The Church Times Leader article puts the spotlight on the inability of Abp. Deng to tell the truth. He stated that up to 500 bishops were present at a meeting of the conservatives at the university campus; whereas, in fact, the C.T. reports a gathering of 'from 150 to 200'.

How seriously, then, should we take Abp. Deng's statement that they all supported his statement about the bishops of Sudan on the question of homosexuality and the need for Bp. Gene Robinson's resignation.

It must be accepted by the Press Department of the Conference, that the ill-timed criticism by Bishop Deng came partly as a result of the miss-handling of arrangements for authorised press interviews. Had specific arrangements been made for reporters to interview selected Leaders at the Conference, then grand-standing by the likes of Bishop Deng might not have been possible.

Let's hope that the final communique from the Conference will be handled a little more judiciously.

An interesting series of comments. Here's some preliminary thoughts on the articles by Breyer and Hobson:

(1) Chloe Breyer is in a dream world seeking to mollify very adamant adults with gestures that are nice, but in this context are equivalent to offering a handful of beads to pacify the natives--sorry Chloe, it will take more than this to make peace.

(2) Theo Hobson discusses the loyalist liberal/ evangelical and the itchy liberal/evangelical. Just so you'll understand the difference, the loyalists are, so to speak, "take it slow and wait for the Holy Spirit to make it happen" types, while the "itchy" are "make it fast--the Holy Spirit is acting" types. (I.e., "itchy" almost overwhelmingly describes the liberals at Thinking Anglicans). And, while I think his distinctions have some merit, the implied support for the "loyalist" position (as so stated) probably does not. The loyalist "take it slow" approach might have avoided the current train wreck, but now that the opposing agendas within the AC have collided, its time has passed. Unless, of course, "re-appraisers" are willing to first back away from the innovations that have brought on this situation. Otherwise, the conflict will continue. So, ultimately, this too is merely wishful thinking.

Overall, both articles want to engage the current situation using approaches and tools that are redolent of the past and an era of Western liberal and colonialist domination (including the obligatory noblesse oblige owed to those they consider unenlightened). The world and the communion have changed.

Steven

I thought Hobson's was interesting and encouraging as coming from ex-Anglican who'd more or less given up on C of E and Anglicanism in general.

I thought Hobson's was interesting and encouraging as coming from ex-Anglican who'd more or less given up on C of E and Anglicanism in general.

“This is the "unofficial official" line of the conference: reform must come, but slowly-slowly, so that the cause of global evangelism is not harmed, and Anglican unity not further broken...This is why so many evangelicals have boycotted: they knew that this tacit reformist agenda would be present...So the whole event is an incredibly delicate exercise in long-distance liberalism.”--Theo Hobson

I think that Theo has it more or less right. Certainly GAFCON shot themselves in the foot big-time by their boycott, and the next 10 years will not be able to turn back the clock. In fact, we can probably look forward to a more formal exit by GAFCONites once their factionalism is firmly rejected by liberals and moderates in the Communion.

Re: the Breyer article -- I was under the impression that the original plan was to hold this Lambeth is South Africa, but this was rejected for financial reasons -- anyone else remember anything about this?

Mind you, I don't think a change of venue would make the slightest difference.

Almost all of these news articles have, to some extent, fallen into the narrative presuppositional traps already laid for all of us when we try to wend our ways around the going hot button issues.

Facile tagging of liberals and conservatives, biblical believers versus ... well, all the others whose daily life is opposed so fiercely by those who most often claim they are biblical. The list goes on, the realignment drum beats go on.

None of this helps. The whole point of locating someone on the various Anglican continuums used to be so that we could start the next rounds of our conversation, focusing on shared worship and witness and service, and yes, intentionally stepping around the likely areas of disagreement. Knowing the region of the doctrinal, ethical, and cultural continuums was a tool for avoiding having our differences take over everything, totally, all the time.

Now of course, the opposite drives us as Anglicans talking past one another. The sound bit lying is seemingly endless. We hear blog repeats that New Hampshire's bishop left his wife and daughters to shack up with another man (the filthy rutting beasties). We hear repeats that applying social justice and human dignity commitments to queer folks as citizens is revisionist, when almost anybody who has bothered to read the scriptures upon whom we rely to point to God and Jesus knows - social justice preachments go back as far as the OT prophets, if not earlier. Consider that commandment against bearing false witness against your neighbor.

I don't think the realignment campaigners are, for one brief moment or longer, much exercised with that one. Why else would their idealized repeats, presupposing homosexual acts as essentially sin, trump the real ethical daily life of VGR and his life partner in a diocesan faith community so transparent that all the electors seeking a new bishop could see it and weigh it before God?

Theo Hobson is quite right:

"So why aren't the liberals itchier? This is the big question. Is it because they are too weak to form a protest lobby? No: the answer is more complex. The reason is that the liberals have a deep trust that the communion's position on sexuality will liberalise, given time. Of course they cannot say this – because it contravenes the existing orthodoxy, and also because it would sound colonial – "let's wait for the developing nations to catch up". In other words, they follow their leader's example: bite your tongue and wait for the Holy Spirit to enlighten the communion. "

That is why Bishop Jefferts Schori replies with angelic mildness to Abp Deng's fundamentalist outburst. Deng and Akinola keep boasting about the huge numbers of faithful they represent -- let them take warning from the downfall of conservative churches in Ireland, Canada etc. If they go on with noisy, theologically uninformed, bullying fundamentalist posturing much longer they may wake up one morning to find that the faithful have fled.

drdanfee,

You do make a great show of being "inclusve," but your language betrays you. Far from it, you merely pursue your standard line about the "conserevatives" and in the language of contempt exclude others.

The bishop from the US Peter Beckwith takes some responsibility with some staight-talk below and makes the relevant point: "The Episcopal Church is not representing the scriptural authority of Christ. In the Episcopal Church, the biggest lie of all is that sexual morality doesn’t matter, or that it’s changing, that God is doing a new thing. Yet prophetic voices in our history have always taken us back to basics. It will be very interesting to see how things develop here. Will enough be done to preserve the integrity of the Communion? We won’t hold together if we continue like this."

Ben W

"loyalist liberal/ evangelical and the itchy liberal/evangelical"

But why is the approach that we must wait to see what the Spirit will say called "loyalist" while the idea that the Spirit is already speaking is considered "itchy"? What is so particularly loyal about not wanting to do anything because we're just not sure, not what God is saying, but if God is actually saying anything? Loyal to whom? People see this as a justice issue. To whom are we being disloyal by wanting to "do justice and love mercy"? Are we not being loyal to the Gospel in that desire? This is the point, the conservative idea that to be something other than conservative is to be disloyal, faithless, unbelieving, or even conspiring to subvert the Gospel. Why?

Per Theo Hobson: I do think it . . . strange, that the notion of "developing nations"---so much a GIVEN in political or economic venues---is verboten in an Anglican context.

Surely, there ought to be no shame in being (or declaring one's self) a representative of a developing nation? A dignity born out of one's need (and RIGHT) to catch-up? With an accompanying need to LEARN FROM the developed (BOTH their achievements, as well as their mistakes)? What would the World Bank look like, for example, if the developing nations demanded that the developed nations "run your economies as we do ours"?

I don't know. Maybe it would be improvement.

It (Lambeth, and the AC generally) is a strange discrepancy, however...

Should the Liberals wait for a sign from on high?

From an historical (Biblical) point of view, we know that God actually got impatient with the lack of justice in Israel - towards 'outsiders', amongst others - and sent his only-begotten Son into the world. For what reason? To save sinners -and that's everyone of us, including the Bishops at Lambeth - not just the bishops at GAGFCON.

Jesus told his disciples that: "The kingdom of God is among you". What are we waiting for?

My understanding is that the proposal to hold Lambeth 08 in South Africa was kayboshed by the CAPA Primates because the South Africans don't hate gays enough.

Ben W makes the sensational (but not in the circumstances un-expected) claim: ” In the Episcopal Church, the biggest lie of all is that sexual morality doesn’t matter, or that it’s changing, that God is doing a new thing. Yet prophetic voices in our history have always taken us back to basics.”

So the Gospel of God’s Righteousness in Christ isn’t “basic”???

Who would have thunk…

Goran,

In accord with the past record you are wrong on more than one count. First, the point you qoute is from bishop Peter Becckwith from the US. I have confidence that he is able to read the pulse of TEC more closely than you do in far away Sweden!

Second, on righteuousness even M Luther would have found it strange to think that "God's righteousness" is in contrast to or excludes the moral teaching of scripture. To affirm God's righteousness as basic is not to negate the moral teaching as included in the basics. Rather, to fail to see the connection is to see the coherence within the Christian life (Rom 6:1-6).

Ben W

"Civil, Ceremonial and Moral" is a categorical confusion we do not "do".

In fact, no one outside Platonising Academies should "do" it!

There are no such categories in the Bible.

What about my Question? Is it Basic or no?

Ben W wrote: "Rather, to fail to see the connection is to see the coherence within the Christian life (Rom 6:1-6)."

You don't see it?

: -(

"would have found it strange to think that "God's righteousness" is in contrast to or excludes the moral teaching of scripture."

But, what is the "moral teaching" of Scripture, Ben? For you, it would seem, it's about sex. Yet the moral teaching of Scripture talks of love, mercy, acceptance. Scripture speaks of doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. Frankly, it seems that both sides have gotten obsessed with sex, either elevating it to the level of the Trinity, or diminishing it to the level of eating a meal. What is most glaring to me is that, leaving aside the failings of the Left, the Right appears to be so obsessed with morality being defined by sexual behaviour that it cannot perceive the obvious immorality of its other acts.