There is an announcement about the meeting on 3 December, which is being billed as “historic”.
A Reuters report by Michael Conlon Episcopal Church dissidents aim for new church seems to have upset absolutely everybody.
On the one hand Baby Blue considers that the lead contains an offensive phrase. On the other hand, Episcopal Café thinks the numbers quoted are quite wrong.
George Conger wrote for the Church of England Newspaper about the province, see Lambeth faces Chicago test.
Mark Harris comments at The Third Province, the Anglican Church in North America, and other plots and plans.
33 CommentsPeter Owen made reference yesterday to the Q and A concerning the cost of the Lambeth Conference. The full text of the relevant Questions and Answers is below the fold.
6 CommentsUpdated again Tuesday evening
Three reports that relate to the announcement made yesterday:
Living Church Primates Hold Key to New Province’s Recognition
Anglican Journal Anglican Network in Canada pushes for creation of North American province
Stand Firm Archbishops Anis, Nzimbi, Akrofi: We Will Recognize the New North American Province
Tuesday evening updates
Three more reports on this:
Covenant A New “Province” in North America: Neither the Only Nor the Right Answer for the Communion by Ephraim Radner
Washington Times Breakaway Episcopalians to unveil constitution by Julia Duin
Episcopal Café A new province: who makes the call? by Jim Naughton
Late Tuesday evening update
Anglican Journal Plans to create a conservative province ‘disturbing,’ says primate
34 CommentsUpdated Monday afternoon
The Living Church reports in Convention Planned to Form New Anglican Province by Steve Waring that:
When the Diocese of Fort Worth voted Nov. 15 to become the fourth American diocese to leave The Episcopal Church, the leadership of the Common Cause Partnership (CCP) scheduled a constitutional convention in the Chicago area Dec. 3 to form a new North American Anglican province. The event will be followed by “a province-by-province visitation and appeal for recognition of the separate ecclesiastical structure in North America.”
Significant details about the plan were revealed in a short AnglicanTV internet video clip containing remarks delivered by Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh and Bishop Bill Murdoch, a missionary bishop to the U.S. consecrated by the Anglican Church of Kenya…
The video clip can be found here.
Monday afternoon update
And now, here comes the press release, Anglican Leaders seek to unite North American Churches.
Draft Constitution to be Unveiled, Jerusalem Declaration Signed at Dec. 3 Chicago Gathering
WHEATON, IL, Nov. 14 — Leaders of the Common Cause Partnership, a federation of more than 100,000 Anglican Christians in North America, will release to the public on the evening of Dec. 3 the draft constitution of an emerging Anglican C–hurch in North America, formally subscribe to the Jerusalem Declaration of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) and affirm the GAFCON Statement on the Global Anglican Future at an evening worship celebration in suburban Chicago.
This historic event comes in the wake of GAFCON held in Israel last June with leaders from more than one-half of the world’s 77 million Anglicans. At the close of that gathering, Anglican leaders released the Jerusalem Declaration and the GAFCON Statement on the Global Anglican Future, which outlined their Christian beliefs and goals to reform, heal and revitalize the Anglican Communion worldwide…
Mark Harris writes about NIGPNA here with some coloured maps.
45 CommentsThe following report appeared in a Canadian newspaper, the National Post. The article was titled Breakaway Anglicans to form own body.
10 CommentsDissident Anglican churches in Canada and the United States say they will form a new conservative jurisdiction in the next year, adding that the Archbishop of Canterbury has lost the moral authority to have any real say in blocking the radical move.
Parishes that have left their national churches over the issue of same-sex marriage and a general trend toward liberalism want to create a single “province” that would report to a conservative North American bishop who shares their values.
“I believe the next year will be critical,” said Rev. Peter Frank, a spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, which voted last month to leave the U.S. Episcopal Church. “The first proposals will be formed in the very near term, in a matter of weeks, frankly.”
Mr. Frank said that any opposition from Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, will be moot because the spiritual head of Anglicanism has lost his moral authority.
“Frankly, [he] is not in a position to do anything. At this point, the leaders of a majority of the world’s Anglicans are going to recognize us when we [separate].”
But he added it would make it more difficult if Mr. Williams did not give his blessing.
Updated again Sunday morning
The Southern Cone-affiliated Diocese of Pittsburgh held a convention today, and the former Bishop of Pittsburgh Robert Duncan was elected as its bishop.
See this press release, Diocese Re-Elects Bishop Robert Duncan.
See also this earlier item Bishop Robert Duncan’s Vision for the Diocese.
Addition More detail about this event can be found here. It includes this:
Given the asides that had been dropped throughout these presentations, Bishop Duncan at one point took the stand to address the question of a new province. It was “very near” he said, and recognition might come as early as December. Certainly, it is hoped that a draft constitution will be presented at the December meeting of the Common Cause Partnership.
Meanwhile, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh which is part of The Episcopal Church in the USA has announced a Special Convention to occur on 13 December.
See several announcements, about the location, about the certification of deputies, and about nominations.
Saturday evening update
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a report by Ann Rodgers Duncan elected bishop of breakaway Episcopalians. In this article she refers to the breakaways as Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican).
Lionel Deimel has written further about various issues of terminology, at The Anglican Neighborhood of Make-Believe.
Sunday morning update
Episcopal News Service has a report by Matthew Davies and Mary Frances Schjonberg headed Deposed Pittsburgh bishop elected to lead former Episcopalians, realigned diocese.
The Post-Gazette has a further story, Episcopal bishop Duncan stressing ministry.
17 CommentsA statement from the meeting held in September in Nairobi has now been published on Global South Anglican.
Read STATEMENT FROM THE PRIMATES AND STANDING COMMITTEE OF CAPA IN NAIROBI, SEPTEMBER 3RD AND 4TH 2008.
6 CommentsWe met as Primates of Africa together with the Standing Committee of CAPA at the ACK Guest House on the 3rd and 4th of September 2008. This meeting provided the opportunity to reflect on our journey since our last Council Meeting in Mauritius in October 2007 and also on our experiences of life in the Anglican Communion; particularly in relation to the two great events of Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) and the Lambeth Conference.
We felt a deep sense of warmth and fellowship with each other and expressed gratitude to God for his faithfulness. We were however saddened by the absence of our colleagues namely Archbishop Ian Ernest our Chairman who was ill; Archbishops Peter Akinola and Mouneer Anis, who had difficulties with flight connections. We were glad to welcome Bishop Jo Seoka, who represented Archbishop Thabo Makgoba. We welcomed Rev Canon Grace Kaiso our new General Secretary and his Commissioning at All Saints Cathedral was one of the highlights our meeting…
Here’s even more criticism of what the Diocese of Sydney has recently said.
Over at Fulcrum Graham Kings has written:
The Diocese of Sydney, in allowing deacons, and (also in principle) lay people, to preside at Holy Communion, are breaking point 7 of the Jerusalem Declaration, which specifically upholds the ‘classic Anglican Ordinal’. This particular point needs noting.
7. We recognise that God has called and gifted bishops, priests and deacons in historic succession to equip all the people of God for their ministry in the world. We uphold the classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders.
The secretariat of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is based in the Diocesan Offices of the Diocese of Sydney. The Honorary Secretary of the FCA is the Archbishop of Sydney. It would be good to hear an explanation of this contradiction…
Then at the Prayer Book Society of the USA Peter Toon has written GAFCON & the Bishops & Diocese of Sydney! An excerpt:
32 CommentsMy earnest suggestion to the leadership of GAFCON is this:
After appropriate warning, the Council of Primates of GAFCON should expel the Bishops and Diocese of Sydney immediately: by this action GAFCON will maintain its committed to the biblical, classic Anglican Way and will show that it does take discipline (a mark of the true church) seriously.
If GAFCON does nothing and allows the Diocese of Sydney, with its innovatory doctrine, and pride in that innovation, to remain as a full member, then GAFCON will become, and will be seen by thousands, as merely and only an international, Evangelical Anglican Group — with no serious claims to a serious catholic ecclesiology and historic Ministry, and no real opportunity or intention to set a godly example to the whole Anglican Communion of Churches.
A former Primate of the Province of the Southern Cone, Bishop Maurice Sinclair, has written an article, available at Global South Anglican, Why support an Anglican Province of North America in process of formation?
He starts out:
7 CommentsThe question of the formation and recognition of a new Anglican Province in North America is currently being debated in the Anglican Communion. There is the urgent need on the one hand to regularise the situation of Anglicans who cannot in conscience assent to the innovations in doctrine and ethics being introduced into the life of TEC. On the other hand there is a natural reluctance to create a rival body alongside what has been a historic part of the Anglican Church. Institutions tend to avoid decisive measures, and minimise risk. However, reasons are given here for giving official support to the first steps in the formation of the new Province. It can be argued that failure to take these measures actually increases risk to the institutional as well as the spiritual life of the Communion…
AMiA Theologian Challenges CAPA Chairman Over Nature of the Church reads the headline at Anglican Mainstream South Africa. The article begins:
A theologian and former seminary Dean says that Archbishop Ian Ernest, chairman of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA), misunderstands the nature of the church when the prelate recently called upon the African church to put aside its differences and engage with its theological opponents within the Anglican Communion.
The Rt. Rev. Dr. John H. Rodgers addressed the Primate of the Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean and Bishop of Mauritius saying Ern[e]st misunderstands the nature of the Church failing to see the difference between the Church Visible and the Church Invisible…
Read it all here.
5 CommentsThe Church of England Newspaper had it on the front page. See Mixed response to Sydney communion decision by Toby Cohen. (In the paper edition, this story was headlined Sydney says deacons can now preside.)
The main report inside the paper was Sydney allows deacons to administer Communion, on a point of grammar by George Conger.
Forward in Faith has issued a rather brief and muted statement, see FiF reacts to recent news from Sydney.
23 CommentsUpdated
George Conger reports in the Church of England Newspaper that Gafcon leaders dismiss ‘futile’ covenant draft.
The proposed Anglican Covenant is an “exercise in futility,” theologians affiliated with the Gafcon movement tell The Church of England Newspaper, and the current draft is beset with “a considerable degree of theological confusion.”
Update
The latest Fulcrum newsletter is Life After Lambeth by Andrew Goddard. This also discusses the Covenant and GAFCON.
7 CommentsToday’s Church Times contains a news report by Bill Bowder on the recently published A Lambeth Commentary on the Saint Andrew’s Draft for an Anglican Communion. See Bishops’ approval of Covenant hangs in the balance.
See also the review by the Bishop of Guildford of the book by Professor Norman Doe, An Anglican Covenant: Theological and legal considerations for a global debate. What should the Covenant actually say?
And, read the Church Times Leader: Perfection and the Anglicans.
1 CommentBishop Bob Duncan has written an article for this week’s Church of England Newspaper.
Anglican Mainstream has reproduced it. See An Emerging North American Province.
Or, now read it at Religious Intelligence.
27 CommentsThe twin trajectories of The Episcopal Church and of the Anglican Church of Canada away from any Communion-requested restraint on matters of moral order and legal prosecution have made permanent a widespread separation of parishes from their historic geographical dioceses in the United States and Canada. Now these alienated parishes representing the moral (and theological) mainstream of global Anglicanism are being joined (or are about to be joined) by the majorities of four former Episcopal Church dioceses: San Joaquin in California, Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, Quincy in Illinois and Fort Worth in Texas. The reality of a significantly disintegrated North American Anglicanism now stretches from coast to coast and from the Arctic to the Rio Grande…
Dale Rye has written at Covenant under the title What’s Up Down Under?
The recent decision of the Diocesan Synod of Sydney, in the Anglican Church of Australia, to allow the administration of Holy Communion—i.e., the celebration of the Eucharist—by deacons and eventually laity seems outlandish to many overseas Anglicans. It makes considerably more sense within the context of Australian Anglicanism, which has a very different history than The Episcopal Church (TEC) and its various offshoots (I will get to that later). Australian Anglicanism is exceptionally diverse as a result of that history, and its diversity has led the Anglican Church of Australia to adopt a unique pattern of organization.
Just as some Episcopalians are frustrated when other Anglicans cannot understand TEC’s particular form of synodical governance, so I expect Australians feel when outsiders try to apply their own context to matters Down Under. I write the following as an American outsider, but one who has long been fascinated enough by the local variations on the common Anglican theme to make a study of them. (I hope that any Australians who read this will take the trouble to correct my inevitable mistakes by commenting below…)
Note: Dale Rye has added a substantial update to his original article.
Andrew McGowan who is Warden of Trinity College, the University of Melbourne, has written Power and Presiding: The Reality of “Lay Administration”.
The Diocese of Sydney’s reaffirmation, at its recent Synod, of lay presidency (or as many of its leaders prefer, “lay administration”) at the Holy Communion has had Anglicans around the world again wondering what we are putting in the (increasingly scarce!) water down here.
Sydney’s motives are quite unlike the occasional stirrings in this direction voiced on the liberal edge of US or British churches. The original theological engine driving this is the theology of Church and sacraments taught by former Moore College principal Broughton Knox, and now pursued by his students including key figures in the Sydney episcopal leadership and the present staff of Moore. Some of these, like their “Reform” counterparts in the UK, see the Reformation as an incomplete work and the Elizabethan settlement as a bit of a Laodicean compromise. The real interest in “lay administration” lies, for them, in carrying through a principled protestant disposal of catholic accretions upon a supposed New Testament model of ministry and worship.
There are links to other comments here.
21 CommentsEpiscopal Life Online has a lengthy article, with some historical background at AUSTRALIA: Sydney diocese votes for lay and diaconal presidency — again.
Bishop Alan Wilson has commented on this subject on his blog, see Lay Presidency: 2 heads better than 1.
48 CommentsContradictory signals from down under, driven by gross ecclesiological revisionism about Eucharistic Lay Presidency. I’m confused, anyway, about the news from Sydney. The fatuous notion that “this will make the diaconate a real diaconate” demonstrates simple but complete ignorance of Catholic order. In those terms all the Sydney innovators’ proposals would do is make deacons, functionally, priests. This would obviously tend to obscure distinctively diaconal ministry. The C of E meets pastoral need from within a traditional understanding of Church, by authorizing Extended Communion. Cursing in fluent Kangaroo, as Dr Doolittle called it, is a non-traditional sport…
Updated Sunday evening
Muriel Porter reports in the Church Times that Sydney votes for diaconal and lay presidency.
SYDNEY DIOCESAN SYNOD has affirmed that deacons — including women deacons — may preside at holy communion.
In a motion moved by a Sydney regional bishop, Dr Glenn Davies, the synod accepted arguments that there was no legal impediment to deacons’ presiding, given that, under a 1985 General Synod canon, deacons are authorised to assist the priest in the administration of the sacraments.
A report accompanying the motion argued that, because deacons can administer the sacrament of baptism “in its entirety”, and because “no hierarchy of sacraments is expressed in describing the deacon’s role of assisting the presbyter,” deacons are therefore authorised to “administer the Lord’s Supper in its entirety”.
Bishop Davies told the Synod that the Archbishop could not prevent a deacon’s “administering the Lord’s Supper”. But the motion, though it also affirmed lay presidency, could not approve lay people’s presiding at Sunday services, as the Archbishop would need to license them, Bishop Davies said. “The Archbishop will not license a lay person at this time.”
This reluctance is believed to relate to Sydney’s relationship with the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) bishops…
There is also a report of this on the Sydney Anglicans website Sydney restates Lord’s Supper position.
90 CommentsSydney Synod has overwhelmingly restated its principled support for lay and diaconal administration of the Lord’s Supper.
More significantly – in what supporters said is ‘a great outcome’ for women deacons – the motion also ‘accepts’ the argument that there is no longer any legal impediment to deacons officiating at Holy Communion given the wording of The Ordination Service for Deacons Canon 1985 and the repeal of the 1662 Act of Uniformity by a recent General Synod Canon.
However the motion itself does nothing to change the legal situation.
“We don’t make law or change law in a motion,” said the Bishop of North Sydney, Glenn Davies, in moving the motion “we merely express our view.”
Two articles by George Conger have just been published in places you might not normally look.
The Institute on Religion & Democracy The Seinfeld Conference: A Reflection on Lambeth 2008
The Christian Challenge The Hollow Men—Lambeth 2008, What Happened And Why
8 CommentsEpiscopal News Service reports:
ENGLAND: Archbishop of Canterbury, deposed Pittsburgh bishop meet at Lambeth Palace
27 CommentsArchbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and deposed Diocese of Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan met privately in London last week.
The Lambeth Palace press office confirmed that the meeting took place on October 15, but would not disclose details of the conversation between Williams and Duncan, saying it was “one of many private meetings” the archbishop hosts at his London residence…
The Covenant Design Group publish today the Lambeth Commentary [PDF], which sets out the responses of the bishops at the Lambeth Conference in their discussions of the St Andrew’s Draft for an Anglican Covenant.
The Commentary was complied by the Covenant Design Group at their recent meeting in Singapore and also sets out some of the initial thinking of the CDG in response to the comments of the bishops.
The Commentary has already been sent out to all Provinces to assist in their discernment and response to the St Andrew’s Draft, and encourages Provinces to submit their responses to the St Andrew’s Draft, while contributing to the ongoing thinking on the development of the text.
ACNS spoke to the Chairman of the Design Group, Archbishop Drexel Gomez about the Covenant Process.The full transcript is available here.
The Anglican Covenant section of the ACO website can be found here.
The statistical report can be found here [PDF].
9 Comments