Continued from here.
Updated again Friday noon
Further reports by Paul Handley in the Church Times
And more from Mary Frances Schjonberg at Episcopal News Service
EFAC has responded to Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon’s earlier comments in this press release.
Anglican Communion News Service
Bishops are more important than ministers who are, in turn more important than lay people. Ugly
The new proposal is to train bishops’ wives who will train clergy wives who will train lay wives. Not just ugly, but misogynistic – the status of women being determined by her husband’s status.And the reference was entirely to wives with the assumption that women won’t be ordained.
That is ACC-17. It’s like stepping back into the Middle Ages.
Kate I simply do not understand your reading of this. In many parts of the world today the wife of the Bishop is held in very high regard and carries important leadership and ministry tasks alongside him. They share the risks and dangers and often work, as ACC17 notes, in places where violence against women is endemic. These women have rarely received any training. What is misogynist is seeking to offer them better support and equipping in their ministry? It is not the Middle Ages. This is today’s world.
What is misogynistic is a woman deriving her status from her husband and a whole approach to women being based on the Mediaeval assumption. Note, there is nothing, NOTHING in that address about husbands deriving status from ordained women, nor indeed any recognition that a clergyman’s wife might be a doctor, lawyer, teacher etc and have her own professional and social standing. ACC is portraying women as adjuncts to their husbands.
Moreover the whole language is of husband and wife. Why discrinate against same sex couples by using language which denies their existence?
Justin: “I find myself caught in a really difficult position where we seek to bring everyone together, to look at these questions together, to see if we can learn to do so lovingly, to disagree well…” Is banning someone’s legal spouse “disagreeing well”? I don’t think so. It’s simply appeasement of those who insist that only their own way must dominate everyone else’s consciences. It’s giving way to threats. I feel deep and emotional commitment to the worldwide Anglican Communion, not least because of my daughter’s tireless work in Uganda, but most of all because of the pitiful and desperate… Read more »
Susannah,
As always you cut to the heart of the gospel, where true love abounds, there is the fullness of live.
The problem rests in one person, namely Justin Welby, a frightened Isaac.
Pray that God will send us Godly person, strong in Faith to fill the seat of York.
Fr John Emlyn
Fr John, I agree: ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. I agree too that JW often comes across as fearful, rabbit in headlights. But maybe there are reasons, not the least of which concern Iwerne and Smyth. It’s a terrible job he has, though. If only he would do and speak less, and think more. It’s all very well to rush around trying to extinguish fires, but sometimes flames can be cleansing.
Thanks for Mary Francis Schjonberg’s Report from the ACC. When the ABC says that – because of its Constitution – the ACC cannot discuss matters of doctrine, one cannot but wonder whether this is partly because there are lay-people included in this more fully representative assembly within the Communion. The problem with this sort of thinking is that it encourages the Faithful laity to think that their theological views are less than authentic. If this really is the case, then why has the Church bothered to call this assembly ‘Consultative’, when its diverse opinions cannot be brought into the arena… Read more »
Frankly, *anyone* can discuss doctrine, whenever they choose. At the stunning overflow of love and joy I witnessed at a church on Saturday, doctrine was being expressed in action, as two women married each other. It is frankly a bit weird for Justin to suggest that a Body as significant as the ACC cannot discuss doctrine. Does he own their brains? Rather, it comes across as an attempt to silence and erase discourse, in a context where his own actions impact on the very Unity the ACC is mandated to strive for. As Father Ron points out, that unity should… Read more »
Bravo, Susannah. People are bearers (ALL) of the Divine Image and should not be held back by political finagling which, sadly, the ABC is endorsing by his bending over backwards to accommodate the narrow vision og GAFCON/ACNA/FOCA – which does not represent the backbone of the Church – not only Bishops but the Faithful (uncluding LGBTQI people who love our God-in-Christ).
I believe that Gafcon Primates take great comfort from Justin’s attempts at compromise, but they will not be satisfied that he is restricting theological discussions on sexuality at ACC Meetings – which they neither attend not respect.
As someone raised in the Episcopal Church, with a bit of New England congregationalism on the side, the importance of the laity in the councils of the church is natural to me. But I have also served as a priest in an area that was within living memory a missionary region (and extra-provincial diocese under Canterbury), namely Newfoundland. Old missionary patterns of clericalism die hard, and in many provinces of the Communion that were formerly colonial missions, the native leadership may have replaced colonial leadership (I say “may have”, because with the election of Foley Beach as head of GAFCON,… Read more »
We are all involved in theology and doctrine, because these cannot just be abstracts: they are lived out in real lives, real sacrifice, real love, real community. And, indeed, in the actual living out we sometimes discover far deeper understanding and insight than a thousand books on theology could provide us with. I have cited the Christian marriage I attended last weekend: as an example of the communal overflow of love and joy and solidarity and devotion. This is lived theology. I am outraged, that two people sacrificially and devotedly giving themselves to each other in love and a lifetime’s… Read more »
It is worse than that. Read some of the papers and all the talk is of husband and wife, with sex-determined roles for both. Discussion of the exclusion of same sex spouses has been squashed yet language which promotes patriarchal, heterosexual norms is allowed by Justin.
Canon John Gibaut has reported on the new method of formally receiving Ecumenical texts – which will in essence now be the prerogative of the ACC (rather than the Lambeth Conference). It would seem to me that the reception of such texts is implicitly a matter of doctrine – and thus grants the ACC that role – rather undermining the Archbishop of Canterbury’s assertion.