More of Fr. Jakes blog: "Regarding the meeting of the Windsor bishops, Bp. Schofield claims they received a message from Archbishop Rowan Williams containing these words; "I believe the Windsor bishops are the hope of the future of the American church. I want to encourage you and I pray that your numbers will grow.""

Of course this is double hearsay and the rest is (single :-)) hearsay, but it would be nice if someone could dig up ++Rowan's exact statement.

++Rowan's suposed pro-Network statement, when put in print, turned out to be quite different from what had been mooted about.

It seems to me that some Primates are letting the Network bishops climb a bit too far out on the limb that the Primates can't support.

(did I mix enough metaphors there?)

remember - it is not the network which has hijacked and ruined the current ABCs time in office...........

others make his life much harder: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=546

We need to make a distinction, too, between the meeting of "Windsor-compliant bishops" in Texas, and gatherings of Network bishops. There was some comment by the Archbishop about that gathering; but at least half of the bishops in that meeting have expressed no interest in leaving The Episcopal Church. The possibility of seeing hope in a loyal opposition is very different from seeing hope in a schismatic splinter. I think that may be the quotation to dig up. I think Bishop Schofield may well be taking things out of context.

NP, it's disingenuous to assert that election of the new Presiding Bishop has some created a new level of schism; she is simply taking the words of the vocal minority in the Episcopal Church at face value and challenging them to put up or shut up, to be perfectly rude about it. I, for one, appreciate the clarity, since I've lost my taste for the "Anglican fudge" that has heretofore been the steady diet of all parties in this hubbub.

The scenario has gone like this for some years:

REASSERTERS: The Episcopal Church is a demon's nest of pansexualist heretics. We're shaking the dust of our feet and leaving!

EPISCOPAL MAJORITY: Calm down, please, we're all together in this. Let's talk this through.

REASSERTERS: You're headed to hell! We'll not risk our eternal souls following your unitarian path to destruction! Please, take us under your wings, African bishops! We're leaving!

EPISCOPAL MAJORITY: Oh, dear. Most of us think you're a bit overwrought, but perhaps you have a point. Let's talk.

REASSERTERS: We'll not be unequally yoked with sodomite unbelievers! Windsor Report! Windsor Report! Choose ye this day whom will you serve, broad church Satan or evangelical Christ! We're leaving!

EPISCOPAL MAJORITY: Well, you seem quite serious about all this. Perhaps we should talk a little more.

REASSERTERS: No, the time for talk is through. Nothing you can say or do will keep us from leaving, infidels!

EPISCOPAL MAJORITY: Oh, well then. I suppose you better go.

REASSERTERS: Persecuters! You're throwing out of the church! Oh, the martyrdom of it all!, etc., etc.

When did anti-modern become a "range" NP?

"Bishops Decline Invitation"

So, *at long last*, can we finally ALL understand just WHO is "walking apart"??? :-(

The campaign for Anglican realignment, aka the new conserved effort to split (aka purify aka conform) the worldwide communion is well afoot.

The main players are overtly united by their profound negativities towards queer folks. But really: Exactly how far will that get them?

Many of us are all watching, listening, laughing at times, bemused at other times, praying.

God rules, inside and outside the churches. By loving. Unto resurrection. Just keep following Jesus of Nazareth the best you know how. The sorting will come clearer over time, and even then it will not be finished. Progressive religious people are now taking the occasion to get together, closer, intentionally across their differences. Even between/among faiths. Better related than they have been linked in several decades - at least in USA.

Some of the newly conserved speak alarms, curses, accusations - and yet the blessings still flow.

William - I think KJS is just more honest about her agenda than some others.......but while you seem clear about what you think the "minority" in TEC should do, you do not apply the same logic to TEC as a minority in the Anglican Communion, do you?

The good news is that KJS does seem to want to create "TEC Global" - which is great! I hope she takes all the "liberal" churches in England - they are very expensive to subsidise as they shrink year on year, "building" on their decades of failed ideas.

JCF - those walking apart? well it could be those who represent the thinking of around 95% of Anglicans who have not sought to revise and challenge Anglican teaching / practice .....or it might be those who represent about 5% of Anglicans who have persistently made the life of the ABC hell and brought the communion to the brink of schism in the last few years. I wonder which it might be?

Dear NP:
"I hope she takes all the "liberal" churches in England - they are very expensive to subsidise as they shrink year on year, "building" on their decades of failed ideas."

You do seem to post rather frequently about the financial advantages of getting rid of the rest of us.

Does anyone out there with a sociology background have access to information about any correlation between areas of 'material blessing' and the dominant theology of the local Christians?

I ask this because of the five staunchly evangelical churches of which I know, only one is in a deprived area, and that one is more open evangelical than the other four. The ConsEv remainder are in highly desirable upper-middle to-stockbroker-style areas, and I should darn' well hope they have no financial problems.

'Honeypot' churches can be parasitic upon other Christians, especially those struggling to maintain faithful Christian ministry in difficult and underprivileged areas.

The snide kick in the goolies ("male reproductive organs" for non-UK readers) which this talk of 'subsidy' represents is rather unworthy. A prospective ordinand in my congregation was horrified on visiting a local honeypot evangelical church to hear how their prosperity was a clear sign of God's blessing, situated as this pleasant suburban village is within a few miles of some of the north of England's most underprivileged areas. "What," she thought, "of the faithful Christians in the middle of Hull's estates? Don't they pray hard enough? Or is it just the arrogant self congratulation of the wealthy middle classes tainting Christian discipleship?"

Mynsterpreost, this so-called "prosperity gospel" is commonly heard in evangelical or charismatic churches on this side of the pond, and I understand it's also popular in Nigeria.

The converse of the prosperity gospel is a snide, hard-hearted dismissal of invitations to human solidarity, as if anyone who suffered deserved it.

I had a friend who grew up in one of these denominations. She was taught in her youth that the expression "There, but for the grace of God, go I" means: "Because I am specially deserving of God's grace and blessings, I do not suffer as those less worthy do." Not surprisingly, she became a vehemently anti-Christian adult. If I believed that was what Christianity taught, I'd be opposed to it, too.

William,

Wonderful! You nailed the gestalt of the situation perfectly!

Thanks SO much for the laugh this afternoon! I almost spit my cup of tea all over my keyboard ;) (well, OK... it was a Starbuck's Chai Latte, but you get the idea)

NP, while I would prefer to see all parties remain under the broad tent of the Episcopal Church as a province of the Anglican Communion, regrettably I see that as a vanishingly small possibility. So it is my preference that those who feel they cannot in good conscience remain in and support the Episcopal Church leave and that TEC treat them graciously as they do. I am told that issues of eternal salvation are at stake, yet the bold rhetoric seems to founder on the rocks of property and prestige. To the extent that TEC can remove these stumbling blocks, it behooves her to do so, as a matter of caritas and ecclesiastical integrity. The separation of Christ Church Plano might be a useful model to emulate.

And, yes, I believe TEC may need walk apart from the Anglican Communion for a season.

I accept the Windsor Report recommendation to establish an Anglican Covenant with two levels of participation. If this Covenant demands specifics of doctrine, I imagine it will skew evangelically. If TEC, as a comprehensive church, cannot define herself within those more restrictive bounds, she should graciously accept her associate status and continue, to the fullest degree possible, in holy conversation and bear witness to her own claim that differing faithful theologies can exist in concert under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

At such a juncture, TEC should, “in honor preferring one another” (Rom 12:10), offer to step aside as the primary Anglican body in the US. If TEC believes her choices to be prophetic, then surely pride of place and position can be set aside in favor of this higher calling.

I have no desire to see “conservatives” or “evangelicals” or “traditional Anglo-Catholics” or any other party absent from TEC and would count it as loss if the broad spectrum of Christian thought and practice cannot be accommodated within her reach. Such members who can hold these positions while working amicably with those of other understandings should be supported in their continuance with TEC.

But those who in good conscience cannot do so -- or use the resources of the TEC to supplant the lawfully expressed will of the majority of her members -- should stop the talk and start the walk to “go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

{sigh}

NP, numbers matter---sort of.

To the extent they are reflected in DEMOCRATIC MAJORITIES, in canonically-ordered *electoral* polities, then yes.

"95%" of [Some Big Number], pulled out of thin air by you---where the numbers do not originate from canonical electorates ANYWAY---do NOT.

TEC's democratic majority is the former.

The AC---as *currently* constituted---is the latter.

While the AC *could* result in such a "95%" as you cite (or even a very different percentage, as is my equally worthless hunch), we won't know until the AC is reconstituted, to be a global *representative democracy*.

...but the only way we get there (but are the reasserters even aiming for such?), is via "the bonds of affection" (effectively, *consensus*).

Kind of ironic, huh? You won't know WHAT "the thinking of around 95% of Anglicans" is, without the continuing voice&vote of those Episcopalians whom (*you* believe!) "have persistently made the life of the ABC hell and brought the communion to the brink of schism".

Life's funny that way (so is the Holy Spirit :-D)

See ya in Lambeth! (That is, if *you* are coming. TEC will be, "with God's help"!)

dear mynsterpreost - I would dislike false prosperity teaching as much as you...

......but I am sure you have also seen lifeless "ministries" sucking up resources and producing nothing year after year.....but never seeming to change / learn / want to learn.

NP: yes, I know what you mean — but those sorts of ministries are spread across all shades of theological opinion. One can, of course, make definitions which successfully place the dodos in the camp to which I do not belong, but I suspect that pioneering and heroic witness and ministry is going on in all sorts of places, evangelical, catholic, broad and liberal, and in many cases the seed will be growing secretly.

JCF - TEC's democratic decisions does not have the same authority as the bible....

William - thanks for your message. Personally, I am for a free realignment with all being allowed to take their property and pensions and join TEC or AC. Court battles etc are wrong.
We should at least split graciously if we cannot live together graciously.....

trouble is I do not think "liberals" will in the end be brave enough to go it alone (given they have never been brave enough to do so for the last century)