Anglican Communion Rift

Anglican head warns against conservative challenge

Published: 6/30/08, 5:06 PM EDT By MEERA SELVA

LONDON (AP) - The spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans raised questions Monday about the legitimacy of plans to create a global network of conservative Anglicans that would challenge his authority and the teachings of liberal North American churches.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said the proposal to form a separate global council of conservative bishops who will train priests and interpret Scripture would create more problems than it solves.

A council "which consists of only a self-selected group ... will not pass the test of legitimacy for all in the Communion," he said.

The plan emerged from a weeklong meeting in Jerusalem of conservative Anglican bishops, clergy and lay people from Africa and some north American and British churches. In a declaration Sunday, they announced plans for the fellowship as a "church within a church," stopping short of a complete break with the communion.

Conference participants expressed outrage at what they consider a "false gospel" that has led churches in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere to accept gay relationships. Long-standing divisions over how Anglicans should interpret the Bible erupted in 2003 when the U.S. Episcopal Church, the Anglican body in the U.S., consecrated the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

On Monday, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, said that "much of the Anglican world must be lamenting the latest emission" from the Jerusalem conference.

"Anglicanism has always been broader than some find comfortable," she said. "This statement does not represent the end of Anglicanism, merely another chapter in a centuries-old struggle for dominance by those who consider themselves the only true believers."

In recent years, overseas conservatives have taken leadership of the more than 60 Episcopal parishes that have split from the denomination. The Episcopal Church includes more than 7,000 parishes.

As part of their new fellowship, the conservatives said they would continue to take in breakaway churches.

Williams warned that the conservatives' plans to intervene when congregations or priests around the world complain about the teachings of their local bishops would lead to the church being used to settle personal scores.

"How is a bishop or primate in another continent able to discriminate effectively between a genuine crisis of pastoral relationship and theological integrity, and a situation where are underlying non-theological motivations at work?" he said.

In their official statement from the conference, the conservative groups said they "do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the archbishop of Canterbury." They also called the current setup for the communion, with the archbishop of Canterbury at its center, "a colonial structure."

The Anglican Communion is a 77 million-member family of churches that trace their roots to the Church of England. It is the third-largest grouping of churches in the world, behind Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, and has always held together different views.

The Jerusalem meeting was held just ahead of a once-a-decade gathering of all Anglican bishops, called the Lambeth Conference. Some of the more than 200 bishops in Jerusalem plan to boycott Lambeth, which begins July 16 in England.

___

AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll in New York contributed to this report.

Jesus Wept and the Bigotry Continues

I hope some American Bishops stand with Bishop Robinson and boycott Lambeth next summer. But I doubt if more than two or three do this. Wearing their purple outfits and hearing the English accent which makes them croon is much more important than social justice or rebelling against a fellow bishop being treated so shabbily. 

Believe it or not, the Archbishop of Canterbury described in the article below is the one and same Archbishop of Canterbury who recently held a special Eucharist for G/B/L/T Anglican church members but thought it best that the service be done in secret so as to not upset those opposed to such a service. Can you imagine? A group of Christians meeting in a church and it has to be a freaking secret?

At any rate, it didn't stay secret for long.  Titus Online and Stand Firm found out about it almost immediately.  So if Anglicans on both sides of the issue are confused, they have every right to be. 

Some say that Archbishop Rowan Williams doesn't know what he believes. I disagree. I've read some of his papers. I find them boring and difficult to comprehend as he doesn't use English in the same manner most ordinary people in England, Canada, Australia or the U.S. do. I bet that even my Oxford grad grandpa, may he rest in peace would have found reading his theological treatises a challenge. But I'm confident in my opinion that he believes that the institution is more important than baptized Christians. 

The Archbishop is an intellectual giant. He just doesn't know what the heck he's doing!

gb

The Guardian

Friday December 14, 2007

By ROBERT BARR

Associated Press Writer

LONDON (AP) - The archbishop of Canterbury said Friday he will not reverse his decision to exclude a gay U.S. bishop from joining other bishops at a global Anglican gathering next year.

The office of Archbishop Rowan Williams said he also had not changed his mind about refusing an invitation to Martyn Minns, a traditionalist U.S. priest who was consecrated as a bishop in the Anglican Church of Nigeria to minister to disaffected Episcopalians in the U.S.

Williams, spiritual leader of the world's Anglicans, said he has recruited professional mediators in trying to reach greater understanding between the U.S. Episcopal Church and its critics both at home and abroad.

The Anglican Communion is a 77-million-member fellowship of churches that trace their roots to the Church of England. The Episcopal Church, the Anglican body in the U.S., caused an uproar in 2003 by consecrating the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Anglicans are now on the brink of schism, and attendance at next year's assembly, called the Lambeth Conference, has become a focus of the tension. Theological conservatives and liberals have separately threatened to boycott the meeting because of who was and wasn't invited.

Williams dedicated his Advent message to the crisis. He said that just under half of world Anglican leaders have not accepted the pledges by the Episcopal Church that it won't confirm any more gay bishops for now or approve official prayers for same-sex unions.

``We simply cannot pretend that there is now a ready-made consensus on the future of relationships between (the Episcopal Church) and other provinces,'' said Williams, who does not have the direct authority to force a compromise. ``Much work remains to be done.''

Statements by individual U.S. bishops that seem to deviate from their church's declarations have complicated the situation, the archbishop said.

He said that interpreting the Bible cannot be done ``in isolation by one part of the family'' and that ``radical change'' in understanding Scripture ``cannot be determined by one group or tradition alone.''

Williams also had stern words for Anglican leaders who have threatened not to attend the Lambeth Conference, held every 10 years and scheduled for July in Canterbury.

``I have said that the refusal to meet can be a refusal of the cross - and so of the Resurrection,'' Williams said. ``We are being asked to see our handling of conflict and potential division as part of our maturing both as pastors and as disciples. I do not think this is either an incidental matter or an evasion of more basic questions.''

There was no immediate comment from Robinson, who was on sabbatical, or Minns, who was traveling.

Williams called for professionally facilitated conversations between the leadership of the Episcopal Church ``and those with whom they are most in dispute, internally and externally, to see if we can generate any better level of mutual understanding.''

A week ago, the conservative Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, in Fresno, Calif., voted to secede from the national church - the first full diocese to do so. Separately, about 55 Episcopal parishes out of more than 7,000 nationwide have split from the denomination, with some aligning directly with like-minded Anglican provinces overseas. Lawsuits over church property are already in the courts in some states and more litigation is expected.

Canon Kendall Harmon, a traditionalist leader in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, said he was encouraged that the letter called the consecration of a partnered gay man ``a new understanding of Scripture.''

Episcopal leaders ``have done an action that undermines the trust of the communion and they have not done enough to clear that trust,'' Harmon said.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, leader of the Episcopal Church, said in a statement that she has ``repeatedly offered to engage in dialogue with those who are most unhappy,'' but her offer ``has not yet been seriously engaged.''

---

On the Net:

Archbishop's letter:http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2007/12/14/ACNS4354

Archbishop of Canterbury Writes to Bishop Howe of Diocese of Central Florida

This is a copy of the letter Rowan Williams, Archibishop of Canterbury sent to Bishop Howe of Central Florida. On his website, Louie Crew sent an email to Bishop how to ask if this is really authentic. Bishop Howe replied, "yes." Dear Louie also sent a copy to every bishop in the Anglican Communion, so by the time my readers see this on my blog, it will be hundreds of copies all over the Internet. Gordon http://www.cafepress.com/fartotheleft ---------------------------------------------------------

14 October 2007 Dear John I've just received your message, which weighs very heavily on my heart, as it must - though far more so - on yours. At this stage, I can say only two things. The first is that I have committed myself very clearly to awaiting the views of the Primates before making any statement purporting to settle the question of The Episcopal Church's status, and I can't easily short-circuit that procedure. The second is that your Rectors need to recognize that this process is currently in train and that a separatist decision from them at this point would be irresponsible and potentially confusing. However, without forestalling what the Primates might say, I would repeat what I've said several times before - that any Diocese compliant with Windsor remains clearly in communion with Canterbury and the mainstream of the Communion, whatever may be the longer-term result for others in The Episcopal Church. The organ of union with the wider Church is the Bishop and the Diocese rather than the Provincial structure as such. Those who are rushing into separatist solutions are, I think, weakening that basic conviction of Catholic theology and in a sense treating the provincial structure of The Episcopal Church as if it were the most important thing - which is why I continue to hope and pray for the strengthening of the bonds of mutual support among those Episcopal Church Bishops who want to be clearly loyal to Windsor. Action that fragments their Dioceses will not help the consolidation of that all-important critical mass of ordinary faithful Anglicans in The Episcopal Church for whose nurture I am so much concerned. Breaking this up in favour of taking refuge in foreign jurisdictions complicates and embitters the future for this vision. Do feel free to pass on these observations to your priests. I should feel a great deal happier, I must say, if those who are most eloquent for a traditionalist view in the United States showed a fuller understanding of the need to regard the Bishop and the Diocese as the primary locus of ecclesial identity rather than the abstract reality of the 'national church'. I think that if more thought in these terms there might be more understanding of why priests in a diocese such as yours ought to maintain their loyalty to their sacramental communion with you as Bishop. But at the emotional level I can understand something of the frustration they doubtless experience, just as you must. With continuing prayers and love, +Rowan

Archbishop Rowan Williams: The Voice of the Ages

Father Paul Woodrum, Episcopal Priest and designer of magnificent vestments (Challwood Studios, Brooklyn, NYC), sent something this morning which was waiting for me in my email. I thought it was worth sharing. Thanks to Father Paul for giving me permission to share it. Gordon http://www.cafepress.com/fartotheleft

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1st Century: -- Certainly Gentiles have a place in the church as do all the baptized. The debate is currently about the appropriate limits of pastoral care and the place Gentiles may hold in the offices of the church. The question is how far the traditional theology of the church lets us move in that direction.

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7th Century: -- Certainly followers of Augustine have a place in the church as do all the baptized. The debate is currently about not only the date of Easter, but the appropriate limits of pastoral care and the place followers of Rome may hold in the offices of the church. The question is how far the Celtic tradition of the church lets us move in that direction.

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12th Century:-- Certainly Anglo-Saxon people have a place in the church as do all the baptized. The debate is currently about the appropriate limits of pastoral care and the place Anglo-Saxon people may hold in the offices of the church. The question is how far Norman church tradition lets us move in that direction.

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16th Century:-- Certainly recusants and dissenters have a place in the church as do all the baptized. The debate is currently about the appropriate limits of pastoral care and the place recusants and dissenters may hold in the offices of the church. The question is how far the Established Church and Crown lets us move in that direction.

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18th Century:-- Certainly colonials have a place in the church as do all the baptized. The debate is currently about the appropriate limits of pastoral care and the place colonials may hold in the offices of the church. The question is how far Parliament lets us move in that direction.

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19th Century:-- Certainly slaves throughout the Empire have a place in the church as do all the baptized. The debate is currently about the appropriate limits of pastoral care and the place slaves may hold in the offices of the church. The question is how far slave owners let us move in that direction.

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1900 - 1960's:--Certainly African Americans have a place in the church as do all the baptized. The debate is currently about the appropriate limits of pastoral care and the place African Americans may hold in the offices of the church. The question is how far white American tradition lets us move in that direction.

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1970's --Certainly women have a place in the church as do all the baptized. The debate is currently about the appropriate limits of pastoral care and the place women may hold in offices of the church. The question is how far the traditional patriarchial theology of the church lets us move in that direction.

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21st Century:--Certainly gay and lesbian people have a place in the church as do all the baptized. The debate is currently about the appropriate limits of pastoral care and the place gay and lesbian people may hold in the offices of the church. The question is how far the traditional theology of the church lets us move in that direction." (The Most Reverend and Right Honorable Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, 21 September AD 2007, New Orleans, LA, USA)

I liked this picture of Dr. Rowan Williams, Archibishop of Canterbury and the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, Rev. Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori.

BTW, I highly recommend our Presiding Bishop's book, A Wing and a Prayer. It's WONDERFUL! Through a series of stories, the complexities of TEC are easily explained. This book really explains what makes Anglicans tick, why we try so hard to remain together when other denominations would call it quits and split years ago. It explains why TEC faces the challenges it does and challenges Episcopalians to further explore the challenges in our faith on an individual and corporate manner.

Below is an AP story/update of the House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans

Gordon

http://www.cafepress.com/fartotheleft

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September 21, 2007

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The archbishop of Canterbury indicated Friday that the Episcopal Church isn't on the brink of losing its place in the world Anglican fellowship, despite the uproar over Episcopal support for gay clergy.

Anglican leaders, called primates, had set a Sept. 30 deadline for the Americans to pledge unequivocally not to consecrate another gay bishop or approve an official prayer service for gay couples. Episcopal bishops have dedicated their meeting here to crafting a response. But after two days of private talks with Episcopal leaders, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican spiritual leader, said ''there is no ultimatum involved.'' The goal, he said, is ''compromise.'' ''It's been presented sadly as a set of demands,'' Williams said in a news conference before he left. ''I don't think that what was in the primates' minds. In fact, I'm sure it isn't.'' The Episcopal Church is the Anglican body in the United States and has a more liberal view of Scripture than most Anglicans overseas. Tensions over Bible interpretation erupted in 2003, when Episcopalians consecrated the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire. Over the past four years, Anglican leaders have held emergency summits and private negotiations, trying to prevent differences over homosexuality from shattering the Anglican Communion. The most recent international conference was held in February in Tanzania, where Anglican leaders called for the Americans to roll back their support for gays. ''This has consequences for the full participation of the church in the life of the communion,'' the primates said, in the document they approved in Africa. Williams acknowledged that ''some primates would give a more robust interpretation of the demands, some less.'' But the archbishop said the Sept. 30 date was chosen simply to coincide with the meeting this month of the Episcopal House of Bishops. Bishop Stacy Sauls of Lexington, Ky., said that Williams and Australian Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, among the Anglican representatives who participated in the New Orleans meeting, said ''we had misread the communique'' and ''expressed a sense of regret'' over how it was written. Still, there were moments of tension in the closed-door discussions. Bishops have said that Williams pressed them to make some concessions for the sake of Anglican unity. As bishops took turns addressing Williams, Robinson said he found some of the archbishop's comments on the decision before the church ''dehumanizing'' to gays and lesbians. In an interview Friday, Robinson said he had told Williams respectfully ''what was on my mind and on my heart.'' ''I have always held the archbishop of Canterbury in high regard and I will continue to do so,'' Robinson said. Egypt Bishop Mouneer Anis told the bishops that their decision to consecrate Robinson created ''one of the most difficult disputes in the communion in our generation'' and that some ''think you are a different religion.'' ''If you appreciate being members of the global Anglican family, then you have to walk alongside the members of your family,'' Anis said, according to a text of his remarks that was circulated. Yet no one expects Episcopal leaders to completely reverse course. Theological conservatives are a minority in the denomination and some wish to stay in the church. Williams will work with Anglican leaders and with members of the Anglican Consultative Council, an international lay-clergy panel, in evaluating whatever statement Episcopal bishops make before they end their gathering Tuesday. Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, head of a network of conservative Episcopal dioceses and parishes that are considering splitting from the Episcopal Church, said that Williams is ''de-emphasizing the ultimatum piece to try to get the best results'' from American leaders. ''A great number of the primates see that deadline very much as a real deadline,'' Duncan said, ''just as many of us had.'' -------- On the Net: Episcopal Church: http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/ Anglican Communion: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/

A Hard Truth, From Stand Firm in Faith

This isn't one of my favorite sources of information, but I thought that this article from Stand Firm in Faith would be worth sharing. http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/4631/

Matt Kennedy

A Hard Truth

If we were to take a straw poll of the primates of the Anglican Communion on the question of human sexuality, we would, no doubt, find that somewhat more than 20 agree with Lambeth Resolution 1.10. Were we, however, to ask which primates would be prepared to stand against or, if need be, apart from Canterbury if push came to shove, the number would be reduced to somewhere near 6 or, if we want to be optimistic, 8. The fact is that while the vast majority of the Anglican primates hold fast to the orthodox position on human sexuality, only a small minority are willing to do much about it apart from issuing statements or voting “yes” on various orthodox resolutions. It seems, unfortunately for us, that Canterbury knows this too. He tested the strength of the Global South coalition in Tanzania and found, in the end, that only a small number of primates were prepared to walk if need be. The bold intransigence of these few courageous primates saved the day in Dar. But the damage was done. The strength of the orthodox primates and the orthodox position within the primates meeting once lay in the potential loss of up to 20 provinces. At Dar, the Archbishop of Canterbury put this potential to the test. He lost his gambit to push through the Sub-Group Report, but he gained a much greater strategic victory: knowledge. Now he knows the real rather than the supposed strength of the orthodox primates. And this knowledge has added a certain measure of steel to his spine. Why carry forward with the process articulated at Dar? Why heed calls from communion conservatives to appoint a provincial council? Why call a primates meeting after September 30th? Politically speaking, there is no reason to do any of these things and every reason not to do them. Knowledge of the real political weakness of the orthodox coalition is why we’ve seen, since Tanzania, such a noticeable and aggressive shift in Canterbury’s public position and posture beginning with his issuance of Lambeth Conference invitations. The worst case scenario for Archbishop Rowan Williams, supposing he refuses to act in accordance with the Tanzania Communique’s Pastoral Scheme and/or refuses to discipline the Episcopal Church, would be the loss of some populous but politically isolated provinces in the Global South and the loss of several primates--primates who, frankly, threaten the power and position of the see of Canterbury and that of the Church of England. Canterbury has nothing to lose. This is a hard truth. I’ve written about it before. I do so again because I think it is something with which we must come to terms if we are to think clearly about the Network, Common Cause, the upcoming House of Bishops meeting, Lambeth, and the Communion as a whole. And the most profound question is this: Is Canterbury essential to Anglicanism? My own answer, as you might have guessed, is “no”. What is yours? The way various parties, far more powerful and influential, answer that fundamental question will determine the ultimate shape of the Communion.

A WORD FROM THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

Why the Anglican Communion matters

By Dr Rowan Williams

In some people's eyes, keeping the Anglican Communion together as a worldwide institution looks like prolonging the life of a dysfunctional or abusive marriage; isn't it more honest and humane to head for the divorce courts?

Why should we be mortgaged to other people's prejudices - if we're liberal - or other people's irresponsibility - if we're traditionalist? Isn't what matters the life and vigour, and indeed the integrity, of the Church on our doorstep?

There were moments in the meeting of Anglican leaders in Tanzania when I guess most of those present felt a bit like this. The fact that they weren't prepared simply to leave things there suggests, though, that more needs to be said. There remains a strong belief that this kind of worldwide Christian institution means we all agree to take responsibility for each other in some way, and to recognise that none of us has ultimate interests and concerns that are exclusively local or personal.

So what is the problem at the moment? When Anglicans in America decided, in 2003, to appoint as a bishop someone in an openly gay partnership, the widespread reaction was that there hadn't yet been the kind of discussion in the worldwide setting that might convince others of the rightness, in principle, of blessing same-sex relationships - and that this discussion needed to happen before anyone decided whether an active gay person might be a candidate for being a bishop. Not too surprisingly, most in the Communion felt that the conclusion had come before the argument.

This created two sorts of difficulty. One was the question of limits. For most Anglicans, questions about sexual ethics belonged in that category of teaching that was not up for negotiation as a result of cultural variation or social development. As with the central doctrines of the Creed and the biblical world view, people could only say: "This isn't mine to give away."

They needed more than an assurance that it had been thought about in America and that a lot of people there had concluded it was all right. The other question followed on: if an issue just might be in the "not mine to give away" category, how did the Church as a whole decide whether it really was in that category or not? How did it decide as a Church, not as a conglomerate of local independent bodies? And if it couldn't decide as a Church, how could it carry on talking with other worldwide Christian bodies on the same foundations?

Not a wholly new question: the often bitter controversies over women's ordination had already raised some of these matters. But at least on that, a conviction had emerged that it was possible to treat it as something people could disagree about and still leave intact the basics of common faith. For a variety of reasons, this current question has not felt like that for many. And - worst of all in some ways - the possibility of detailed and patient scrutiny of the underlying question about sexual ethics was rather derailed by the feeling that the outcome had been decided in advance by one group in the Communion. Trust suffered badly.

To digress for just a moment: one of the hardest things in all this has been to keep insisting on the absolute moral imperative of combating bigotry and violence against gay people, and the need to secure appropriate civic and legal protection for couples who have chosen to share their lives. These are different matters from whether the Church has the freedom to bless same-sex unions. A negative or agnostic answer to this latter question is frequently heard as a negative attitude to the imperatives of care and respect - and sometimes that perception is sadly accurate, judging from the postbag that arrives here. Yet they are different, and quite a lot of Christians know it and try to act accordingly.

What happened in Tanzania in the last week or so represents an effort to define what could restore trust - all round, since the point is made that interventions from overseas in the American Church also have destructive effects in some ways. What has come to be called the "Listening Process" was discussed and strongly affirmed the continuing work on finding means for homosexual men and women in the Communion to speak about their experience in a safe environment.

This work has not been restricted to the West, and shows surprising signs of vigour. The outline of a "covenant" document for local Anglican Churches suggests ways in which we could commit ourselves to a future process where consultation was fully built in. The requests to the American Church for further clarification and a moratorium on certain actions while the covenant process is going forward are essentially requests to show that their desire to stay with the Communion is strong enough to cope with a halt for the sake of continuing to move and work together. The suggestion of a structure in America to care for the minority tries to remove any need for external intervention.

Whether it can all come together remains to be seen. But the leaders of the Communion thought it worth trying - not because enforced unanimity matters more than anything, but because the relations and common work of the Communion, especially in the developing world, matter massively. And also because the idea that there might be a worldwide Christian Church that could balance unity and consent seems worth holding on to, for the sake of the whole Christian family and even for the sake of human society itself.

I think that those who gathered in Tanzania believed that their vocation was to look for a way of embodying this balance. Losing that possibility is not a small matter. Working for it (when I think back to the painful intensity of some of our discussions) is not looking for an easy option. THE GUARDIAN END Interpretation: Blah, blah and blah,blah. The Archbishop is continuing his trying to make nice and reconcile everybody. But he really wants the gay folk and their supporters to shut the hell up and stop asking the Anglican Communion for inclusion. Many in the AC don't want non-heterosexuals included in all matter of church life. So according to the Archbishop, we can all do our social justice thing in civil life and in the courts, but keep your homosexual crap out of the church. But he's got it all mixed up. The Anglican Communion is NOT a church, but a rather loosly knit body of Anglicans who agree on some things and don't agree on others.