from the Catholic bishops. It took a middle-of-the-road pastoral approach. Nevertheless, the sting is there in calling for drastic change, for the government to be called upon to create a conducive environment for that, and for the Church to stand forward and speak sharply in the context of its calling and prophetic ministry.” The Bishop described it as “the beginning of a long journey of bishops moving together — very gently, for need of carrying certain of our friends along”…
Sunday
Magic Statistics has further detailed comment at Bishop Mwamba says Anglican statement not pro-Mugabe.
Guardian Tom Horwood Religious leaders should be hopeful, not defensive, in public debate.
The Times Jonathan Romain If thy scripture offend one of another faith, pluck it out.
Daily Telegraph Christopher Howse The orientalist of Letchworth.
The Church Times had this leader, Picking up the Bible’s tune.
And Giles Fraser argues that cars are a moral issue.
The Tablet has a feature article by Keith Ward Order out of chaos about Pope Benedict and evolution.
69 CommentsDave Walker has drawn attention to this Church Times advertisement in his blog article, Top job in the Anglican Communion up for grabs.
It appears that this is not a job for which any Genuine Occupational Requirement applies, either for Religion or Belief or for Sexual Orientation.
See also Diversity is the Key (H/T Hugh).
4 CommentsUpdated
Since the last update there have been some more reporting:
Jean Torkelson in the Rocky Mountain News had Anglican bishop to make case for leaving Episcopal Church, as well as Episcopal group ditches pastor, and earlier there had been Colorado Springs rector faces supporters, critics.
Meanwhile, Paul Asay has two more blog entries, Oh, these Tangled Webs and 33 Days and Counting.
The Associated Press had Church leader rebuts financial allegations.
Update
A further article in the Rocky Mountain News Episcopal parish in Springs invited to join breakaway group.
And also in the Colorado Springs Independent Grace’s state of confusion.
Further Update
Paul Asay has another blog entry: Breaking Up is Hard to Do.
Updated 27 April
The employment tribunal hearing of the discrimination case against the Hereford Diocesan Board of Finance concluded on Monday in a long hearing that went from 10.20 am to 6.30 pm.
Judgement was reserved and will not be published for several weeks.
The day’s events attracted some press coverage:
Western Mail Church in a ‘shambles’ over homosexuality, says Synod member and an earlier version Church stand on homosexuality ‘a shambles’ with longer quotes.
BBC Judgement reserved at tribunal and Church’s gay policy ‘shambles’.
Norwich Evening News City diocese joins gay tribunal row and Norfolk Eastern Daily Press Anglican attitude to gays attacked.
Coventry Telegraph Bishop facing ‘gay bias’ claim.
My own report is due to appear in the Church Times on Friday. Last week’s report by Bill Bowder is here: Bishop: No extra-marital sex for leaders.
Press releases:
For the Claimant: John Reaney’s claim against the Diocese of Hereford closed today
For the Respondent: STATEMENT FROM THE DIOCESE OF HEREFORD…
Update The Church Times carried this report of mine on 20 April, Reaney judgment awaited. A copy of this article is reproduced below.
104 CommentsMany links to North American news coverage of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Canadian trip are at epiScope. See Rocket man and earlier He says he’s coming.
Here in the UK, Ekklesia has Archbishop seeks to build bridges with USA trip and Williams says the Bible invites listening not dogmatism.
The Living Church has Archbishop of Canterbury Agrees to Meet House of Bishops.
The Anglican Journal has an exclusive interview with the archbishop here: Archbishop will not cancel Lambeth Conference.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams considered cancelling the 2008 Lambeth Conference of the world’s Anglican bishops due to the sexuality debates roiling the church, but decided against it.
“Yes, we’ve already been considering that and the answer is no. We’ve been looking at whether the timing is right, but if we wait for the ideal time, we will wait more than just 18 months,” he told the Anglican Journal in an exclusive interview…
And there is this Anglican Journal report: Williams bemoans loss of listening to Scripture.
Update
Here is a transcript of the press conference: Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, speaks to the press.
It’s all a bit confusing, but here are several further articles relating to this story.
Colorado Gazette Paul Asay Anglican group cuts ties with Armstrong which reports on the meeting yesterday at which Fr Armstrong spoke.
Denver Post Virginia Culver Episcopal priest denies funds misused
Sarah Dylan Breuer the “Communion” afterthought which examines the history of the ACI website in great detail.
A letter to the editor of the Gazette (apparently as yet unpublished) from Fr Armstrong’s senior warden (scroll down)
Diocese of Colorado letter from the bishop, and press release dated 14 April: full text below the fold.
60 CommentsIn last week’s Church Times David L. Edwards argues that the new Anglican Covenant may already be out of date.
Read the whole article here.
9 CommentsWILL THE NEW Anglican Covenant, which has already been drafted, be regarded as decisive by many people over many years? The history of attempts to define Anglicanism in a long text do not suggest a “Yes” — unless the Covenant is revised substantially as well as stylistically…
Update The Toronto Star had a third article: Gay rights, church’s `defining moment’
Retired Connecticut Bishop Arthur Walmsley can only watch from the sidelines as his beloved Anglican church rips itself apart over gay rights – and he couldn’t be more proud, however much the process saddens him…
and
…Retired Toronto archbishop Terry Finlay echoed Walmsley’s comments and called on the Canadian church to endorse same-sex blessings despite dire warnings about the consequences…
——
On the eve of Archbishop Rowan Williams’ visit to Canada, the Toronto Star had two articles:
Anglican heat on eve of prelate’s visit
On the eve of a visit to this country by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Canada’s Anglican leader is trying to defuse fallout from a story in the British press in which he accuses the head of the church of being “indecisive” and failing to lead through a crisis over gay rights that threatens to split the church worldwide.
Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, primate of the Canadian church, told Britain’s Daily Telegraph this week that Rowan Williams’s handling of the homosexuality crisis had been “disappointing and lacking” at critical points…
OTTAWA–Choosing his words carefully, the longtime former leader of the Canadian Anglican Church opened a conference on gay rights in the church last night with a gentle, but deliberate, nudge toward acceptance and a rejection of rigid doctrine.
“Matters of doctrine become matters of control,” Michael Peers, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada from 1986 to 2004, said, breaking three years of public silence…
The Hamilton Spectator has Archbishop will hear all issues
Technically, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual head of the worldwide Anglican church, is coming to our diocese to lead bishops in prayer, not to discuss the fractious business of gay clergy and same-sex blessings.
“But I don’t think he’ll be praying through dinner,” says the Right Rev. Ralph Spence, bishop of the Diocese of Niagara and the official host for the whirlwind 48-hour visit next week by the Most Rev. Rowan Williams.
“You can’t get bishops together and not have them share their thoughts on everything,” Spence said in an interview this week…
The Edmonton Journal has Anglican primate visits Canadian church on brink of schism
10 Comments“One of the most difficult jobs in Christendom.”
That’s how Ruth Gledhill, religion correspondent for the Times of London, describes the work of the Archbishop of Canterbury, a position of high expectations and heavy responsibility, but little or no power.
Archbishop Dr. Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world’s 70 million Anglicans, comes to Canada Sunday for a three-day visit, his first since assuming the Chair of St. Augustine, as the office is more loftily known, in 2002…
Episcopal News Service has published Charges dropped against Connecticut bishop.
See also, the Connecticut diocesan statement Ecclesiastical charges against the Rt. Rev. Andrew D. Smith dropped by Episcopal Church review committee.
The full report of the Title IV Review Committee can be downloaded here (PDF, 4.5 Mbytes).
There is another report by the Living Church: Investigation Clears Bishop of Connecticut. It includes this:
At several points in the decision the review committee made comparisons of the actions of the six clergy to recommendations made in the so-called “Chapman Memo,” an unofficial strategy report leaked to the press that called for widespread canonical disobedience with the objective being the replacement of The Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion.
“The AAC [American Anglican Council] had advised dissenting priests and congregations to plan and prepare to separate themselves from their dioceses but not to say that they were ‘out of communion’ with the dioceses, precisely in order to avoid proceedings under Canon IV.10,” the decision stated. “While it may seem surprising and even ironic that priests could be found to have abandoned the communion of the Church while protesting that they were not leaving the Church and are in fact trying to preserve the Church’s communion with Anglicans worldwide, the canons do not preclude addressing the acts of the six priests described above through Title IV, Canon 10.”
Fr. Hansen was removed from priestly ministry within The Episcopal Church, but the other five continue to serve as rectors of their respective parishes. Based on the review committee decision it would appear there is no impediment to prevent Bishop Smith from immediately removing the other five, but Karin Hamilton, the director of communication for the diocese, said she is unaware of any such plans by Bishop Smith.
Hartford Courant Review Panel Clears Episcopal Leader and this earlier report from Associated Press Church Dismisses Religious Charges Against Episcopal Bishop.
New Haven Register Charges against Episcopal bishop dropped
The Anglican Communion Institute has issued a statement, Announcement Concerning the Anglican Communion Institute via Stand Firm and titusonenine which can be read in full here, or alternatively here, and which concludes:
…In consequence of the legal and ecclesiastical struggles Grace Church and Fr Armstrong are now engaged with, we judge it proper to dissolve our relationship with the web-site and all activities of Grace Church (CANA or TEC), so that the charges of the Presentment and other matters of public trust and ecclesial jurisdiction might be resolved without interference.
We will continue to work on matters related to the Anglican Communion in the same way as previously.
Christopher Seitz, President
Philip Turner, Vice-President
Ephraim Radner, Senior Fellow
Understandably, this statement has not yet appeared on the ACI website operated on behalf of the ACI from Colorado Springs. There are some further comments of interest on titusonenine.
9 CommentsIn The Times Luis Rodriguez who is an Anglican priest writes that the Church will find a special place for its scapegoats — again.
In the Daily Telegraph Christopher Howse asks How did the death of Jesus save us?
In the Guardian Nicholas Buxton, an ordinand at Stephen’s House, writes the Face to Faith column.
Giles Fraser wrote in the Church Times about The great thanksgiving at sunrise.
There is an excellent article in The New Yorker by Jane Kramer on The Pope and Islam.
6 CommentsOver in Pueblo, Colorado, Dr Ephraim Radner Rector of Church of the Ascension has written another article, titled The March Statement by the House of Bishops: Confusing the Flock which criticises the statement issued by the meeting of the House of Bishops which he himself had earlier addressed.
Many, including those opposing its content, have praised the recent House of Bishops Statement for its “clarity”. In what follows, I want to dispute that evaluation. The Statement is unclear in numerous important respects, except one, viz. its animus against the Anglican Communion’s Primates’ Meeting. The reasons for that animus, however, are hardly spelled out, are often contradictory, and are lodged within a tissue of assertions that are without stated rationale. This is not clarity at all. And in the context of the current agonized and conflicted debate within TEC and the Communion, the Statement amounts to an act of pastoral and theological irresponsibility of the highest order….
Warning: there are over 8000 words in the article.
13 CommentsThe Colorado Springs Gazette on Friday published this letter from nineteen former vestry members from Grace and St. Stephens Episcopal Church, under the headline Pastor must answer important questions. It begins:
We are 19 former vestry members from Grace and St. Stephens Episcopal Church. Between us, we served almost every year when Father Don Armstrong was rector. Though we represent a variety of views on the moral issues facing our church, those issues are not in question here.
At issue is the commandment: Thou shalt not steal. Armstrong is exploiting theological divisions within the Episcopal Church to avoid a canonical investigation about his alleged financial wrongdoing. He has defied church and civil law by occupying and taking property from the church he and his allies left. We cannot keep silent.
Armstrong dismisses inquiries into his financial activities. He cries “religious persecution.” Consider the facts and ask: Is Armstrong trustworthy? Is he guilty of financial wrongdoing? Do he and his followers have a lawful basis for taking church property?
The background to this was explained Thursday by Paul Asay on his blog in Breaking Ranks:
Tomorrow’s edition of The Gazette will contain a letter from 19 ex-vestry members of Grace who, in essence, are publicly questioning their former rector’s honesty.
“(The Rev. Donald) Armstrong is exploiting theological divisions within the Episcopal Church to avoid a canonical investigation about his alleged financial wrongdoing,” the letter says. “He has defied church and civil law by occupying and taking property from the church he and his allies left. We cannot keep silent.”
I talked with one of these former vestry members a few days ago. Timothy Fuller served on the vestry only a year, and resigned in January after learning, he says, that the vestry was secretly talking with Armstrong (which violated Armstrong’s suspension) and was plotting to break away from The Episcopal Church…
In another Thursday blog entry More Grace Info … Paul Asay writes:
14 CommentsThis Saturday, the Rev. Donald Armstrong, longtime rector of Grace Church and St. Stephen’s Parish, will try to explain away allegations that he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from his church.
One of the main issues he’ll likely address is how he allegedly used the Anglican Communion Institute, a conservative theological think-tank operated as a ministry of Grace. Armstrong is still listed on its Web site as its executive director.
Timothy Fuller, a former vestry member of Grace, said he served on the ACI’s board for three years. Not once in those three years, Fuller said, did the board formally meet.
In October 2006, according to Fuller, Armstrong told the vestry that the ACI had borrowed about $170,000 from Grace over several years, and the vestry resolved the Institute would pay it back in $10,000 yearly installments, beginning this year.The vestry meeting was the first time Fuller had heard of the $170,000 the ACI allegedly borrowed. He resigned from the Institute’s board two months later.
According to the Rev. Christopher Seitz, president of the ACI and a professor at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, the ACI shouldn’t have been very expensive.
“The only cost of running the Institute is our time, which we give away, and a Web site, which involves nominal costs,” Seitz said in an e-mail. “Travel reimbursements were handled by the executive director, or we paid for these costs ourselves. There are no employees, no overhead in a formal sense, no hard-copy publications and no programs to fund.”
The presentment alleges that Armstrong caused the church to pay $146,316 beginning in March 2003 as “outreach expenses” to the Institute — money it never received. According to the presentment, the checks in question were made payable to “Donald Armstrong College Fund” or “College Fund.”
Armstrong says the ACI actually funded several projects, and acknowledged his children’s education was one of them…
The Church Times reports in Dean stands by Radio 4 talk on cross by Pat Ashworth that:
Dr John writes in his letter that the teaching of his talk was exactly in line with the guidance given by the Church of England’s Doctrine Commission in its 1995 report The Mystery of Salvation. He quotes the report: “The notion of propitiation as the placating by man of an angry God is definitely unchristian.”
What he said in full on this point was :
The most recent statement by the Church of England on the meaning of the Cross is the Doctrine Commission’s report The Mystery of Salvation (1995).
It restates the view of the 1938 Commission that “the notion of propitiation as the placating by man of an angry God is definitely unchristian” (p. 213). It also observes that “the traditional vocabulary of atonement with its central themes of law, wrath, guilt, punishment and acquittal, leave many Christians cold and signally fail to move many people, young and old, who wish to take steps towards faith. These images do not correspond to the spiritual search of many people today and therefore hamper the Church’s mission.”
Instead, it recommends that the Cross should be presented “as revealing the heart of a fellow-suffering God” (p. 113).
The Church Times also reports that:
The Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright, reportedly also criticised the BBC for allowing such a prominent slot to be given to such a “provocative argument”.
The Sunday Telegraph report quoted him as saying: “[Dr John] is denying the way in which we understand Christ’s sacrifice. It is right to stress that he is a God of love, but he is ignoring that this means he must also be angry at everything that distorts human life.”
But it doesn’t mention that Dr Wright was himself a member of the Doctrine Commission.
The full text of the letter is at the bottom of the news report linked above.
67 CommentsHere is a part of the Presidential Address delivered by the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler, to his Diocesan Synod on 10 March 2007:
49 Comments…The same might be said of the Primates Meeting in Tanzania. None of us were there but in a letter to Primates last week Archbishop Rowan observed that the meeting was far from being an easy few days but he believed that it had been a productive gathering with a great deal of honesty. The product of the meeting was a communiqué containing a set of demands to which the American Church must respond by the end of September, and a draft covenant to which provinces are to respond and their bishops are to discuss further at next year’s Lambeth Conference.
We’ll look a little more closely at both covenant and communiqué a little later in our agenda, but now I’d like to reflect upon what might be a flaw at the heart of this approach to our difficulties…
…I may be getting this wrong, but I believe that the Primates have ignored or underestimated the strength and depth of these values in church as well as state in the United States. The church was the creation of popular democracy after the revolution. Church congregations in each state voted as to whether they wished for bishops to be appointed. Still today, bishops in America have no authority to veto decisions of their diocesan councils. African bishops might in some places be in a position to hire and fire their clergy at will; American bishops have no such authority and would regard it as being un-American.
Whatever the issue, then, for primates to instruct or request American bishops to take actions which appear to them to be undemocratic, or exceeding their powers, is to ask something that they are not in a position to deliver without denying their church polity, culture and history, however loyal they wish to be to the Communion.
And here I believe lies the fundamental flaw. The Primates have misunderstood the nature of our communion. From the consecration of the first overseas Anglican bishops there was no intention of creating a kind of Soviet bloc Communion where each province had to march in step with one another.
Listen to this letter of the English Bishops to the Philadelphia Convention in 1786 when they had been requested to consecrate an American priest as bishop. They wrote: ‘We cannot but be extremely cautious, lest we should be the instruments of establishing an ecclesiastical system which will be called a branch of the Church of England, but afterwards may possibly appear to have departed from it essentially, either in doctrine or discipline.’
There was no intention then of creating a branch of the Church of England in America, or an Anglican satellite, and the English bishops were ultimately satisfied in their negotiations with the General Convention and America had their bishops but in way far more accountable to local church democracy than we have ever seen here.
Of course most of the Anglican Churches in the Communion were established in countries which were part of the British Empire, with bishops initially sent out to serve from England. But that was not universally so, and just as the nations achieved independence with their own constitutions, so we see autonomous local Anglican provinces with their own constitutions and systems of canon law.
And just as many of these nations, with others, have voluntarily become members of the Commonwealth symbolically focussed on the Queen, but with no pretence of having authority in one another’s nations, so the Anglican provinces find the focus of their unity in the archbishop of Canterbury, but up until now there has been no sense of having authority in one another’s provinces. That is not the post-Tanzanian meeting climate. We will see later in the year whether the American bishops can find the form of words demanded of them. I could offer them one or two priests from the Diocese of Southwark who are skilled in drafting words which take us to the brink but not quite over it. It might be possible and we might yet all show up at the Lambeth Conference next year.
But whether we do or not, I would like us to return to our roots and ask ourselves, is it our calling to be a Communion where we must march in step, and if one province departs from the others in doctrine or discipline, they must depart the Communion because otherwise the others feel compromised? Or is it our calling to be a Commonwealth of Anglican provinces, uncompromised by the beliefs and behaviour of other provinces, trusting that they know what is best for the Church and world in their particular culture with their particular history and tradition. I don’t hear that argument being made. Perhaps it should be…