Interesting that Drexel Gomez should emerge as the main conciliator between Lambeth and Gafcon - given that he was one of the Prelates present at the 'ordination' of bishops by African Primates for the express purpose of infiltrating into the territory of TEC. - a Lambeth No-No!

Can he now really be trusted to encourage the breakaway GAFCON bishops to attend Lambeth - as well as embarking on their widely-advertised pilgrimage to the Holy Land? I guess, though, as the original convenor of the newly-proffered Covenant, he has to at least make a show of even-handedness towards all parties. Why is it I find it difficult to trust in his powers of persuasion with the dissenters, and his loyalty to Lambeth?

For a humorous take on the current 'power struggle' this is well worth a look:

http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com/2008/02/inside-story-on-gafcon.html

Simon, it seems your quotations are from Peter Jensen's December 27 statement not the February 4 statement.

Simon B
You are quite right. The 4 February statement is essentially a repeat of the 27 December statement. How odd :-)
Simon

If Ruth Gledhill is right, and presumably its from interviewing, then the St Andrews Draft of he Covenant, which is a more softer version with no effective sanction and no disciplining, is as good as useless anyway. I see it as going back to square one. Not that the other squares were ever acceptable.

http://www.pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/

"... a new formula [has] been found that would allow the disciplining of errant churches while respecting the traditional autonomy of the 38 worldwide Anglican provinces."

What planet is Drexel Gomez on?

One wonders if Archbishop Gomez has had something of a change of heart -- he certainly did participate in schismatic consecrations disapproved by Canterbury & the Windsor Report & I have never heard any official expressions of regret.

Archbishop Jensen is retroactively according Lambeth a status it has never had -- no church was bound not to approve ordinations of persons with a same sex orientation or blessing their unions any more than churches must be expelled from the Anglican Communion for refusing to participate in the listening process called for in the same resolution.

People are just making things up and pretending that they are true (although I regret giving ammunition to Dawkins on this).

What might it mean when Archbishop Gomez says, on one hand, that the Episcopal Church is unlikely to face "discipline" or "exclusion" for - openly - having a partnered, gay bishop, and, on the other hand, that a new formula has apparently been found that would allow the disciplining of ostensibly "errant" churches?

Is this "new formula" just an attempted future ban - in effect - on openly gay, partnered bishops (and/or other clergy)? I suppose we shall see...

This is a good summary of recent developments given the complexity of the issues, and a good scoop on the St Andrew’s Draft for Ruth!

The Draft is due to appear on the ACO website on Wednesday, keep your eyes peeled.

Notice how Jensen leaves out mention of lay presidency...the Communion won't be the same when he signs that.

Notice how marriage is restricted to the gay issue and no mention of dealing with the division over divorce and re-marriage which divides the " orthodox."

For "Biblical interpretation", remember this means as we see it!

I look forward, even though it will be Ash Wednesday, to seeing the formula for simultaneous cake possession and consumption. It may make a nice change from fudge. Or perhaps not. In fact, it may be just the thing for an official fast day.

Thanks for the link MJ, it was a lovely way to start the day.

Jensen is right, they are dealing with a force that will put pressure on Anglicans "to depart from the biblical norms of behaviour and belief". Actually, it's not just Anglicans, it's also Catholics, Christians in general, Jews of all forms, Muslims, Hindu's, humanists, secularists...

The pressure is being put on to depart from accusations, vilification, complacency, elitism, greed, corruption, violence, tyranny, deceit, xenophobia. The pressure is on to honor what Jesus was ordained to do - bring healing to all the peopleS of all the nationS. Forgiveness and dignity to women, children and the elderly, "pure" and "unclean". Hospitality and compassion not just for one's own and those that serve one's power needs, but also for one's neighbours and even one's enemies. The pressure is on to acknowledge that this biosphere exists because God wants it to exist and that all its occupants should be respected in honor of their Creator.

The pressure is on to go back to the Old Testament and the Oral Traditions and look at what Christianity has lost and attempted to exterminate. The pressure is on to acknowledge the "stolen generations" of traditions and teachings that souls attempted to exterminate so they had the "pure" teachings.

The pressure is on to restore the High Priest's everlasting Covenent of Peace promised by God to the Daughter of Zion, to recall that God has always offered the lame and the foreigner refuge and grace.

The pressure is on, and failure means humanity's extinction, killed by its own hands and condoned by immature priests who shirked their adult responsibilities and tried to palm off the consequences of their misdeeds onto Eve.

Live or die that is your choice. Those who hate Wisdom love death (Proverbs 8:36). It really doesn't matter what you do to Eve or say about her, you all have to answer to God for how she was (mis)treated.

Freud's rule of thumb about perceiving possible clues to unconscious human motives was to look at the real world effects various particular human actions had, whether or not the actor consciously intended to have that effect. None of the human family is infallible, so of course our actions have unintended, indeed sometimes unforeseeable consequences. However, sometimes our actions avowedly lack this or that intention, when any reasonable observor could have surmised that some particular impact was a likely outcome given some operational context of people, era, situations, and so forth to which we are all reasonably privy.

In that part, we can possibly observe that the realignment has the unconscious intent of destroying the worldwide communion if it cannot be successfully dominanted and subsumed under strictly conservative rubrics. Gomez is indeed possibly playing his conscious and unconscious part as the effects unfold.

Common sensically? One sure way to destroy is when we try to fix something that is not broken - like our existing worldwide communion. The claim that changing discernments mean communion is broken is not only fallible, but perhaps unconsciously destructive, mean, and scrupulous to ever so high a fault.

Apparently we shall all see the new draft in less than 48 hours.

I am a rare creature in that I am enthusiastic for a Covenant. I admit it would have little to do with the purpose of the present drafts, even if it might share some of their deeper sentiment. I am sure Canon Vincent Strudwick who was on the original Covenant Committee would be able to write it to my satisfaction., but there may be some lurking here who might be able to write a facilitative document that would enshrine my sense of Anglicanism where diversity has become “the jewel in the crown”.

One who has seen the new draft offers me little solace saying: “you'll probably still say that it is attempting to create a new Anglican Church ...”

In which case “Burn it!”

It’s interesting to share here a conversation I had with one of those on the Drafting Committee just before Christmas.

In the conversation it was mentioned that one of the more striking features of those who have responded to the Nassau Draft was a deep suspicion of the Primates Group – they found this deeply troubling: “Having elected these people to such High Office why is there so little trust for these bishops in the Communion?” They asked.

The wisdom and knowledge of the person asking this question exceeds mine by a factor of 100, but somewhere they had (I feel) missed the delicate relationship that exists between an Anglican and a bishop (particularly ones own bishop!) Love – affection – loyalty might be found in abundance but all this is based on a deep and lasting and very healthy SUSPICION.

This healthy suspicion and total resistance to allow the bishop to govern apart from his Synod is what makes us respectable and bona fide Anglicans and a plague on any who unhesitatingly bow the knee elsewhere!!!. English bishops – in law – reserve all the pre-reformation powers that Parliament and Synod has not properly usurped – and they are immense in scope - but interestingly none would dare exercise their powers – they are held in check.

All these innovations from Lambeth the Primates Group through to the Primatial take-over of the ACC stink of an unchecked Episcopal authority that is anathema to Anglicanism and needs to be stopped firmly and put into reverse. I trust in God, not in Princes temporal or spiritual – I am an Anglican!

Jensen has written an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald in justification of his stand which even the editorial rejects. "Absence is no argument"
http://www.smh.com.au/editorial/index.html?page=2
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/lambeth-boycott-needed-to-stand-by-biblical-view/2008/02/04/1202090320695.html
He even has the hypocrisy to refer to the condemnation of Muslims.

no, martin reynolds, we do not want a covenant or any other sort of loyalty oath. the world is subtle and full of surprises. human nature is various. god is perceived through a glass darkly, even by the saints here on earth. a covenant is a denial of all of this, in seeking to pin down, and explain, and legislate. as anglicans we have the good fortune to have the book of common prayer, the 39 articles of religion, the creeds and the ordinal. these are as elusive in their meaning as life itself, and give us plenty of room for gracious interpretation of the texts themselves and of one another. any common covenant will, of its nature, exclude and condemn. and it will wear thin and become unwearable faster than a matalan jumper. don't do it.

“covenant is a denial of all of this” – I believe it can be an affirmation of “all this”, but there you are …… I am far from a Covenant fundamentalist, I favour the line of others here in the sense that it must have “added value”, and that I can imagine such a Covenant should not disturb you unduly Poppy.

I think I was finally convinced of the usefulness of a Covenant listening to the arguments against it from Sydney’s Robert Tong.

“as anglicans we have the good fortune to have the book of common prayer, the 39 articles of religion, the creeds and the ordinal”

This is not factual.

There are Churches currently a part of the Anglican Communion who do not share this historical inheritance and others who no longer give any status to these ancient formularies (saving the creed).

all a covenant will do is tie the hands of future generations. rw has been such a flop that i can imagine he would want to leave some sort of print on the future, but a covenant will be less like a signature, more like a dog messing the pavement to show it has been there.

Oh dear - a dog turd argument!

I give up!

‘“as anglicans we have the good fortune to have the book of common prayer, the 39 articles of religion, the creeds and the ordinal”’ [Jensen]

“This is not factual. There are Churches currently a part of the Anglican Communion who do not share this historical inheritance and others who no longer give any status to these ancient formularies (saving the creed).” Martin Reynolds

That’s right, Martin. Concerning the Articles of Religion, they have never been very popular in the American Church. In the Proposed Prayer Book of 1785, the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England had been cut down to twenty. In the Authorized Prayer Book of 1789 they were left out altogether. The question of their reinstatement proved to be troublesome.

An informal discussion at the General Convention of 1792 revealed the fact that the bishops themselves were divided in opinion. Bishop White, a Low Church Latitudinarian, by no means approved of the language of some of the Articles, but felt that without them every minister of the church would be his own judge of orthodoxy and his judgment might well be affected by his particular prejudices. To the surprise of many of those present, Bishop Seabury doubted the expediency of any Articles at all, believing as he did very strongly that the doctrines of the Church "should be comprehended in the Liturgy." This conviction, however, was counterbalanced by his sense of the necessity for some definite and authorized declaration of the faith. Bishop Claggett was decidedly in favor of their insertion; Bishops Provoost and Madison were in favor of dropping them entirely.

Eventually, of course, in 1801 they were included in the American Prayer Book. But the Articles have never had the popularity here in America that they have had in some other Churches of the Communion (such as Sydney) which were planted so much later than American Anglicanism. Today, they have been removed to the “historical documents” section at the end of the American Prayer Book of 1979.

"There are Churches currently a part of the Anglican Communion who do not share this historical inheritance and others who no longer give any status to these ancient formularies (saving the creed)."

What I am about to say does not apply to those from other Communions who are now in communion with us. I have been thinking a bit lately, though, about how Common Prayer is no longer common. I have an aunt who comments that when she goes to any other church, she knows what worship to expect, but she has no idea what will happen when she goes to an Anglican church. We no longer pray the same words. This is actually more than just some sort of liturgical uniformity. Many Anglicans know their theology, even their "religious identity", if one can speak of such a thing, through the words prayed and sung in their churches and homes. While our old liturgy needed reform, I am wondering if it was such a good idea for each national Church to go about the process on its own. This is more than a condemnation of the unbelievably lumpen ugliness of some of the results, the Canadian BAS being a notable example. The words we pray influence the way we think about God, ourselves, and our place in His Creation. Is it really so surprising then that, 30 odd years after the process of liturgical reform led us to pray in different words, we no longer see ourselves as one united thing, much less as having any unifying basis for belief? You mention the Creeds. Indeed. But have we all agreed to shape our self definition as a Church that is unified solely on the basis of the Creeds, laudable though that self identification may be in the cause of ecumenism and greater Christian unity?

Martin Reynolds --

A "good" covenant (a different word for the sake of the Scots?) is theoretically possible, but all of the evidence that has been produced so far demonstrates that such a document is not likely to be produced.

And of course no one trusts the primates (which started as a Bible study group & ought to be completely suppressed) since they have repeated demonstrated their untrustworthiness -- they can't even break bread together -- how can they "guide" the church when they are symptomatic of the problem (or maybe ARE the problem)?

Simon, the SMH editorial is not a permalink (it points to the current day). Here's the permalink,

http://www.smh.com.au/news/editorial/warm-relations-to-hot-seat/2008/02/04/1202090317556.html?page=2

Thanks, John. Now fixed.

Jensen is receiving little or no support from Australian bishops outside Sydney,
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/lambeth_conference/australian_bishops_oppose_bish.html

I still think a covenant based on mission and ministry can be a productive and helpful tool; even given a minimum of doctrinal centrality as with the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral; but no more than that, please.

The SMH referring to this incorrectly as a boycott shows a lack of understanding as to the motivation of those making this decision.

"A boycott is the act of abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with someone or some other organization as an expression of protest or as a means of coercion.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott"

Kendall: Please explain how the actions of the GAFCON attendees who refuse to go to Lambeth do not fit this definition.