So our old buddy AkinTunde Popoola tells George Conger, who dutifully headlines and reports the statement, that allegations Howard Amahnson and other American right-wingers are bank-rolling GAFCON are untrue. "Nonsense", in fact. Coming from such reliable sources, the statement definitively gives the lie to yet one more lefty/liberal scare tactic.

Giving credit where it's due, Ruth Gledhill and Riazat Butt have done a fine job of reporting from Jerusalem, haven't they?

More spin...

Yeah, a tip of the biretta to Ruth and Riazat!

Any event which Broadbent, Nazir-Ali and Benn refuse to go to must have something going for it - can you think of three better reasons to move towards a split ie being disconnected from them and their reactionary views!

The conservative vs liberal dialogue sums it up. Two entirely different approaches.

But since when did Anglo-Catholics of a conservative bent regard women's ordination as second-order?? The idea that GASCON is united in favour of something is hilarious -= they simply hate liberals, gays, and gay liberals (though for conveniences sake will include hypocrites who are themselves in secretive gay relationships)

I don't know who is paying for GAFCON, but let's not miss the larger point. It is a matter of public record that Howard Ahmanson has poured millions into organizations like the IRD (his wife chairs the board), the American Anglican Council (David Anderson's group), and other groups whose leaders form the GAFCON brains trust. These organizations have reported this information, as they must, to the Internal Revenue Service. It is also a matter of public record that he believes that stoning homosexuals is "not necessarily" immoral (See Peter Larsen in the Orange County Register, August 10, 2004.) Step back from the question of whether he's got his wallet out at the moment, and ask why anyone would want a man who is so openly bigoted, and willing to condone violence among their number.

I think I am with Mark Harris over at the Preludium blog for the moment: Welcome this relative respite in the drive to split and divide, and keep your eyes and ears and heart and mind open in watchfulness and prayerful continuations of the very global conversations that realignment for the most part says it eschews and finds worse than useless.

Ahmanson's delegacy is little surprise - he had long, long, long been a funder and player most welcome in USA right believer gatherings and initiatives. He started off very literal about the Leviticus death penalty - then backed off just enough in his rare public contacts that his condemnations could be spin doctored as God's lethality towards queer folks tempered by the passing and fragile dispensationalism of God's mercies temporarily expressed in Jesus as Savior. Jesus as Judge and Lord will return to trump that, of course, in most USA Reconstructionist and Dominionist frameworks, presuppositional to the core.

Goodness only knows what Mr Ahmanson would do to himself if he discovered he was not straight, or if he discovered that a child, friend, family member, or coworker were not straight. Well the coworker bit is easy: terminate and distance.

Really how these people ever became exclusive models of the only righteousness possible by presupposition, models of a new hard, mean sort of essential Anglicanism, is still a bit beyond me, having grown up in the USA contexts where Episcopalians are almost always middle to left, even in their prior welcome to believers farther right so long as people were not busy tearing down the historic big tent for reasons of conformity, typically having hard recourse to weaponized doctrines.

Maybe Lambeth will get its chance to really talk across our differences, and maybe that will be the best possible outcome in the long run up to the next decade's Lambeth?

Sorry to hear Nazir-Ali repeat in a callout quote the old "if you disagree with the church you should stay away from the meeting" notion from Windsor. If applied equally, no prophet would ever confront a corrupted regime; and what is the meaning of dialogue if only those who already agree attend the meeting -- a jamboree indeed, much as GAFCON appears to have become. It is in how we relate to those with whom we disagree that we reveal our likeness to Christ, who came to us and was among us while we were yet sinners. The "mind of Christ" which we are called to have in and among ourselves was the mind that brought him to us empty of glory, in order to save.

Robert Pigott writes for the august BBC

"The 250 bishops who have said they will stay away from the conference are attending what amounts to a rival meeting in Jerusalem."

I was told yesterday that by the ACO that only 190 bishops who qualify had not yet registered and that there were registrations "every day".

Either the ACO is lying through its teeth or Pigott has made a very serious mistake.

I think the gap from a daily declining 190 to Pigott's 250 is a major story in itself - I realise that it is possibly slightly more accurate than the 300 odd archbishops that the BBC said were in Jerusalem earlier in the week - but honestly, can't they check these things?

I have made some rapid notes from the afternoon's transmitted press conference.

http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/06/rapid-notes-thursday-afternoon.html

There is a rumour in London that +Willesden (Pete Broadbent) will be joining Wallace and Nazir-Ali in not going to Lambeth. Is this true? I can hardly believe it and I know many of his clergy would be very angry with him if it were.

“How am I meant to set down at a table with people who are persecuting my friends?", asks the Bishop of Lewes in the Beckforth article.

What a perfect example of how deluded this movement is, and how out of reality. This, from the same group led by a Bishop who attempts to put the Church's name and influence behind the jailing of innocent people!

It boggles the mind, really.

Even if true, and not a few Nigerian denials are open to question (the Yelwa business continues to hold my interest - and that of others, I suspect - notwithstanding Ms Griswold's alleged status as cats-paw for her father and his "Revisionist" TEC cronies), AkinTunde Popoola's statement relates only to Nigeria. Among the GAFCON provinces there is also Uganda, self-proclaimed recipient of "so much money" from its N. American "conservative brethren".

Of course, if the Ahmonson claim is nonsense, that will be clearly demonstrated when the GAFFEPRONE leadership release transparent financial reports.

Darn it. That last sentence made me laugh water out my nose and all over my keyboard.

Interesting to see that, after three days, the GAFFEPRONE have finally come up with an explanation for the "banned" list.

The explanation (had it been issued in a timely fashion) might well have been credible. After half a week, it seems like the need to distance themselves from it never occured to them.

At best, it is further proof that the GAFFEPRONE communications staff are utterly incompetent.

I realise that it is possibly slightly more accurate than the 300 odd archbishops that the BBC said were in Jerusalem earlier in the week ...Martin R

Well, that would be 300 Venable type archbishops...you know, the ones that register twice and upgrade their title if nobody is looking.

I loved this one from the good bishop of Lewes
“How am I meant to set down at a table with people who are persecuting my friends?

Try sitting down with the persecuted homosexuals in say, Nigeria!

Where, pray tell, did the powers that be find this lost soul?

Congratulations to the British (Why is it only the Brits at GAFCON if this is a "Global" enterprise?) press on their coverage. The Guardian and Telegraph were backed up by columnists on top form back home. Matthew Parris won't comment, though gay humanists ought to be concerned. Keeping this high profile should help, like a pink rag to the bull...

I agree that it is time to give Robert Pigott the heave ho for so many consistent errors. He should know by second nature not to refer to hundreds of Archbishops. He's gotta go.

As to consorting with the "enemy", Matthew 5:47 seems to be missing from some GAFCON bibles.

"And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?"

It's from the Sermon on the Mount, so I would have thought it counted?

I think Matthew's view would be that he is an atheist and thinks it has nothing to do with him, and, frankly, that by taking this stance the Church are condemning themselves to permanent marginality in any case.

Imagine Bishop Benn as a presidig bishop in the Women free diocese....no more comment needed.

A woman free " orthodox" diocese will be a knife at the throat of the Church of England.

Personally I think that GAFCON is based on Gods agenda and Lambeth is mans agenda