Ekklesia has published a detailed analysis of Rowan Williams’ recent Reflections paper, written by Savi Hensman.
See A better future for the Anglican Communion?
Here’s the abstract:
65 CommentsRowan Williams has recently proposed major changes in the way the Anglican Communion is organised. Because of growing willingness in the Episcopal Church (TEC) to recognise the status and ministry of lesbian and gay people, and the global disagreement on this issue, he is putting forward a “two-track” approach. Provinces such as TEC in North America would not be able to carry out certain functions such as representing the Anglican Communion in ecumenical circles, while those which signed up to a Covenant would have a more central position. This research paper describes the background, examines the evidence on which the Archbishop’s main points are based, discusses their implications, and corrects some mistaken assumptions about history and practice. Inter alia it tackles a number of key theological issues. It suggests that a two-level Communion would be practically and spiritually harmful and suggests a different approach, less focused on institutional structures, that could be more effective in addressing divisions and ultimately enabling Anglicans to move towards a deeper unity.
Updated Sunday
The Lagos Guardian has a long article New primate, same steadiness in the Anglican Church of Nigeria
From March next year when he will lead the over 18 million Nigerian Anglicans, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh will bring strict conservatism of his military background and years of close collaboration with out-going Primate Peter Akinola to bear on the Church, write Hendrix Oliomogbe (Asaba), Lawrence Njoku (Enugu) and Wole Oyebade (Lagos)
GENERALLY, Christianity is founded on strict conservatism. The heads of nearly all the old Christian groups are known for their conservatism. The heads practically take to heart the Biblical saying: As it was in the beginning, so it is now, and so shall it be, a world without end!
The world should not expect any thing less from the in-coming head of the Anglican Communion in Nigeria, Archbishop Nicholas Dikeriehi Orogodo Okoh who will assume office in March next year. Primate-elect Okoh will be an iron-cast conservative, given the constituency he is coming from: The military. Until 2001 when he retired from the Nigerian Army as a Lieutenant Colonel, Okoh has not known another profession since adolescence. He worked for about four years with his uncle in private business after leaving primary school at the age of 12 in 1964.
On the current issues tearing the worldwide Anglican Communion apart, Archbishop Okoh is on the same plane as the man he will succeed on March 25, 2010, the ultra-conservative Archbishop Peter Jasper Akinola who literarily looked the worldwide Anglican Church eye-ball to eye-ball and proclaimed that the Church was wrong to have looked the other side on a vital issue of spirituality. Since 2003 when Archbishop Akinola took the stand against the dilution of the priesthood with confessed gays in the United States (U.S.) and homosexuality, the Communion has not been the same again.
The worldwide Anglican Communion should not expect any deviation from Archbishop Okoh. In fact, he has been one of the greatest and most fastidious supporters of Archbishop Akinola on the Nigerian Anglican Communion’s stand against the “sins” of the Episcopal Church of the North Americas on the matter of embrace of gays and homosexuality in the Church…
Sunday The Lagos Guardian has Our Faith In Okoh, By Anglican Priests.
9 CommentsUpdated again Wednesday lunchtime
The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) has issued this announcement:
New Primate for Church of Nigeria
ABP. NICHOLAS OKOH ELECTED NEW PRIMATE
A new Primate has emerged for the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) in the person of Archbishop Nicholas Orogodo Okoh. (57 this November ) He is presently the Archbishop of Bendel Province and bishop of Asaba.
The news of his election was announced today 15th September, 2009 by the Dean of the Church of Nigeria, Most Rev. Maxwell Anikwenwa immediately after the election by the Episcopal Synod held in Umuahia, Abia State.
And another longer press release says:
BEHOLD OKOH ANGLICAN’S NEW PRIMATE
BY REV CANON FOLUSO TAIWO
A new Primate has emerged for the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion. He is the 57 year old rtd Lt colonel, Archbishop of Bendel Province and Bishop of Asaba Diocese the Most Rev. Nicholas OROGODO OKOH.
The news of his election broke today after a hitch free voting exercise by the house of Bishops at the Cathedral Church of St. Stephen’s Umuahia Abia State.
Archbishop Okoh came out tops after securing two-thirds majority of the total votes cast. Three other Clerics contested with him.
By today’s Election Archbishop Okoh has become the fourth (4th) Primate of the Church of Nigeria Anglican Communion. He is taking over from the Most Rev Peter Akinola the incumbent Primate who vacates his office on March 25, 2010.
The atmosphere was suspense filled as the Bishops engaged in the secret ballot election. Immediately after the peaceful election, the Dean of Church of Nigeria the most Rev Maxwell S. C. Anikwenwa
(O. F. R.) issued a statement that the most Rev Nicholas Orogodo Okoh has been duly elected Primate in succession to the most Rev Peter. J. Akinola (CON) and has been issued with a Certificate of return.
Archbishop Nicholas Orogodo Okoh attended the famous Immanuel College of Theology Ibadan Oyo State between 1976 and 1979. He was made deacon in 1979 preferred a Canon in 1987, collated Archdeacon in 1991 and was elected Bishop of Asaba in 2001.
On the 22nd of July 2005 the Primate elect was elected Archbishop of Bendel Province at St Matthew’s Cathedral Benin. He was in the Army and fought the civil war. He retired as a Lt Col in 2001 after his election as Bishop of Asaba.
CANA has issued this press release:
CANA Congratulates Archbishop Okoh as Primate-Elect of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
HERNDON, Va. (September 15, 2009) – The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) congratulates Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, who was elected to become the primate-elect of the Church of Nigeria.
“Archbishop Okoh is a Godly leader and CANA is delighted that he will be leading the Church of Nigeria. He is a strong supporter of CANA and the Anglican Church in North America, and has been instrumental in helping to advance the orthodox Anglican GAFCON movement. Archbishop Okoh is committed to spreading the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is a personal friend, and I’m pleased that he is stepping into this leadership role during this crucial time in the life of the worldwide Anglican Communion,” said CANA Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns.
The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (http://www.canaconvocation.org) currently consists of more than 85 congregations and 190 clergy in 25 states. CANA was established in 2005 to provide a means by which Anglicans living in North America who were alienated by the actions and decisions of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada could continue to live out their faith without compromising their core convictions. Created as a missionary initiative of the Church of Nigeria, about a dozen of the congregations are primarily expatriate Nigerians. CANA is a founding member of the Anglican Church in North America, an Anglican province that includes about 700 congregations.
Updates
There is a lengthy and informative news report in the Lagos Guardian Okoh takes over from Akinola as Anglican Church Primate.
GAFCON has issued this: Gafcon welcomes new Primate of Nigeria.
The document produced by the group he chaired can be found here.
He recently visited England, see here, and also over here. (H/T Fulcrum.)
31 CommentsThe bishops of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa have issued a statement.
Statement by the Synod of Bishops, 9 September 2009
The Synod of Bishops meeting in Midrand, Gauteng from 7 – 9 September 2009, has been disturbed by various recent reports in the media to the effect that the world-wide Anglican Communion and the Anglican Church in Southern Africa are on the brink of schism. We want to assure the faithful that these reports are grossly exaggerated and in some cases, misrepresented.Our Worldwide Anglican Communion has for a number of years been struggling with the issue of human sexuality without, as yet, having reached any significant consensus. There are, indeed, broken and damaged relationships within the Communion, but there is still a deep desire among the bishops throughout the world to maintain the bonds of unity in obedience to the High Priestly prayer of our Lord that “..they may be one as we are one (Jn 17:11).
To this end the Communion is exploring an Anglican Covenant which would express our Common Unity in Christ and the criteria for accountability to each other.
We the Bishops and the Anglican Church of Southern Africa have, on a number of occasions spelt out our common mind at this stage of our journey with the world-wide Communion. We believe that we are called to love others with God’s unconditional, sacrificial love and do not believe sexual orientation a barrier to leadership within the church. However, holding as we do, that Christian marriage is a lifelong union between one man and one woman, we hold that clergy unable to commit to another in Christian marriage partnership are called to a life of celibacy.
We have also received the resolution of the Diocese of Cape Town requesting us to provide guidelines for the pastoral care of those in committed same sex relationships. Despite the misconceptions created by media reports, Cape Town Diocese is intending to proceed with the blessing of same sex unions, we recognise the request to be pastoral in nature and not in any way in conflict with Resolution 110 of Lambeth Conference 1998. The task of responding to this request has been referred to a team committee which will prepare a preliminary paper building upon the resolutions and statement made thus far by ACSA.
We remain committed to holding together the bonds of unity when we journey together through the difficult questions that confront the world-wide Anglican Communion. Differences of opinion are inevitable, schism is not.
Now to him, who by the power at work within us
is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think to him be glory in the
Church and in Christ Jesus
to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen
The resolution from the Diocese of Cape Town can be found at Resolution of the Diocese of Cape Town on Ministry to Gays and Lesbians in Covenanted Partnerships. (scroll down for the full text).
21 CommentsGraham Kings has written a response to the Cif belief Question of the Week. Go here and here for earlier responses.
Also available on Fulcrum.
…Are Anglican conservatives in the Anglican Communion turning their attention away from issues of sexuality to the threat of Islam? From reading articles and comments and taking part in various private discussions, this seems to me too simplistic an analysis. Perceptions on both these subjects may interweave and are likely to feature in future comment and campaign.
Anglican conservatives are no more a monolithic block than are Anglican liberals. Some, sadly, are so caught up in the combat of the single issue of sexuality that their words appear to many to be blinkered and splintered. Others, while remaining conservative on sexual issues, may have friends and relatives who are gay and join in with long term private conversations and organized discussions on the subject. Oliver O’Donovan has recently published A Conversation Waiting to Begin: the Churches and the Gay Controversy (SCM Press, 2009), which originated as a series of articles on Fulcrum. And there are many who are betwixt and between these general positions…
The series on Fulcrum to which reference is made, The Church of England and Islam: Hospitality and Embassy starts here.
13 CommentsTA reported earlier that a new bishop had been elected for the (Swedish Lutheran) Diocese of Stockholm.
Some procedural objections were raised, but earlier this week the election review board decided to reject these appeals.
At its meeting on Monday the Board received six complaints about the handling of the elections last April. It was argued that the election results, in which Eva Brunne got the most votes, were not accurate because of an ambiguity in the notice of the election which was not implemented uniformly across the diocese. But the Election Review Board says in summary that “the errors committed in connection with the election on April 21, 2009 are not reasonably likely to have affected the outcome of the elections”. They thus rejected the appeals, while criticising some parts of the electoral process.
Eva Brunne will now be consecrated as a bishop in Uppsala Cathedral on 8 November.
3 CommentsTwo 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.
17 CommentsThe 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…
Updated again Thursday evening
Not content with their recent magnum opus the Anglican Communion Institute has published another (shorter) essay, titled Communion Partner Dioceses and The Anglican Covenant.
We address below issues related to the capacity of CP dioceses to sign the Anglican Covenant. We consider the text of Section 4 of the Ridley Cambridge draft, ACC Resolution 14.11, the unique polity of TEC and the ACC constitution and membership schedule. Although the final wording of Section 4 has not yet been agreed, the principles discussed below, particularly the constitutional integrity of member churches, are fundamental to Anglicanism and not in dispute…
Pluralist has already responded.
Updates Mark Harris has now also responded with Why bother, #1
Why bother with the in house realignment crowd (the Communion Partners Bishops, the Anglican Communion Institute, the Covenant-Communion writers.) The logic chopping is so bad in some of their essays that the noise of it turns the brain to Wheatena.
Here is example #1…
And later, with Why bother, #2
The Covenant-Communion article, subject of my first “Why bother?” post, was published just the day after the seven bishops who visited with the Archbishop of Canterbury published their report.
The “realignment-from-within” Bishops, the RFW Bishops aka the Communion Bishops, have produced a somewhat odd report, as if jet lag had not yet left them able to work at full speed…
Mark Harris has also written The Anglican Covenant: A tempting but wormy apple.
The notion of an Anglican Covenant is as tempting for some as the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The promise is that the Anglican Covenant would make it clear to ourselves and to all the world just who we were and what we stood for and how we would comport ourselves as a Christian fellowship. Many Anglicans can just taste it! A sense of self esteem when we are compared to other world wide churches and a sense of religious order when we look at our own community. The Anglican Covenant would make us one of, you know, THEM, world wide Churches that have real apostolic heft, with bishops and all.
The Anglican Covenant promised a lot, but preliminary taste tests seem to indicate that the fruit is wormy. The apple, it seems, is a bit rotten in places…
Further criticism of the earlier ACI document comes from Tobias Haller who has written The Heterosectual Communion.
4 CommentsThe soi-disant Anglican Communion Institute has a knack for inverting the old Latin tag, “the mountains labored and bore a mouse.” In this case the gang of three, augmented by an attorney and a bishop, have given birth to a mountain of verbiage which in the long run, fundamentally flawed as it is, amounts to less than a mole-hill…
Episcopal Café has published an essay by Frank M. Turner The imagined community of the Anglican Communion.
13 CommentsOne of the most fertile political concepts to emerge in the past quarter-century is Benedict Anderson’s “imagined community.” Anderson, now a retired Cornell professor of international studies, government, and Asian studies, contended that the emergence of modern nationalism involved the creation among various groups living in their own localities with no direct interaction between or among themselves of the idea of an imagined community with other people on the basis of supposed common histories, customs, language, and ethnic identity. The reality of the community resided in the imagination of those drawn to these ideas that circulated in the print media of the day.
Over the past twenty years proponents of what is called “The Anglican Communion” have sought to establish a similar imagined ecclesiastical community among various provinces around the world whose churches derived in some fashion from the Church of England. In the case of the Episcopal Church the derivation of Episcopal orders was not direct but through the Scottish Episcopal Church and its character was strongly influenced by its eighteenth century American setting. The so-called Anglican Communion exemplifies a religious version of Anderson’s “imagined community.” At its most banal, the Communion exists to justify bishops traveling about the world on funds contributed by the baptized. At its worst, it has come to represent an imagined community several of whose Episcopal spokespeople now seek to persecute and degrade or relegate into a second track churches who have opened themselves, their process of ordination, and their episcopate to gay and lesbian people. In this respect, it this ecclesiastical imagined community replicates in its drive to exclusion the persecution that ethnic minorities have experienced at the hands of dominant nationalist groups from the early nineteenth century to the present day…
The Guardian’s website Comment is free Belief has a weekly Question. This week it is
What is the future for Anglican conservatives?
Has the long Anglican civil war ended in defeat for both sides? Within the church, the liberals have been outmanoeuvred and may be excluded from the communion’s decision-making bodies. But the cost of this has been to establish the conservatives as anti-gay, and in the wider culture that is a great defeat for them, too. So will they abandon that fight, and move to others? Will attitudes to Islam be the next great struggle within Christianity?
The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, returned last week to devote himself to the care of persecuted Christians; and it is Muslims, he thinks, who are doing the persecuting. In countries like Pakistan, this is clearly true. But will conservative Christians be able to construct a narrative against Islam in Europe and America? Should they be trying to do so? Does it really threaten the future of Christianity?
The first contribution comes from Savi Hensman who has written ‘Conservatives’ who want to reshape the communion.
13 CommentsOrdinarily, being conservative is about favouring the old over the new, conserving what has been passed down from previous generations and being cautious about change. The more extreme Anglican so-called conservatives however have been so keen to “purify” the communion of what they see as undesirable that they have pushed for radical reform. Largely in response to their demands, the Archbishop of Canterbury is calling for stricter limits to the freedom of member churches, though this proposal has met with strong objections from many in the Church of England and beyond.
These Anglican “conservatives” are perhaps best-known for their hostility to same-sex partnerships. Yet some are also passionately anti-Islamic. Archbishop Peter Akinola, for instance, as well as being vocally anti-gay, appears to believe that, in the Muslim-Christian conflict in Nigeria, communal violence can sometimes be justified…
Updated Saturday afternoon
The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc. has published a long (27 US-sized pages) paper, titled The Anglican Covenant: Shared Discernment Recognized By All.
A full footnoted text is also available for download here (.pdf)
The authors listed are:
The Reverend Canon Professor Christopher Seitz
The Reverend Dr. Philip Turner
The Reverend Dr. Ephraim Radner
Mark McCall, Esq.
The Rt. Reverend Dr. N. T. Wright Bishop of Durham
The document has also been published by Fulcrum over here.
Some extracts from the document:
The approved text of the Anglican Covenant is already serving as a lens through which individual Anglican churches are inevitably and accurately being measured in terms of their character as “Communion churches.” Thus, in ways not yet properly noted by all, the text endorsed by the Anglican Consultative Council, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Joint Standing Committee in May 2009 has already raised and to a large extent provisionally answered the question “who can adopt this Covenant?” It is the purpose of this paper to explain why and how this is so, and to do this in relation particularly to The Episcopal Church, although it should be noted that the Covenant’s defining substance can be applied analogously to other Anglican churches as well…
…On the other hand, The Episcopal Church professes to continue to consider the Anglican Covenant, resolving to “study and comment” on the approved text of the Covenant (and “any successive drafts”) and requesting a report with “draft legislation concerning this Church’s response to an Anglican Covenant” at the next General Convention. It should be noted that as originally moved this resolution called on The Episcopal Church to “make a provisional commitment to abide by the terms of the Anglican Covenant,” but the clause calling for a provisional commitment was removed.
That the actions of General Convention constitute instead a provisional rejection of the Anglican Covenant is manifest. This paper will support this conclusion in detail:
- We begin by considering the substantial and well-developed body of Anglican thought utilized in expressing the commitments in the Covenant text. This body of precedent includes the articulation of several foundational concepts used in the Covenant, including “shared discernment,” “accountability,” “autonomy,” and the comprehensive term “Communion with autonomy and accountability.”
- We then examine the specific commitments in the first three sections of the Anglican Covenant and show that they require (i) that there be Communion-wide decisions (“shared discernment”) on issues affecting the unity of the Communion and (ii) that all covenanting churches then recognize the decision reached by the Communion’s shared discernment.
- We will then show that the shared discernment of the Communion on the issue of human sexuality is unequivocal. All four Instruments of Communion have spoken with one voice for over a decade, both in terms of general teaching and through specific recommendations.
- We will conclude with a discussion of the function of Section 4 in the Covenant as a whole. On one level, Section 4 is not necessary, as some seem to think, to introduce meaningful consequences into the Covenant. Profound consequences are already entailed by the first three sections. Rather, a robust Section 4 is necessary in order to provide agreed procedures that all churches can trust. Without effective procedures in Section 4, others will emerge but they will not be ones that have been accepted in advance by all.
In this light, the actions of General Convention repudiating the teaching of the Communion on human sexuality can only be seen as the repudiation of the Covenant itself. The Communion and its shared discernment cannot be separated…
…
CONCLUSION
An Anglican church cannot simultaneously commit itself through the Anglican Covenant to shared discernment and reject that discernment; to interdependence and then act independently; to accountability and remain determined to be unaccountable. If the battle over homosexuality in The Episcopal Church is truly over, then so is the battle over the Anglican Covenant in The Episcopal Church, at least provisionally. As Christians, we live in hope that The Episcopal Church will at some future General Convention reverse the course to which it has committed itself, but we acknowledge the decisions that already have been taken. These decisions and actions run counter to the shared discernment of the Communion and the recommendations of the Instruments of Communion implementing this discernment. They are, therefore, also incompatible with the express substance, meaning, and committed direction of the first three Sections of the proposed Anglican Covenant. As a consequence, only a formal overturning by The Episcopal Church of these decisions and actions could place the church in a position capable of truly assuming the Covenant’s already articulated commitments. Until such time, The Episcopal Church has rejected the Covenant commitments openly and concretely, and her members and other Anglican churches within the Communion must take this into account. This conclusion is reached not on the basis of animus or prejudice, but on a straightforward and careful reading of the Covenant’s language and its meaning within the history of the Anglican Communion’s well-articulated life.
Two reactions to this paper:
Jim Naughton at Episcopal Café has written ACI says: we write the rules
…It is of course impossible to believe that anything these guys write is not motivated by animus of prejudice toward the Episcopal Church and its leadership. (If you doubt that have a look at the rantings of Christopher Seitz about Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in those errant emails.) But it is their presumptuousness here—in attempting to dictate to the Communion who can sign the covenant—that would be astonishing were it not predictable.
The document represents an effort here to do with the Covenant what was done with the Windsor Report. In the way the Wright set himself up as the sole surviving member of the panel that drafted the former document, the priests are trying to set Ephraim Radner up as the only drafter of the covenant to survive the great fire that swept through their meeting room just as the final gathering adjourned.
If, someday, the first things unchurched people think of when they hear the word Anglican is homophobe, Rowan Williams and these fellows will be the reason why. Their efforts to make the Communion safe for the most vicious sort of anti-gay bigots, and unwelcoming to those who make even timid moves toward full inclusion of GLBT Christians may be clumsy and transparently self-aggrandizing, but that doesn’t mean they may not succeed…
Adrian Worsfold has written Anglican Old School Sixth Form
Down in the Anglican Old School sixth form a message circulates that the Head of the sixth form wishes to speak to Christopher Sheitz, Philip Headturner, Fred Frame Righter, Davina McCall (who is male) and Newt S. Temperament. Also outside is the Head Boy of the Sixth Form, Roman Williams, who is waiting to go in after them…
25 CommentsUpdated Wednesday morning
Michael Nazir-Ali , who retires from his current post on Tuesday, has given his final interview, as Bishop of Rochester, to Martin Beckford at the Telegraph.
However, he will be continuing to speak out on this topic, as evidenced by this announcement from a right-wing Washington DC think tank, the Ethics and Public Policy Center:
As Jim Naughton notes at Episcopal Café in CANA and the coming campaign against Islam:
CANA is also announcing a new program on “the Church and Islam” led by Canon Julian Dobbs, formerly of the vigorously anti-Islamic Barnabas Fund.
See the CANA press release: CANA Announces the “Church and Islam Project” and the website The Church and Islam.
Update See also Bishop of Rochester to aid persecuted Christians in Islamic world by Ruth Gledhill.
36 CommentsUpdated Saturday 5 September
The Guardian in Lagos, Nigeria has published a lengthy article: Akinola’s Primacy: The Journey So Far by Gbenga Onayiga.
The article has already been removed from the Guardian website – this is apparently their normal practice, see comment below – but the full article remains available at Anglican Mainstream.
Another copy of the article is currently available here. (H/T titusonenine)
Consequent upon the retirement of the 2nd Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Most Revd J.A. Adetiloye in December 1999, Most Revd Peter J.Akinola was, by Divine providence, duly elected the 3rd Primate of the Church of Nigeria on Tuesday, February 22, 2000. Archbishop Akinola, who was called from the carpentry of wood and materials to the carpentry of the Church of God, eventually proved to be a master craftman, who visualises a design and then perfectly brings it to reality. Before his election, as Primate, Archbishop Akinola was the Dean, Church of Nigeria, the Archbishop of the Province III (Northern Dioceses) and Bishop of Abuja. He had by divine grace and enablement built the Diocese of Abuja literally from nothing to the most viable Diocese of the Church of Nigeria. Thus for those who knew him, it was little wonder that his emergence as the Primate would definitely take the Church of Nigeria to a very high pedestal…
The article concludes:
Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, but anyone who does not think that Akinola’s primacy is a resounding success will have an uphill task for a better comparison, as the Church has never had it so good. In fact, Archbishop Akinola has succeeded in putting the Primacy of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) at a level that will take a very long time to equal nationally, regionally and globally. By the foregone indications, he has immensely endowed the future generation of Anglicans in many unprecedented ways.
Perhaps the best we can do is pray for a worthy successor who will be humble enough to continue the good work already started by building on the foundation already laid. Such a successor will, of course, have to identify those areas of the vision that call for a general review, taking cognisance of today’s peculiarities and faithfully implementing them so as to take the church to the next level.
Gbenga Onayiga is the Diocesan Communicator, Anglican Diocese of Abuja.
Update
Fr Jake has provided a helpful supplement to this article, see Akinola’s Primacy: The Rest of the Story. And a commenter there adds a link to the 2006 New York Times article which concludes with:
33 Comments“Self-seeking, self-glory, that is not me,” he said. “No. Many people say I embarrass them with my humility.”
Anyone who criticizes him as power-seeking is simply trying to undermine his message, he said. “The more they demonize, the stronger the works of God,” he said.
The Modern Churchpeople’s Union has published a critique of the responses of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Durham to the decision by the Episcopal Church of the USA (TEC), at its General Convention in July 2009, to abandon its earlier moratoria on same-sex blessings and openly homosexual bishops.
Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future: MCU’s reply to Drs Williams and Wright
Summary of the MCU paper
You can read the papers by the Archbishop and Bishop here:
Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future
Rowan’s Reflections: Unpacking the Archbishop’s Statement
ACNS reports Appointment of new Director for Unity, Faith and Order announced.
The Secretary General, Canon Kenneth Kearon, has announced the appointment of Canon Dr Alyson Barnett-Cowan as Director for Unity, Faith and Order at the Anglican Communion Office. The post is a new one in the Communion, and arose after some restructuring following the election of Canon Gregory Cameron, formally Director of Ecumenical Affairs and Deputy Secretary General, as Bishop of St Asaph in the Church in Wales.
Canon Barnett-Cowan is currently Director of Faith, Worship and Ministry of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada, a post she has held since 1995. She has wide experience of the life of the Anglican Communion, having been a member of the Lambeth Commission on Communion (2003-4) and of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations (2000-2008). She is currently a consultant to the Anglican-Lutheran International Commission, and has been a member of the Plenary Commission, Faith and Order at the World Council of Churches…
The Anglican Journal has a report, Canadian woman priest appointed to prestigious Communion position.
23 CommentsUpdated Tuesday
Changing Attitude has published the first of two articles concerning the Bishop of Durham’s comments on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Reflections.
The first article is titled The dangerous Bishop of Durham – part 1.
The Bishop of Durham’s paper claiming to ‘unpack’ the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Reflections is dangerous for the Church of England, for LGBT people and for the worldwide Anglican Communion. People in the Changing Attitude network, gay and straight, are furious at his abuse and dishonesty. The paper reveals a bishop with a megalomaniacal drive to impose his own solution unilaterally on the Communion.
Durham would like The Episcopal Church and partnered LGBT people evicted from the Communion right now. His stand is unprincipled. The bishop has partnered lesbian and gay clergy in his own diocese and knows full well that there are many partnered clergy in the Church of England. Instead of addressing what he says is the impossibility of the church recognising same-sex blessings, he diverts attention away from home and focuses his attack on The Episcopal Church…
Update
Part 2 is now published: The dangerous Bishop of Durham – part 2
80 CommentsArrogance
The Bishop of Durham claims to speak for the House of Bishops and to know the mind of the Archbishop of Canterbury better than the Archbishop knows himself. He takes it upon himself to clarify and expand upon what the Archbishop ‘really meant’.
Andrew Brown wrote Covenant and Schism.
There may be some good reasons for the Church of England to sign up to the Covenant. But the bishop of Croydon’s are absurd.
Lionel Deimel wrote No Anglican Covenant. He has even produced a logo for this, in small and large sizes.
Mark Harris and the ACI have been holding a dialogue.
First, ACI wrote Communion And Hierarchy.
Mark Harris… makes a number of observations and comments, some more accurate and apposite than others. However, one observation/comment in particular stands out and deserves thoughtful consideration, namely his claim that the position about the nature and structure of the Anglican Communion articulated by the Archbishop of Canterbury implies a form of global governance and hierarchy that runs all the way down. Fr. Harris’ claim deserves careful consideration because it has become already the default position of progressive defenders of TEC’s recent actions, and will without doubt stand near the center of TEC’s defense of the actions of its General Convention…
Then Mark wrote Why direct diocesan sign-on now to the Covenant is a bad idea.
The Archbishop of Canterbury said… “the question is becoming more sharply defined of whether, if a province declines such an invitation, any elements within it will be free (granted the explicit provision that the Covenant does not purport to alter the Constitution or internal polity of any province) to adopt the Covenant as a sign of their wish to act in a certain level of mutuality with other parts of the Communion. It is important that there should be a clear answer to this question.”
The Anglican Consultative Council determined that it was asking Provinces to consider the Anglican Covenant. That, of course, is appropriate, for the ACC is an “organization of organizations,” that is, its members are Churches. So the ACC asks its members (the Provinces) to respond to the Covenant. At that point the ACC is clear – it is Provinces, not dioceses, that are being asked to sign-on…
The ACI felt it necessary to respond to this, with More On Communion And Hierarchy.
Mark Harris responded again with Followup on Communion and Hierarchy, my article “Why direct sign on..,” etc.
Cif belief has this as Question of the Week: Who cares about the Anglican schism?
Dr Rowan Williams’s characteristically long and ruminative piece on the Anglican schism, or, as he would have it, the futures of Anglicanism, leaves one quite obvious question unanswered: what difference will any of this make?
The responses come from:
Harriet Baber Churchgoers don’t care
Graham Kings Federation isn’t enough
Davis Mac-Iyalla The church must recognise us
and, today, my own contribution: The English care about their clergy
27 CommentsIt makes no sense to split over same-sex unions, when we are in communion with churches that already sanction them. And we will not let our LGBT clergy be hounded out.
Updated Thursday morning
First, there is Tobias Haller. See Reading Rowan — Part the First and also Reading Rowan — Part the Second.
Next, thanks to Malcolm, there is Tim Chesterton. See Why This Particular Line in the Sand?
Then, there is Jeremy Pemberton’s Sermon preached last Sunday in Southwell Minster about the Archbishop’s Reflections on GC.
Maggi Dawn wrote Dying in Politeness, and then Nick Baines wrote Covenant and politeness. The latter includes:
I think it is unlikely that Maggi would find anyone who is not exhausted by all this – other than Chris Sugden (& co) who has made it his life’s work to break the Communion apart and, I think, gets energised by conflict. Yet the complexity she recognises is more complex still – hence the problem. Many of us would like to walk away from it, but that doesn’t solve anything for the world the Church is there to serve. It is the ecumenical element that most imposes itself on my own consciousness…
And finally (for the moment) Episcopal Café drew attention to the excellent article off the cuff: Homosexuality and the Anglican debate at The Immanent Frame.
Update
(from the comments) Southwark Cathedral sermons:
Colin Slee on 19 July
Andrew Nunn on 2 August
22 CommentsHere are a few more items of this kind.
Malcolm at Simple Massing Priest has written If you meet the Anglican Communion on the road . . .
But I am becoming ever more convinced that Dr. Williams’s sincere attempts to save the Anglican Communion will, if allowed to come to fruition, ultimately destroy it.
There are a number of problems with the document. I’ll try to hit the main ones point by point…
Lionel Deimel has written Reflecting on the Archbishop’s Reflection.
…Episcopalians need to take a very close look at CCAF to understand better their problematic relationship to the Anglican Communion and their possibly even more problematic Anglican future. They need to recognize the ways in which the thinking of the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Anglican leaders is dysfunctional or mistaken…
Jonathan Hagger aka MadPriest has responded to what Andrew Brown wrote with Politeness and the Death of the Church of England.
38 CommentsThe Grand Tufti’s response to the votes taken at TEC’s general convention understandably resulted in many of my American friends saying “Well, stuff them all. We’ll go it alone.” As my main fear in this ongoing battle is that the US church will adopt an isolationist policy and leave the rest of the world’s progressives high and dry, I called them to task on this. Their reply was to ask the question, “What are English progressives doing to stop the imposition of a covenant that, if accepted by the Church of England, would lead to its complete theological stagnation for centuries to come?”
At this point I was just assuming what Andrew Brown assumes – that it would never get passed Synod. But I thought I better check before making this point on my blog…
