Updated Thursday evening
Rachel Zoll of Associated Press has Episcopal Bishops in Key Meeting on Gays.
Mary Frances Schjonberg of Episcopal News Service has House of Bishops meeting set to open and also CHICAGO: Persell criticizes Akinola’s anticipated visit.
There is an article written by Gregory Cameron over here.
The Chicago Tribune has Anglican gay-bishop stance is put to the test in Chicago and U.S. church receives deadline.
The BBC has US Anglicans meet over gay clergy.
Rebecca Trounson Los Angeles Times Episcopal bishops meet to discuss future
Kendall Harmon has an article at titusonenine Honesty or Obfuscation in New Orleans?
Raleigh News-Observer Bishop in full support of gays
Thursday evening update
Jonathan Petre Daily Telegraph Anglican Church in crisis talks to avert schism
USA Today Anglicans meet amid growing discord
Lakeland (Florida) Ledger Episcopal Bishop Joins Meetings
With all the comments flying around, pls keep in mind what responses are actually required:
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/news/2007/20070220communique.cfm?doc=194
Canon Gregory Cameron, Deputy Secretary General of the ACC, is quite clear: “[T]he 30th September “deadline” in the Communique referred to the date by which the primates requested an answer from the Episcopal House of Bishops to the questions posed in the Communique. No ultimatum or threat is attached to that request in the text. There is an acknowledgement that without a clear and positive response to the questions posed in the Communique, and consideration of the issues set out in its Schedule, relationships in the Communion will remain broken or strained until a resolution is found: this is no… Read more »
I don’t think that TEC should give those responses. Equality is more important than the entirely redundant ‘Communion’ and its outdated, worthless religion.
There needs to be a split.
MJ says an inadquate response from TEC (USA) will lead to “Merely “relationships in the Communion will remain broken or strained until a resolution is found.”” Well – 2 questions: 1) Why would TEC want to create and perpetuate a situation in which “Communion will remain broken or strained until a resolution is found”? 2) We already see the AC breaking apart and a new “orthodox” group of bishops in the US who do not reject the creeds or reolutions of the AC…..does TEC or Cameron really think fudges, technicalties or talk of “polity” are going to stop this group… Read more »
“Required” ?
‘We must obey God rather than men’.
MJ:
I agree, but you ignore the fact that many possible actions on the part of a variety of actors, including the ABC, are on “hold” while awaiting the 30th. There will be an acceleration of actions and deterioration of relationships after the 30th.
What the ABC will do is anyone’s guess at this point. Unless I miss my bet, he will try to do nothing permanent or significantly punitive for as long as he can. However, this will not necessarily hold back the floodgates, and the split will continue to accelerate.
Steven
Kendall Harmon’s article is particularly worthwhile. His expectation seems to be the same as mine–obfuscation from all involved, including the ABC. My prayer is the same as his–honesty. If TEC has taken its stand, let it live by it or change it–not lie about it.
Steven
I can’t resist correcting one small but important error in Rachel Zoll’s article. The Anglican Communion is NOT “nearly five centuries old,” nor is today’s AC anything like the small group of provinces that first met in the mid-1800’s.
Should Abp. Williams struggle to preserve the Communion? Yes. Should the Episcopal Church try to stay in a healthy relationship with it? Also, yes. Should TEC trade integrity for a seat at the ever-widening AC table? No!
Well I appreciate Canon G.’s efforts to stay with the more moderate and descriptive frames for reading what the last Primates Communique says/said; I fear he is being too subtle. Indeed. The latest from the realignment campaign makes it quite clear that two things are really afoot. One is the institutional separation of con-evo realignment believers from everybody else who was formerly tagged, Anglican/Episcopalian. Not least, such believers have their own boundaried, special rights to better, purer, more biblical attendance at the Lord’s Table, where others who are not conformed and privy to their own special savedness are blessedly absent.… Read more »
I’m thinking about Dostoevsky. That’s what the ABC has spent the last three months thinking about. Several other blogs have been posting some rather lame musings on what might be in the archbishops head about it. The Grand Inquisitor chapter, in the Brother Karamazov, is very intriguing. Why he picked that of all things to spend his thought life on is very interesting. While I could be wrong, this is, to me, a very appealing way for the Archbishop to dialogue a way forward. I like him.
If the entire “gay agenda” is being driven by about 2,000 homosexuals, while the “reasserters” are acting on behalf of millions, then I simply must question the competence of the millions who can’t out-organize a small handful.
My relationship with my brother is frequently (usually) strained and occasionally broken. That doesn’t make him not my brother, and I don’t think either of us is proposing either to withdraw from the family or to expel the other.
“its outdated, worthless religion”
Do yo really need to be so insulting? You’re as bad as NP.
NP, 1) why do the “reasserters” want to create and perpetuate such a situation? 2) Fudges and technicalities have alloowed these “orthodox” bishops to prosper all their lives. Funny that when a “fudge” is something your or your heroes benefit from, it becomes a “solid Biblical argument”. And “Mr.” Virtue?!?! You don’t even refer to the saints as “St.” but you feel the need to apply a title to such a spouter of venom? Cripes, NP, who have you thrown your lot in with? And oil and water can mix very well if there is an emulsifier. I would suggest… Read more »
Integrity – of which I am not a member – represents far more than 2000 people in the same way that the Network represents more than just those members of supporting congregations.
I still don’t get the numbers game. I don’t recall Jesus Christ speaking about popularity as an assurance of truth.
Kendall Harmon does not want lesbian & gay people to ahve ‘local pastoral provision’ but DOES crave a version of it for himself and the disparate anti-gay parties in TEC :— ‘First, the bishops and the Archbishop of Canterbury and the others who gather in New Orleans need to focus on the key issue of whether there is “local pastoral provision” for same sex blessings in certain parts of the Episcopal Church. Here is the wording in the relevant section of the Tanzania communique: There appears to us to be an inconsistency between the position of General Convention and local… Read more »
“maybe even the ABC will finally stop trying to pretend oil and water mix”
I’d like to point that mixing oil and water (along with some tasty herbs) often results in salad dressing.
Sometimes in our lives we discover that attempting to mix two things we swear cannot go together creates a third thing that enriches our lives.
Anybody for a peanut butter cup?
Cameron wrote “In the first place, and most fundamentally, it is important to recognize that in human terms the Anglican Communion is a voluntary association. Irrespective of participation in the Anglican Consultative Council, a Province cannot be compelled to maintain the bonds of Communion.” At a divine level, God’s Creation is a voluntary association. Irrespective of a consciousnesses participation in this earthly manifestation, one level cannot compel another to maintain the bonds of Communion. If such was not the case we would not talk of “fallen” angels, or souls being in or out of grace. Jesus’ birth, life, ministry, crucifixion… Read more »
“He even begrudges gay people the inadequate and very patchy provion TEC has made for gay people. He wants us to have nothing, to be nobody and to have no-where to stand–dispossessed.” ———————— You are right, L. Roberts. Kendall Harmon is, to me, the worst of the lot; the others at least recognize that gay people are human beings like all others. They just want us out of their church if we want to have loving partnerships like all other human beings; at least that point of view is coherent. Harmon pretends we’re welcome but wants us to have –… Read more »
Contrary to the postings of some wishful-thinking Abuja fans, who seem to think the Episcopal Church is backed into the corner, the Anglican Communion is not going to become the Calvinist Communion. That has been made clear by the Primates of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and by the Archbishop of York, as well as several Provinces outside Europe. The games set in motion by fundamentalist evangelical Primates, and supported (if not generated, as Jim Naughton’s brilliant exposes have demonstrated) by the radical religious right in the USA, won temporary support from several Primates who now, however, no longer see through… Read more »
“whether there is “local pastoral provision” for same sex blessings in certain parts of the Episcopal Church.”
Yet blissfully unconcerned about whether there is “local pastoral provision”, as there is reported to be, for “lay presidency” in Sydney. Untraditional sexual theology is unacceptable, untraditional sacramental theology is OK. Got it.
again, Ford, there is no verse which says “Thou shalt only have a member of the National Union of Priests to “preside” over the breaking of bread and drinking of wine in rememberance of the Lord and his atoning sacrifice for us”
there are lots of verses about certain sins making people unfit to be leaders in the church….I will not ignore them because someone in Oz is NOT disobeying the Bible with regard to LP
“there is no verse” NP, NP, NP. There is so much more to Christianity than what is found in Scripture, always has been. For you to claim that there “is no verse” that requires a priest just shows how different is your understanding of Christianity. Now I’m not saying that your ideas aren’t valid. I’m not saying your ideas aren’t right. I am saying that you cannot call them Orthodox. Such ignorance is not a bad thing if you can acknowledge it and allow someone with knowledge and authority (and no, that is certainly not me) to guide you. But… Read more »
What is increasingly happening in Sydney and in Sydney-compliant churches in parts of England is that the Lord’s Supper (as it is universally called) is not celebrated in church (you look for it in vain on their websites – just finding “Meetings”). It is seen as belonging in house groups, and as purely a memorial with no sacramental significance whatever. It is a long way from doing what the Church has done since the first generation and has always intended to do. I rather doubt it bears any relation to the Catholic conception of the Eucharist (hence Philip Jensen’s infamous… Read more »
“It is anti-sacramental, and as far as Anglicans are concerned, profoundly unorthodox.” Precisely! Yet not, it seems, a Communion breaking issue. Odd that. Also odd is the way such a set of beliefs can be said in any way to be “orthodox”. It requires double speak of the kind that only TEC ever gets accused of. It would seem that today “orthodox” means either “adhering to a particular sexual ethic”, or “what I believe”. I think probably the latter, which is why I don’t think any kind of schism will survive. “They” might well have the majority of Anglicans after… Read more »