Have these drama queens no work to do ?

So the split is going full steam ahead despite all that has been said by Williams desperately trying not to let it happen, to the point of betraying and compromising his view.

I sincerely hope that it goes well for them and that those who are really going to be placed under pressure and CofE conservatives....how many will jump with them?

Still waiting for the GAFCON list of signatories!

Note where the Secretariate of GAFCON is located; Sydney, Australia!!!!

Does anyone note a particular non-primatial hand at work here, or am I being unduly critical of the Sydney Archbishop's influence with the Global South's agenda to split the Church?

It may just be time for the real Archbishop of Australia, and the majority of the Australian Anglican Bishops, to disassociate themselves from the machinations of this Sydney prelate.

Oh, what madness. What loveless, graceless nonsense. Here is an imagined purity, compassed round with walls of hate.

In my ordinary and human brokeness I look to you, Lord Jesus. In my hope, faith and trust I pray that you will transform us all with the knowledge of the overwhelming generosity of your love.

Loving Father, help us then to laugh at those who love power even at the cost of wicked malice and oppression. Build us up, sure in the knowledge that your Holy Spirit is love, and that perfect love casts out fear.

"Confessing Anglicans"? Confessing to what exactly? In my version of Anglicanism, the only thing one confesses to is sin.

Anglicanism has always been a creedal religion, not a confessional one. We believe (as the creeds say) in certain things, we do not confess to them.

Hmmm.... so according to ++Venables, the GAFCON group have given up on an Anglican Covenant and are not interested in the further work of the Windsor Continuation Group. Looks like they have just defined themselves into second-tier membership.

Merseymike, you asked an interesting question. Church of England Evangelicals must be feeling their very difficult position. I assume +Tom Wright has now realized he will never be Archbishop of Canterbury. +Michael Nazir-Ali, on the other hand, may be about to become Archbishop of something that has an English place-name but isn't Canterbury, so it's really just as good.

"Well, well, th'event..."

I also recommend James' analysis at The Three-Legged Stool: http://threelegedstool.blogspot.com/2008/08/donatist-six-finally-speak.html

Your certainly not being too critical at all, Fr. Ron - not only is the secretariat's address in Sydney, it's even the same as that of the Sydney Diocesan Offices - a fact noted with some amusement by no less a figure than the wicked Rev. Dr. Troll

Given Sydney's role in the South African split of the late 1930s there's no shortage of precedent for their providing this support: the hypocrisy lies in the fact that +Jensen has no intention of leaving the Communion himself, since under the Australin church's constitution he has no chance of taking his diocese's considerable assets with him - and yet he's actively exhorting others to leave, and in so doing break their ordination vows and bring their entire careersto an end.

the ABC will give in to GAFCON because they represent the majority of Anglicans in the world and his stated priority is unity amongst the majority in the AC....that is why the ABC has gone against his own views and keeps on reminding everyone that Lambeth 1.10 represents what he calls the "mind of the Communion" - even at the end of Lambeth in which TEC had a quarter of the bishops present, he said he was not persuaded by "rights based" arguments and he stands for the "mind of the Communion".....liberals have to be realistic about the way the Communion is going. The ABC cannot afford to lose GAFCON from the AC....his ACTIONS show it repeatedly in the last few years....he will give GAFCON what they want - and they know it

I wish you were right realist; then we could get on with the job of converting the world, rather than having to waste time defending Christian truth and morality from liberals who are trying to dress up 1960's "do what you want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone" ethics and "God is dead" theology as central Anglican doctrine.

Division has been caused because the established hierarchy failed to purge this sort of heresy. If they keep clinging onto the people who espouse it, they are at risk of loosing everything!

There is an excellent critique of GAFCON from the Evangelical Iain Murray in the September Evangelicals Now...condemning the complicity with Anglo-catholcism.

Furthermore the Dean of Sydney has made a forthright condemnation of Anglo-catholicism..posted on the Autralian Anglican Church league web site...under the heading what is an Evangelical.

davidwh: "Division has been caused because the established hierarchy failed to purge this sort of heresy."

That's a very strange way to talk: you don't seem to be aware of the history of Anglicanism as a moderate via media church. We are the church that employed Bishop John Robinson, Bishop David Jenkins and Don Cupitt; large numbers of butterfly-collecting 19th c canons; absentee and pluralist 18th c bishops. A narrow concern with doctrinal purity is NOT the tradition of the Church of England, and I resent these traditionalists so ignorant of tradition thinking they are more Anglican than the rest of us. In fact, if anything the current problem stems from too easy-going authorities allowing a virulent strain of very small-minded Puritans to remain in the C of E.

Puritans always make trouble - screaming for doctrinal rigidity does nothing good for anyone's spiritual life, and just creates aggro and tension.

If you think you can, or should, somehow just banish gay people from the church, and that then you can "get on with converting the world", you are very much mistaken. In the first place, the issue will not go away, and the issue is, that the traditional articulation of sexuality and gender issues by the Church is not sufficient for the world we now live in. That is only going to become more acute if ignored. Secondly, the idea that a purified church should want not to have its gay members is chilling, frankly, as it denies the humanity, and huge pastoral contribution to the Church, of a large number of God's loved people.

In your purified Church, your hermetically-sealed off from all hersey by virtue of marriage heterosexual couples are still going to be producing the next generation of gay people, and all you do if you make the Church more harsh to them is screw them up, which is why gay bars are already full of angry ex-Christians. What on earth is the point of that? If you love the Church, and its tradition, you will see the imperative to do better than that.

Sorry but my NP radar started bleeping.

Realist: do call yourself Nersen Pillay here as well.

Your words are your style and content, I noticed, and then I noticed they repeat pretty much at Fulcrum.

http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/forum/thread.cfm?thread=8333

DavidWh: I wish you were right realist; then we could get on with the job of converting the world, rather than having to waste time defending Christian truth and morality from liberals who are trying to dress up 1960's "do what you want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone" ethics and "God is dead" theology as central Anglican doctrine.

You do yourself no favour by suggesting that ideas that were never accepted by any official body in the church, or by any significant body of believers are "central Anglican doctrine".

Moreover, you make a grievous error in assuming that these are ideas espoused by any significant number of the church's "Liberals".

As Liberals -- real ones, not the cardboard caricature Liberals you talk about in your posts -- I and my friends also want to get rid of '1960's "do what you want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone" ethics and "God is dead" theology'.

It's just that we don't think that the only valid Christian alternative is a quasi-literalist fundamentalism that, from the outside, seems to deal in law, not grace, and to rate love as less important than behaving according to the predominant culture of yesterday.

I wouldnt worry too much about 'converting the world' -- the Churches seem in far greater need of conversion !

but then the world is god's anyway --whereas the Churches resist !

David WH has had his own sort of coming out, publicly admitting that he wants any dissent from his narrow views stamped out.

I commend to him the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZVjKlBCvhg&eurl=http://simplemassingpriest.blogspot.com/

The Sydney address is of course the give away..and In many way the GAFCON African leadership remind me of the leaders of the Black home lands in Apartheid South Africa...

I noted the letter to Gafcon from the "American Bishops", which included Don Harvey of the "Southern Cone" (formerly of Newfoundland). They say unequivocally that the Anglican Church of Canada has espoused the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of gay clergy in relationships. This is absolutely false. No formal decision has been made to do this, outside of New Westminster. Certainly not at General Synod thus far. But saying these things, which are outright lies, gives Don Harvey a way of having a second career. This tactic of telling utter lies about the ACC in order to create confusion and to set up an opposition is cheap and deceitful. Why do these "conservative" leaders feel comfortable with this? It always seems that they feel that they have God on their side and it doesn't matter what they do as long as they achieve their goals of sowing dissent and acquiring power.

'Hmmm.... so according to ++Venables, the GAFCON group have given up on an Anglican Covenant and are not interested in the further work of the Windsor Continuation Group. Looks like they have just defined themselves into second-tier membership.'

I look forward to being in the second tier with Gafcon !

"An invitation from the Primates Council"

The GAFCON primate's surely?

"This tactic of telling utter lies about the ACC in order to create confusion and to set up an opposition is cheap and deceitful. Why do these "conservative" leaders feel comfortable with this?"

And why do conservative "followers" seem to think that breaking the commandment about bearing false witness is no big deal, but suggesting that perhaps we need to revisit our positions WRT sexuality and try to discern the guidance of the Spirit is evidence of apostacy and reason to break communion? As many of them fond of selfrighteously saying, they're the Ten Commandments, after all, not the Ten Suggestions.

All 2 of them.

;=)