There was an article in last week’s Church Times by Colin Slee which has already appeared on two other websites, Why the Kigali declaration is wrong. A response to it was already made by Archbishop Yong Ping Chung, the retired Archbishop of South East Asia, and published by Anglican Mainstream. This exchange is further discussed by Jim Naughton, who notes that:
AM, a British-based group, received $12,000 in funding last year from the American Anglican Council. (That’s according to the AAC’s IRS Form 990 for 2005.) So, an organization sustained in part by conservative American donors is downplaying the influence of conservative American donors.
This updates the information reported earlier about British use of such money.
And the Church of Burundi has issued a statement which appears to distance it from the Kigali report. Mark Harris comments on this in And then there were the Kigali Seventeen.
Turning to the Panel report, this has provoked a number of further responses.
One from LGCM is reproduced here below the fold. Update It is now also available here.
Another from Mark Harris says that Archbishop Gomez Should Step Down.
And, though written slightly earlier, this speech by Katie Sherrod is well worth reading.
Statement from the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement 14th October 2006
The publication of the Panel of Reference report on the diocese of New Westminster [1] is a significant moment in the ongoing Anglican civil war.
Only now are the full implications of the Windsor Report being tested within the world-wide Church. In our view most commentators have ignored the significance of paragraph 146 of the Windsor Report and all that it implies when it says on human sexuality:
“it has to be recognised that debate on this issue cannot be closed whilst sincerely but radically different positions continue to be held across the Communion.” [2].
There is no definitive Anglican position on human sexuality at this time and this means that those who are reconciled to homosexual inclusion and those who are not both have a legitimate place within the Anglican family of Churches.
For the debate to move forward adequate provision has to be made for those minorities (on both sides) who do not agree with the local consensus. These provisions have to be meaningful, but they have to be agreed on locally and within the existing or expanded structures of each local church.
Those bishops and primates who have interfered in this legitimate process in Canada (and elsewhere) have in fact impeded reconciliation and the proper furtherance of the debate; it is hardly surprising that Archbishops Drexel Gomez and Gregory Venables should now be complaining loudly at the decisions of the panel [3].
The diocese of New Westminster on the other hand welcomes the decision of the Panel of Reference having cooperated fully in its deliberations [4] as does the leader of the Anglican Church in Canada [5].
This report from the Panel of Reference also challenges the vision and aspirations of the Global South group of Anglican Churches as laid out in the Kigali Communiqué [6]. We are led to believe that this Communiqué represented a compromise for those Anglican Primates who see lesbian and gay people as “evil” and a “perversion of human dignity” [7] and who are promoting laws [8] that would criminalise even those who wish to have a genuine debate [9].
In the context of this uneasy compromise within the Global South and taking into consideration the responses of Gomez and Venables to the findings of the Panel of Reference, it seems likely that more extreme agenda advocated by the Primate of Nigeria and others will once again come to the surface. It is clear that those Anglican leaders do not agree that the debate on human sexuality “cannot be closed” - they are determined that no such debate should take place in their own countries and no one who holds a different view should be allowed into their episcopate [10]
What is more they are willing to destroy the Anglican Communion to ensure this.
[ends]
1 http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/digest/index.cfm?years=2006&months=10&article=722&pos=#722
2 http://www.anglicancommunion.org/windsor2004/section_d/p3.cfm
3 http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/1307/
5 http://www.anglican.ca/news/news.php?newsItem=2006-10-13_por.news
6 http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/41/75/acns4193.cfm
7 http://www.anglican-nig.org/PH2006message2nation.htm
8 http://www.mediamax.com/mvthomster/Hosted/nigeria_gay_bill.pdf
9 http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2006/60241.htm
10 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4491376.stm
Posted by Simon Sarmiento on Tuesday, 17 October 2006 at 1:13pm BST | TrackBackI wonder if we could say that at the root of all this lies the question of authority, the isssue of authority ?
As is well known, Anglicanism began amid the lust, bloodshed & controversies of the seventeenth century. Henry V111 broke with Rome, because it would not agree with his proposed action (getting rid of his wife, replacing her). He found an ecclesistical authority that would rubber-stamp his behaviour.
It seems to me, there are, at least two kinds of authority, at work here. Henry's personal authority, his political authority and ecclesiatical authority.
I wonder if the Church of England and the Anglican Communion are somehow having to grapple again with these issues of authority and the question of authority, because they are bound up in our origins, and remain to be addressed ? We know that in families issues or themes, unresloved by one generation, are passed on to the next, and the next and on, and on ...('Transgenerational themes').
A similar process may be at work here, too.
Perhaps the ultimate question is, ' What is authority ? What does it mean? Where does authority lie ?'
I notice that in the Anglican Church at the moment, we are easily at each others' throats. But are we in fact driven by unconscious forces and themes from an earlier time ? Knowing this, or at least wondering about it may possibly help to free us, to meet ourselves & each other
All this raises an interesting question: what have others said, whether attending the Kigali meeting or not, regarding the Kigali meeting or other recent events. It seems to me there are a lot of voices we don't hear; for example, Korea, Japan, Pakistan, Bangladesh. I don't want to presuppose what they might say; but they aren't in or of TEC, or COE, or CN-A, or West Indies, etc. Perhaps they haven't said much; but since the discussions are about voices in the Communion, it would be interesting to hear what has been said.
Posted by: Marshall Scott on Tuesday, 17 October 2006 at 3:23pm BSTI find AbP Yong Ping Chung's comments interesting in two respects. First, he claims that the Global South Primates went to Kigali representing their people who elected them. I would suggest to him they should have gone representing the Spirit who led their people to elect them. Public opinion supercedes the Spirit? That's news to me. Second, there is a great rush to take offence. He reads into Slee's statements that the Global South primates do not know right and wrong and need conservative Americans to tell them. This is letting his anti-colonialist stance get in the way. I would think the implication is that the Global South primates know well what they thing is right and wrong and have made common cause with those in the US who will suport them. This does not slight the intelligence of these bishops, though it might cast aspersions on their honour.
Posted by: Ford Elms on Tuesday, 17 October 2006 at 5:07pm BSTTwelve thousand whole dollars? American? Wow!
Posted by: DGus on Tuesday, 17 October 2006 at 5:15pm BSTSimon
You were right, Katie Sherrod's paper is excellent. I noted her comment:
"So deficient is this document (Windsor Report) that at their first meeting after it was issued, the Primates dismissed it as “inadequate” as did all – all – of the conservative groups in The Episcopal Church.
It was only after they realized that the Windsor Report was all they were going to get out of Lambeth that they began to represent it as a legislative judgment passed on The Episcopal Church by the rest of the Communion."
As a parishioner witnessing from the pews, I concur as I saw that windshift occur as it became clear they no longer had solo scriptural authority credibility.
This article http://www.torah.org/learning/perceptions/5758/bereishis.html reminds us that it is often in history's darkest and most chaotic of times that God's light shines through to bring order and wellbeing. Although these are tense times, there are still grounds for hope.
Posted by: Cheryl Clough on Tuesday, 17 October 2006 at 7:41pm BSTKatie Sherrod’s piece is a good short summary – we will have to wait for a book or two to get a deeper picture, I hear that several are already being written!
Perhaps the three things I am least happy with are the gloss on the retrograde resolution passed at GC2006 and the amnesia over her own Primates name on the Primates Communiqués before and after Gene’s ordination to the episcopate.
The idea of turning the Anglican Communion into a denomination is not new, it has been kicked around, pencilled in, discussed and very much on the agenda of the Primates and others for some considerable time. The development of this and the growth of the Primates group from what was a brotherly talking shop into this new tyranny has taken place with the apparent compliance of Frank and his team.
That said - I liked her speech.
It's a bit of a stretch to say Burundi has pulled away from the Kigali Communique based on the economium of Archbishop Ntahoturi for strengthening the bonds within African Anglicanism. When he said there "are differences among us", the "us" refers to the Global South Primates, and not to an "us" that would include the Episcopal Church. Grammar, logic and the archbishop's consistent stance on the issues rules out the broad brush response.
Not everything revolves around America.
Posted by: George Conger on Wednesday, 18 October 2006 at 2:03am BSTSimon, I would very much like to read the LGCM response to the panel report, but can't find it. Could you please provide a link? Many thanks.
Posted by: Alan Marsh on Wednesday, 18 October 2006 at 9:09am BSTThe Anglican family solution to the transgenerational reverberance of the authority themes was, if I am not mistaken, mainly the Elizabethan Settlement, whereby neither of the two main warring factions whose conflicts had grown so bloody, puritan vs catholic, was allowed to prosecute and conform the other.
This way of using institutional CoE authority to intentionally put the brakes on suppressing differences is still a religious innovation, and not many faith communities have managed it for very long, although if you look at the fine-grained histories, you often find that such leeway and generosity informed many religious movements for a time.
A small miracle has passed before us, just to the extent that Anglicans have maintained this institutional restraint, depiste all their obvious and not so obvious failings, until recently at least.
The burden of demonstration still falls upon those who wish to declare total crisis, as to exactly why and how and when and under exactly what of all our varying circumstances, the traditional Anglican authority mix of scripture plus tradition plus reason has now suddenly become inadequate - because it doesn't sustain a police power, because it depends on what Professor Gordon Kaufman liked to call Proximal Theological Authorities, because it doesn't offer an unrestrained foundation for closing things down, because it doesn't first of all seek to conform.
Posted by: drdanfee on Wednesday, 18 October 2006 at 3:45pm BSTThe Americans are way ahead of 'us' (Brits). Could we envisage even on Anglican diocese in Britain having the balls to produce a resolution like this, at its diocesan conference or synod ?
Diocese: Rochester
Date: October 27-28, 2006
Status: Submitted
Date: 2006-09-19
Time: 17:35:18 -0700
FullText
A Resolution Concerning the Election of Bishops Proposer: Committee for Gay and Lesbian Ministry Resolved, That this 74th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester dissents from the passage of Resolution B033 by the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal church; and be it further Resolved, That this Convention commends our bishop and General Convention deputies for voting against Resolution B033; and be it further Resolved, That this Convention strongly encourages our bishop and Standing Committee to consent to the consecration of all qualified candidates to the episcopate — including gay and lesbian candidates who live in committed, same-sex, domestic partnerships.
EXPLANATION General Convention 2006 passed Resolution B033, which called upon "Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion." The rejection of a Resolution A161 on Tuesday, 20 June 2006, by the House of Deputies clearly expressed the mind of General Convention 2006 regarding a moratorium on the election, consent, and consecration of additional lesbian and gay bishops. The passage of B033 on Wednesday, 21 June — which occurred after limited debated and as a result of unusual efforts by the Presiding Bishop to influence the actions of both houses — effectively stifled what the Spirit is saying to the Episcopal Church. In the Diocese of Rochester, it has long been our experience that gay and lesbian people are fully qualified and effective in all orders of ministry. When the time comes that the Diocese of Rochester elects a new bishop, we have the obligation to choose the candidate we believe is most qualified to lead us — regardless of sexual orientation. We should support other dioceses that do likewise. Indeed, the Canons of General Convention (Title III, Canon 1, Section 2) prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation: "No person shall be denied access to the discernment process for any ministry, lay or ordained, in this Church because of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, disabilities or age, except as otherwise provided by these Canons." The canons do not prohibit gay and lesbian persons who are in same-sex, domestic partnerships from the episcopate.
All we need to settle the differences is to stay faithful to the intentionally restrained consensus and leeway of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, while the sciences continue to shake us and shock us with their startling news - about just about everything, including ourselves.
You will not find the meaning of quarks, the weighing of string theory for better or for worse, the outlines of biopsychosocial sexual orientation variance distributions in a large human population, or a great many other things - written simplistically into your scriptures.
Thus, to the institutional experiment in authority that is our heritage in the Anglican Communion, we might also add the Copernican experiment in authority - now distinctively updated via Darwin and a great cloud of witnesses who are still working in labs and field stations all over the planet.
Is this a change? Yes. Few other civilizations have had empirical knowledge on such a wide scale as an amplification of the reason group of proximal religious authorities. Is this the end of ethics? No. Is this the end of following Jesus? No. Bravo then to Katie Sherrod as she dwells open-mindedly in the belly of the realignment in Texas.
Posted by: drdanfee on Wednesday, 18 October 2006 at 3:47pm BSTHi Alan it appears above--- just below the Katie Sherrod url, but is actually printed here --no url link to press. cheers
Posted by: laurence on Wednesday, 18 October 2006 at 3:50pm BST'The Anglican family solution to the transgenerational reverberance of the authority themes was, if I am not mistaken, mainly the Elizabethan Settlement, whereby neither of the two main warring factions whose conflicts had grown so bloody, puritan vs catholic, was allowed to prosecute and conform the other.' drdanfee
'All we need to settle the differences is to stay faithful to the intentionally restrained consensus and leeway of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, while the sciences continue to shake us and shock us with their startling news - about just about everything, including ourselves.' drdanfee
'Is this the end of ethics? No. Is this the end of following Jesus? No. Bravo then to Katie Sherrod as she dwells open-mindedly in the belly of the realignment in Texas.' drdanfee
THanks very much for these last 2 comments-quite woonderful -almost like poetry really.
And yes, Katie Sherrod's talk was the most clear, readable, understandable and inpiring analysis of current events, that I have seen.
Posted by: laurence on Wednesday, 18 October 2006 at 3:59pm BSTdrdanfe
I agree that the Anglican Settlement stopped the two sides killing each other. A bold religious experiment, came out of the contingencies of history. The experiment itself, came out of the clash of historical pressures, and was not conscious. I do not imagine, it was conscious.
There is encouragment to be had, I think, from this creative thing coming to be out of contingency, out of all those opposing , clashing forces. Perhaps, I should not be surprised, as don't we all come to be from the clash of our parents; and we are further conditioned by language, family forces; and the forces of society and of our own times ?
As well as faith, scripture, reason and traditon, I also find myself thinking of the authority, each individual has in the anglican set-up, to decide and develop her or his own theolgy and 'churchmanship' --however thoughtfully, prayerfully and reflectively, we may manage....
Posted by: laurence on Wednesday, 18 October 2006 at 4:49pm BSTSimon,
ACNS is carrying a fuller statement by ++Burundi
The statement from Burundi is here: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/42/00/acns4202.cfm
Posted by: Peter Owen on Friday, 20 October 2006 at 9:48am BSTThanks Laurence - does anyone know of a more extended analysis, other than those by GS sympathisers?
Posted by: Alan Marsh on Friday, 20 October 2006 at 12:00pm BST'S okay, But forgive me I either don't know or have forgotten what GS stand for in this context (may be having a senior moment)
Posted by: laurence on Friday, 20 October 2006 at 5:05pm BSTGS - Global South
Posted by: Alan Marsh on Saturday, 21 October 2006 at 2:14am BSToh thanks, alan, of course! I WAS having an 's' moment ! So much to remember --and forget !
Posted by: laurence on Monday, 23 October 2006 at 10:28am BST