Update Friday
The Church Times has a very full report on this by Pat Ashworth Global South won’t split Communion,says Venables. This page also contains a separate report on the Kairos Journal event in New York City. Essential reading.
Reuters has published a news report, which is datelined Lagos and headlined Anglican church is not splitting – Nigerian archbishop but which, as far as Archbishop Peter Akinola is concerned, only repeats material from the press release of yesterday.
However, it then goes on to report an interview conducted by Reuters in Buenos Aires with Archbishop Greg Venables in which he talks about the Egypt meeting, and who is invited to it. The story concludes:
Since the Anglican primates meeting in February, the Scottish church has declared its backing for gay priests and the Church of England allowed priests to register under Britain’s new civil partnership law as long as they remain celibate.
This last decision was greeted with disbelief among conservatives, Venables said.
“This is an indication that England is going to go down the same road as Canada and the U.S. and that there is going to be further division in the next months,” he said.
Orthodox groups in the United States and Canada who disagree with their liberal leaders will be invited to attend the October meeting in Alexandria, Egypt, Venables said.
But liberal clerics won’t be asked to join because Global South leaders want to avoid further polemics. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has been invited, however, despite his personal support for accepting gay bishops.
Venables said the debate tearing apart the Anglican Communion is not about human sexuality, but rather how strictly the Bible should be interpreted and whether faith principles are seen as relative or absolute — a debate he said has divided Christianity since the 19th century.
Things continue to progress towards the seemingly inevitable split. Which way will the COE officially go? And, what role will the Queen, the titular head of the COE, play? Will they continue to try to keep one foot in each camp while the sides grow farther and farther apart and the abyss underneath grows wider? Will they make a clean and simple choice? I’m just an ignorant American–please enlighten me.
Steven
So much for the original intention of the South-South encounters, which were supposed to be a chance for the Provinces of the South to come together without Western, colonialist influences. The former colonial rulers are welcome, if they pass a litmus test.
So, if we want to analyse this from a perspective that takes colonialism (and racism) seriously, we need to ask: have Akinola et al fallen back into a colonial status, as pawns of white masters? Are they sacrificing truly native, indigenous expressions of Christianity in Africa, Latin America and South Asia to appease these former colonizers?