It is interesting to note that while the language of reconciliation was used in the communique and the terms of the Schedule were purportedly offered as a kind of compromise, Bishop Minns (as well as virtually all the Rightwing groups) treat the matter as a total vindication of their position. Remind anyone of Munich?

Mr. Coats, do you really mean to be so 'over the top'? The reference to Munich. Really.

Wow! Godwin's Law on the first post!

Actually, Mad Priest has already photoshopped ++Katharine's head onto the picture of Chamberlain with his piece of paper guaranteeing "peace in our time."

But yes, these people are not operating with good will & you can't do business with them (IMHO).

William Coats observation would seem to point to a breaking of faith between the primatial participants and we their intended recipients.

Rejecting the 'universal jurisdiction' and 'Magisterium' of the bishops or Rome generally and Joseph Ratzinger particularly, I most certainly will not allow these senior anglican bishops to define for me, or bind me on matters of faith and morals. Minns seems to be under the misapprehension that they have define 'the Christian and Anglican' position. --in your dreams ! I thought Minns and Akinola were protestants ? Well, my take on protestantism is that we all get to read the bible for ourselves, in the vulgar tongue; and that in many prayerful encounters with the Bible, we discern the Will and word of God for us and to us, for ourselves. I am certainly not stopping now. I'm certainly not handing my intellect, soul and life over to people with even less (slightly) historical or spiritual claim than the bishops of Rome !What a motley godless lot so many of those proved to have been !

However, I look forward with some relish, to an 'Avignon popes' situation vis-a-vis Canterbury. (I know its wicked, but better than my getting too upset / up-tight !....

'...But yes, these people are not operating with good will & you can't do business with them (IMHO).'

Posted by: Prior Aelred on Saturday, 24 February 2007 at 3:19pm GMT

Yes, that's it exactly. Without genuine goodwill--not the false-self counterfeit manufactured to deceive--- there is no basis for any kind of moral, spiritual or relational human life.

"Have nothing to do with a knave !" is wise counsel in any field. I think a knave is one acting without goodwill, in any sphere. I have learned this the hard way !

Of course, it's Munich all over again.
Mr Allen please don't devalue lgbt people with your over-reaction comment. LGBT people in the 40 counties that execute is will not see the Munich allusion as OTT, nor I imagine, will the scores Akinola would send to die in Nigerian goals.

How shameful that Their Graces had sweet-FA to say about the legislation going thru in Nigeria as they sat talking on the beach at Dar.

_We are no longer a part of TEC and our call is to show the world a new way of living and a new way of loving._

So that is Martyn Minns' interpretation and says CANA is recognised. Was it? What it means is they carry on.

The official version, surely, is that this Primatial Vicar transfers oversight from Nigeria to a Communion body of five, that includes two appointees from the Presiding Bishop and one from Canterbury. So this is not quite the same thing.

Plus having taken the property, Martyn Minns wants no one to take it back.

So alongside this temporary primatial arrangement are a couple of tanks parked with the crew still there and the chief still sending out orders. No one has gone home and no one is going home.

The only question in my mind is whether TEC should just say sod all this and we carry on, or be a bit skillful in making a presentation towards staying in the communion based plus the legitimacy of difference within Christianity, and let Canterbury decide whether to throw out TEC or watch Nigeria walk. Or another deadline.

The best outcome is if the Nigerians walk, but either way all this mess is unsustainable and rather pointless, with a need for more clarity in relations.

I just want to say that there are occasions when references to the dynamics of what happened re Nazi Germany are actually relevent.

Watching how the puritans and others are behaving, how the situation develops, there are various aspects of it which are fairly comparable to some of the principles at play in those times. We shouid be careful in applying those comparisons, but there is no good reason to disqualify them out of hand, just because doing so may have been overdone in other contexts.

I'm very far from being an expert, but I really have not seen in my lifetime modern, western, public institutions so openly and excitedly railing against a minority - whilst their colleagues in Africa proudly work toward state persecution, brutalizing and extermination of the same minority with no question or criticism from the puritan side, or even from the 'moderate' establishment.

I don't for a second imagine that things will be allowed to go much further than this, the wider world would check it before it went 'too far'. At the moment it's only black people who are going to suffer actual imprisonment, starvation, brutalization and extermination. The world will take more notice when it gets to the white folk. The Anglican Communion is still a bit of a piffling thing in terms of global politics (thank God).

But, the personal/group psychology and politics do seem to have quite obvious similarities.

..'First of all, it means that we are part of a Communion that is determined to stand on the truth of the Holy Scriptures and is not willing to abandon such a stand despite *enormous pressure from The Episcopal Church and its leadership*. We are also part of a Communion that is led by gracious leaders who are both patient and wise — who are determined to do all that they can for the unity of the Church but who will not give up biblical truth for the sake of a false unity...'
Bp Minns

He was only too prepared to ask many favours of Bishop Lee, including unprecedented concessions, around staying on in his parish, 'during the 90 days' and beyond, and drawing TEC salaries and pension rights. So if not 'unity' what was his relationship with Peter Lee and the diocese during those days ? He didn't put his notion of Bible teaching first then--or indeed, over the past years since 2003. BUT he expects gays and others to go further than himself.

I find this to be inconsistent --and lets face it rhetoric. I will never understand why those who have so little regard for their Church (Be it TEC or C of E) do not leave it. Surely there can be no excuse for Minns, Duncan,Anderson et al to remain in ECUSA beyond 2003 at the latest.

They seem to love the praise of men (sic) and their pensions more than their truth of God. So is it the truth of God he is writing.

Logic.

I would have respect for Minns et al to take a logical step and leave.
I would have respect for staying and working for the truth as they see it, while respecting TEC's polity and constitution.

But I feel some contempt for staying, drawing salary and benefits of TEC ministry, while behaving as entryists or a fifth column, and not respecting the lives and views of those who read Scripture differently.

SO Don't get on your soap-box to me Martyn, or send pious sounding letters of condescension, with somewhat Pauline salutations !

St Paul must be turning in his grave !

(while awaiting the General Resurrection !)

Have these people excised Jesus from their Bibles?

It seems to me that ending property litigation needs to be contingent on participating in the Pastoral Scheme. Since CANA is very unlikely to want to participate, I don't believe that the lawsuits will end.

Mr. Arllen asks if I mean to be "over the top." Well Abp Akinola has now called for the C of E not only to cease same-sex blessings but to stop ordinations of all gays and lesbians. Now exactly why would he "up the ante" if he did not feel he could; if, that is, he did not see the Schedule as a form of triumph over the Episcopal church as all the Right wing bloggers also have claimed) enabling him to demand more. Now I ask why does not the logic of the position of Abp Akinola and Bp Duncan demand that all gays and lesbians presently ordained be rooted out?

Two images of truth.
In his letter to CANA, Martyn write:
"The setting was idyllic . . .but the struggle was so fierce, we never found time to walk on the beach. Angela and I were there as members of a staff support team for Archbishop Peter Akinola and the other Primates of the Global South."

At the start of the conference, the Guardian reported:
"Sunning herself by the hotel swimming pool, Angela Minns, wife of Martyn Minns, the British-born conservative evangelical vicar of a parish in Virginia, who has just been made a bishop of the Nigerian church . . "

I can't trust him on even the basics of how they spend their time.

Behind all the network and related realignment claims of biblical purity is a consistent plan and effort by the realignment folks, especially in USA, to steal the family silver which TEC holds in trust in perpetuity for all generations. Can't get clearer than that. What is one set of believers to do when a second set simply announces that because it reads its bible a certain way, it has discovered that it has the power to enter your house and try to lay claim to your possessions? The Communique and Schedule is only helping to spin this, by disguising it as only a doctrinal dispute among believers that should not be settled in court. But it is the realignment folks who start the property disputes by laying claims to property which is only theirs to the extent that they are still TEC. I am still guessing the courts will end up adjudicating at least in USA, because the realignment thieveries are not planned to be stopped any time soon.

Or consider a thought experiment. Let's say that HoB and GenCon totally reverse all progressive and queer friendly institutional life in conformity with what the communion is supposed to be requesting. Are progressive parishes and dioceses then permitted to seceed from TEC, laying claim to all their property and funds otherwise held in trust? Please explain your answer.

I don't find it over the top at all.

Didn't anybody else react to this?

"The stakes were enormous and it was an intense spiritual battle"

... an intense spiritual battle...

well, what's to react to Goran? They think (or purport to think) that they are fighting against demons and suchlike. What can you say to that apart from, "That's nice dear, would you like a bit of shortcake with your tea?"

Now I ask why does not the logic of the position of Abp Akinola and Bp Duncan demand that all gays and lesbians presently ordained be rooted out?

Posted by: William R. Coats on Saturday, 24 February 2007 at 4:56pm GMT

I have rooted myself out --so they can save their breath for their porrige !

With a bit more reflection though, it does seem to be an effective tool to sanitize what you are doing to other human beings. If you rhetorically relocate the focus of your efforts against an abstract concept such as supposed opposing spiritual powers, then the casualties that fall under the dominion of those 'principalities' are either, a) deserving of death because they are in cahoots with the evil one, b) collateral damage, c) sacrifices to appease the wrathful god, d) suckers whose pain furthers my fame, or e) just don't matter.

Sadly, I suspect there are some prominent people on the puritan side, whose motivation most closely resembles the last two of those options.

I wonder if there is a legal loophole that if you use a church premises uncontested for more than a certain period it ipso facto becomes yours?

If that is the case, a stalling game would be very appropriate.

It reminds me of a very well known actor who dumped his wife three months before ten years of being married, which meant he didn't have to pay her alimony. Now, of course, he would never have dumped his wife just to prevent paying alimony, would he? But there are an awful lot of people who think it looks that way.

A bit like the OJ dilemma isn't it. Found innocent in court but...

My suggestion is Schori's legal team look for this kind of loophole and make sure it is plugged up.

Well, in a sense they are fighting Demons - their own.

But "That's nice dear, would you like a bit of shortcake with your tea?" probably i s the right answer, for those of us who are not the ABC ;=)