Regarding the Sunday Programme - I thought Roger Bolton was bad, but Jane Little is worse. Her interview with Bishop Robinson was hostile and petulant, and contrasted with her respectful attitude to Archbishop Drexel Gomez and Bishop Handford, the Covenanter. She asked various bishops to choose an Abba track to epitomise the conference, which she duly played. I can't imagine a more crass or inappropriate use of music in a programme of this nature.
She and her husband Alan, another BBC hack, spent a lot of time in Africa supporting the anti-Apartheid struggle. They have many African friends.

I didn't think the Sunday Programme was too bad, although +Robinson did receive a rather more adversarial approach than some of his fellow bishops. There also seemed to be quite a large number of evangelical voices: the New Zealand bishop who was interviewed was the Bishop of Nelson Richard Ellena, a man who has sworn to "hold high the flag of evangelical orthodoxy" in his diocese, and is hardly representative of the New Zealand church as a whole.

The report by J. Wyne-Jones in the telegraph today is disturbing - especially when he quotes 'senior Bishops' (eg Bishop Scott-Joynt, Winchester) asking the ABC for an 'orderly separation', when his very own constituency - the Global South separatists have already declared their hand and threatened their own departure.

Scott Joynt - like Jensen, Nazir-Ali, Akinola and Orombi, et al, have already distanced themselves from the rest of the Communion by their absence from the Lambeth Conference. Why should blame the Archbishop of Canterbury for the situation of the present stand-off, when their own intransigence, and movement towards schism, have brought the Communion to it's present dilemma?

If a few English Bishops wish to join the Global South in an alliance of Biblical Literalism which seeks to undermine the inevitable thrust of the Gospel in the modern world, then perhaps the split is there already - but not brought about by the faithful bishops at Lambeth. You can't make the rules when you didn't even attend the party.

"Bishop Langrish said that there was an “inexorable logic” that there should be one core Communion with the more liberal Churches pushed to the margins."

Well, I suppose if he wants the Church of England pushed to the margins.....

(Along, of course, with TEC, Canada, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand.....)

I wonder if the bishops have given any thought at all to the situation of those of us who will feel forced to leave if the Church rolls over and allows the conservatives to dictate?

Personally, I dream of a church where conservatives and liberals are all welcome at Christ's table, because we all have need of Him. At my home church, this is what we do.

But I may be forced to find access to that table elsewhere, and it makes me deeply sad.

Have any of the bishops thought of this?

Nat

Thank loads for the passing link to the radio program. It sounded a variety of voices, including those of the radio journalists themselves. Unlike Lambeth as such, it also included directly the voice of VGR speaking for himself and by proxy from outside, for a number of banned LGBTQ folks, too.

The three-way talk bit among Stacy Sauls, Gomez, and Handford was revelatory insofar as it allowed Gomez to duck by spin doctoring his participation in and active sympathy with presplit realignment activities, while also taking a leading role in talking about staying together (but necessarily by sacrificing the good and daily life competencies of queer folks around the planet). That this man can talk of himself as a shining example of reaching across differences and of integrity is quite amazing to my ears.

Handford likes the idea of pulling back, since after all there is nothing so destructive of relationships and mutual understanding than having other people, meanly described by traditionalistic preachments, refrain from doing good and from being competent in their daily life and work and relationships. If I had to guess, I would guess that Ms. Little tilts toward sympathy with shutting things down and keeping a Status Quo.

Not much nourishment, then, from either Gomez or Handford - except for those who innately define queer folks as unavoidably impoverished, defective, and lacking. Ah, dear bishops, go read some research until you find the light of hypothesis tested data breaking through in your customary and traditional darkness.

SO, yes I am already reconciled to folks like Handford and Gomez and Akinola, insofar as I am not asking thay they refrain from common worship, global healing service, and even their own ministries. Yet I cannot in good conscience be reconciled with them insofar as they preach, still, that I must live down, live less than my ordinary daily life bests at work, in committed relationship, in worship and witness.

A moratorium cannot effectively draw a traditional curtain to hide what God is doing in my daily life, despite all the traditional and conservative denouncements and presuppositions to the contrary. I still find Handford's tangible concern that people afraid of queer folks need more safe space than queer folks themselves. Then Sauls speaks directly to Handford on that point, so at least it got mentioned.

This Episcopalian says NO to a moratorium.
The ABC is wrong to say some Episcopalians are doing a new thing. It is not new. It is 2000 years old. It is called loving one's neighbor as oneself. I pray General Convention 2009 will speak truth to power.

Today's New York Times features a profile of Gene Robinson and his activities around Lambeth, under the headline "Cast Out, but at the Center of the Storm". Here's a link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/weekinreview/03burns.html?_r=1&ref=weekinreview&oref=slogin

The Bishop of Nelson ( New Zealand) comments were intersting...he regarded Lambeth as futile. He has set up an Evangelical college in his diocese to take away the liberal monopoly of St Johns Auckland. He succeeded Bishop Eaton, who now assists the Bishop of Egypt. they are Evangelicals but open to women's ordination.

Following up on R.I.W.'s comment;

The New Zealand Diocese of Nelson has long had a familial relationship to Moore College in Sydney -thus the Evangelical leaning towards the theology of the Sydney Archbishop, Dr. Jensen.
As you say, Robert, hardly the voice of the New Zealand Church. In both Nelson and Sydney, there is a similar attitude towards the Celebration of the Eucharist - jeans or civvies have been known to garb the presiding person. God save us from Lay Presidency! That might be our next hurdle.

But, Robert! Have you not now crossed the Tiber?