Why didn't the two dissident new bishops join up with the Nigerian faction in the ordination they sought? Are there pickings and choosings going on with what primate one wants to associate with? We can infer an obvious answer. This is ANOTHER sect of schismatics.

Curtis

I am not so sure it is a schismatics issue, but rather a funding of the payroll issue. Are African dioceses are underpinning US salaries, at what expense to their local populations? If the funding is not coming from them, then where is the wages money coming from?...

There is an inconsistency in the Jamaica Gleaner report - this is that Chris Sugden suggests (from where?) a 70% middle ground and then refers to Bishop Peter Lee of Diocese of Virginia making an effort to create a kind of middle ground. Presumably this isn't necessarily the same middle ground as the 70%, but what I cannot see is why the proposal of Peter Lee (according to Chris Sugden)...

_we can do nothing and we should do nothing that gives any signal to our active gay and lesbian members that they are anything else but fully members of this church and fully open to all the senior positions in the church - priests, bishops._

is unacceptable to the gay activist 15% he identifies. It would seem to me to be acceptable. It could only be unacceptable to the 15% conservative lobby.

So that 15% seems to want to be running the show (and of a larger percentage outside the US to bring TEC into order, as he sees it) and presumably he expects that 15% to be an alternative Anglican Communion in the USA?

Cheryl

The funding won't be from Africa. I don't doubt there's money involved. But it isn't African money. It's American. One could almost guarantee that these American separatists have studied the financial strength of their dissident groups before doing this. If indeed they had to study it at all.

It seems, what with the religion business here in the states being booming like it is, that the conservatives would stick together in a unified front. They aren't doing that. They pick a primate and align with them. I'm SURE of nothing here. But it seems clear enough, there's more than one right wing faction. Whether the Orombi bishops will compete with the Akinola bishops has yet to show itself. But that's a looming possibility too.

Quite frankly, this is just fine with me. Soon these clowns will be denouncing each other with the same fervor that they now denounce American Episcopalians.

There is little or nothing new in the USA rightwing influences - except - now they seek to lay sole claim to being good Anglican believers.

Everybody else mentioned, the queer-lefty extremes and (significantly?) any and all middles - can just go jump in their cleverly constructed presuppositional secular humanist lake of fire where nothing is or can be known for certain and where, as the trash talk would have it, anything goes.

If you wish to predict where the new Anglican right will lead, or try to lead, all Anglican believers globally? - just review where the USA religious right has been, and is still trying, to take both church life and social life in general.

The popular understanding of institutionalized religion as a closed-minded, punitive-ascetic range of movements (strangely millenarian to a polished fault? Strangely tangled in creationist, misogynist, puritanical, and shady financial webs?) that circle around backward thinking, denying empirical facts, and taking pride in being retro in the worst Christian Reconstructionist senses - well this is being regularly unfolded and revealed before our very eyes.

Is such a simplistic popularized view very far off the empirical marks?

What is the Anglican realignment campaign, barest bones?

(1) An effort to shut down asking questions inside Anglican believer boundaries?

(2) An effort to make trash talking and mistreating queer folks the de facto and de jure Rules of global Anglican church life? In very good historical Anglican fashion, this often means standing solemnly by while other people and other institutions take up the really big sticks to draw the really big penalties, while tsk-tsking piously every time some piece of trash talk or punishment gets meanly out of hand, or every time some preacher or leader is caught in sexual or financial mischief?

(3) Above all, defining everything via a retro scriptural hermeneutic - as part of running everything institutional in Anglican life at all levels possible?

These are key features consistently seen beneath the high flown theologies of rightwing Anglican holiness, condemning any believer who isn't Anglican Eyes Right.

As the new bishops and departing parishes so frequently reveal - it almost always involves money, power, and the freedom of conscience and scripture authority which demands that lies be told about people not in the proper fold.

Alas. This is essential Anglican church life in every single last parish all around our planet? Do Lord have mercy.

>"This is not about sexuality, it's about scripture," Barfoot said.

Really? According to Gomez's sermon in Kenya it was most definitely about both.

Only 600 people turned up for that service, leaving lots of empty plastic chairs outside for the expected crowds which didn't materialise.

Anglican TV will no doubt provide us with footage for today's open-air service too. It remains to be seen whether "thousands" will attend as predicted. Surely there would be a fair representation from the congregations represented by Guernsey in his "diocese"? Or is this just another high-profile fancy-dress party with mitres and croziers?

Mail and Guardian "Africa welcomes US gay-bashers"

While I very much commend the accuracy of the second part of the headline, the first part would MUCH better be characterized as "A *few* African Anglican muckety-mucks welcome..."

drdanfee

Your comments do not seem so far fetched when we consider some of the conduct that has been expressed within TA itself.

For example, those that desire that sites such as this are shut down, because we destract them from their "real" work. Similar souls who claim that spreading the gospel and worshiping Jesus is somehow in antithesis to examining our own or our chuches' infrastructures and their conduct.

I would argue that it is more unbiblical to not be examining and refining ourselves and our instructures. Their theology is on par with a husband who bashes and rapes his wife and then tells her she should be smiling and happy because he gives her so much.

I think Isaiah 30:8-18 is very appropriate for these times. God longs to be compassionate and show justice, we are exhorted to find strength in quietness and trust, but these souls will have none of it. They reject the prophets (as did the teacher of law in Jesus' time) and rely on oppression and deceit.

In a conversation with my daughter yesterday, we were discussing the travesty of the Iraq war and other conflicts. She said how terrible it was for the souls suffering in those nations. I pointed out that the US is not immune from that suffering either. Approx half of the US's economy (which is approx half of all the world's per annum) is devoted to supporting a war machine. That is funded by not funding other things: bridges, dams, education, health, community services, the sciences and arts.

It is a path into the dark ages, as their society is becoming maimed and illiterate.

Their desire to shut down communications is an attempt to shut down the small voices of conscience that scream "Look! Stop. Go back the way from which you have come." Malachi 4:5-6. God calls on us to be Elijahs, who turn hearts of parents to their children, and hearts of children to their parents, so that the land may be blessed and our communities healed. See also Hebrews 12:11-29, do not forsake your inheritances to satisfy a passing whim or the hope of shelter from the cruel, that is a forlorn hope.

Revelation 3:7-13 although we lack power or strength, we have patiently clung to Jesus' teachings such as in the Sermon on the Mount.

I've written a bit more on this Jamaica Gleaner (too much for here) with the addition of a couple of computer coloured cartoons.

http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/09/itma_02.html

I'd say here the use of language in part matching that of Chris Sugden's most recent tract - as in his use of "dumbed-down" for the Lambeth Conference:

http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/?p=2046

In other words, it is all part of a campaign now to replace Rowan Williams and (because they can't) set up an alternative communion (alternative because only so many boundary-crossing Churches - plus Sydney - will set it up).

The voice of christian charity and sanity :-

Trevor Mwamba, the Anglican bishop of Botswana, when asked whether more US clerics would be coming to Southern Africa to be consecrated, said, “I hope not”.

Mwamba recalled the positions reached at the Lambeth Conference of 1998, which recognised that there are people “who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation”. This conference decreed that the church commit itself to “listen to the experience of homosexual persons”.

While it rejected “homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture”, it called “on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals”.

The conference, though, could not “advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordain those involved in same-gender unions”.

The 2004 decision by a diocese in the US to authorise the blessing of same-sex relationships gave rise to the Windsor Commission, which recommended that “bishops … stop interfering in provinces and dioceses other than their own”.

Mwamba described the decisions by Nzimba and others to consecrate clergymen from the US as “highly regrettable” as it violated the “ancient principle of provincial autonomy by intervening in dioceses and provinces other than their own”.

Mwamba likened such actions to “pouring fuel on a fire” and called for “space to cool down”. He urged African bishops to “be careful they are not dragged into fighting proxy wars” and said they should focus on “playing a reconciliatory” role in the church.

Does anyone doubt - even for a moment - that if (or when?) ++Rowan recognizes the the new landscape of Anglicanism in the US, that there will be an even greater flood of refugees from TEC seeking oversight from these "schismatic" bishops?

Yeah, yeah, I know...TEC has lots of lawyers.

I don't get it...really. TEC liberals (many of whom hang around here) don't like or want these conservatives around. So, why not bless the concept of overlapping jurisdictions and all will be well? As I've said before, TEC has shown itself to be evangelistically dysfunctional (or at least inept) and, so, perhaps the Africans can help. Seriously, where's the threat?

"TEC liberals (many of whom hang around here) don't like or want these conservatives around. So, why not bless the concept of overlapping jurisdictions and all will be well? As I've said before, TEC has shown itself to be evangelistically dysfunctional (or at least inept) and, so, perhaps the Africans can help. Seriously, where's the threat?"

Because the conservatives don't want just the people who agree with them...they want the buildings, they want the land, they want the endowments, they want the money.

They're not entitled to that. Not by canon law, not by civil law.

Right-wing homophobes, for starters, Joe?

Let's pass on your first sentence, which is pure NP fantasy. When you write perceptive analysis of the level of "TEC liberals (many of whom hang around here) don't like or want these conservatives around", I wonder whether you take in anything posted to this site that does not fit your preconceptions. Broadly speaking, the only folks hot to trot for cultural cleansing hereabouts are gung-ho, slogan-parroting evos. The "TEC liberal" ethos, Joe, is pretty much a "live and let live" one - for the most part they are quite prepared to live alongside these folks and certainly do not intend to force anyone out - but at the same time most certainly not prepared to let dissident congregations walk off with the Church's assets, either. Among other causes, the US culture wars are rooted in the right-wing, post-civil-rights conflicts that polarized politics and saw the rise of the closely-related radical Republican right. By and large, Joe, these are the same folks. Knowing where many of these folks are actually coming from, the burgeoning Africa connection is an utter hoot! But as you may or may not have noticed, none of the newly-minted Nigerian, Kenyan and Ugandan bishops is other than lily-white male. Wonder why?

Read, if you've not already read it, Jim Naughton's "Following the Money", which is linked from this site frequently.

You miss the point, Joe. The schismatics are people who refuse to abide by the very standard (the Windsor Report) that they demand TEC abide by; they scream that TEC must become "Windsor-Compliant" yet ignore the Windsor Report themselves. They obviously have little regard for any authority but themselves, or any rules, unless they can make them.

They continue to broadcast far and wide their hatred of gay individuals - in defiance of calls for pastoral care in Lambeth 1.10, and in the WR, and every other agreement for the past 20 years - and to bear false witness against TEC (with cries of "heresy" and "apostasy" - words they apparently don't even know the meaning of).

What sort of credibility will they have in the future? Who will be interested in joining them? They are hypocrites who offer a Victorian-era evangelical Anglicanism to a country already packed with evangelicals. Who in the world will they be able to attract? Who would want to be part of such an organization?

Their just ain't any market for what they're selling.

Joe, I don't see the schismatics as a "threat," really.

It is true that the schismatic American bishops and their Global South backers believe, or used to believe, that they were constructing a new province which would replace the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion.

This isn't going to happen. So they and theirs will shortly be outside both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. (Because, Joe, no Anglican can possibly "bless the concept of overlapping jurisdictions.")

The beauty of it all is that the schismatics are doing it to themselves. Which is a little like the way that some souls are said to choose Hell, don't you think, Joe?

It will at any rate be justice done.

Justice is, traditionally, spoken of as one of the Four Daughters of God, along with Mercy, Peace, and Righteousness. The point is that they can't exist without her any more than she can exist without them.

Where is the threat? There isn't one, if there are two communions, but the intention is to replace the Archbishop, maintain the Communion under new management and shop premises. See Chris Sugden and his interview in Jamaica. There is no threat if people leave and leave behind the property. It is regrettable that there cannot be a loose confederation that is a spiritual communion, but there it goes. Plans are in motion and those who are aggressive about this "presenting issue" will just have to set up their institutions and proceed.

The Jamaica Gleaner says that Archbishop Akinola is a "natural replacement" for Rowan Williams. I doubt that the paper or the journalist has an opinion as strong as that, in such detail (given that the whole report is Chris Sugden's interpretation of events) so presumably they were fed the line.

The word for this is plotting. On the other hand if the disaffected said we don't like this and we are setting up The Ultra-Orthodox Anglican Communion (or some such) then I'd give it best wishes for whatever history of thought it wants to indulge itself within.

"TEC liberals (many of whom hang around here) don't like or want these conservatives around."

I would qualify as a TEC liberal. My parish has people who are more liberal than I. It has a lot who are in the middle. It has a considerable number who are more conservative than I am. That's called church. That's fine by me. I would regret if any left the parish.

Joe posted: "I don't get it...really. TEC liberals (many of whom hang around here) don't like or want these conservatives around. So, why not bless the concept of overlapping jurisdictions and all will be well? As I've said before, TEC has shown itself to be evangelistically dysfunctional (or at least inept) and, so, perhaps the Africans can help. Seriously, where's the threat?"

Boy, is he off the mark, at least in any of the twenty or so Episcopal parishes that I have visited during my business and vacation travels in the US.

As for my own parish, we have quite a mix of conservatives and liberals, but most are -- like my wife and I -- Episcopal centrists.

For the few who have left during the three years that I have been a parishioner, many, many more have joined the parish.

One blessed thing about Episcopalians is that we can always find, somewhere, a parish more to our liking if the present one seems too conservative, or too liberal, or, as in the case of a parish I left after fifteen years, if the new rector is arrogant and has insulted several of your family members. His theological beliefs were unimportant at the time, but subsequently they became clear.

So, unless Joe simply is far beyond the pale of a true "conservative," I would suggest that he look for another parish more to his taste. The Episcopal Church, as is true of the historical Anglican Communion, is very much a "big tent" body of core believers. If Joe wants a Calvinist church, then he should not be an Anglican; there are plenty of Calvinist churches in the US to meet that wish.

"Does anyone doubt - even for a moment - that if (or when?) ++Rowan recognizes the the new landscape of Anglicanism in the US, that there will be an even greater flood of refugees from TEC seeking oversight from these "schismatic" bishops?"

Um, er, well, yes.

OF COURSE many rational and informed observers doubt this -- both the part about ++Rowan "recognizing" the dissidents' New Continuum / Alphabet Soup, and (especially) this wishful thinking delusion that hordes of Episcopalians are just waiting to follow Minns et al. and their Puritan Golden Calf and go streaming en masse from TEC.

But time shall tell, sir. Time shall tell.

"Seriously, where's the threat?"

Joe, re-read the Chapman Memo. If some parallel structure outside of TEC were all that the dissidents wanted, I and many of us *might* be persuaded that this could be lived with.

But as has been clear, that's not the true aim. A "parallel province" is intended solely as a Trojan Horse that is ultimately aimed at being not a parallel province but a *replacement* province, evicting TEC from the Communion and launching legal assaults to seize TEC's assets.

There's the threat, Joe, and it has been acted on, and is being acted on, true to the Chapman Memo script.

Kurt, your spot on. I've already heard people from Fifna who denounced evangelicals who favor the ordination of women. Our Bishop, Bob Duncan said, "women will always be welcomed as long as I have anything to say about it." Of course it looks as if Akinola, Nzimbi, Orombi and crew want their own people controlling things. They must not think much of Iker or Duncan otherwise why appoint these new gentlemen (notice, no women)?

Joe, I don't think TEC is so much opposed to these other people having their own Anglican Organization as much as people are opposed to having someone try to steal their church from them. My family parish is one of those churches that a group of evangelicals hope to walk off with. They could care less if I have a place to worship and find community. I'm only welcome as long as I do what they do and believe what they believe. No thanks, God gave me a mind and I plan on using it.

Joe

Some of us are happy to have multiple communions. To our surprise many have indicated that they don't want us in a separate communion, they want us in their communion on their terms. That means shut up, wear the sunglasses and long sleeves to hide the bruises, always smile in public. If you are going to cry, at least do silently out of public view. If any of you dare to refuse to be silent, or stand up for the others who are being hurt, then we will denounce you as either delusional, attention seeking, or possessed by the "evil one".

The problem is not in there being multiple communions, but that they are not prepared to leave us alone.

Similarly, they sabotage any attempts by the secular state to provide rights on inheritance, acknowledgement of life long monogamous commitment, or adoption. In some states they go so far as to advocate our deaths or at least imprisonment, and not just for GLBTs themselves, but for anyone who would advocate on their behalf.

If the world was beautiful, there were no famines or wars; then possibly the old standards were sufficient. But we have had appalling genocides and repression, from the Nazis to Rwanda to Apartheid to the black slave trade to "assimilation" policies for indigenous peoples. Consistently with all these extremes have been puritanical or elitist paradigms.

The only way to stop complacent justification that leads to such extremes is to put all of Creation under God's grace, and all of Creation due minimum respect and reverence. It means creating a minimum standard for the least of us so that all of us can move forward into more peaceful, sustainable and abundant times.

Where hate incitement and repression are seen as legitimate, it becomes acceptable to deprive the "unworthies" of shelter, food, medicine, education, dignity... If it is okay to do it unto others, it becomes a matter of time before it is done unto you.

The fact that they try to take over our communication systems (and advocating shutting down those they don't like), educational programs and teachings makes them very dangerous. Such souls will always exist, but in a healthy society they are recognised as a bordering on fanaticism and are treated with a healthy dose of wariness.

Have a look at the 'Brooks Memorandum' - http://episcopalmajority.blogspot.com/2007/09/who-has-power.html - which is basically arguing that any decision on TEC by the primates or ABC after the Sept. 30th deadline has no validity. The only written Constitution in the Anglican Communion is that of the ACC (one of the instruments of unity), adopted by all provinces in 1969, which lists all members of the Communion. That can only be changed by agreement of the ACC and ratification by two-thirds of the provinces' synods or conventions (or permissively by two-thirds of the primates). Neither the primates nor the ABC can act alone in this regard. ACC next meets in 2009. So according to the ACC Constitution, TEC remains, and will remain, a member of the Anglican Communion until such time as said Constitution is changed. More comment on this is at - http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/2007/09/canon-robert-j-brooks-on-communions.html

I love how you can never predict which threads are going to take off in TA. For example, Pluralist wrote: "In other words, it is all part of a campaign now to replace Rowan Williams and (because they can't) set up an alternative communion (alternative because only so many boundary-crossing Churches - plus Sydney - will set it up)."

Not sure about that, but I have just come from one of my Anglican google browse to find this http://news.google.com.au/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1120178541 This article http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKL3172055920070831 cites Tutu's regret with South Africa's early botched attempts to deal with HIV/AIDS.

South Africa is the country that Sydney sponsored a "real church" in 1987, as the church that helped heal Apartheid without a full scale revolution was apparently immorally incompetent and unworthy of being called "Anglican".

Fast forward to today, and we see Nigerian Anglicans' methods of dealing with HIV/AIDS:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200708300786.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6955149.stm
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/nigerias.anglican.church.imposes.hiv.test.before.marriage/12546.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6951674.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6951674.stm

They blame the victims of the pandemic and seek to shun them (just as they did with the lepers in Jesus' time). Jesus did not blame the victims for their illness, but did rebuke a priestly caste and society that added to their suffering.

We can not change if people have HIV/AIDS, or are GLBT, but we can choose to give them dignity and accountability for taking responsibility for their own welfare and those around them. Disenfranchising them from marriage, education and work does not change that they exist. But it does change whether they have anything to be gained by cooperating with the powers that be. If the powers that be not only do not provide for them, but actively exclude them, then the powers that be should not be surprised to find themselves with enemies.

Plus souls with consciences look on appalled and disgusted by cruel priests who have no faith in God.

Yes, Chapman, but more to the point: Alison Barfoot’s “Draft Proposal for Overseas OEO” to Ekklesia Society Primates and Bishops NACDP {original acronymn for the Network} March 3, 2004: She states “After several conversations with Bill Atwood of Ekklesia, John Guernsey, Martyn Minns, and some clergy seeking ‘offshore AEO, this proposal is being considered as a draft for consideration for a process and protocol for establishing Overseas OEO as an interim stage on the way towards the realignment of Anglicanism in North America…” The proposal goes on to describe the phases by which this will be done. Barfoot’s scheme has to do with rectors moving to offshore bishops and then those bishops delegating supervision back to the Network. The hope was that most would come with letters dimissory. It also details CAPA (The GS African core) would help in this: Keeping track of clergy and congregations, coordinating mutual recognition, and creating and delegating authority to “Archdeacons” “who will be providing care on behalf of all the ‘offshore’ bishops who have clergy and congregations within the archdeaconry” For Barfoot’s memo see attachments to the following court filing in the case of Calvary vs. Bisop Duncan and the Diocese of Pittsburgh: 11/12/2004 “Motion to Vacate Stipulation” It is an attachment
http://prothonotary.county.allegheny.pa.us/WebMomCacheDir/vol135000008EF.pdf
N.B. (There are several documents here laying out the specific strategy and of the Network attached to this innocuous court filing. These documents filed as attachments in support of plaintiff Calvary’s case, as was Chapman detail exactly why TEC should be, and is concerned.)

This is the same Alison Barfoot that was interviewed by Reuters on the recent African consecrations. Did they know of her active participation in this, probably not. Also, the appellations “archdeaconry” and “convocation” seem interchangeable and of the above above named men, all have been named bishops by their African colleagues. It seems that the Barfoot strategy is working quite well.

A very inspiring and helpful post this. Thanks Cheryl.

'Some of us are happy to have multiple communions. To our surprise many have indicated that they don't want us in a separate communion, they want us in their communion on their terms...

Posted by: Cheryl Clough on Monday, 3 September 2007 at 7:13am BST

South Africa is the country that Sydney sponsored a "real church" in 1987, as the church that helped heal Apartheid without a full scale revolution was apparently immorally incompetent and unworthy of being called "Anglican".

An excellent, very telling historical point, Cheryl. History about to repeat itself ? ...

Yes, Chapman, but more to the point: Alison Barfoot’s “Draft Proposal for Overseas OEO” to Ekklesia Society Primates and Bishops NACDP {original acronymn for the Network} March 3, 2004: She states “After several conversations with Bill Atwood of Ekklesia, John Guernsey, Martyn Minns, and some clergy seeking ‘offshore AEO, this proposal is being considered as a draft for consideration for a process and protocol for establishing Overseas OEO as an interim stage on the way towards the realignment of Anglicanism in North America…”

Posted by: EPfizH on Monday, 3 September 2007 at 12:54pm BST

This is very informative. And shameful.

How can their 'consecrations' be in any meaningful sense valid ? Pay less heed to the pipe-line and more to the context. They have not been chosen and commissioned by THEIR own community....

Many thanks and prayers of blessing to St. Stephens Wilkinsburg and Calvary Pittsburg - for their efforts to litigate the covert guerrilla warfare that Duncan and others in the realignment campaign are so arduously trying to accomplish while said folks cover up and lie about their guerrilla warfare campaign, all at the same time. More light, then.

If the realignment is NOT about laying dubious claims to property and funds in order to remove them from TEC, why all the concerns about just how they will look when/if they finally appear in civil courts before judges with the Duncan canon as part of the landscape?

The Barfoot advice comes as telling company for the disavowed - in civil court no less? Wow? - Chapman Memo.

Why can these con-evo realignment folks so often tell lies, right to somebody's face, just because that somebody is not pledged solely within their highly touted and circumscribed holiness fold of the con-evo realignment faith once allegedly delivered to the saints?

Add these lies, then, both verbal and written, to the roster of published trash talk that increasingly comprises the rightwing agenda for Anglican realignment.

If we fall for this, and if Canterbury falls for this, and if the other provinces fall for this - well we shall all have gotten just exactly the closed-minded sorts of penalism and domination that apparently lie so close to the heartfelt cores of being a certain type of know-it-all con-evo realignment believer.

Know what I suspect? I imagine that Duncan fancies himself the presiding bishop of the new, improved Holiness Anglican Church in North America, and I would not be in the least surprised to find that this jurisdiction includes Canada as well as USA. Place your bets?

Regarding the BBC blurb - it is not an attempt at diversity and choice is it, the consecrations are an intended replacement. They hardly believe in diversity; they believe that what they are replacing has got it wrong.

I agree Pluralist, "...they they believe that what they are replacing has got it wrong."

There are some who refuse to countenance the idea of Jesus returning to heal all the peopleS of all the nationS. They have a vision that their paradigm is the divine paradigm, and when sufficient numbers have embraced it, Jesus is going to come, send everyone else to hell and give their "pure" souls a brand new earth.

Apparently this brand new earth is going to involve ongoing miracles on an ongoing basis. Manna from heaven, housework miraculously done, buildings constructed from dreams. Apparently there will be no slavery or suffering in their heaven. Wonderful.

In the meantime, God has left them manifest in the midst of all us unworthies. So, there's still diapers to be changed, gardens to be tended, children to be comforted, slaves to be set free, reconciliations and forgivenesses, dishes to be done, meals to be cooked, dwellings to be built, communities to be nurtured.

I once said to a minister that if a mother could not trust them to look after their child's feelings, there is no reason to trust them with their soul either. Similarly, if souls can not manifest love, compassion, tolerance, humility, patience, nurturing, protectiveness and honesty within this manifestation; there is no reason to believe they can do it in kind elsewhere.

Do the primates know about the cache of documents so clearly demonstating the nature and the of guerilla warfare.? Do they know of the Memo called "Mainstream Mtg 11/20/08" (presumably a meeting with Cris Sugden's Anglican Mainstream)? These are some of its entries:
Section 1: "what we ask of the Global South Primates " Some sample points:

"#1 Recognize the Network as those Anglicans in the US with whom the Global South Primates are in full Communion. We suggest using the language that the 'primates applaud the suggestion of the Archbishop of Canterbury that there should be a Network of Confessing Dioceses and Parishes.
# 4 "Tell +Rowan that if he will not recognize the Network, they will separate from him
# 6 Declare that in the present crisis, the issue of boundaries is suspended
# 7 Declare that the response of the Presiding Bishop proposing'supplemental Episcopal care is a violation of the Primates statement and is therfore rejected
# 18 Insist on an invitation to the Moderator whenever ECUSA PB is invited.
#17 Call for a moratorium on license suspensions and lawsuits"

And the Section 2...

"We, as bishops in North America:

d. intend to cross US/Canada Borders
e. We will no longer be at Table with those who consecrated Gene Robinson
f. WE COMMIT TO THE
GUERILLA WARFARE OF NEXT YEAR
c. We will direct AAC and FiFNA to organize road shows to explain and promote the Network"

This document is included in the cache I mentioned above...attachments to filings in the Calvary lawsuit. The date of this document 11/20/03 and its title "Mainstream Mtg" appears to be in +Duncan's handwriting. Although it does state "We, as bishops in North America," it does not list the signers, but it appears this document was part of those documents approving the formation of the Network

This document asks the Global South to pressure the Communion to end lawsuits. Ironically if Calvary had not sued, the Network's agenda to Wage Guerilla War on the Episcopal Church would not have been exposed.

EPfixH

The guerilla tactics would have eventually been exposed, but the damage would have been much worse. God bless the TEC leadership for believing their community is worthy of defending, much better than someone who offers up others as a sacrifice in lieu of themselves.

At the moment it is a bit like just after the Titanic was hit. Why would you get into a lifeboat in freezing waters when the Titanic is so big and secure? Apparently many of the earliest removed lifeboats were pretty empty.

Then all hell broke loose and the ship went down, real fast.

It reminds me of Acts 27. They insisted on taking Paul to the Caesar, despite Paul's warnings. On the way they went into a fierce storm. Paul reassured them early on that the ship would be destroyed but not one soul on the ship would be lost (Acts 27:22). After going through terrible travails, they finally saw an opportunity to beach the ship near dry land. The soldiers planned to kill the prisoners, but the centurion moved to save Paul and thus the other prisoners. All arrived safely on land, Paul was even saved from the poisonous snake bite when it latched onto him from the fire.

The other fun thing about this passage is that apparently Paul was insane, as he claimed to talk to an angel during the night who reassured him (Acts 27:23-26), and Paul was then delusional or ambitious enough to share it as a method of reassurance to both the soldiers and prisoners on that ship.

The other thing I like about this story is that both the soldiers and the captives were saved, the holy and the unworthy. Epitomises Jesus' vision, I think...

It is interesting, isn't it, to work out the likely tactics of the schismatics after September 30 and in the period running up to Lambeth. The document is an insight - but basically it will be an attempt at replacement, against which will stand well established The Episcopal Church. In the end the schismatics will end up as just one more denomination, assuming they can organise themselves from the multiplicity of oversights when things go not as they intend and they start to argue.

I see some of the earlier comments being a little confused about the role of these other provinces in consecrating bishops. This is not further schism in the realignment faction. This is the most committed GS Primates spreading the risk of retaliation. The US end will be pleased to work together in whatever structure they eventually define. But it places several more provinces on the ground with not all of their bishops being invited to Lambeth should the ABC take the same position with them as he has with Minns and the AMIA bishops.

I noted one of the recent pictures filled with rochets worn by Minns, Murphy, Atwood, Iker and a few others. Perhaps it was telling that Bob Duncan was pushed way to the back and trying to squeeze into the picture.

Pluralist...those you call "schismatics" appear to be pretty mainstream in the AC

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom-fighter and all that but if someone is a "schismatic" in TEC but mainstream in the AC, what does that make TEC in the AC?

"Pluralist...those you call "schismatics" appear to be pretty mainstream in the AC"

Says who? Once again, you mistake the pronouncements of a handful of bishops for the beliefs of the people in their provinces. By that reckoning, under Queen Mary, all of England was Roman Catholic.

Well, NP, here is the rather obvious comment you might have been avoiding. The schismatics are as standard to the Anglican Communion as Holy Trinity Brompton is standard to the Church of England.

Before you groan at that, think about it. If you believe that Holy Trinity Brompton is standard for the Anglican Communion but not standard for the Church of England, and a number of other Churches, then this actually makes my case, even if you think it might relate to some Christianities elsewhere in the Anglican Communion.

And this is the point.

Pat - there were more than "a handful of bishops" at Lambeth 1998......and ALL the Primates issued Dromantine and Tanzania.....you do realise that, right?

Pluralist - I have never said any single church is "the standard"......
- I have been suggesting my radical view that vicars should keep their vows to uphold the teaching of the church and provinces of the AC should not just ignore the rest of the AC when they want to breach any particular agreed position......many different churches in the CofE agree with this radical view!

"Pat - there were more than "a handful of bishops" at Lambeth 1998......and ALL the Primates issued Dromantine and Tanzania.....you do realise that, right?"

Yes, and neither of those calls for the creation of a new province in the US. What they call for is "listening" and "thinking".

Unfortunately, your side stopped listening to anyone but themselves long ago, before either of those documents was adopted. As for thinking, well...if you can keep ignoring the scientific developments on this issue, then thought obviously isn't a strong point.

Nothing you cite to support your arguments has the power of law, of doctrine, of creed. It is all the opinion of men.

Well I am suggesting the radical view that theology does not stand for nothing, that education into biblical criticism and the history of the Churches, and the philosophies behind theology should count, and that such honesty of expression is more important than legalistic approaches to belief. The BGroad Church has existed for as long as the rise of the Oxford Movement, and before that there was the Latitudinarians and other relgious lefties, almost all of whom showed continuing loyalty to the Church of England, its worship and its traditions, and they are part of the breadth of the Church of England and indeed Anglicanism at large. It is this that finds expression in TEC, Wales, Scotland, New Zealand, South Africa... The CofE has always tolerated a wide variety of publications and expressions, and no late stage Puritanism should be allowed to overturn this.

"The CofE has always tolerated a wide variety of publications and expressions, and no late stage Puritanism should be allowed to overturn this."

The problem is that this tolerance is scary for the late stage Puritans. As NP continually says, two opposite statements can't both be right. For them, to tolerate differences of belief means one of two things. Either they are tolerating people who are wrong, and in this case such people put themselves against God, so to tolerate them is to tolerate rebellion against God. The other possibility is too monstrous for them to contemplate: that they themselves might be wrong, in which case when they die they will go to Hell for all eternity. The only protection is to vehemently assert their rightness and rid themselves of any hint of the possibility that they may be, somehow, putting their souls in eternal danger. That's why they interpret Scripture as literally as possible: if the rules are clear, then one can be relatively sure of God's grudging love. This can never be absolute, however, one is always wondering if one has broken some law or another. This fear leads to hate and legalism and all the other sins we see going on now. The Gospel is about freedom from all these things, but they just can't see it. What is presented as great faith actually is very weak faith, it does not trust the profligate free love of God, that love must be bought through obedience.

Pat - do you take everything you do not agree with and write it off as powerless??
(you can pretend all you like that Lambeth 1.10, TWR, Tanzania and the upcoming covenant are not real...I am still happy with the ACTIONS of the ABC and all the Primates in the last 4 years)

Pluralist - yes, theology is important but when very few are persuaded by a particular view, it does not mean that the minority who support a view must have the right to do whatever they like......people with strong theological arguments might be able to persuade more than just a few of the bishops of the AC, don't you think?

"when very few are persuaded by a particular view, it does not mean that the minority who support a view must have the right to do whatever they like"

Right. So when the Arians were in the majority for more than a century, it was the Trinitarian Christians who should not have been allowed to keep preaching their falsehood. We should all stop saying Jesus is God because the majority 1500 years ago were somehow bullied into submission by the minority who dared to believe the preposterous idea that God could be three persons, yet one God? And when Henry wanted his divorce, the majority of Western Christians opposed him, so the English Reformation was an error and we should all submit to the Pope. Or is majority rule only applicable to modern things?

Bishops have a function and theologians have a function. That the two may not relate is one of the problems of the age. Fulcrum is having a good debate about this at the moment, with Pete Broadbent handling the defence.

When the statements of bishops are out of keeping with the theologies, and those who are members and followers, then their statements are even more hollow than sometimes they seem to be.

NP says two opposing statements can't be right.

Lionel Blue tells a story of the married couple having troubles who went to see the rabbi.

'Tell me your side,' said the Rabbi.

so the wife told him all the things that she had problems with about the husband.

'you're right,' said the Rabbi. 'Now,' to the husband, 'tell me your side of the story.'

so the husband gave a completely different version.

'You're right,' said the Rabbi.

'Hang on,' they said. 'We can't both be right.'

'You're right,' said the Rabbi.

Ford - you prove my case....the Trinitarians won through by making their case from scripture - right?

Henry deserved opposition.....but maybe some wily bishops used the situation to break away from false Roman teaching - still, it is a shame to be linked into Henry's sins as we are

What in G-d's name has this kind of 'rightness' (whatever that may be) to do with a spiritual life , journey or quest ?

Many would find ( / have found) a psychoanalysis or Jungian analysis of far much more use spirituall than loads of theology and churchy guff --- believe me (!)

BTW
loved the rabbi story ! .............Baruch haShem !

Never forget Adonai Echad --- ECHAD -- so maybe all the opinions and opinion holders are encopassed in this ONE this Oneness

this Pleroma ?

NP,

wrong again. you can make probably a better case for Adoptionism from the bible than you can for the trinity. it's all politics of the early church.

"the Trinitarians won through by making their case from scripture - right?"

Not entirely. They were seeking to use their REASON to explain their EXPERIENCE (heresy!!!). Trinity is a difficult concept to base on Scripture and owes more to the tension they felt between Platonic Paganism and Semitic religion. Face it, Christianity is Judaism put through a Greek strainer. This doesn't mean it isn't true, of course, just that Truth was arrived at in a different way from your little fantasy. Second, the explanation is quite elaborate, and I can't help but think that, had you been alive during that debate, you have called it an unacceptable fudge. The case for Arianism is far more easily demonstrable from Scripture, NP, so I think you'd have sided with them. And the case for Jesus being at best a blasphemer and possibly mad practically jumps out of the Torah, so I rather suspect you'd have had little good to say about that smelly uneducated peasant from the wilds of uncultured Galillee who told people it was OK to work on the Sabbath, that keeping kosher didn't make you holy, and who wilfully made Himself unclean and unfit to enter the Temple by associating with sinners.