N T Wright, Bishop of Durham, was a member of the Eames Commission which wrote the Windsor report. In an interview Anglican Report is ‘Fireproofing the House’ by Douglas LeBlanc in Christianity Today he talks about how the Commission went about its work, what happened behind the scenes, whether the report should have been tougher, and why it’s critical of some conservative bishops. Finally he discusses his ‘best case scenario’ for the Anglican Communion.
0 Comments[We’re] working out what it means to be the Anglican Communion for the 21st century. We’re looking way ahead of current crises and we’re saying we’d like to set up and see a framework which will enable us to be faithful, wise Anglicans in communion with one another in 20 years’ time, in a way which will mean we don’t have to have this kind of crisis again. It’s hugely expensive getting all the people together and having all the extra meetings.
Friday’s Church of England Newspaper, already available on its website, has plenty of coverage in its news section, with summaries of the report itself, and how it has been received by various groups.
There is comment from Andrew Carey, who gives his opinion on the likely sucess of the Eames Commission.
And don’t miss Ruth Gledhill’s comments starting with her experience of trying to ask ECUSA PB Frank Griswold a question.
2 CommentsThe Primates Standing Committee has issued a statement in which they explain what they hope will be the next step, following publication of the Windsor Report. The meat of the statement is the creation of a sub-committee of Primates to try and ensure that everyone reads the report:
We welcome this report as a comprehensive presentation of the tradition and practice of the Anglican Communion. There is much in this report which is challenging, but it points us in a sound direction for the resolution of current tensions. It is an invitation to the entire Communion to reflect on our life together. We are conscious of the concerns of those groups whose expectations have not been met, but we are very encouraged by the broad welcome and support that the report has received from many throughout the Communion.
and
4 CommentsWe have established a Reception Reference Group … which will be charged with receiving and co-ordinating initial responses to the Windsor Report in preparation for the Primates’ Meeting [in February 2005] … We hope that all the Provinces of the Anglican Communion … will join in a conversation with this reception group. In particular, the Reception Reference Group will wish to engage as much as possible with the 78 million members of our forty-four churches, and will explore ways of doing this effectively.
ACNS has published a statement from the Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola. You need to read this short statement in full, but here are some brief extracts:
After an initial reading it is clear to me that the report falls far short of the prescription needed for this current crisis. It fails to confront the reality that a small, economically privileged group of people has sought to subvert the Christian faith and impose their new and false doctrine on the wider community of faithful believers.
and
We have been asked to express regret for our actions and “affirm our desire to remain in the Communion”. How patronizing! We will not be intimidated. In the absence of any signs of repentance and reform from those who have torn the fabric of our Communion, and while there is continuing oppression of those who uphold the Faith, we cannot forsake our duty to provide care and protection for those who cry out for our help.
The Times reports this under the headline Archbishop tells US Anglicans to repent
Meanwhile, the print edition of today’s Daily Telegraph reports that Archbishop Akinola has flown back to Nigeria instead of staying in London to attend a meeting of the Primates Standing Committee in London. He is reported to have told Lambeth Palace that he was too busy preparing for a meeting of African Anglicans to stay in London. This story does not seem to appear in the online editions of today’s papers.
9 CommentsUPDATE (Thursday 21 October at 11:20pm BST)
The full text of Dean Jensen’s speech to “the forum” (actually Sydney Synod) on 19 October refered to below is available on the Sydney Anglicans website.
A week ago we linked to an article in The Guardian headlined “Evangelicals call Williams a prostitute” which reported on remarks made by Dean Phillip Jensen of Sydney at the annual conference of Reform. Reform was later reported to have apologised for the remarks.
The Sydney Morning Herald, in an article headlined “Sorry, says Jensen, but Anglicans are at war” reports today:
The brother of the Sydney archbishop Peter Jensen used the forum to deny he had damned the Archbishop of Canterbury as an intellectual and theological prostitute last week.
He also denied calling Kings College Chapel in Cambridge a “temple to paganism”.
While admitting loose expressions, confused meanings and the odd slips of the tongue, Mr Jensen apologised for the “great and unnecessary alarm” the headlines had caused.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation says “Dean Jensen says comments taken out of context”.
1 CommentAs well as the UK articles on the Windsor report listed in the article below, there are hundreds more in newspapers around the world. I have linked a small selection of them below.
Do remember, when reading them, that newspapers are much more interested in gay bishops and same-sex blessings than they are in bishops who intervene in other bishops’ dioceses.
The Age (Melbourne, Australia)
Unity under pressure as Anglicans digest gay report
Anglicans chart a difficult course
Anglican report slams US over gay bishop
Anglican head welcomes Windsor report
Anglicans move to avoid split
Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Sorry, says Jensen, but Anglicans are at war
Anglican report slams US over gay bishop
Anglican head welcomes Windsor report
Anglicans demand apology from US
Anglicans prefer split to false, forced unity
Kerala Next (India)
UK ; Gay supporters respond to ban on clergy
US ; Gay bishop unapologetic on same-sex blessings
The Guardian (Lagos, Nigeria)
Anglican Church demands apology over U.S. gay bishop
The Nation (Nairobi, Kenya)
Anglican Church Demands Apology Over Gay Bishop
The Standard (Nairobi, Kenya)
Anglicans deal major blow to gay priests
Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada)
Anglican prelates unrepentant
Canada.Com (Toronto, Canada)
Anglican commission’s report criticizes Canadian church over same-sex blessings
CTV (Canada)
Canadian, U.S. Anglicans criticized in report
The Boston Globe (USA)
Anglican panel seeks a halt on gay bishops
The New York Times (USA)
Church Is Rebuked Over Gay Unions and a Gay Bishop
Christian Science Monitor (Boston MA, USA)
Anglican effort to avert schism
The Washington Post (USA)
Anglicans Chide U.S. Church on Gay Bishop
Kansas City Star (USA)
Panel seeks Anglican accord (an Associated Press report)
The Post and Courier (Charleston SC, USA)
Anglican panel warns church over gay bishop
After the rush of yesterday, and now that people have had a chance to read the report we hope to see some slightly more considered comment.
But real understanding will take a little longer. As The Archbishop of Canterbury comments:
I hope that everyone with the well being of our Communion at heart will now take time to study the report — and to pray and reflect upon its proposals which, as the Commission has made clear, offer neither easy nor simple solutions to real and demanding challenges. If we are serious about meeting those challenges, as I know we are, then we have to do all we can to continue to travel this road together.
That is what we intend to do, and as usual we will continue to point to a range of other commentators, as well as adding our thoughts.
Other coverage this morning includes:
The Anglican Communion had a relatively minor crisis as new consciousness about homosexuality struggled to be born in the face of ancient prejudice. This commission has taken this minor crisis and turned it into a major revolution that will move Anglicanism toward the literal-mindedness that now threatens not just Christianity, but religious systems all over the world.
Dr Robin Eames, charged with averting schism in the Anglican Communion, has come up with a new liturgical gesture. The primates and churches who have split the communion are to apologise to one another – but with their fingers crossed.
The prospects that the report would find a compromise for the 78 million-strong worldwide communion looked bleak last night as factions began to digest its findings. One senior primate told the Guardian: “It’s very, very black, very grim. We are hell-bent on division. It’s all down to the grace of Almighty God now.”
Robin Eames may see his commission’s report into the Church’s stance on homosexuality as part of the Anglican Communion’s “pilgrimage towards healing and reconciliation”, but it is unlikely that the two opposing sides in this ill-tempered dispute will share that optimism. And it is unlikely that yesterday’s report will prevent hostilities flaring up again, since it fails to address the fundamental issues behind this crisis of Anglicanism.
The Anglican Communion Network and American Anglican Council, groupings of conservative Episcopalians in the USA, have expressed their ‘strong concerns’ that the report calls ‘only for the Episcopal Church USA to “express regret”’ and that it fails ‘to recommend direct discipline of ECUSA’. They cannot support ‘unity at the expense of truth’.
Read their statement here.
0 CommentsThe Canadian diocese of New Westminster also featured in the Windsor Report, after its decision to authorize a rite for the blessing of a same-sex couple. Tonight, Michael Ingham, Bishop of New Westminster issued a statement regretting ‘the consequence of our actions’.
Read the statement by following the link below.
0 CommentsWhilst we encourage everyone to read the Windsor Report in full, for the benefit of readers we provide this short overview of its main features, with thanks to TA reader, the Revd Roger Stokes.
For a fuller summary this page at Beliefnet is worth reading.
We also like Dave Walker’s lighter summary.
Follow the link on the next line to read Roger’s overview.
5 CommentsComment from interested parties has begun to arrive. I will continuing adding the latest reports at the end of this article, rather than add new articles. Some news stories are also listed below in the article ‘At the hour’.
ACNS carries an exchange of letters between the report’s chairman, Archbishop Robin Eames, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Dr Williams writes:
You are not offering the Communion any easy solutions now … You have called us to behave in a maturely Christian way so as to become the Church God wants us to be … You have given all of us work to do and you do not suggest any short cuts … That you have been able to offer the communion a unanimous report gives me great encouragement that the process you have been through as a group may help set a pattern for the Communion itself in the demanding journey that lies ahead.
The Revd David Phillips of the Church Society is reported as commenting
I am pretty disappointed with this, I was expecting something much more definite and clear. My impression overall was that it was very ambiguous. It is toothless. It says what matters most of all it to stick together, we just need to stick together – unity is seen as more important than truth.
There is not yet any comment on the Church Society website.
The same report in The Scotsman quotes Martin Reynolds of the Lesbian Gay and Christian Movement:
The tenor of the document is itself conciliatory — this is a document we can work with, this is a Church we want to continue to be a part of.
Again, there is no comment yet on the LGCM website.
InclusiveChurch comments
We are pleased that the Commission has not recommended the suspension or expulsion of the Episcopal Church USA from the Anglican Communion, or called for Bishop Gene Robinson to resign. We note that the report does not ask for repentance from the Episcopal Church, and we welcome the desire for reconciliation contained within it.
365gay.com suggests that the report ‘has failed to appease either liberals or traditionalists’.
The Archbishop of Cape Town, Winston Njongonkulu Ndungane, quoted in Johannesburg’s Mail and Guardian described the report as “a rich gift of a deep theological and spiritual reflection on the nature of the common life of God’s people” which offers “a ‘win-win’ opportunity” that must be “grasped with both hands.”
The BBC now has a further story: Anglicans buy time in same sex row which covers some of the reaction to the report publication.
More nuanced stories are now appearing, for example this AP story headlined Episcopal right disappointed by report which includes:
An Anglican panel studying the consecration of an openly gay bishop in the U.S. Episcopal Church failed to give American conservatives what they sought Monday: punishment for church leaders and quick recognition for the network of dissenting congregations.
and
4 Comments“We have strong concerns about the fact that they call only for the Episcopal Church USA to ‘express regret’ and fail to recommend direct discipline,” said the Anglican Communion Network and the American Anglican Council.
The Presiding Bishop of the American Episcopal Church, Frank Griswold has issued some preliminary reflections on the Windsor Report. He begins:
I write to you from London where I am attending a meeting of the Primates’ Standing Committee. I have had a matter of hours to review the Report of the Lambeth Commission on Communion, thus I will now offer only some preliminary observations. It will take considerable time to reflect upon the Report, which consists of some 100 pages.
Read the rest of his comments in full by clicking the following link
7 Comments12 noon, and the Windsor Report of the Lambeth Commission, chaired by Archbishop Robin Eames, is published. Unless their website is swamped you can read the report online at the Anglican Communion Office.
If their site is overwhelmed (and it appears to be at the moment) then we have a copy of the pdf version here
Updated
There’s already quite a lot of reportage of this story, most of which seems to lead on the request for an apology from ECUSA. Journalists have perhaps not yet had time to fully digest the Report, or to note the more subtle aspects. Stories include:
In a short while the Windsor Report will be published and we will be able to form our own opinions.
In the meantime there is plenty of coverage and comment on what the report is expected to say. No one seems to have disputed the accuracy of the story published in The Times last week.
The BBC has Splits feared in Anglican Church. The Times has Church report to spark gay debate, the Guardian carries a PA story Church report ‘set to fuel gay row’, and the Independent Gay rights report threatens to shatter unity of Anglican Church.
0 CommentsThe Times claims a scoop today on what the Windsor Report will say. Acccording to Ruth Gledhill:
A commission set up to save the Church from schism will propose a binding covenant.
4 CommentsAnglican provinces are to be told they must sign an unbreakable unity agreement which would prevent dioceses and provinces from ordaining bishops such as Gene Robinson in the US again. A “star chamber” will adjudicate when provinces are accused of breaking the agreement.
We noted an article in Wednesday’s Guardian reporting comments about the Archbishop of Canterbury made by the Dean of Sydney at Reform’s national conference. Reform has now felt it necessary to apologise to the Archbishop for what was said.
Church Times Reform is sorry for Dean’s jibe
Here are some other reports and reactions to the Dean’s comments.
10 CommentsABC Online (Australia) Anglican Church leaders bewildered by Dean’s outburst
and Australian Anglican Church distances itself from Philip Jensen’s comments
The Sydney Morning Herald Anglican turmoil over Dean Jensen’s attack
and Dean Jensen lays into Prince and church leader
The Star (South Africa) Dean causes Anglican spat
Since early last year, the Archbishops’ and Prime Minister’s appointments secretaries have been placing notices in the church press inviting comments and suggestions about filling vacant diocesan bishoprics. The one for York has appeared this week, and is reproduced below.
The Telegraph and BBC picked this up yesterday, but their stories give the impression that the reporters had not actually seen a copy of the notice.
Telegraph Worshippers invited to nominate archbishop
BBC Archbishop job ad in newspapers
The Church Times carries the notice in its paper edition today, but apparently does not consider it to be a job advertisement and so has not added it to its online listing of job vacancies.
The Church of England Newspaper, the other paper to carry the notice, has not yet updated its website to include this week’s classified ads.
VACANCY IN THE SEE OF YORK
Following the announcement of the resignation of Dr David Hope, Archbishop of York, the See will fall vacant on the 1st March 2005. The main meeting of the Vacancy in See Committee will be held on 30th October 2004.The Crown Nominations Commission will meet on 28th February/1st March 2005 and 10th/11th May 2005.
Any person wishing to comment on the needs of the diocese, the northern province or the wider church, or who wishes to propose candidates, should write before the 12th November to
Caroline Boddington
Archbishops’ Secretary for Appointments
Cowley House
9 Little College Street
LONDON
SW1P 3SH
or to
William Chapman
Prime Minister’s Appointments Secretary
10 Downing St
LONDON
SW1A 2AA
Any letters received will be shared by the two Secretaries.
0 CommentsThat’s the headline over a story by Stephen Bates in today’s Guardian, reporting on the Conference of Reform.
Conservative evangelicals flexed their muscles yesterday by denouncing the Church of England and its leader, the Most Rev Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, as sinful and corrupt, and threatening to refuse to recognise the authority of liberal bishops.
And:
Dr Williams was denounced as a theological prostitute by the Very Rev Phillip Jensen, the controversial Anglican dean of Sydney, addressing the 200 clergy and lay members attending the conference.
Dean Jensen was applauded as his sweeping denunciation of the Church of England took in the Prince of Wales — a “public adulterer”; King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, attacked as a “temple to paganism” for selling the records and compact discs of its famous choir in the ante-chapel; and women priests because, “as soon as you accept women’s ordination everything else in the denomination declines”.
More coverage of the Conference in the Telegraph.
2 CommentsThe Daily Telegraph reports that the Church of England may review its policy on ethical investments. Currently, the Church Commissioners are unable to invest in companies involved in pornography, arms, tobacco, gambling and alcohol.
The Church Commissioners, who manage assets worth £3.9 billion, are reviewing their ethical investment policy to ensure that they are maximising their returns. Clerical insiders admitted that any significant changes could prove controversial among the General Synod, who are sensitive about the size and use of the Church’s holdings.
A copy of this Telegraph article also appears here.
0 CommentsAnthony Howard writes in The Times today about the forthcoming Rochester report, due next month, on women bishops. And he doesn’t like what he thinks it will say.
The Bishop of Rochester’s 15-strong working party has come up with what is, in effect, a shopping list. And a pretty ludicrous one it is, too.
And:
Its suggested courses of action for the future range from a kind of ecclesiastical Noddy land in which women could become suffragan bishops but not diocesan ones, through an even greater fantasy world in which they could hope to be full-scale diocesan bishops but never Archbishop of Canterbury or Archbishop of York, to a somewhat dismal and defeated maintenance of the status quo under which our present crop of women priests may become deans or archdeacons but never break through the stained-glass ceiling to sit on the episcopal bench.
(For the benefit of readers outside Britain, ‘Noddy’ is a character in a simplistic children’s storybook.)
As for next week’s Windsor Report he comments:
0 Commentspunitive action hardly looks like an essentially Christian activity and it is impossible to see anything but damage coming out of this particular piece of reprisal. Conceived in panic, it seems doomed to end in recrimination. No situation is ever surer to delight the outsider than the sight of those who purport to uphold standards of forgiveness and charity failing to live up to them.