Clearly, as I've said before, a rush to reverse colonise by every province in the GS. Shades of an earlier colonisation. Yet Canterbury remains silent.

Davis - the ABC "remains silent" because he sees a response from African Archbishops to requests for help from US Anglicans....and he knows all too well that it is TEC's actions in 2003 which have caused all this......he has seen TEC reject Lambeth 1.10, Dromantine, TWR, BO33, and the Tanzania Communique.......you expect him to be batting for TEC now??

Soon infants will be recieving bapstism, confirmation and consecration to the episcopate all in one go !

It was the Primates of the Anglican Communion who said at Dromantine:

'We also wish to make it quite clear that in our discussion and assessment of the moral appropriateness of specific human behaviours, we continue unreservedly to be committed to the pastoral support and care of homosexual people. The victimisation or diminishment of human beings whose affections happen to be ordered towards people of the same sex is anathema to us. We assure homosexual people that they are children of God, loved and valued by him, and deserving of the best we can give of pastoral care and friendship (vii). '

I can't wait for all that friendship and pastoral care ! ..................

Now David ... AMiA been around for seven to eight years, depending on where but the start date, so not quite a rush.

NP - You present what may be merely your opinion as fact - I see no concept of what the ABC MAY or MAY NOT be thinking in your comment but rather certainty regarding his thoughts and actions- since you speak with such authority may we therefore assume you really ARE the ABC? Has your mask slipped? Or, are you taking liberties and presenting your assumptions as certainties? This is not meant to be an attack on your deeply held beliefs but rather concern regarding your manner of presenting them. However if you are the ABC and if I send you one of your books would you be so kind as to inscribe it to me?? Many thanks in advance.

This is getting ridiculous.

"help"

Help with what? Conservative Anglicans can get up every day and go to work, earn a living, never feel that they must hide their nature for fear of losing job, family, friends, even their lives. They can worship every Sunday freely. They might have to receive certain sacraments from a bishop with whom they do not agree on gay issues, yet this is no problem: "on the unworthiness of ministers which hindereth not the effect of a sacrament". It's the last that is the problem, though, isn't it? Well, fine, they can't remain in Communion with a bishop who they believe is wrong on this particular point. But there are American bishops who feel likewise, and who could presumably give them help, so why are the Africans parachuting in? What's to stop, say, Duncan or Iker offering this uncanonical help? I mean, they have no problem with the Africans breaking canon law and being just as disobedient as those they condemn, so why couldn't they have simply gotten together and consecrated Minns or whoever? Why is it necessary for someone from another country to "save" the Americans? It has nothing to do with their race, BTW, I'd feel the same way if they were white Englishmen, or Canadians for that matter.?

Davis D'Ambly and NP will be, respectively, relieved and disappointed since neither is correct about Archbishop Williams.

I would contend that the ABC is now playing a careful waiting game, allowing the putsch-proponents to put more and more of their respective feet in their respective mouths. They are indeed providing the metaphorical ropes by which they will be metaphorically hung, and rejected by a majority of the Primates, as well as publicly by the ABC himself.

As to what Canterbury had done, or rather not done, in prior years, NP, as one poster to another thread noted, even Chamberlain ultimately realized that the British could no longer cave in to bullies, and I believe that Canterbury's Road to Damascus experience happened within the past several months.

We will all soon know whose analysis is right.

So just what is it, about being extremely anti-gay - and tilting towards being anti-intellectual and anti-science and often repeating false witness about queer folks or progressive-alt believers or about unbelievers or other obviously targeted people - that is so shaky or in such danger that con-evo realignment folks in USA cannot continue to live out their rather nasty beliefs about all of these other people without Anglican institutional reinforcements?

Why aren't such realignment Anglican folks satisfied - with avoiding being gay themselves, with shutting down inquiry or investigation or science in inconvenient domains that make them uncomfortable because of all the questions and surprise data involved, or with their obvious freedom to trash talk one or more targeted peoples whenever they like?

Are not these folks vigorously (desperately?) seeking a mix of new and old worldwide Anglican institutional powers - institutional powers that do not depend, crucially, on the consent of the target group people involved - that do not pledge unreservedly to respect the dignity or worth or fundamental human rights that even a secularized culture can see fit to grant its citizens? Let alone carry through on that pledge?

And what are the likely goals to which these news power will surely be directed? Why, surely to police the people at whom they take such frequent aim in so many versions of their current nasty trash talk? Why, to reserve the traditionalistic right, immoderate and unhindered, to mistreat people from their favorite target groups whenever and however they might theologically see fit?

You can dress all of this up in high sounding scripture citations and even higher sounding and complicated theologies which ring all the right traditionalistic sound bites - but it doesn't completely obscure the incredibly superior view that such people are taking of themselves, over and against all the others of whom they preach and speak so badly. Nor does it hide the drive to institutional power for dominating other targeted people without their free, informed consent. All that is still as clear as day.

Why are we supposed to sustain this in our daily Anglican religious lives, if it would so quickly be deemed wanting and mischievous in almost any secular professional venue of daily life, mainly because it lacks an ethical respect for others whom it so frequently targets, and because it so often seeks power over others, regardless?

I am curious to know how many clergy there are in the assorted overseas jurisdictions in the US (and Canada). Seems to be that with something like 16ish bishops, the ratio of bishops to priests must be quite . . . skewed.

Rather like those little online sects where virtually everyone is ordained, and most of them bishops, archbishops, primates, patriarchs &c.

Jerry - the "putsch" in the AC was attempted in 2003.......the ABC has had to spend 4 years dealing with the ramifications of that attempted "putsch"

"bullies"

The problem is that, for people like NP, it is TEC who are the bullies, "forcing" everyone to do as they do. It is an odd perversion of reality that people who never tried to force anyone outside their jurisdiction to comply with THEIR behaviour and who have never tried to force anyone out of the Communion should be accused of being bullies by those who actually ARE guilty of just that.

Malcolm+,

What concerns me about the pace of miter issuance is how we put all this back together at some point in the future. Ideally, the extra-provincial districts reconcile w/ TEC (assuming TEC is willing to make any course changes) and we get back to one Anglican church in one geography.

But even if there is no way to reconcile conservative Anglicans and TEC, how do we get to a unified conservative Anglican church? Hierarchies and bureaucracies are self-sustaining and self-replicating no matter how godly the people who occupy the offices are.

Then there's the bishop:clergy ratio you point out. Unless tens and tens of thousands of laity and hundreds of clergy decide to move to the new conservative church, there isn't a need for this many bishops. Plus, some of the current TEC bishops are likely to move as well.

From an organizational perspective this is getting very, very top heavy. Adding more names at the top of the org chart will make sorting out the new org chart that much more difficult.

"Jerry - the "putsch" in the AC was attempted in 2003.......the ABC has had to spend 4 years dealing with the ramifications of that attempted "putsch""

See?

"I am curious to know how many clergy there are in the assorted overseas jurisdictions in the US (and Canada). Seems to be that with something like 16ish bishops, the ratio of bishops to priests must be quite . . . skewed.

"Rather like those little online sects where virtually everyone is ordained, and most of them bishops, archbishops, primates, patriarchs &c."

Father Malcolm, staunch "reappraiser" though I be, I think it's a slippery slope to start casting these particular stones. TEC itself has a bishop-to-communicant ratio that exceeds those of most other Communion members; for example, even with the recent spate of bishop-making in Nigeria (and I'm referring to consecrations of Nigerians to serve in Nigeria), the Church of Nigeria has, from what calculations I have done based on the publicly available data, far fewer bishops per thousand communicants (whether on the basis of baptized members or ASA) than does TEC.

Admittedly, it remains open to question how many folks on CoN's rolls are there more than temporarily, but the same is also true for, e.g., the CoE.

Getting into pissing matches claiming that one's theological opponents have excessive mitres-per-thousand-members is indeed a slippery slope; while the "Continuum," like "independent Catholic" churches and other flocks following episcopi vagantes, do sometimes seem to have "more chiefs than Indians" (and please pardon any racism in that old saying), from some Anglican Communion provinces' perespectives, TEC too has way too many mitres to justify. (And as a former RC, I'm not entirely unsympathetic to this view; many TEC bishops' entire dioceses would fit comfortably inside the parish membership of some of the larger RC congregations around the country.)

We should be worrying about the theology and practices of those who wear the mitres, not their head count.

"I am curious to know how many clergy there are in the assorted overseas jurisdictions in the US (and Canada). Seems to be that with something like 16ish bishops, the ratio of bishops to priests must be quite . . . skewed."
Malcolm, everyone gets a pretty hat and cape at this party. Don't tell anyone, but did you notice no women and no people of color (that i know of?). Odd, don't you think?

Deacon Mark said,
"...no people of color (that i know of?). Odd, don't you think?"

Umm, have you noticed who's leading the consecrations? You raise a good point w/ respect to women, but the second item seems a bit silly.

In Canada, our last General Synod had some discussion about reducing the number of dioceses.

I have no idea what an ideal bishop per communicant ratio is - and indeed it is likely to vary depending on the circumstances. The fact that the Diocese of the Arctic has a very high ratio makes sense, given the geography.

But the Akinolist ratio seems to be more that a trifle skewed towards "everyone who wants a mitre gets a mitre."

In any event, I suspect that this new group of whatever we want to call them will eventually regularize their numbers and carry on for some time as a minor schismatical "continuing Anglican" grouping, just like all the other minor schismatical "continuing Anglicans" groupings. They may even begin pronouncing anathemas against each other.

Nothing silly at all, Chris. "16ish bishops" by Deacon Mark's calculation, every single one of them a lily-white (OK, a bit red-faced in some cases) male. Four different African provinces flouting Lambeth '98 and the Windsor Report to irregularly consecrate bishops for essentially non-existent North American dioceses, and not a single one of those bishops of African origin or descent. And not a single one of them, you can be sure, subject in any meaningful sense to the discipline of his "home province". There is more than a little evidence, frequently aired on these pages, for North American money being a strong factor motivating the African provinces to perform these consecrations. Under Anglican canon law the penalty for Simony, which is what this is if the consecrations are performed in return for financial reward, is forfeiture of office. Interesting point?

Oh, Ford, thank you for helping me to understand why NP must be right about a Province, TEC, that did something solely within that Province, consent to the consecration of a monogamous gay partnered man as Bishop of New Hampshire, after he was selected for the episcopate by that Diocese.

Of course, now it's clear.

That very action had to mean, as NP has so wisely taught us, that the US Episcopal Church was taking over the Anglican Communion.

The fact that they did not ask any other Province to follow their lead, much less attempt to persuade others to adopt the "practice," meant nothing.

The fact that they were operating solely within their own Province, in accordance with the canons of the Episcopal Church, meant nothing.

The fact that the historical Anglican Communion has encompassed a variety of approaches as contrasted among Provinces, meant nothing.

Consecrating Bishop Robinson must be equivalent to trying to take over the Anglican Communion, since that is what NP seems to be teaching us.

On the other hand, maybe NP has learned that Bishop Robinson was secretly consecrated as the planted TEC Bishop of Rochester, or TEC Bishop of Lagos, or TEC Bishop of Singapore, or some other hotbed of neo-Puritanism, and that is the takeover action identified by NP which began in 2003.

That must be the nature of the TEC "putsch," as there is no other way to stay within one's Province and engage in a Communion takeover.

The only way that would make sense to most of the world would be if we were all consuming hallucinogenic mushrooms. I think I'll stick to the shitake and portobello varieties, NP.

Pretty soon you'll be able to get your own episcopate with ten Cornflakes box tops.

And they don't even have to go to Rwanda to get consecrated? For shame. Just book your ticket to DFW and run over to some tacky convention center to get your mitre.

Jerry, I agree with you entirely. My comment to you was tongue in cheek, and when NP so neatly proved my point, my joy was full. I irritates me no end that the "reasserters" so loudly claim to be put down in the Church while so busily trying to keep everyone else down, and I'll explain that to them as soon as they take their boot off my face.

Ford - the answer to your question is very simple. It is not the efficacy of sacraments administered by an "unfit" bishop that is at issue, at least not for me. I don't want his pastoral oversight. I don't want to support his ministry, financially or otherwise. I don't want to support RCRR, or lobby for same sex marriages or listen to him teach that the church wrote the Bible and can change it, or that the Resurrection is a myth. In short, I don't want to be a member of his club. If I can remain an Anglican in the US without being part of TEC, I wish to do so. But having my bishop oversee alternate oversight or forcing me to pay to promote, what I beleive is my bishop's apostasy, makes me complicit in it. So it isn't Donatism at all. I want to belong to a different church, preferrably Anglican and so far, the leadership of TEC has said it will do everything possible to stop that from happeening.

What is RCRR?

"the church wrote the Bible and can change it"

A statement by one bishop that may be taken to mean that the Bible is to be interpreted by the Church under the guidance of the SPirit, and is not to be taken literally. Not contentious unless one is a fundamentalist. Anglicans are not fundamentalists. I don't know if you are or not.

"the Resurrection is a myth"

Some wingnut says this somewhere, another chimes in, and then suddenly the whole Church is unAnglican? Would it surprise you to know that the reality of the Resurrection is central to the belief of most of the "liberals" with whom I have corresponded?

Putting aside disagreements over the rightness of the position a side for a minute, how is it wrong to make an argument? Your bishop is not your elected leader, he is your shepherd. It's the Kingdom of God, not the Republic of God.

Since you want to be "Anglican" I assume you also have no truck with +Akinola's pseudopapacy or border crossings, or any of the other unAnglican doings of groups like CANA. What's more, given the statements of +Akinola and +Orama about gay people, I would hope you disassociate youself from them as well, or are those who have no issue with the jailing and killing of gay people acceptably Anglican?

Ford
RCRR is the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights, a/k/a abortion on demand advocates.
I do indeed reject the statements attributed to Bp. Orama.
Peter Akinola is a signatory to numerous reports and communiques in which he commits himself to dealing pastorally with persons who perceive their sexuality as same-sex oriented. I support those statements as well as Lambeth 1.10.
I don't want the ministry of a shepherd who is himself an apostate or who refuses to speak out when his colleagues spew heresy. So I am not in TEC any longer. Haven't taken anything with me except my faith. But I have no Anglican option right now, at least not in my neck of the woods. So border crossings, to me, are most welcome. I believe they fulfill a higher Gospel purpose than the principle of territorial inviolability. So - no - I don't oppose them.

Jerry said:

The fact that they did not ask any other Province to follow their lead, much less attempt to persuade others to adopt the "practice," meant nothing.

The fact that they were operating solely within their own Province, in accordance with the canons of the Episcopal Church, meant nothing.

Malcolm+ observes:

Not "nothing," Jerry. On the contrary, these things are solid evidence of how devious and perfidious the Episcopal Church has been.

Unlike the other side, who ensured the Chapman memo was widely available for all to see.

er . . . wait . . . um

You will need a new whipping boy. The Bishop denies making the statements attributed to him and the reporter is planning a retraction.

Ford,
A myth isn't a made up fairytale. Do I really have to believe in a literal Resurrection to be allowed to call myself Anglican?

Surely, the point about challenging those concepts is to ask people to examine the core of their faith. I can be happily agnostic about the literal truth of the virgin birth, the mireacles, the resurrection and a number of other Christian concepts.

Whether they're literally true or whether they use words to express a truth that cannot otherwise be expressed, they surely point to the same thing?

"On the other hand, maybe NP has learned that Bishop Robinson was secretly consecrated as the planted TEC Bishop of Rochester, or TEC Bishop of Lagos, or TEC Bishop of Singapore, or some other hotbed of neo-Puritanism, and that is the takeover action identified by NP which began in 2003."

Of course, once The Split is official, I look forward to seeing those very bishoprics established, albeit not at all in secret.

And one or two of them *absolutely* deserve an openly LGBT bishop.

Lord, Thy will be done.

George wrote: "Peter Akinola is a signatory to numerous reports and communiques in which he commits himself to dealing pastorally with persons who perceive their sexuality as same-sex oriented. I support those statements as well as Lambeth 1.10."

Surely, you know that these statements are not for real?

Erika said,
"Whether they're literally true or whether they use words to express a truth that cannot otherwise be expressed, they surely point to the same thing?"

Absolutely not!!!

If Christ is still dead in the ground why should we trust we have been justified before God? The reality of the resurrection is a powerful demonstration of God's authority over sin and death.

Is it central? Not sure, but the logical order of the Christian faith tends to crumble without it. At the very least it is a rejection of one of God's greatest acts of power, majesty... and love.

"... the logical order of the Christian fait..."

Might that be "the logical order" of the Pietist faith, Chris?

"At the very least it is a rejection of one of God's greatest acts of power, majesty... and love."

I should have known. Say something a literalist doesn't agree with, and immediately you're rejecting God's love.
What a way to have a conversation!

There's a "Traditional Anglican" church just down the road from my Via Media-practicing Episcopal Church and has been for the nearly fifteen years I've lived here. What I want to know is: If people are leaving TEC in such droves, why hasn't that Anglican church had its parking lot paved yet?

Chris points out that Jesus crucifixion and resurrection forms a cornerstone of most Christians faith.

I concur. (For the record, I am literalist and believe that all those things really happened).

I was pleased to see Chris wrote "...one of God's greatest acts..." I think that Jesus and everything that Jesus did was absolutely stunning and unique. But I also know that Jesus has moved and done some pretty major things at other times e.g. Moses or Noah.

I also think that God created all of the universe, and thus all of humanity, and that therefore God can and would have reached out to communicate to other peoples, and that God recognises righteousness, irregardless of souls' literacy or familiarity with certain holy texts.

I use Jesus as my cornerstone to measure the merits of the Old Testament and other holy texts, as well as when reading scientific or general literature. Wisdom can be found in the unlikeliest of places, and Jesus' paradigms provide a good yardstick by which to measure other writings and teachings.

Cheryl,
I have never had a conversation with you which you started by questioning or worse, negating my faith because of what I say.
I respect your literal beliefs, I just don't happen to share them.

If Chris had really wanted a conversation he would not have started his reply to my post with an "absolutely not - three exclamation marks". He would have said something along the lines of: Where does your faith in God's saving love come from if you don't believe in a literally risen Christ?
Or: Your way of looking at this would make it impossible for me to believe in God's power and majesty and love.

It's not the arguments I object to, it's the tone, and that I'm immediately regarded to be wrong and faithless.

Please stick to the subject of yet more (Rwandan) bishops.

I've had enough of being insulted on this site by people who don't understand the meaning of an equal debate of views. I'm taking a break. Bye everyone.

When Erika is driven off the site by conservative bullies, perhaps there is need for closer editing of conservative views - which are more than well catered for elsewhere.

Erika

Sorry if this came across as an affront to you. I was trying to demonstrate that while you and I might advocate on behalf of GLBTs, that doesn't mean our theology is exactly the same.

One of the problems is that they try to pigeon hole us and our thinking and claim that we all think the same way. They state we believe such and such and therefore we have done so and so and therefore we are in error because...

In trying to demonstrate a different perspective, I might have inadvertently been seen as being dismissive or yours. Sorry. I did not mean to be that inhospitable. God brings each one of us back into a relationship with Him in the way that he sees fit for each one of us.

Those who have gone on to nitpick your perspective as if they have it "all worked out" have forgotten that God moves independently of their egos, and that God seeks out souls, even if they are abandoned on an island by themselves and never see a priest or a bible. If God can do that, then God can accept diversity within a communion and tolerance between faiths and philosophies. If God can't do that, then Abraham was never anointed and the whole Abrahamic religion thing up to and including Jesus is a farce.

Merseymike might have a point.

I've removed one previously published comment from this thread and have decided not to publish several others received.

Please comment here on Rwandan bishops or not at all.

"Peter Akinola is a signatory to numerous reports and communiques in which he commits himself to dealing pastorally with persons who perceive their sexuality as same-sex oriented. I support those statements as well as Lambeth 1.10."

Sorry, but this is naive. Sure, he makes pious statements about ministering to gay people. But he has also used language that dehumanises us, ominous since it can be the first step on the path to genocide, he has also supported a law that would jail us, in situations that would probably lead to our deaths. Can you seriously see anything believable in his oh so pious statements about "ministering" to us? For the record, I would have no problem with someone dealing with his sexuality and coming to the conclusion that he was called to celebacy. If, however, that person had been "counselled" by +Akinola or one of his priests, I would have to suspect that his decision was based on browbeating, intimidation, fear, perhaps even threats of a violent death in jail. He may well be right in what he says God wants for me, but that doesn't excuse his betrayal of the Gospel in the way he preaches that message and acts on that belief. I don't understand how you could be in communion with someone who calls us a 'cancer' on the body of Christ, who says we are no more than animals, who wants us jailed, perhaps in the hopes someone will kill us and remove the "problem", but you can't be in communion with those who, perhaps misguidedly, want to show us some compassion. Your Christianity is showing!

I understand your concern that Peter Akinola's words "dehumanize" gays. I don't happen to agree with his choice of language although I aqree 100% with his understanding of what God's calling is regarding sexual intimacy. I stand a better chance of seeing his language moderated than I do of seeing TEC revert to a Biblically centered moral theology. Moreover, having spent time personally with him and having gotten to know the man behind the mitre, I don't doubt his honesty or sincerity. His ways may seem rough around the edges, but I trust him to do what he says. I also trust TEC's leaders to do what they say, which is why I have left it.

"I aqree 100% with his understanding of what God's calling is regarding sexual intimacy."

I responded yesterday, either too verbosely or too hotheadedly, so here goes, terser and less inflammatory. I respect your belief about sexual intimacy. But, the Right has used some very unChristian tactics in this battle, including the quoting of anti-gay propaganda as scientific fact. In the interests of brevity, I won't go further. The question is then, how much dishonesty and scheming are you willing to accept in the service of what you believe to be God's truth? For me, the behaviour of the Right is ample demonstration that they are wrong, no matter my misgivings about the theology of the Left. You would seem to think otherwise.

Am I the only one to be peeved at the abuse of the idea of the "Kingdom of God" nestling as a bogus justification in this parasitic behaviour?

Tim, probably not, but I'm not sure what you're getting at. For me, as I have said, the hypocrisy of accusing others of sins when one is guilty of those same sins, or of other equal sins weakens their position. The funny thing is that this is always taken to be some sort of justification for the actions of the "other side"!