No, Williams, your 'communion ' doesn't matter - its just another nasty, homophobic institution that, as Richard Kirker rightly says, is not something worth belonging to.

The Church must fall apart, and TEC must have the courage of its convictions and recognise that gay and lesbian people and their equality is far, far more important than holding a bigoted institution dominated by premodern homophobes, together.

Of course, those I think are worthy of most scorn are groups such as Changing Attitude. I told Colin Coward clearly that this would be the inevitable outcome, that the Communion was unreformable, and that the only strategy for an inclusive Church would be to actively work for the splitting of the communion and the founding of a liberal denomination.

No doubt he is still willing to play doormat. At least it appears that some have a bit more backbone

I suppose that the British just can't come to terms with the fact that in TEC diocese "elect" bishops & majorities of both Bishops Diocesan & Diocesan Standing Committees must consent to the election -- nobody appoints anyone to anything. Still, for the ABC not to be able to use basically accurate terminology is not encouraging.

But the piece failed to persuade me that the WWAC should try to stay together as a dysfunctional family. A friend whose parents tried to stay together for the sake of the children insists that it is the worst thing that you can do. TEC will continue to do all it can to help churches in the developing world -- everyone knows that.

If the WWAC really means to be Queen Victoria's Empire at prayer, TEC doesn't really fit in anyway, does it?

(Quote)To digress for just a moment: one of the hardest things in all this has been to keep insisting on the absolute moral imperative of combating bigotry and violence against gay people, and the need to secure appropriate civic and legal protection for couples who have chosen to share their lives. These are different matters from whether the Church has the freedom to bless same-sex unions. A negative or agnostic answer to this latter question is frequently heard as a negative attitude to the imperatives of care and respect - and sometimes that perception is sadly accurate, judging from the postbag that arrives here. Yet they are different, and quite a lot of Christians know it and try to act accordingly. Rowan Williams (unQuote)

Gee, Archbishop I really would like to believe you. But as your own postbag shows you, many, many, many conservative Anglican believers all round the world simply are unable to neatly separate the issues of civil fairness and religious damnation which you call for us to acknowledge as an Anglican starting place.

If this distinction is the operative Anglican starting place, many believers in Nigeria among bishops and archbishops appear to know nothing or very little of it. They are content to make plans with the state to imprison people who are not straight in Nigera, a de facto death sentence by all real accounts. You remain thunderingly silent. Yet you speak publicly in this manner. Which Rowan Williams leads us now? The one who remains dutifully silent about the state abuse of Nigerian citizens who are not straight, supported by the Nigerian Anglican community (or at least by its high leadership, with the average Nigerian person rendered intimidated and silent)? Or the one who flatly states that the operative Anglican position is that we accord all civil fairness to people who are not straight, while reserving the legacy privilege to say dreadful things about them in church in obedience to Jesus and God?

Inquiring minds wanna know, dude.

There was a time when Rowan would have written in for Guardian. Now, he writes for the Telegraph. That says it all, really.

We shall march prospering,–not thro’ his presence;
Songs may inspirit us,–not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done,–while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more foot-path untrod,
One more devils’-triumph and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life’s night begins: let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,
Forced praise on our part–the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him–strike gallantly,
Menace our heart ere we master his own;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!

– Robert Browning

I'm struck by the tentative weakness of Rowan Williams' argument. I know his approach is tentative, but here it really looks like it is on its last legs.

The first attempt, the Sub-Group, was an attempt to keep the Episcopalians in, and then there was NOT a situation to explore if a "desire to stay with the Communion is strong enough to cope with a halt for the sake of continuing to move and work together". No, there are those who are moving forward, and those who are going nowhere.

It is not that there will be discussions and then some moving forward (to what, African and American agreed gay blessings and clergy in faithful gay and lesbian relationships?). Come on! Some say never and some say now.

And it looks like, unless it is bluster covering for his previous noises, that Akinola is saying by September that Nigeria itself will walk if the Episcopal Church is not stopped and this means Nigeria will not take its tanks off the American lawn until then of course.

What will be the outcome at this next crisis point: another Northern Ireland-like deadline, and trying to compromise Akinola like Jefferts Schori has been compromised? How about doctrinally tightening up the Covenant and getting the Episcopalians in at the same time? Is this the idea, so that nothing changes but the appearance?

This is the thinness of the argument. We already have another Nigerian ultimatum before the jet aircraft have even cooled, directed against Canterbury not the US. This is a joke already.

Ten minutes ago I was wondering on Faithspace whether and how the outcome would work out given all its nuances and confusions, and the jelly blob of the Covenant so far - and suddenly it is already clear.

Comments by a number of The Episcopal Church bishops are beginning to show some clarity. Put an end to this.

What is Rowan Williams' argument actually for the Anlgican Communion?

1) "because the relations and common work of the Communion, especially in the developing world, matter massively."

2) "And also because the idea that there might be a worldwide Christian Church that could balance unity and consent seems worth holding on to, for the sake of the whole Christian family and even for the sake of human society itself."

1) can happen anyway. Unless he means American money already being rejected by a number of African provinces.

2) There is not balance of Unity and Consent - there is a rope and two teams pulling in two directions, some in the same Churches.

Is that it?

I think the House of Bishops will go through with a technical Windsor compliance, as a kind of holding operation, in the interests of keeping the Communion on the road.

This compromise could be viewed in the light of Paul circumcising Timothy (Acts 16.3). It will not reduce the loud Pauline voice of the Episcopalian Church on the basic issues.

ECUSA were precipitous (though they are hardly the only Anglican church to bless gay couples) and the others think they are heretics. But there is nothing to prevent the churches living with their disagreement and letting a Gamaliel test reveal who is rightly inspired. The technical compliance of ECUSA will not satisfy those who speak of rooting out "abomination".
ECUSA will go on heading the ball away, eluding the corner the others want to trap them in.

ECUSA should not be too nervous, and should not lose their Pauline parrhesia, even at the risk of "impaired communion". The latter condition should not prevent the churches continuing to cooperate and help one another on the 99% basis they share. Those who want to make the dividing issue a communion-breaking one in a radical sense -- who want "no communion at all" rather than just "impaired communion" with those with whom they disagree about homosexuality -- are clearly adopting an untenably destructive attitude.

The obsessiveness about homosexuality, and the belated wish to paint it as disagreement about the nature of God and Christ as well, must now be laid to rest. The years from Lambeth 1998 to Tanzania 2007 have seen an enormous expense of energy on this topic, with derisory results. Clearly the process is not moving forward but has become counter-productive. Let both sides admit a stalemate and live with it. The idea that the stalemate can be resolved by making the American dissidence simply disappear (and with it the hosts of gay Christians and their families who lie behind it) is clearly a futile one (and in fact will be replaced by mere technical compliance). Even if the Americans were to knuckle under as radically as the Global South want, that would only repress the issue, not solve it.

It is beyond incredible that the Archbishop of Canterbury should still at this late date refer to the Bishop of New Hampshire as "appointed". He wrote: "...to appoint as a bishop someone in an openly gay partnership..."

No Episcopal bishop has EVER in all history been "appointed". All are elected by the laity and clergy of their respective dioceses, and that election is then confirmed by a majority of the bishops-with-jurisdiction and the diocesan Standing Committees (made up of both lay and clerical members).

And, unless there is a UNANIMOUS vote from the House of Bishops on a "covenant" not to confirm elected partnered gay bishops, the vote will have no constitutional standing of any kind, because such a vote cannot constitutionally demand or require any individual bishop to comply unless s/he has formally agreed to do so. And we already know of at least a half-dozen bishops who have already declared that they will not vote for such a "covenant" – so it's a no-go no matter how one looks at it.

Rowan wrote "...whether the Church has the freedom to bless same-sex unions. A negative or agnostic answer to this latter question is frequently heard as a negative attitude to the imperatives of care and respect - and sometimes that perception is sadly accurate, judging from the postbag that arrives here."

I would add looking at some of the postings on this and other forums, that perception is sadly accurate. And that is the problem. The rejection of GLBTs is not distinguished from the rejection of violence and hate mongering.

Hate mongering and violence are okay - just make sure you choose the right victim.

Yet when you read the bible, God has a vision of violence ending. And not just between tribes, but between genders, human and beast, siblings. The covenant of the sabbath applies to all under our jurisdiction - including the slave, the alien and the beasts of the field (Exodus 20:10). Peace is promised not just to humans but also to the animal kingdom (e.g. See Isaiah 11). It also covers the afflicted (Isaiah 49:13)

Remember, God did not divorce the feminine (Isaiah 50) - God sent your mother away to protect her from witnessing your transgressions. She was not being punished, she was being protected.

Sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind, Rowan... :-(

Fr Joseph O'Leary - I don't know what the difference is between an impaired communion and none. There is more likely to be something like two actual communions, and no doubt messages between them. Perhaps there could be federation. The point is, the present cannot go on, and there must be inclusion.

I think the issue is broader than the gay and lesbian one, but includes it and cannot leave it. It is a model for human rights, and a model for inclusion.

-many times, I have said on TA that the ABC (even given his past "provocative" writings as an academic) is not going to sacrifice the AC for VGR and those who make rights-based arguments.

-and if you want to talk about England, if he has to choose between Alpha, Reform, Fulcrum & New Wine leaving the CofE and on the other hand pleasing CA & IC.......well, it is obvious what he will do both for the health and strength of the CofE and in the context of the AC.

Quote)To digress for just a moment: one of the hardest things in all this has been to keep insisting on the absolute moral imperative of combating bigotry and violence against gay people, and the need to secure appropriate civic and legal protection for couples who have chosen to share their lives. These are different matters from whether the Church has the freedom to bless same-sex unions. A negative or agnostic answer to this latter question is frequently heard as a negative attitude to the imperatives of care and respect - and sometimes that perception is sadly accurate, judging from the postbag that arrives here. Yet they are different, and quite a lot of Christians know it and try to act accordingly. Rowan Williams (unQuote)

ROWAN bach, THE Church does have the authority to bless couples who happen to be of one gender. The CHURCH is doing it all the time. Do YOU not know this ? Do you not see ?

Your trouble is you have fallen into the common trap of talking and acting as if ' Church' means Bishops--and in fact -- 'top bishops / primates PLUS RC and Eastern Orthordox bishops. But no, it includes many, many more people. People who come together to BE Church to make Church, to express the Kin-dom.

We arent waiting for you lot --catch up if you can !

Your stance is disgraceful, as is your abondonment of your Michael Harding Memorial Lecture. Is this how you treat the dead ? --let alone the living ?

You aren't the Church, just a tiny bit of it --if AT ALL (Read JC Ryle's The True Church !)

NP, you are lumping things together that do not lump together. Reform and Fulcrum can't be considered in the same breath - as Tom Wright showed not so long back.

In some ways I sympathise with the dilema of Rowan Williams, who I believe was badly treated and humiliated by the Akinola camp at the recent conference in Tanzania, but his conflicted "Telegraph" editorial, "Why the Anglican Communion Matters", brings to mind nothing so much as the White Queen's observation "sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

What troubles me most about this (or, what also troubles me; I'm also troubled by the attempt to divorce civil rights from ecclesial recognition, and by opinions that seem much more focused on unity that on consent) is the apparent vision of "a Church" - a vision that much more closely parallels the Roman model than the classical Anglican Communion, or even Orthodox or Lutheran models. His concern that we "decide as a Church" so as to be able to speak intelligibly to "other Christian bodies" presupposes "*a* Church," and not a communion of provinces, however faithfully interdependent. Cantuar comes awfully close to Benedict XVI when as Ratzinger he wrote "Dominus Iesus," and spoke of "true Churches" (those whose episcopate Rome would recognize - and that does not yet include ours, whatever gestures may have been made) and "other Christian bodies" with "defects."

Marshall Scott --

Yes -- at one of the discussions at the House of Bishops at the last General Convention one of them pointed out that Anglican polity is much more like the Orthodox than the Roman.

I don't see how the HoB can respond positively (or legally) to the demands ("requests" is really offensive in an ultimatum) of the communique, but if the rumblings from Nigeria & Kenya are correct, then it seems that the whole point is moot.

Such anger in so many. But if you're so sure of the rightness of your cause, you must withdraw and form your own ecclesial communities. The 'Wee Frees' did this in Scotland. So did the Free Church of England. AMiA is entirely self-funding. The Metropolitan Community Churches started up years ago; what is stopping you? Lack or courage or conviction? Meeting in homes or school halls is relatively inexpensive, as lots of startup churches do. Go for it - try church planting!

"You must withdraw and form your own ecclesial communities" -- but, Steve Watson, many have withdrawn into no community at all; some have founded churches such as the Metropolitan Community Church that are top-heavily gay. This is very bad Christian example, reminding one of families who disown their gay members.

"the need to secure appropriate civic and legal protection for couples who have chosen to share their lives." (Rowan Williams). You may be sure that Akinola is out to get churchmen who speak like this.

Dear Steve W, TEC has already done much of what you propose - as Anglicans. There was no need to start over again from the bare ground up, since we were converted for the better - as Anglicans.

Nobody had a single thought of asking the conservative minority to conform their own sexual orientations or beliefs or whatever; just to acknowledge that theirs was only one of the many possible vigorous places on our worldwide Anglican spectrums. Well, that obviously did not sit well, as time marched on. Womens' ordination ceased to be a TEC issue for the most part, although a few hold out dioceses were mildly allowed to refuse to ordain women inside them, and to enact severe discernment processes which put hindrances and difficulties in the way of any woman rash enough to imagine she was being called by God to ministry in TEC at large. That wasn't enough, either.

Then New Hampshire elected a priest as bishop whom they had known, up close and personal in faith, and whose ministry they had tested in daily church life for over twenty years. I imagine that few bishops are nearly so well known and so closely observed by the diocese that may eventually elect them in TEC.

Well that was awful, wasn't it? Electing somebody you really knew well, and whose daily life and ministry you knew so well - with their sexual orientation and committed family life not any more being an issue.

TEC is actively being raided now, by foreign bishops or archbishops who hope to get a share of the family silver in the name of helping the orthodoxists who helped dream up this Home Invasion Plan in the first place.

I just cannot hear this as the gospel. It reeks of power, institutional force, and loud preaching by realignment people who think they are God's only favorites or Anglican exemplars.

Anybody who is targeted that gets the least bit upset and starts shouting back is blamed for trying to cause an Anglican bar room brawl. Oh, really.

Steve wrote, "Such anger in so many. But if you're so sure of the rightness of your cause, you must withdraw and form your own ecclesial communities."

But that's just the point. These folks *don't* have that depth of faith in their "cause." (which, actually, leads me to believe it's not "faith-based" at all ;)

You'll NEVER see a majority of the AAC/ACN-types willing to strike out on their own and trust in the Lord, no matter how much they go on (and on, and on,...) about the holiness of their convictions.

You'll NEVER see a majority of the AAC/ACN-types willing to strike out on their own and trust in the Lord, no matter how much they go on (and on, and on,...) about the holiness of their convictions.

Posted by: David H. on Saturday, 24 February 2007 at 2:18am GMT

Not while they can draw on TEC and C of E stipends and pensions !

Cancers actually live off (as well as on) the living body -taking its vitality for themselves and giving nothing in return. A state of affairs St Paul could never have envisaged.

"Cancers actually live off (as well as on) the living body -taking its vitality for themselves and giving nothing in return. A state of affairs St Paul could never have envisaged."

Oncological pathology (uncontrolled cellular growth in an organ) is a bit different from parasitism (a foreign organism growing within a host), though the end results are similar. Which ideology or belief is foreign to the body? TEC teaching or the consensus of the Anglican communion? Remember the mother at the parade ground: 'Look, they're all out of step except my son John!' What is making for health and what is bringing decline and death? Which churches are growing - attracting and converting non-Christians - and which are simply living off legacies of the past?
drdanfee: I don't expect TEC to return to the Anglican fold; it seems too far committed to its ideology to easily achieve that kind of metanoia (tho' maybe my faith is too weak). My words were directed to those in England especially who seek to win the CofE around to a TEC outlook. I don't see that happening either, all the more so in the light of the Dar es Salaam communique, so instead of wasting more time, energy and resources on this issue, the best thing for TEC-minded people is to withdraw and organize your own, TEC-affiliated churches with your own ordained leaders, of whom you must have many in LGCM, CA, IC etc. Surely all the clergy in these groups are capable of organizing a network of such new churches, just as AMiA does, meeting in school halls and hotel conference rooms, and as I've known in two church plants I've been involved in over the years. You could do a start-up for £100 rental per Sunday, maybe less. What is stopping people from such church planting? Lack of mission-mindedness or church planting skills?

"the consensus of the Anglican communion"

Whatever thes late unpleasanties (a remake of 16th and 17th centuries unpleasanties) may tell us, the first thing is that there is no consensus - not between Provinces, not within Provinces.

No, Goran - while I can't speak for your Lutheran churches with their different bodies (e.g. LCMS and ELCA, as well as the current dispute over homosexuality between the Lutheran Chruch of Kenya and Svenska Kyrkan - see,it's not just an Anglican thing!), the Anglican 'instruments of unity' - the Lambeth conference, the primates' meeting, and the ACC - have all come to the same conclusion. That's what is meant by 'consensus'. Those who are not able in conscience to accept this teaching should withdraw from the Anglican Communion and organize their own federation/fellowship etc. They should establish their own network of churches, possibly with American leadership and subvention. It's what you Lutherans do, and quite right too.

No, Steve Watson, it is not what Lutherans do (I notice that you avoid SveK this time ;=)

It is what the IRD inspired Anglican new “reformers” into all novel American 20th century Heresies do.

The Missouri Synod and the Swedish 19th century Pietists within the Church, are Lutheran in name. They are a protest movement against the Absolutist oppression of the Prussian State Church and its 1830 Agenda (Calvinist Supper). They used the 1580 Books of Discord as a tool against the Absolutist oppression of the Prussian State Church (Calvinism as a political “philosophy” is Absolutism), calling themselves Alt Lutherish; Old Lutheran; they were new Pietist – a 1660 individualist and anti-political Privatization of Collective and Political Calvinism.

In fact they are against the Eucharist, combining symbolic supper with weird Ideas about “purity”: eating a Death upon oneself. 19th century pastors refused the Eucharist to their parishioners. Their reading of John 6 (to explain away that it is about the Eucharist) is hilarious.

So the ELCA is Lutheran, but the Missouri variety is a 19th century sect.

The regional Lutheran churches and Calvinist organizations of Germany are subdivided according to the 1555 principalities and re-aggregated after 1918.

The Scandinavian churches correspond to the ancient National Provinces of the Church Catholic, as per the 1st Millennium. Only the Danish and Norwegian churches are Lutheran in a direct sense, Denmark being reformed by Dr Bugenhagen one of Dr Martin’s helpers (Dr B who had been standing in for Dr M during his leave to write the Catechism, proceeded to reform southern Denmark).

The Reformation in Sweden and Finland (the same Kingdom until 1811) was infinitely less radical because the Roman 11th to 13th century innovations (1073 Dictatus papae, 1139 Lateran II Mandatory Celibacy, 1248 Canon law, & c.) affected us very little.

Contrary to Roman Canon law, in Sweden the Parish still owns the church and the land, the Vestry calls the priest, and a testament (the financing of the Gregorian Hierarchic World Revolution) is not a “deed” (it is merely the last will of the deceased; the legal heirs may or may not accept it as they please) and has no standing in Swedish law (in fact less than it did a century ago).

So the Church of Sweden remains 1st Millennium, rather Dr Martin’s ideal than the fruit of his endeavours to bring Germany back to the Old Church.

As with Anglicanism much of 19th century mission was done by the post 16th century Platonist Renaissance radicals, in the Lutheran case by Pietists (outside of the churches of the Elizabethan and Carolingian settlements Calvinists have their own organizations. These are congregational; Sect, not Church – as are their 16th to 17th century teachings).

You base the rest of your reasoning on the so called “Instruments of Unity”.

With the obvious exception of the Lambeth Conferences (not Councils of the Church Catholic, but a garden party with tea and cakes to which the Church of Sweden has traditionally been invited from the first Lambeth in 1868 onwards), these “instruments” are a quite novel invention in the making – as of yet of no Constitutional standing.

They are part of the IRD reform package, but not yet received by the various Anglican Church Provinces. The prospects of such a reception seem slight.

As to “such teaching”, there has never been any Church teaching on human sexuality. The issue is quite new. The categories even newer. “Homosexual” dates from 1868, Heterosexual from 1890, “sex” still meant “gender” when I was a child, “gender” was un-conceived of until the 1970ies.

The traditional Neo Platonist teaching of 2nd Millennium European Academia was based on the Gnosticist idea of Sperm as identical to the Soul of Man (= academic man) which was of one kind with The Highest Being. The Big Nous and the little nous.

Sperm was (mis-)understood as seeds to be deposited and grow (on their own) in the right place (the womb) to become little boys maturing into men. Spilling it was murder – yes, worse than murder.

The Alexandrians were the same fellas who taught that the earth was flat, regardless of the fact that the real Greek Ancients knew the earth was round and had been able to measure its circumference down to the last foot ;=)

Alexandrian “morality” (the missionary position) is not about the late Modern category of “sex” but about the (non-)Spilling of Sperm, of the Soul of the Academic. It dominated European Academia from the Carolingians up to the 1960ies and 1970ies, when it was quickly re-defined (by Roman academics at Cambridge and by Colorado sects, such as Focus on the Family) to become a kind of Heterosexism cum Fertility Cult.

The novel 1868 concept of “homosexual” (which still in Scholastic fashion referred to the Spilling of Semen, but had been Modernized in 1890 as the symmetric opposite to “hetero-sexual”) was introduced into the Biblical text in 1947, by the Calvinist New York Bible Society.

The late Modern Essentialist concept of “Sexual Orientation as Identity” was introduced in 1966 by Roman Cambridge academics translating the not yet overtly homo-sexualized 1955 Bible de Jérusalem (from the Codex Sinaiticus) of the French Dominicans.

This late Modern Heterosexism cum Fertility Cult is heavily into anti Modern Social Politics, a kind of imagined return to the American 1950ies, involving the re-subordination of women, slaves and gays.

To wit, new anti-slave Biblical “proofs”, as well as new misogynic and anti-gay ones, have been conjured out of thin air in various (and varying) “translations” – also in the last Swedish State one of 1982 and 2000, made by 2 converts to Rome, the one “open” the other “closeted” until delivered, upon which he denounced the “apostasy” of the Church of Sweden – so no, this anti Modern reaction is not to be found only in one church.

This “apostasy” in all churches amounts to nothing less than a diminishing of the 2000 years old evil influence of anti Cosmic Indo European Philosophy on Academia and the Christian Church. This is due to the 20th century European experience of a whole sale implementation of anti Cosmic and hierarchically de-valuing political philosophies on an industrial scale.

The traditional Christian churches remain traditional; the Creeds, the Tradition of the Church, the Holy Scriptures in the plural, Life as God’s good gift in Creation, but are increasingly leaving their anti Cosmic Indo European Academic legacy behind.

Ah, yes, incidentally, the yellings of "all, always and everywhere" have always been heard from people who ventured (sometimes successfully) to change Church teaching.

Witness the misogynic parts (from the pseudo epigraphic Pastorals edition of Paul's letters) of 1 Cor 11 and 14, the equally pseudo epigraphical letter of "Jude" verse 3, or the attempt of Saint Vincent des Lérin to introduce the brand new pseudo Pelagianism of his teacher John Cassian ;=)