The full report is now up on Anglican Mainstream
http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/?p=1285
Jim was not right to say the report was published over a week ago. It has not been published yet because Rome has not yet given the go-ahead for publication.

Reunion with Rome??!1? Guess who really gets trashed if conservatives pull this off: WOMEN. A number of dioceses in the Global South, as well as otherwise-conservative dioceses and parishes in the US accept the ordination of women. What happens to women who are priests in these dioceses and parishes if this deal goes through?

Here we have it: A STEP FORWARD FOR GAYS, A LEAP BACKWARD FOR WOMENKIND. But who's surprised? The whole program of linking women's ordination with gay rights has in effect made it impossible to be an "orthodox" woman in the Episcopal Church. Even if we support both women's ordination and the right of gays to be ordained and enter into same-sex unions in the church, linking these two agendas has been a disaster, and the losers have been women.

Of course if it goes through it would be a real coup for the RC Church--a way of getting more married men in without backing down on a long-standing official commitment to clerical celibacy. And, they can ordain legions of married African men under the Anglican Uniate dispensation and ship them to the US to alleviate the priest shortage here as well as tapping the local reserve of conservative Episcopal priests in the US.

So here we have it: conservative Anglicans win, the RC Church wins, ecumenists with an interest in Anglican-RC reunion win--and women lose big-time.

Having just read the Covenant Design Group's report (and with all the usual provisos about devils in details) I must admit to being pretty upbeat about it.

Everything in it Anglicans (liberal or traditional) should find consonant with their faith and belonging. It sets out the positives in our tradition very clearly. The balance between upholding the autonomy of provincial structures whilst making it clear that none of us can belong to a club entirely on our own terms is nicely held.

H. E.,
You can't be a woman, a priest, and Orthodox all at the same time anyway. I am a supporter of women's ordination, and have solidly Incarnational arguments for believing so, but the Orthodox argue differently. I do not deny the priesthood of ordained women, but for a woman to claim to be both a priest, and orthodox is laughable. And "my victimhood is more valid than your victimhood" is a bit much, too. And if you think getting rid of the uppity women isn't next on AAC's agenda after they've gotten rid of the uppity queers, think again. Besides, the only thing 'Orthodox' has ever meant in Christianity is "those who agree with me". It's mainly defined by it's antonym "heterodox" which effectively means "those I don't agree with and therefor can cut myself off from".

Thanks to David Walker for this very encouraging indication.

Harriet, by the time Rome and Anglicanism get their joint act together, the storms of women's ordination etc etc will be battering the bridges of the Tiber. But I share your concerns.

Stand Firm is posting that the communique has been delayed because there has not been agreement on it.

C.B.

Inclusive Church is saying that they have solid information as to why the press conference is delayed and from their perspective it's not bad news. I don't know what that means but I'd thought I'd pass it along. I've got pot noodles!

Inclusive Church is posting that they have information that the communique will be encouraging to ECUSA.

Stand Firm is posting that the communique has been delayed because there has not been agreement on it.

C.B.

That is honest.

They could issue a statement saying, "We all hold different views (on most things, as it happens)".

The words from the draft
" ministered with the unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution, and of the elements ordained by him"

look intriguing. Anyone in the know who can explain to this ignoramus why this is included (I assume no-one is using Addai and Mari, after all?)?

Actually, H.E. Baber, it's the so-called "orthodox" who are "linking" those agendas, nobody else.

Women aren't being turned away at the doors of churches worldwide, or being told they can't come in until they are reprogrammed. The ordination of women and gay people is a high-level issue; we're talking about something far more basic - like being jailed, beaten, or killed for being gay.

How about getting some perspective - and maybe off the anti-gay jag for about 10 minutes?

Posters on Standfirm seem somewhat... peeved by +Katharine's election. I have to say that the messages there would put me off ever joining their number even were I a fully paid up member of the Anglican Taliban.

The repeated discussion linking of queer folks issues and womens' issues continues for several recurring reasons.

First off, the people who roundly condemn one in a final and closed manner, also roundly condemn the other. Also final. Also closed. That would link the two sets of issues even if nothing else did.

Second, there appear to be deep links of negative, strong emotionality which sound and feel similar in the two sets of issues. The vigorous animus against women as women and the vigorous animus against people who are not straight - well it really sounds and feels familiar in many instances of its preaching.

Thirdly, the more conscious arguments against women contaminating something (like the sacred status of episcopacy?) sounds and explains itself on many occasions, just like the heavy warnings against contaminating ourselves by allowing our non-straight neighbors to be equal to ourselves in world or in church. Accusations of gender-normed criminality, personality defects, danger to any and all normally gendered folks, damage to social institutions which permit such people to participate at high policy or practice levels, and the like explain themselves in similar ways to similar negative effects.

Fourth, the alternative thinking that could welcome women as equals also lays an implicit framework, at least partly, for welcoming people who are not straight.

Fifth, a working analysis of the ancient near eastern contexts for mis-understanding gender, sexuality, and human nature pretty much repositions us as a thought experiment in regard to both sets of controversies. The ancient fears and errors in understanding womens' bodies run surprisingly parallel to the fears and errors made in ancient presumptions about mens' bodies, and both types of error or fear apply to gay/lesbian bodies.

Sixth, if we let a thought experiment free us, even temporarily, from legacy prohibitions and errors, we nevertheless still find that much good legacy stuff gloriously applies - love of God plus love of neighbor as of self, or abiding faith and hope and agape, baptism plus eucharist, Tikkun Olam as lived witness. This door opening in itself offers us some evidence that the legacy negative predictions do not necessarily hold true, because none of these positive legacy appropriations of scripture or of tradition are supposed to be possible unless we continue to maintain the animus/prohibitions against women. Ditto, for the animus/prohibitions against people who are not straight.

"I assume no-one is using Addai and Mari, after all"

First, I didn't think these anaphora were considered heterodox, though those who used them eventually became so. Second, might this be a reference to the famous "raisin cakes" liturgy of a couple of years ago? One flaky liturgical experiment got turned into the "paganism" of ECUSA.

No evangelical worth his/her salt wants unity with Rome. I don't know where this unity with Rome thing comes from.

Akinola and the Nigerian Church most definitely do not want to be united with Rome, they would be better off with the Assemblies of God.

We have to rid ourselves of the ghost of John Cardinal Newman and face reality:

The Anglican Communion is now the worlds largest evangelical denomination. (It may have liberals and nostaligic Anglo-Catholics, but it is very evangelical).

From my experience in Nigeria, the Church of Nigeria is as far from Rome as you can get. It sees Rome as its principal competition. It does not accept Roman theology. It will lose large chunks of its membership to pentecostals and other protestant denominations if it even moots that idea.

The Church of Nigeria is the largest province of the Anglican Communion in terms of numbers.

This whole bulls__t about unity with Rome shows how far removed from reality the leadership can be.

Thank you Maduka for an interesting and most enlightening posting which explains why Nigeria seems to exist at right-angles to the rest of Anglican reality.

Ruth

I am glad to see that you got a "scoop" but disappointed at the vicious poem. That was adding fuel to a fire. I can understand why because many of these people have been very cruel to you, in recent times I have seen people almost publicly gloating that they could lose you your job. But that poem went too far.

As someone who has had to run the gauntlet of their provocations for several years, and many hard years of refining before that, I call on you to consider your personal dignity. "Victory is transcending your enemies, not becoming your enemies". Another of my phrases I use to help me keep a level head when I am being severely provoked. (Although sometimes God wants me to be extremely bold and then I have a two day crying fit because I had to do something that I didn't really want to do).

That said, it is a timely warning that it is not wise to paint women to a corner. With humanity literally on the brink of extinction, the need for the divine fire that rises to defend the young and the helpless is easily fanned into life. Fire (like Spirit, water and money) can be forces for both good and evil; the trick is to harness the energy to good without allowing it to build up to an inferno that can destroy whole cities.

In that sense, maybe your poem is a blessing, I would not have pointed this out if you had not published it. God's will be done, God has a plan that is bigger than any one of us (individual or organisation).

mynsterpreost, I would expect the wording about the Eucharist is taken either from the Articles or from the Quadrilateral - I don't know which, off the top of my head. Sorry, I'm at my day job, and can't take time to look it up, but perhaps someone else can.

Robin

A thought re "the unfailing use of ...the elements ordained by him", Did someone post a few weeks ago that there was a tradition in some parts of the AC of using 'animal crackers'? And is there any truth in such an allegation?

Here's the link, David (I don't vouch for the truth of the original assertion):
http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/002060.html
There was also a reference to animal crackers used as a teaching tool in a Lutheran context, but I didn't explore further.

I did chase down the wording used in the covenant - it's from the Lambeth (1888) version of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. The Chicago wording is the same as Lambeth for that section (on sacraments), but rather looser for the section on scripture.

"they would be better off with the Assemblies of God."

See, Maduka, I grew up in a little, relatively isolated place where we were very low church. Some were mortified when we started singing the Canticles at Matins and Evensong. There were also a lot of fundamentalists in our community. I don't believe you can really appreciate how your statement affects me. While I can understand an Anglican having a lot of affinity for the Roman Church, I cannot relate at all to one who feels more affinity to Fundemantalists. Their theology and world view are so far from anything I have been taught Anglicanism or the Catholic faith are that it boggles my mind you can find any affinity with them. I respect their faith and their right to their beliefs, but they do not speak to me. That they do speak to you shows how different your faith is from the Anglicanism I grew up in.

Mynster says "...Nigeria seems to exist at right-angles to the rest of Anglican reality"

Please read the Primates Communique - Nigeria ain't out of step much at all with this Anglican reality, are they?