I wish folks would stop misrepresenting what happened during the US Civil War. Here it is as simply as possible:

with the creation of what they thought to be a new nation, the dioceses of the Confederacy felt that they had, necessarily, to become a separate "national church" -- just as PECUSA had necessarily become independent from England at the Revolution. (See the Preface to the US BCP.) While England eventually recognized the latter (as the national independence became de jure as well as de facto, the United States never recognized the secession of the Confederate States, and neither did the Church. The roll of the absent bishops continued to be called. This is why, when the war was ended, an amicable return of the absent (not separated) dioceses was possible. As far as PECUSA was concerned, they had never left -- there was, in short, no division in the church. Moreover, the secession was based solely on political considerations, not on doctrinal differences.

The present situation does not apply in any respect.

May we have a clarification from Lambeth Palace in time for the San Joaquin vote?

I like the rather nuanced response from the English Crown to the attempted secession of the Confederacy.

Firstly there was the recognition of the southern states right to rebel - Pissed off Lincoln a whole lot - a bit like Rowan musing about a “confessing” church(?).

Then when things were going well for the Confederacy there almost came a point of actual recognition.

Then there was a change of fortunes and the PM breathed a sigh at almost having backed a losing horse …..

Seems vaguely familiar?

Canterbury needs to start putting all the moral leadership brakes on the vigorous spinning realignment gears pretty soon, or else England will be faced with claims that this virulent manner of new conservative Anglican life on the ground has simply moved on, and that is that is that.

At that point, Canterbury will pretty much be under the de facto equivalent of new con-evo house arrest - like Bhutto in Pakistan, or Suu Kyi in Myanmar - though most invisibly compared to those examples.

Then - given those well-spun webs of realignment circumstance and of realignment circumstantial claims/assertions - we will hear renewed calls for Lambeth to be postponed until canon laws and church institutions can be brought narrowly in line with this new realignment on the ground. This is likely to include rushing to pass and adopt a new conservative Anglican covenant, realigned, replete with new Anglican Communion police powers.

If Canterbury wishes to dither and dally about the breadth and depth and diversity of real Anglican theology - what Rowan W. has said is, I believe, no welcome mat for unintelligent readings of the scriptures - then the spinning realignment razzle dazzle will surely arrive in due time on British church shores. At that point, I imagine, it would be mostly up to Parliament and the Crown to intervene if CoE is to continue to be an established, national church that grinds no axes against any citizen's citizenship because of sexual orientation.

Vvvuuurry Intereesting. Let the Home Invasion continue, then. Headline: Christian Reconstructionists Lead Global Gang War.

And let TEC move with all deliberate speed to declare the sees of Fort Worth, San Joaquin, Quincy, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere vacant as real abandonments of TEC communion require.

At that farther point, the most interesting dilemma of all may emerge: What, oh what, oh what - will the new con-evo Anglicans do next, having trounced their fav target of queer folks, into the dust of Anglican institutional church life? That is to ask: Who's next to be targeted? That is to say: This virulent con-evo realignment needs such targets, just in order to define itself and thrive.

Will? Can? A global north Anglicanism survive the split? Will all the possible enemies of the queer folks become true, fast friends just because of their mutual group animosity aimed at a familiar target?

I want to know how the departing American dioceses' liturgy ( with its "Romanist errors and innovations " , such as prayers for the dead incense,Holy water , benediction of the Blessed Sacrament ...invocation of the Holy mother of God etc) can be accomodated by the canons of the Southern Cone?

If Southern Cone don't look out, they could end up like the Reformed Episcopal Church being taken over by Hifgh Church Anglicans.

Isn't it ironic...Pittsburgh ( which is more evangelicl)can't go to Southern Cone because it has women priests. Yet The Anglo-catholic diocese can!

So Southern Cone have opened their communion to the very errors for decades they have stood out against.

Nice one Gregory Venables... Is Doctor Jensen the only true Protestant Evangelical left in the Communion... but wait a minute he's turning a blind eye to Romanist ritual, and is joining with the Sky high Anglo-Catholic bishop of Ballarat to fight women bishops!!!

Lets bury our serious doctrinal divisions ( which area t the heart of the Gospel) and lets stand against the gays and women.

How their respective fathers in Faith would boggle...considering a hundred years ago these two traditions were fighting for the very soul of the Anglican Communion...bringing law suits against each other and even sending their opponents to prison!!!

I am trying to figure out why the Archbishop would regard the Southern Cone's offer to San Joaquin and others as sensible when he did not seem to regard Venables' annexation of the Diocese of Recife in Brazil as sensibile. The principle involved would seem to be the same.

"why the Archbishop would regard the Southern Cone's offer to San Joaquin and others as sensible ....."

Take it from me Jim, I have it on the very highest authority, that Rowan thinks the Southern Cone "scheme" is a bag of dog doodoo .....

Anyone can play this game.

"that Rowan thinks the Southern Cone "scheme" is a bag of dog doodoo ....."

Having just ploughed through one of his books.... please tell me those are his own words!

Worth reading this from Dr Goddard

http://anglicantheologyethics.blogspot.com/2007/11/tecs-divisions_17.html

The lines are being drawn in this country as well. Council of General Synod is meeting, as are the "Network bishops" No surprise then about the timing of Don Harvey's announcement. He is quoted in a local paper as saying that there will be an announcement from the Network this week that will be "an historic moment". Now, given that the Anglican Church of Canada has never been all that large, I fail to see how what is obviously going to be an announcement of border crossings by the Southern Cone will be in any way "historic", but that is a testament to his ideas as to how important he is. Stay tuned.

For more:
http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=81264&sc=79

The thing is, of course, he needs to be specific, if SSBs are actually such a small issue as he claims. What is the disturbing trend in the Canadian Church? Liturgical reform? OOW? (He supported the latter, so no, obviously). So what is his problem?

Ford: "So what is his problem?"

Hard to say. Strikes me it could be anything from honest theological dissent to foiled ambition. Did +Don ENL&L see himself as a potential Primate?

I'm struck, at this moment and for no particular reason, by the notion that the uberLiberal Ingham of New Westminster was prepared to accept and submit to the election of the uberConservative Buckle of Yukon as Metropolitan of that province. All the more amazing since Buckle of Yukon had actually engaged in a bit of border-crossing of his own vis-a-vis the dissenting parishes in New West. And I am moved to wonder how well it would have gone the other way about.

Is the problem less about doctrine that with simple grumpiness or (no pun at all here) crotchetiness. Does the schism have less to do with "liberal" versus "conservative" than with the straightforward curmudgeonliness of some?

Perhaps the new denomination to be formed when the former Don ENL&L and his fellow travelers organize themselves should be called the Dyspeptic Communion.

Well, it's intereting that what seemed at first to be "the gay issue" has now, I believe more honestly, morphed into issues with the "direction the Church is taking". It's about conforming the Gospel to the world, did you notice that? I am always amused by that argument, as if it's something new, we've never compromised the Gospel before. What way has this actually occurred? The HoB refused to authorize SSBs. Liturgical reform, though poorly done in this country I think, is fact. Women can be ordained. It was Harvey's about face on that issue that brought about the OOW in this diocese, so he can't really complain where the Church is being led on that issue, he doing the leading and all. One of his priests came out while he was still bishop, and, depite the pain suffered by the parish, things appear ot have goten back to normal there, the priest is still in parish, still with a collar. I wonder what the gang thinks of that. I have no doubt Don, sometime EN&L, will be the missionary bishop for the Southern Cone's invasion of Canada. I doubt he'll be satisfied with that, al the same.

Primitive. That is the only word to describe this backwater "theology" and the resultant behavior. The west is now full into a postmodern world complete with quantum physics, and all its implications, facing world-wide problems such as global warming, starvation, war, and terrorism, and here these primitives scream about who dates who. Christian? I hardly think so.