There is no unity without justice. I have a vision of giving away the priesthood, but because some who were examining me for ordination were threatened by the words "give away", I was taught to say "share". "Share" means to me that I get to keep my position of unwarranted privilege as a white, straight priest, deciding with whom to share, how much, and what bits to share. To say "share" instead of "give away" is for me dishonest. But I learned to do it.
White, euro-centric males, and straight males of any culture or origin, have a position of incredible and unwarranted privilege in this world over females and over anyone who is not "straight". As I have been called to give away priesthood, so you are being called, Martyn Minns, Robert Duncan, John Schofield, Jack Iker, the Windsor Bishops, Rowan Williams, et co., to give away your privilege - and it is not enough that you give it away to Peter Akinola. No, you and he must give it away to women and to lgbt persons. To the rest of the Church worldwide, I challenge all of you to give up any privilege you have and wear a button, or a patch every day that reads, "My manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church." In this way, there will be no way for those who retain their privilege to tell who is straight or gay, slave or free. I challenge you now to bear in or on your bodies your solidarity with those whose prayers have been discounted, ignored and disregarded in this Anglican Communion, until the day we all, privileged and unprivileged alike, are free.
Lois Keen

This is a mess.

If anything it is getting worse rather than better.

I truly despair of this Primates Group and think it laughable that having exacerbated this difficult situation they now expect the Communion to trust them with almost untrammelled power.

It seems that we have not been loud enough in what we say or oganised enough in our thinking and strategy. The introduction to the Covenant document says that it comes about with hardly anyone dissenting from the need for it.

I will be writing this week to all the necessary individuals expressing my firm opposition. I suggest that with others who share my view we organise an on-line petition making it clear we do not want a Covenant – we do not need a Covenant.

Nor do I want this failed Primates group to continue believing they exercise an “enhanced” anything on my behalf as an Anglican – they are a busted flush and we should be encouraging them to go away together to some quiet place a few times a year to think and pray about their role.

All this nonsense about an “Anglican Church” ought to be stopped now, before we all suffer even greater grief in its pursuit.

The Windsor Report is proving more and more the real obstacle to our continued life together rather than a source of blessing. Of course the sexuality issue should not be a communion breaking matter, of course we can and have lived with a wide variation of opinions here and these are not going to be disguised.

We have lived with impaired communion for a long time and we will for a long time to come – we don’t need uniformity here for our spiritual health. Nor do we want this to become an excuse to stop other diversities we can all live with

I am not worried about the Archbishop of Sydney celebrating agapes or developing a post modern Puritanism with which he wants to infect the world – I know this enterprise will at first flourish and then sadly fail because of the viciousness it carries within it.

I am unwilling to see the Anglican experiment so curtailed. I do not want to become a poor imitation of other churches.

Lois, "Unity" is a value. "Justice" is a value. These are worthwhile things which we are right to value. But, in a broken world, we are sometimes forced to choose one value over another. I see no support in Scripture that Justice as a value trumps all others.

"I am unwilling to see the Anglican experiment so curtailed. I do not want to become a poor imitation of other churches."

Then come back to catholic faith and practice, Martin. The innovations you have promoted have pushed things to this point. Or join H.E. the Most Rev. Jonty Blake in the 'Open Episcopal Church'. Or Cardinal Elizabeth Stuart in the Liberal Catholic Church. There are plenty of options today.

This is dreadful, I am disappointed beyond words.

The unfounded and judgemental stance that some in the church take on sexuality is continually damaging our witness to the world. [See today's times: timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/libby_purves/article1409368.ece]
Putting this right seems so urgent to me, yet we seem to be going backwards.

Martin --

I think that the Covenant is (at least in theory) salvageable (although I don't really see the point) -- the Communique, however, reminds one of the definition of a camel as a horse designed by a committee -- ALL of the problems the fault of TEC? I think not -- the real problem is the level of hypocrisy outside of TEC.

Time will tell.

Martin,

May I say that I wholeheartedly agree that more people should have spoken up by now and closed the whole covenant idea down as a nonsense. The problem is that leaders have been talking amongst themsleves and assume that the vocal evangelical voices are 'where it is at'.
This is a completely wrong assumption and I awoke to the seriousness of possibly losing the CofE to these narrow voices rather late in the day. I am a traditional Anglo Catholic but have recognised that the freedom to be such has hitherto always been predicated upon a broad, liberal, generous and tolerant CofE. This has been under threat, and now under attack, and I recognise needs defending with heart and soul. Post your petition asap please and lets hope Rowan Williams (poor mnarginalised chap) is seen off during General Synod.

I'm a gay Anglican and I do not feel that my "prayers have been discounted, ignored and disregarded in this Anglican Communion". Treated shabbily? Judged unfairly? By some. Been lied about and slandered? By some. Been treated as an outsider? By some. But my prayers ignored? No. God does not ignore my prayers, neither does Our Lady of Walsingham. I also do not feel that being denied the Sacrament of Matrimony is some sort of great oppression. I can accept that Sacramental Marriage is only meant for straight people. If so, I'm no more oppressed by that than I am by the fact that I will never give birth. So there is bad behaviour towards me on the part of those whose self righteousness coupled with their belief in proof texting leads them to believe just about any slanderous lie about me just so long as they don't have to treat me as a human being. But God treats me as a human being, so, why does it matter if Peter Akinola brings disrepute on the Gospel by refusing to acknowledge my humanity. He's no better than the Europeans who enslaved his ancestors, and is to be held in the same contempt, but my prayers unanswered? No. Never. God is just.

Thirded: Martin, I'd like to see what you come up with too.

If the Anglican church is going in this conservative direction, it will surely leave a considerable gap in the "market". If this were a business, I double a marketing advisor would recommend a move in this direction. Of course the church isn't a business and it should be directed by it's conscience rather than market forces. But the fact remains that conservatives within anglicanism have many other conservative churches they could choose to go to, protestant and catholic. The choice for liberals is more limited.

Where should liberal anglo catholics go?

he is holy too, Ford - we have to take him on his own terms

Ah, Mr. Elms... Because Akinola as the leading conservative realignment voice in our cherished tilting worldwide communion is going to support his government in putting people just like you, along with any friends or family members who support them, in prison? And that is by all accounts a de facto death sentence?

And if that is indeed good and right in Nigeria, why shouldn't it be a standard for the rest of us?

So you do not wish to get married because objectively that is just not mystically-sacramentally possible by traditional definition. Okay. How do you plan to legally protect and ground your comitted relationship with your partner? Protect and ground your two daddy or two mommy parenting of your cherished children?

The underlying truth is, your safety and inclusion in your local parish now is entirely contingent upon straight largesse and tolerance of your lesser fallibilities; and it can be withdrawn at any time, in any moment, based on no greater justifications than these legacy negatives provide.

It is easy to rejoice that you feel safe and included for the time being. But you have no innate claim to lay upon being safe or included, except to the degree that you internalize some or all of the legacy negatives - which paradoxically redefine you as nothing but a broken straight person, actually.

Maybe you can find ways to live with that heavy, implicit ethical and spiritual contradiction. Maybe others cannot.

First, Akinola's actions shouldn't become the standard for the rest of us because they are evil. Second, I have given power of attourney to my partner and my will makes him inheritor. Civil marriage is a different matter entirely than Sacramental marriage, and I support it though I would not choose it for myself. As to my acceptance in my parish, well, I started going there because of the way they worshipped, the humility and reverence I find in that stuffy, old fashioned, "don't even change the music because it's the way we've always done it" type parish where, 18 years after I stopped going there, they still shook my hand and called me by name when I started going back. An Evangelical who moved here became a member of our parish, very different from anything he was used to, because, "we tried the other places, this is where the Spirit was." They are old fashioned, stuck in the past, set in their ways, and, no, I'm not out, though some have probably figured it out. Some have said they can't see why the conservatives are getting so fussed up. No doubt others would run screaming from my presence if they knew who I live with. But I don't care. It is an Anglo-Catholic parish with no small number of members (who we call crypto-Methodists) who are freaked out at our occasional use of incense and for whom our Christus Rex was a big issue (too "Roman"). But the Spirit is there, among that little group of humble sinners, and I wouldn't go anywhere else for the world. If my parish was unable to go on because of declining numbers, and it is an issue for us, I would literally be left without a spiritual home. I can't imagine worshipping anywhere else. Put it this way, if a gay friendly, rainbow flag waving parish were to open next door, I still wouldn't go. Sorry, but my parish is not particularly gay friendly, or unfriendly, and I like it that way. I don't have to be bothered being some kind of ubersinner or ubervictim, I can get on with the business of working out my own salvation in fear and trembling. And I don't take kindly to anyone casting aspersions on my fellow parishioners, even those who would refuse to receive Communion with me if they knew. It's for me to be frustrated with them, but I will stand up for them because, good or bad, they're part of the only parish I feel truly at home in. They're good people.

I would like to 'four' that Martin !
What a good idea--and a pressing need.

I agree with everything you say in your post.

"he is holy too, Ford - we have to take him on his own terms"

Oooooooooooo How Horrible!

NP, had you read the Good Book, you would know that we cannot "take" God on any terms - not ours, certainly not God's.

Ford,

That's a good word.

Chris

"The Windsor Report is proving more and more the real obstacle to our continued life together rather than a source of blessing. Of course the sexuality issue should not be a communion breaking matter, of course we can and have lived with a wide variation of opinions here and these are not going to be disguised."

Yes, the Tanzania event is coming into focus as a perfect debacle, and as proof that the Windsor Report was basically flawed to begin with.

The Anglican Communion at parish level is far more human and Christian than it appears to be when Primates get themselves into Windsor-induced contortions.

I think both Ford's and drdanfee's positions are valid and respectable, just a smallish point though - the communique has requested is not that ECUSA stop offering LGBT people the sacrament of marriage but rites of blessing. I too do not want to get 'married', in an ideal world, I might opt for a rite of blessing.

What I find unbearable is the Primates of the AC have unanimously made it clear that they will do anything to promote Lambeth Conference 1998: Resolution 1.10 Human Sexuality, which in items 4 and 5 rejects both 'homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture' and 'the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions'.

This resolution rests entirely on particular approaches to Scripture which many Christians do not subscribe to - me being one of them. I disagree wholeheartedly with the resolution and (despite it's lip-service to the contrary) believe it is a continuation of the Church feeding and sanctioning homophobia in both the secular and religious world.

The *Listening Process* held out hope to me that the resolution was something that was open to change and developement in light of anything that might be learnt from the Listening Process.

Akinola and the rest of those bishops who serve the majority of the Anglican Communion have shown that they are utterly unwilling to go anywhere near to a *Listening Process*.

All of the Primates have now shown that it is majority rule. Therefore, until the African/Asian majority opens its mind and ears (decades? centuries?) the AC will continue to teach that LGBT people who express their sexuality are 'incompatable with Scripture' and their relationships are 'illegitimate' and unblessable, ie disgusting and offensive to God. Knowing that this is unlikely to change in my lifetime, I do not want to continue to be associated with this teaching that will perpetuate hurt and injustice on the street, in families, in schools, in govenments, in courtrooms, in prisons, in churches. It is because of this that I have rejected Anglicanism. Not because I can't get 'sacramentally married'.

I don't want to diminish the good efforts of Canon Philip Groves, his is important work and contributes to the glacial movement in Anglicanism towards justice and liberty and Grace for LBGT people. But his work is going to be ignored by Akinola and his unlistening majority.

It is an easy matter to contact the Covenant Design Group telling them we do not want a Covenant write to their secretary gregory.cameron@anglicancommunion.org . I have done so, and it seems at least four others might follow!

The idea that our national churches should be accountable to this group of Primates is risible. At present our Primate is accountable for his actions to our governing body and if there is a change to be made then this accountability should be made more explicit and wide ranging.

Our Primate is frequently heard telling how he is asked at these meetings “What does your Province think?”
“I have to say that my Province has not expressed a mind on the subject, but I am in a small minority – the others seem fully briefed even without consultation!”

Perhaps the most bizarre manifestation of this “new order” was Rowan Williams addressing the General Synod at York telling them he was consulting with the other Provinces of the Anglican Communion to discover what they thought of TEC’s response to the Windsor Report.

Did he then ask General Synod what their mind was on this matter? NO!

The requests from the Primates Group to TEC are all aimed at their House of Bishops.
This undermines the existing polity of The Episcopal Church – it potentially sets the bishops against their own Convention and that is, of course, its intent.

Of course this is all a little late, the “take over” by the Primates of the ACC was the most important step in their plan for dominance. Others have commented on this site on how lay people are being made into mere observers in this episcopal tussle – I think their vision may have been rather optimistic!

If there is anything left to do it is probably:
(1) A petition from progressive Christians to the TEC HOB urging resistance, and (2) an Open Letter to the TEC HOB explaining why theologically and ecclesially they have every right, even a duty to resist.

Unless we can persuade some Primates to break ranks and say they have “Had enough!” And bring this failed experiment to an end.
It is what some say to me privately, have they the honesty and character to do more?

The failed Windsor experiment actually reflects the failure of Lambeth 1998, which saw the spectacular entry of homophobic African bishops onto the world scene -- they have been revelling in their notoriety ever since.

The Conference committed itself to the arguably contradictory policies of "rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture” and promising to “listen to the experience of homosexual persons".

Rowan Williams was one of the 146 bishops who were disgusted at the conference proceedings and issued a statement to gays which apologized for the "sense of rejection" created, and pledged to "work for your full inclusion in the life of the Church".

Becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan pledged to support the Lambeth doctrine on homosexuality -- he "did a Schori" on himself, so to speak.

The wobbles of Lambeth 1998 are no foundation for church unity. They have been given ample time to display their ineffectuality except for exacerbating the disagreement they were intended to allay.

Time for all to agree to disagree, and keep up their task of mutual persuasion. The fact that the Global South prefers coercion to persuasion shows clearly the weakness of their case.

Yes, thank you Joseph. Rowan has broken his word given in that letter, along with 146 others who signed.

Wonder what the other 145 have been doing in the emantime. And waht do they intend to do now ?

Martin Reynolds wrote: ", the “take over” by the Primates of the ACC was the most important step in their plan for dominance."

Dear Martin, I think that the most important step in the "take over" was the cunning conversion of millions of people to Christianity, and the planting of thousands of churches and hundreds of dioceses. Reducing the disproportionate liberal dominance of the ACC might have been a lot harder were conservatives as lousy as liberals at growing the kingdom. Having said that liberals are, historically, better at church politics. Despite their general failure at doing real church, they still have a strangle hold on the ACO, dominate the House of Bishops of *all* the western churches, and supply all the western primates. Highly disproportionate. This had got to change!

Martin ; I said to you many months ago that the ONLY solution is a split. There is absolutely no other possible option.

But its not only about primates. Are any liberal organisations actually going to have the courage to move forward - leaving the Communion behind, for it has nothing to do with liberal progressive Christianity.