Can anyone on the other side of the pond explain to me why the ABC listens to the obviously wacko Dunkin'?

He used to sign his rants "Bob Pittsburgh." How does he sign now? "Bob Cone?"

Yes..and why is Gregory Venables not presenting a petition from Reform/FIF for an alternative province in England or the recognition of The Church of England in South Africa.

Why should TEC be treated like this and the cross-borderers get away with it?

Cynthia,

I don't think it is so much a case of the ABC 'listening' to former Bishop Duncan, as his desire not to exclude the voice of the Global South Primates - who are still - despite their tendency to dissidence from the Communion, members of the Communion. The ABC wants to be seen to be 'inclusive', despite their tendency to be exclusive. Time will tell what will actually happen to the 'communique' from Global South.

Meanwhile we all need to pray for the will of God to be experienced by the whole Church in the outcome of the meetings in Alexandria: "God, may your will be done in this and all matters in the workings of your Church, for Christ's sake. Amen"

What a load of barnyard droppings. Let's all not forget the old saw about telling a lie often enough it takes on the appearance of the truth. Bob Duncan wants to be a primate of something so much he will do or say just about anything to make it so.

Ephraim Radner's recent writings decode to suggest a watered down Covenant...

http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/01/covenant-watering.html (but thanks to Not the Same Stream)

http://notthesamestream.blogspot.com/2009/01/coming-covenant-iii.html

And I have a hymn:

http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/01/follow-up-song.html

Courage, friends: I think it quite possible that the ABC is making nice to GAFCON, only because he KNOWS the votes for them (and their delusional "new Anglican province in North America") AREN'T there...

"The ABC wants to be seen to be 'inclusive', despite their tendency to be exclusive."

"Inclusive" with quotation marks is right - meaning he doesn't mind EXcluding the duly elected, consented to, and consecrated Bishop of New Hampshire, but will INclude the deposed former bishop of Pittsburgh, as well as all the bordercrossers and thieves from the Global South. By your friends shall you be known.

"why is Gregory Venables not presenting a petition from Reform/FIF for an alternative province in England...? - R.I. Williams -

Robert, still stirring???

If Archbishop Venables were to petition the ACC, he would be doing so with tongue in cheek as he already has his very own 'Alternative Province' -incorporating a few dissenters (like Messrs Bob Duncan ad Jack Iker and Jim Packer) from TEC and the A.C.of C. It is called the Diocese of the Southern Cone. Why would he want anyone else to take away his 'alternative' primacy? I don't think anyone from the Churches in Britain and Northern Ireland would want to secede to the alternative diocese of the Southern Cone.

Notice what Living Church says Duncan says was "invited" by Williams: "Williams had asked that a paper be prepared setting out the situation and the hopes for a new structure. The Archbishop invited the primates to forward the case to the Anglican Consultative Council [read that again: the ACC] along with their comments."

In other words, it's just a polite way for Williams to tell Duncan to follow the procedure any group must if it wants to be recognized as a province -- and now we have even Duncan admitting it. And if you'll check that procedure it requires consent of the province from which it is formed.

Really, as I've said before (citing Mark Chapman of Cuddesdon), they ought to come up with a name besides Anglican "Communion", since the primates refuse to receive Communion together (sorry, but the ABC's Anglican "Church" is even more off base).

Let's try this for size--

The GAFCON primates will officially recognize the pseudo-Province. (Duncan et al need this to try keep the hijacked properties and to protest the "invasion" of TEC into their backyard, and then having a "reason" to continue their schismatic strategy).

Aspinall will say that even if recognition was discussed it never came to a vote, because there is a process that should be followed.

I earnestly hope someone from the press would ask Aspinall, "Did the group come closer to say to Duncan and the GAFCON primates that they shouldn't be doing what they are doing?" (A possible answer: "Yeah, we were going to do it, but then it was time for elevenses, and then we forgot.")

Now, having said that, first, the ABC is not the only person at table. And, secondly, the ABC is not going to thump his fist on the table, and say "Now, fellows, this is what we are going to do, and everybody else shut up!" Even if he were that kind of person, I can't believe that the situation would be any better than is now. Our conflict can only be managed at best (What he is trying to do, anyway). There are no microwave-ready solutions for this mess, and it may take 50-100 years or so to finally, if ever, be sorted out, or be superseded by the mess du jour.

The fact is that we have the ABC that we have, and the man needs, really needs our prayers, and some slack. So we need to calm down to our knees.

Thomas+

Ron..Gregory heads a Province not a diocese. My point is why should they pay attention to this division and ignore the 137 year division in South Africa and the ambition of the third province people in England?

the moment you give in to Duncan the flood gates are open.

Stirring?... i think the pot it is cooking well enough!

Its also just announced on Virtue on line that the new denomination will never countenance female bishops. Apparently Bishop Iker made a speech and he also states he is prepared to accept GAFCON even though it is Evangelical.

Fawlty Towers ...let no one mention the war,

Gafcon..let no one mention Sydney and Diaconal celebration.

The North American schism is now almost complete and is effectively running out of steam. Canterbury merely needs to procrastinate at this stage. In due course, when conservative American monies run out, the other Provinces supporting Bishop Duncan et al will gradually return into the mainstream Anglican fold.

penwatch wrote: "Canterbury merely needs to procrastinate at this stage."

Isn't that what's happening? The request for a written proposal is a classic delaying tactic. Most of us in ministry in the CofE have often been asked by an archdeacon or a bishop for "a single side of A4" - so we recognise it well as the way to kick a ball into the long grass. If I may mix metaphors a bit.

"The North American schism is now almost complete..."

How about a more accurate term than 'schism?' That term suggests to the casual reader a 'split,' in which half go one way and half another. In fact, those ex-Episcopalians constitute something much closer to a splinter than a split. And once you get the splinter outof your finger, it will soon stop hurting.

Wow thanks lots for the MCU related links, which somehow eventually passed me over onto a variety of other sites where I could indulge my interest in early church and ancient culture including the non-canonical texts now being studied.

We thinking believers now have huge ferment as contexts in which to inquire, think, discern, and rediscern the closed judgments of our past - with a keen eye out for letting the case of Galileo caution us, always, for the considerable time being.

Pledging some new covenant which respects and acknowledges how dramatically we are respositioned may be impossible. Better to continue then as a global family of provincial churches bonded in affection, witness, service, and inquiry?

"he is prepared to accept GAFCON even though it is Evangelical."

I guess it's all a matter of priorities.

Cynthia G. is quite correct: the situation in North America is a split (or splinter), not a schism. Unfortunately, she only sees the issue with arrogant, Western eyes. When 800,000 people leave 55 million it is, indeed, a splinter - not a split.

Penwatch has hit it on the head. Duncan can't win in a Pennsylvania Court. Monies will continue to dry up. Also, I witnessed this past weekend our local Presbytery voted to reject a proposed amendment that would allow non-celibate gays and lesbians to be ordained. This too is being funded by IRD and other conservative groups. How much money can they dole out? I would think that considering the change in political power in the U.S. they'd be better served spending their monies in the political arena.

"When 800,000 people leave 55 million it is, indeed, a splinter - not a split."

This assumes...as the conservatives always do...that the non-democratically selected leaders of the non-Western churches truly represent the beliefs and attitudes of their congregations. We have no evidence for that. I'm sorry, as far as I can see, Akinola, Orombi, et al represent no one but themselves.

"Unfortunately, she only sees the issue with arrogant, Western eyes."

I was only commenting about the situation vis a vis TEC. Duncan, Minns etc have led a splinter out of that Province. They have allied themselves with other provinces of the Anglican Communion, which indeed are large in numbers of communicants.

Some bishops and archbishops of the Global South certainly despise us.

How many of their flock have time to think about exegesis of the 7 smackdown verses and the polity of TEC while trying to find food and water for their families, avoid marauding armies of child-soldiers, simply survive maleria, malnutrition, AIDS, and cope with triple-digit inflation I will let you ponder. And I do not often hear those bishops and archbishops calling to account such kleptocrats as Mugabe.

One wonders whether the dissident Primates (largely from Africa and Southern Cone) will even be present at the Primates' Conference - let alone try to defend their invasions of North American Dioceses of TEC and the A.C.of C. on the grounds of their own moral superiority.

Their protests against women in ministry will be
only partial. Their unity exists around the question of the ordination of gays, plus their claim to a literalist understanding of the Bible (well at least those passages which seem to back up their own prejudices) - which may not be enough to persuade the more formidable theologians of the broader Communion, of their claim to represent *orthodoxy*. Will this fragile basis for unity of purpose be enough to influence the other Primates towards the establishment of - or even the need for - a new *Province*, either in North America, the UK, or anywhere else?

The more important items on the Agenda - the world situation, the search for peace, the need for an ecumenical perspective among the Christian Churches, and the Ministry of Women as Bishops in the Church; ought to receive more serious consideration than the provision for dissidents to maintain their unlikely superiority through the establishment of an 'orthodox'(?) province.

One also wonders at the fate of the proposed Anglican Covenant, which has some opposition from both GAFCON and Mainline Anglican sources - on the grounds thaty such a legalistic formula would seem to be antithetical to what the Anglican Communion is all about. An aura of almost papal authoritarianism seems to hover around the oughts and shoulds regime, whereas the 'Anglican Way' seemed to have been cast in a somewhat different mould - where co-equal partnerships have managed to avoid severe penal consequences of different theological perspectives of what the Gospel might mean in our varied cultural settings.

And herein is probably the most vexing problem with the Communion at this time - the presumption of some among us who feel the need to impose their own particular shibboleths on others, who merely want to expand the parameters of Gospel, to become *Good News' to a larger and more complex world-wide situation of ministry than obtained in first century Christianity.

Our prayers are needed for the influence of the Holy Spirit to preside over the conversations and deliberations of the Primates Meeting. May God enable a yearning for Justice and Peace in the ongoing negotiations in Alexandria, and into the uncertain future of our Church.

While the Primates Meeting is only one of the Intruments of Unity in our Churches, they are second only to the Anglican Consultative Council in their authority to represent that part of the Body of Christ which we call the Anglican Communion. This is surely one of the main points of divergence from the more centralised rule of our Roman Catholic partners in mission - from which we resiled at the Reformation.

Can anyone confirm that the ABC actually asked Bishop Duncan for a paper justifying the ACNA? If so in what terms did he couch the request? Was it in the terms specified in the ACC constitution or as cover for him to support the group or what?

Jon

Cynthia, two corrections:
(1) GS bishops do not despise Western churches (TEC or ACoC), they do believe, however, that the leadership in these churches is apostate. The truth is they pray for you and long to see your bishops offer true repentance and an amendment of life.
(2) While you seem to understand something of the suffering GS (Anglican) Christians are facing, what you assume about their understanding of the issues and their resolve in facing them is, quite frankly, elitist and racist. Yes, ordinary Christians know very well the price they are paying for their convictions. They know what it meant to lose TWS's support. They feel it in their stomachs! But here's the rub: they would rather suffer than compromise. What you should find frightening is that TEC has forced them to make that choice! There's your tolerance dogma at work...

Joe:

While I firmly believe that it is the Holy Spirit that calls TEC and others to acknowledge the rightness of committed same-sex relationships, and that the GS churches are ignoring a similar call to themselves (about that issue and others), I would never have the hubris to call them "apostate" because of that difference.

Why?

Because it is so much a third-order disagreement... having nothing to do with theology, Christology, or even ecclesiology. Apostasy should be caused by something far more central to our faith than the sexuality of some small part of our congregations.

"GS bishops do not despise Western churches (TEC or ACoC)"

They claim we are are all "revisionists" or "reassessors" who have sold out the Gospel to the world in search of public approval, giving no regard whatsoever for the theology and compassion that has led TEC and ACofC to these positions. They deny our faith. They also falsely claim that they are being oppressed by the "reassessors". Then there is the claim that you yourself have made:

"TEC has forced them to make that choice!"

How has TEC done this? Has TEC demanded that any GS church marry gay people or ordain a gay person, even a celebate one? No. Has TEC made the granting of aid money contingent on acceptance of its policies towards gay people? No. As a matter of fact, it was the conservatives who refused what they declared to be "tainted" money. How has TEC forced them accept anything other than the fact that TEC has spent several decades in obedience to previous Lambeths meditating on, praying about, and consulting on "the gay issue", something the conservatives have never done, while hypocritically accusing TEC of "disobedience" to Lambeth '98? TEC now in all faith believes the Spirit is calling them to this. Yet, there is never any respect for that belief. All that ever comes from GAFCON is reviling and scorn. They also pompously set themselves up as "orthodox" which they patently are not, which is a strong statement that they think themselves better than the rest of us. So, you're going to have to give me some evidence that conservatives don't despise us, because everything I have seen so far indicates they do, intensely. And in some quarters, particularly in ABp. Akinola, there is something that looks very much like post-colonial racism.

"they pray for you and long to see your bishops offer true repentance and an amendment of life."

The issue here is that they, at least some of them, have no moral authority to call others to repentance and amendment of life. Peter Akinola, for instance, lost that moral authority, at the latest, the day he lent his support to a bill that would jail gay people and their supporters for five years. He has to repent of that and amend his life before he has any credibility to call others to repentance. That's the point. They need to repent of reviling and slandering their opponents, of refusing to even try to understand the people they so vehemently revile as less than animals, and of actually adding to their suffering. When they are capable of showing even the slightest bit of Christian love and compassion for gay people, then their words will begin to gain authority. For now, practically every word that comes out of their mouths proves their lack of moral authority to comment on this issue. It's a matter of beams and motes. For me, it's not so much about whether TEC or the Canadian Chruch are right or wrong. I have grave misgivings about that, actually. It is that the behaviour of those who lead the Global South show little of the Gospel in the way they treat their fellow Anglicans. So, why should I accept that people who behave so contrary to the Gospel have any right to call any one else to repentance?

Pat, sexual deviancy from biblical standards is not the issue, it is only the presenting issue. The heart of the matter is the authority of Scripture. So, yes, in this case the actions of TEC are heretical. Special revelation is the source for an orthodox Christology. Therefore, if the Holy Spirit is the source of special revelation how can one hold an orthodox Christology derived from Scripture while denying what has likewise been revealed with regard to anthopology and/or hamartiology?

Now, Ford, what's the politically correct way to say it? Oh, yeah, you've got some moxy! Please stop reading (and repeating) the TEC talking points. Yes, TEC demands allegiance to their heresy as a requisite for aid to GS churches, and that is precisely why the GS churches have been forced to refuse it. It came with strings...it always comes with strings. It's either arrogance or ignorance (or both) for you to suggest otherwise.

Second, the Lambeth call (1.10) for the church to "listen" to homosexual persons wasn't a matter of studying the practice in order to find a way to make it suddenly compatible with Scripture or a Christian ethos; it was a way for the church to understand the people behind the sin IN ORDER THAT people who are struggling with sexual sin might find "God's transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of [their] relationships". Of course, the "listening" clause became (as you're using it now) an opportunity to avoid the claims of scripture instead of a means to help people find freedom from sin.

Next, I'm not going to let you play the victim card here, either, Ford. The constant refrain that the "poor people of Africa don't even know what their AB's are saying" is elitist and racist no matter how you try to spin it.

Finally, I'm sure there is nothing I can say to make you believe the GS (and orthodox Western) churches don't hate you. Well...maybe there are some who do hate you! But what I can say with certainty is that I hold no malice towards you or those of your ilk. I disagree vehemently with you. I believe people of your theological persuasion are doing damage to the church. I believe you're on the wrong side of history. I even believe you're going to bring judgment on yourself and others. But I do not hate you. In fact I seek no victory here. I want no revenge. I don't believe my AB (++Kolini) does, either. I hurt over our divisions and I pray that God would heal our divide. So, I guess I see you the way I think the prophets saw Israel: heartbroken that the people they loved the most were determined to go their own way despite the calls to repent.

Sure, maybe we're wrong. Maybe God will say, "all that Bible stuff...not so important after all." or "I changed my mind." But it's not a gamble that we 55 million Anglicans are ready to take. It is with tears that we say, "If you go there (with TEC), you walk alone."

"...what you assume about their understanding of the issues and their resolve in facing them is, quite frankly, elitist and racist."

I was trying to say that for most non-bishops in the Anglican global south, daily survival is a much more pressing issue than TEC's policies.

TEC, as another writer has said, does not seek to impose its policies or polity on others.

"Pat, sexual deviancy from biblical standards is not the issue, it is only the presenting issue. The heart of the matter is the authority of Scripture."

But scripture has never been the sole authority in Anglican tradition--what about reason? And if we are to be so absolute about this particular bit of scripture, what about so many others? What about divorce? What about usury?

Reason and science have led us to think differently about so much of scripture...about "the pleasant poetry of Genesis", to use the phrase from the play "Inherit the Wind" and so much else once considered the inviolate word of God. Why is it that you and others cannot accept what science is telling us about human sexuality?

Oh, and one more thing--linguists tell us now that the words so often translated to mean "homosexual" in the Bible probably didn't mean what WE mean by that term. What if all our translations of these pesky passages are terribly skewed by centuries of cultural bias? What then do we tell our gay brothers and sisters? "Oops--sorry about that"?

"Yes, TEC demands allegiance to their heresy as a requisite for aid to GS churches, and that is precisely why the GS churches have been forced to refuse it. It came with strings...it always comes with strings." -Joe

This is either an instance of genuine ignorance or a lie. I know that TEC aid, whether by way of Episcopal Relief and Development or by way of individual dioceses or churches, never has any theological or doctrinal 'strings.'

My own Diocese of Virginia has sent one of or own to Sudan, the Diocese of Renk, as a teacher for young men aspiring to the priesthood. We have helped them build a cathedral Church, and we continue to donate both money and equipment. Go to for more. ERD also has a helpful webste, which I am sure you can easily find.

To repeat: TEC has gives with no ideological strings. I hope in future people who make such accusations will take the trouble to do some basic research before writing so carelessly.

"it always comes with strings. It's either arrogance or ignorance ..."

Ignorance, then. So, have patience and provide me with the evidence I need, since I have never seen any.

"the Lambeth call (1.10) for the church to "listen" to homosexual persons wasn't a matter of studying the practice in order to find a way to make it suddenly compatible with Scripture"

I never said it was. Check the archives here. I have consistently remarked on how the conservatives who claim to be so concerned about our salvation did NOT carry out any kind of listening process so as to better understand us and find better ways to preach their message to us. If our salvation is so important to you, and if that salvation depends on our acceptance of your message, why have you not bothered to try to find out how to better preach your message to us? At the call to listen goes back to '78, it didn't first appear in '98, nor in "1:10".

"the "poor people of Africa don't even know what their AB's are saying" is elitist and racist."

I've never said or even hinted at this, so what's your point?

"I believe people of your theological persuasion are doing damage to the church."

What? People who used to feel very much like GAFCON, that the leadership of the Western Church had lost its way and really didn't know how to ask the questions, let alone come up with the answers? Someone who stayed away from Church for 18 years because he thought the Church was too liberal and just didn't get it? Someone who has no time for "rights based" arguments when it comes to the Gospel? Someone who is a relatively conservative Anglo-Catholic? Someone who has deep misgivings about gay marriage? I am doing damage to the Church? How?

You are doing what I do regularly: assuming that because someone expresses certain positions, or even hints at said positions, that person must fit all your other stereoptypes and be a suitable target for your long nurtured anger. I am often guilty of that, but your assumptions about me, like mine about others, are wrong.

"You are doing what I do regularly: assuming that because someone expresses certain positions...that person must fit all your other stereotypes..." - Ford

On this point, Ford, I concede. I was wrong and I apologize. I ashamedly admit I do it far more frequently than I want or even realize. I beg your forgiveness.

Furthermore, may I say to all whom I have engaged on this board, that I don't post here in order to score points for my side or to take pleasure in adversarial polemics. Actually I grieve deeply every time I get involved in a conversation here, which is why I only pop in and out. Nevertheless, I keep coming back simply because I doggedly cling to this (naive?) hope that maybe there really is a place where pious, reasonable people can meet; and I'm trying to find that ground.

Unfortunately, however, I'm becoming more and more convinced that the GS and the GN cannot be reconciled. What's more, I don't see this like the East-West divide of 1054; I see it as a much deeper, much more painful, much more permanent (!) division.

Lord, have mercy.
Joe+

"Ignorance, then. So, have patience and provide me with the evidence I need, since I have never seen any."

Go to the Diocese of Virginia website www.thediocese.net for details about our mutual relationship with the Diocese of Renk, Sudan. [I tried to send a direct link in my previous post but it didn't come through.] If you go to the Episcopal Cafe website and go into its archives, you can read several reports by The Rev. Lauren Stanley, who works in Sudan on our behalf and has done so for the last either 4 or 5 years.

You should find material also about our companion diocese partnership with The Diocese of Christ the King, South Africa.

Many other TEC diocese and churches work with Global South dioceses and churches in partnership relationships.

Go to the website of Episcopal Relief and Development, which provides both relief from natural disasters and long term development grants, working closely with the people who live in the places ERD works in. They provide useful things like water purification systems and anti-malaria treated mosquito nets, and long range development projects.

Our region within the Diocese of Virginia did have a relationship with a diocese in Uganda. When the bishop whom we knew retired, his replacement did not respond to our attempts to continue the relationship. His choice, not ours. It saddened us.

Joe, no need to beg for anything! Look back at the number of times I have done exactly what you did. We all do this because we feel passionate about what we believe and feel deeply hurt and angry at the actions of "the other side". Trust me, your anger and hurt at the actions of TEC are very much like mine at the actions of people like +Akinola. I can't speak for +Kolini as much, but from what I know, he's not much better, yet you think highly enough of him to put yourself under his pastoral care. But, you still haven't given any evidence of TEC doing anything to force those in other provinces to do as TEC does. Do you actually have evidence for that, or is it something you have heard said and, in your anger at what you see as the rest of the Church turning away from what you believe to be the faith, you accepted on face value what you perhaps ought not to have accepted? I know I have done the same thing on many occasions, from my side of the fence. You are not the first to make the claim that the "listening process" is not about finding ways to make homosexuality not a sin. Yet I meant what I said. It is the consistent refusal of conservatives to listen to gay people that tells me quite clearly that their much vaunted "concern" for our salvation, their desire to, as +Akinola said, "love them more than that" is at best a delusion, and more likely an outright lie. If they were so concerned about our salvation they'd listen to find a better way of preaching their message. You asked how to convince people here that conservatives don't hate us. Show us some conservative statements about those on "the other side" that actually show any sense of love for us at all. Show me one thing +Akinola or +Kolini have said that shows any love for gay people or their supporters. Back up your claim that TEC is forcing others to their viewpoint. Demand that those who lead GAFCON stop lying about us. There's no need to resort to lies, threats, denunciations, and slander, yet, that is all I ever see coming from GAFCON and their ilk, so how does that show me anything but hatred for me and those who seek to include me in the Church?

"Of course, the "listening" clause became (as you're using it now) an opportunity to avoid the claims of scripture instead of a means to help people find freedom from sin." - Joe 21.Jan 8.46 -

Joe, I think here that you may be restricting the meaning of the word 'listening' as being the mere 'hearing' of the case for LGBT and Women's inclusion in the ministry and mission of the Church. It might be better if you were able to try to visualise and dig a little deeper into what the word 'listening' really implies - which is to listen creatively, in a way where any response to what is heard comes as a result of actually 'thinking about' what is being said. This, I fear, is where that request for all parties to listen to one another, which came from the Lambeth Conferences, has been sold short. Worse, it has not been adhered to by people like yourself, who refuse to constructively dialogue.

One of the problems with the 'sola scriptura' school, of which you seem to be a paid-up member, is that they generally are not disposed to take a fresh look at what the tenor of Scripture is telling us today about aspects of human nature that were not known by the writers and compilers of the Canon of Scripture at the time.

As Pat O'Neill reminds us, the Anglican Churches are not bound to the 'Sola Scriptura' philosophy -where Scripture trumps both Tradition and Reason. This is why competent theologians within our Anglican Communion have advised us all to listen -not only to members of the LBGT community and women aspirants to the Sacred Ministry - but also to "What the Spirit is saying to the Church". If this latter exhortation, which has been given to us to say after each of the Scripture Readings in Church, is to really mean what it says; we must surely be prepared for the Holy Spirit to 'lead us into all the Truth' as Jesus prophesied would happen. Note, all truth about God's relationship to humanity had not yet been revealed at the time Jesus made this statement, so what makes you want to enshrine the Scripture as the sole repository of the revelation Jesus spoke about?

To believe that the Scriptures were God's last and final word to the Church, when even the Word-made-flesh has counselled the Church to wait upon what the Holy Spirit might yet reveal to us of The Truth about God, and God's relationship to humanity, seems to relegate the work of the Holy Spirit to past ages - a philosophy of the 'God is Dead' school of theology.

" which is to listen creatively, in a way where any response to what is heard comes as a result of actually 'thinking about' what is being said. "

Well said.
True listening enables you to see the other person as they are, not as you imagine them to be.
True listening takes the other seriously and recognises them in their whole complexity.
True listening can result in you disagreeing with the other person, while respecting them and their integrity.

A wee parable:

We were recently driving with friends to a party in Edinburgh. We weren’t entirely sure of our way so the faithful satnav was pressed into action. The destination was entered, routes and estimates of distance and time of arrival were calculated and we were on our way.

However, as we passed the south end of the Forth Road Bridge things started to go slightly awry. The satnav was telling us (in its very pleasant and persuasive voice) to take the first exit at the roundabout in 100 metres. Unfortunately, it was plainly obvious that there was no roundabout.

Eventually, after a couple of U-turns and paying slightly more attention to the road signs we managed to get back on track.

We read regularly of drivers getting stuck in fords across rivers or lorry drivers ending up unsuitable single track roads because they have religiously followed the instructions from their satnav. Now I know how this happens.

It’s not that the satnav was wrong, or had lost its way. The signals from the satellites above were still telling the unit exactly where we were, north was still somewhere over Fife, the party was waiting for us but we hadn’t noticed that the landscape and the signs along the way had changed.

The eternal positional truth of the GPS no longer applied in quite the same way.

It would be easy for the Christian church to treat the Bible the same way that some people use their satnavs, blindly following instructions which applied to a society and situations long gone. The church needs to pay attention to what is going on around it. We are called to watch and pray, after all. Otherwise, we forget to apply the eternal truths we find in scripture and we find ourselves in the cul-de-sac of not applying the kingdom of God’s values of truth, justice and reconciliation. In the past this has led the church to oppose the abolition of slavery or to justify apartheid. Let’s not go there again.

Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life’. We do not travel alone: we have scripture, we have the Holy Spirit and our companions to guide us.

Oh, and the party was great and we got home safely. Like other wise men from the east, who had received a word from the Lord, we went home by another route.

"to listen.....but also to "What the Spirit is saying to the Church"

In fact, Fr. Ron, I think this is where the problem lies. Conservatives don't, for various reasons, including their mistaken understanding of the role of Scripture in the faith, believe that TEC is listening to what the Spirit is saying. I have to admit, I have my misgivings as well. I just finished talking on another thread about what seems to be the attitude in TEC, and to a great extent in Canada, that we get together and vote on what we think is right, with little concept that we ought to be getting together and voting on what we think the Spirit is saying to us. Now I'm not saying that IS exactly what's going on, which is why I have misgivings instead of agreeing outright with the conservatives. But it sure looks that way sometimes. It's made worse by the lack of confidence in the left wingers to actually make their point. There is a deep discomfort with the mystical and the supernatural that precludes the more powerful arguments for what they are saying. I don't see that kind of thing in either the ABpofC, or the TEC Presiding Bishop, and that gives me hope. KJS, especially, seems to radiate this sense that God is above all this, that our actions in this whole mess just make the Baby Jesus cry, and that God's right will out in the end, even if all of us only perceive it dimly.

"Oh, and the party was great and we got home safely. Like other wise men from the east, who had received a word from the Lord, we went home by another route." - Kennedy Fraser -

What a lovely parable, Kennedy! Perhaps we need much more parabolic teaching in the Church. After all, Jesus used parables to convey truth much deeper than the basic message of the words. This, I believe, is how we need to treat our study of the Scriptures - treating them as parable, rather than (sometimes questionable) historical facts.

It's good that, like the Three Wise Men from the East, you 'returned another way' - led, this time presumably by the same reliable guide as they -"It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and us..." - words from Scripture. - Agape -