There is the result of Rowan Williams's further shift to the right that it brings on board someone like John Richardson The Ugley Vicar, but the likes of Chris Sugden, Martyn Minns, and Common Cause are carrying on anyway (assuming no "power struggle" in Common Cause). So some on the softer left are still saying let them go, and the rest of the communion will relax a bit. The problem is the agenda and how tight it has been drawn, with consideration (possibly - though he's said staying out is out) about trying to get the breakaway back in as quickly as possible as well as prevent as many from going as possible. Imagine if the result is that the theological hard right have gone, the remaining Anglican Communion centralises on narrow terms, and then numerous liberals end up dejected.

I notice now a new group forming called Affirming Liberalism. It all keeps specialising and fracturing doesn't it - one wonders what this affirms, and what it rejects when it comes to the increasing bureaucratisation of the Communion and straightjacketing people a Church.

The Episcopal Cafe ended with a comment that many of the journalists are getting to the point that they just wish the whole problem would go away.

A sentiment that I'm sure Rowan also feels.

A sentiment that all those who don't know what to do about GLBTs also feel. If GLBTs went away, then we wouldn't have to deal with this problem. If God took this planet away and gave us back heaven, then we wouldn't have to deal with this "fallen" planet.

So many thousands of years later, eunuchs (aka GLBTs) still exist, so does this planet, so do women, so does the feminine. So, bottom line, God wants this earth, its feminine, its women, its GLBTs to exist.

So, rather than being disrespectful of and violent towards that which is not liked, some souls would do better to just accept that it is and make the most of the circumstance.

Some can fantasize about being given a heaven where they no longer have to deal with the impure, non-Christian, incompetent, afflicted or unrepentant. I'm so glad God is giving them their exclusionist heaven and that they want no part of this existence. They weren't any fun anyway, everytime they were allowed to play with the other children they simply made them cry and made God have to get out the first aid kit to heal the cuts and bruises from caused by their aggression.

I still just can't work out why liberals WANT to be in this 'broad church' with conservatives. I know all the guff about catholic unity and so on - but, come on, you must realise that its hogwash?

Look carefully at what the different factions believe. There are virtually NO crossover points any more.

Well I still think it is better if there can be dialogues about understanding across the widest breadth of people, if all are prepared for the dialogue. I just think that the Archbishop's Advent Letter is one of those moments when dialogue and difference within his own Communion is, as such, officially switched off.

This is the annoyance of it. That there can be lectures about dialogue with religions and about social cohesion through difference, and yet when it comes to home turf the lights are switched off, the rules change.

My own blog summarises some comments around and about, one of which I thought was very perceptive: that what we are seeing is closet theology. Where there are private views, but a narrow, public view, different from your own, is paraded with utterly negative results. It is just ethically bankrupt.

As for Affirming Liberalism: the originators in Oxford need to develop this somewhat, and one wonders about local groups etc., differences from Progressive Christianity Network, Modern Churchpeople's Union, Sea of Faith... What I wonder about the name is why it copies Affirming Catholicism, and also if there is no reciprocity around then what of the two sidedness of 'Affirming'?

merseymike, loving one's neighbour isn't hogwash. The Christian definition of what that love is and entails is quite extreme. It means that we can't stop loving them even as they are kicking us to death. That looks to many like being called to be a doormat. That isn't what it is at all, actually, though that interpretation says something about the worldview of the person to whom it belongs. This is one of the ways that your hurt is getting in your way.

Merseymike

I don't particularly want to be in the existing "broad church" but there does need to be some kind of a "broad church".

At some point, somebody has to make a stand that it is okay to stretch the tent stakes and bring peace and reconciliation to the sinners we were sent to find. It would be a travesty and a tragedy if the biblical precepts of love, peace and forgiveness were to be lost or simply reduced to marketable commodities that can only be brought through a cartel of the approved priests.

Redemption is meant to be free and it is no longer meant to be hidden behind a veil that is guarded by self-aggrandizing priests.

No, Ford, I simply feel that your tactics do not work. To be frank, I think that you are kidding yourself if you think that you are going to make progress simply by being nice to conservatives. Its almost as if you are saying, love them more and they will surely come around to our way of thinking. or,. well, maybe they won't, but its our Christian duty to be nice and if we get trodden on in the process, that's just one of those things.

That sort of naivety really does have to stop. You need to be far more realistic and hard-headed. It was whilst I was hurting that I felt the need to engage in listening processes, to try to understand - but the simple fact is, that we do not believe the same things, and if the Christian definition of love meaqns that we end up becoming martyrs - then you are welcome to it.

To be frank, it sums up why I don't have much time for Christianity any more. Too many people who like being martyrs. Sometimes you simply can't be passive. You have to fight for what you believe to be right - and in my view, that means accepting that the conservatives are wrong, and that the traditional vision of the church is moribund and needs revision, along with much traditional Christian theology.

Once you recognise that, then it is not a problem to see how the idea that we can co-exist with the conservatives is simply not feasible, as they do not wish to co-exist with us. And the time for compromise has long gone.

Organisational separation. Its the only way forward.

And what to make of Rowan Williams's article in The Tablet?

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/articles/10795/

Part of it I do not understand:

"about how a celebration of the Lord's Supper is "open" not only to the universal dimension of the Communion of Christ's Body but also to the transcendent reality of Christ himself in the Spirit."

Let me know what that means, if anyone does - but the main interest here is the difference with Catholicism West and East:

"Along with the rest of my Anglican ecclesial family, I don't agree with the official Roman Catholic (and Orthodox) teaching which sees eucharistic communion as depending entirely on the attainment of a comprehensive agreement on doctrine. But I must also grant that this discipline at least shows that what is understood by the Eucharist (and thus, by extension, the recognised ministry of the eucharistic president) is to do with very basic aspects of faith as an activity of the Body, not of the individual."

He might explain why, then, he wants to box in Lambeth 2008 on the narrowest of bases. Is that narrowness the "very basic aspects"?

My blog has a series of discussions around reactions in the blogsphere.

http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/

More than this, though, is this article in The Tablet by Rowan Williams and how it is inconsistent with the intended actions of the Advent Letter. What is the word I am looking for - consistency I think.

http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/12/pardon-archbishop-says-anglicans-are.html

Merseymike
"Organisational separation. Its the only way forward."

And where does that leave people like me who feel pushed out by the official church but utterly included in my local parish?

Listening and loving isn't about martyrdom. I know there are those I can never change. But there are many who are on a sliding scale of agreement/disagreement and, at least locally, they are all prepared to worship side by side.

"if the Christian definition of love meaqns that we end up becoming martyrs - then you are welcome to it."

Mike, the Christian definition of love means that we have to be willing to suffer martyrdom if need be. Not seek it, that's vainglory, but sacrificial love for the other, no matter how that other treats us, is a cornerstone of Christianity. I have huge problems with Evangelicals and these kinds of fascist conservatives, but that is my problem, not theirs. I often say pretty nasty things about them, but that's on my soul. How can I expect compassion for my brokenness if I don't at least try to show compassion for theirs? If I don't on some level make the effort, how can I pray "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"? Christianity is not about me getting what I want, it's about showing the love of God in the world, and that love is love of the unlovable. "Love to the loveless shown" and all that. You say my tactics "won't work"? Won't work to do what? Force people to make a public display of pretending to like me? They won't change what they think of me, they'll just pretend to, be resentful of me, and all we'll have is an outward show of a bunch of resentful people pretending to like me because I have made the social climate such that they can't appear acceptable if they don't make that outward show. What kind of an achievement is that? That's no less hypocritical just because I get to get married or put a miter on my head. You can't force people to change their hearts, you have to lead them to a place where they realize it's necessary.

Merseymike: Sometimes you've got to stand quietly and not let them push you out. Being true to them and yourself is the best way of loving them. That's what God expects of us.

Being nice doesn't mean fake smiles and small talk about nothing. It means being cordial, correct and not taking any guff, all the while looking them squarely in the eye.

I often wonder why, since you claim to almost given up on Christianity, why you keep coming back to this blogsite?

I do hope that you get to a church service this Christmas Eve. Take care.

I've read Pluralist's comments on his blog re the Covenant. That taking provisional steps for the sake of keeping as many on board as possible often results in being pushed through the door when finally on the brink. Thus being outmanoeuvred by events. Rowan William's political skills are hardly clever - and following the Jeffrey John affair, a concrete example of how he operates, I agree with Pluralist that in the final analysis of course Rowan is for 'pushing over'. WAKE UP Affirming Catholics SCP etc. or at least get your naive leaders to. I am pleased to read that the Bishop of Lincoln wrote some encouraging words to Pluralist, and understand he is not in a position to reveal them. I hope the time will soon come when +Lincoln and +Southwark and their allies can blow the whole thing out of the water.

Well.

One, I coexist with everybody else because I don't have my own special way, off the planet, to somewhere better. Part of having a better modern queer life than was possible for about two thousand years is wanting to share it, all around.

Two, so far my religious experiences and discernment inform me - almost beyond words - that my individual fate is inextricably bound up with the individual fates of everybody else in the broadest species and cross-species senses.

Three, Oh bother, but I still sense an overall species commonality in which my being my best self under changing circumstances means I am ready and willing for others to be and become their best selves. I can agree to disagree, but I cannot vote people off the island. Only God does that, if ever. And I started to have my doubts that the God Jesus shows me, ever does, do that.

Four, you cannot always deal with violence and with institutionalized violence and with violent people, just by hanging out with your own peaceniks and open-minded while the violent folks take over the levers of institutional or economic or political power.

Five, despite all the very noisy conservative and extremely self-congratulating orthodox disclaimers to the contrary, as a progressive believer I still affirm the commonalities that the Chiacgo Lambeth Quad tries to capture, as my working sense of Anglican global village church.

The cons evos are really busy saying we are two different religions, but underneath that we are so greatly one species on one small planet that I just cannot really buy it.

Six, human change is a funny animal. Just when traditionalist campaigns are the loudest, they may actually be indicating that too many people are changing their minds and hearts, hence the ramping up of the con evo ortho machineries on every level. Sometimes if you give that conservative in crisis part of change just the right amount of room and pressure, it blows its own tires right out, and suddenly we get a breakthrough.

We might oddly enough end up owing the realignment campaign some thanks, just because their relentless false witness and pushing forced breakthroughs, here and there and over there. Think of Changing Attitude Nigeria. Thank goodness, thank God.

thank you, drdanfee, that was beautiful.