Judgement has been delivered in the High Court case brought by several trade unions. For the background read my earlier note here.
Press Association via the Independent Unions lose ‘faith-based’ equality fight
Trade unions today lost their High Court battle for a ruling that new equality regulations are flawed because they fail to protect lesbian and gay workers from discrimination by “faith-based” employers.
A judge upheld the legality of the Government’s 2003 Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations and refused to condemn them as “incompatible” with European law.
Christian groups, including the Evangelical Alliance, Christian Schools Trust and Christian Action Research and Education (CARE), all intervened to resist the union challenge, which was brought against the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
The evangelicals - who believe homosexuality is contrary to scripture - argued that Christian organisations had the right to formulate and apply their own policies regarding the employment of gays as clerics and as teachers in faith schools.
BBC Unions lose sex equality ruling
In his ruling, Mr Justice Richards refused to rule that the equality regulations were “incompatible” with European law.
He said: “To treat the regulations as reducing the level of protection (from sex discrimination) seems to me to require a distorted view of their effect.”
However, in recognition of the importance of the case, he gave the unions, which include Amicus, Unison and the RMT, leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal.
Separately, the unions - in an action co-ordinated by the TUC - unsuccessfully challenged provisions which they said enabled employers to exclude same-sex couples from pension and benefits rights currently enjoyed by heterosexual married couples.
Update - further newspaper reports
Guardian Faith schools cannot sack teachers for being gay, court rules
Telegraph Unions lose court plea over gays and church jobs
Here is a slightly more technical news report from HR Gateway (registration required) Unions lose sexual orientation inequality case
Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC said today that judge’s verdict was ‘disappointing’. “Important issues are at stake. No one should be treated differently because of their sexuality,” he said.
Unions will be consulting their legal teams over the next few days, said the TUC today, to “try and figure out the next move”. The individual unions need to make a decision whether to fight the case in the Court of Appeal.
Campaign group Stonewall told HRG today that it was “deeply disappointed” by the outcome of the case. The Government had given religious organisations a “licence to discriminate”, it said, while same sex couples still lose out on pension rights.
A further note from HR Gateway is here
The full text of the ruling is online here. (Warning:this is a very large document)
I reported earlier on the tribunal case to be brought against the Apostleship of the Sea. The BBC has a radio segment on this today, which can be heard here with Real Audio.
Legal action against Catholic Charity
A Gay man is taking legal action against a Catholic Charity for refusing to employ him. His case will provide an important benchmark - testing new government legislation which outlaws discrimination against homosexuals. It also challenges the limits of an exemption to the legislation granted to religious organisations.
Update
The Guardian carried this report on 27 April, Charity to face tribunal over gay employment law.
Below is the full text of the CAPA statement issued in Nairobi on 16 April 2004.
The press release said:
Primates resolve to multiply efforts of fortifying CAPA and African Theology
By Justus Waimiri
Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA) Primates met in Nairobi on Wednesday and Thursday this week, and agreed to strengthen the financial position of the African Provinces and CAPA secretariat.
A statement issued at the end of the meeting that went late into Wednesday night and Thursday morning, said the Primates were encouraged by the outcome of the meeting, in which they affirmed the role of CAPA in uniting African Provinces.
They agreed to develop the available economic and organisational resources, and to increase their commitment to CAPA.
The Primates also deliberated on the development of an African Theological and Doctrinal Commission, and agreed to forge ahead with the initiative.
The meeting was attended by Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who is also CAPA Chairman, Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, Archbishop Fidele Dirokpa of Congo, Archbishop Joseph Marona of Sudan and Archbishop Bernard Malango of Central Africa.
Others were The Rt Revd Nicodemus Okille of Uganda, Rt Revd Dinis Sengulane of Southern Africa, Rt Revd Mouneer Anis of Egypt, and Rt Revd Jean Claude of Indian Ocean.
Regarding the controversial sexuality issues, the CAPA Primates affirmed the Lambeth resolution of 1998 and the previous CAPA Primates meeting of September last year, that opposed appointment of openly gay people to church ministry.
However, the Primates expressed faith and “prayerful support” to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and the Lambeth Commission established by him to study the appropriate measures to take after the controversial consecration of Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop of the Episcopal Church of United States (ECUSA), New Hempshire.
The Primates and Bishops also discussed the stalemate that followed the retirement of Archbishop Robert Okine of West Africa, and expressed hope that the issue would be resolved soon. They said they would avail themselves as CAPA if called upon to mediate any contentious issues.
The meeting said it was encouraged by the peace process in the Sudan, and thanked the Government of Kenya for its role in bringing the warring factions together. A special message will be delivered to Kenya’s President, Mwai Kibaki.
On Rwanda, the Primates congratulated the reconciliation going on in the country, and pledged their support.
Below is a full text the CAPA Primates Statement:
CAPA PRIMATES’ STATEMENT
We CAPA Primates meeting in Nairobi on 14th April had a very constructive discussion of the issues that concern our church in Africa. We are encouraged by the outcome of the meeting in which we affirmed the importance of the ownership of CAPA and furthering its development. We therefore recommended the following steps;
a) To work hard to develop our economic and organisational resources.
b) To increase the financial contribution to CAPA.
c) To develop our African theological training programme that would equip our ministers with the African spirituality that is based on the scripture.
In regard to the sexuality issues,
We continue to affirm Lambeth resolution 1.10 of 1998 and our statement of the last CAPA meeting as well as the Primates statement of October 2003.
We are committed to prayerful support for the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan William and his leadership to the Communion in this very difficult time. We also pray and support Lambeth Commission set by him to study the appropriate actions towards those in ECUSA who ignored the Primates’ warnings and violated the historical faith and order of the Church by consecrating a non-celibate open homosexual Priest as Bishop.
We appeal to the Commission to consider the serious implications of not taking a strong disciplinary action against ECUSA, which will definitely tear the Communion apart and will badly affect our ecumenical and interfaith relations as a Communion.
The Primates of CAPA reaffirm the statement that was issued in September last year.
We note that some Provinces have already taken action in declaring a broken Communion with ECUSA as an institution, while maintaining communion with individuals who have stayed away from the official position of ECUSA.
Some Provinces have impaired communion with ECUSA.
The Commission is requested to call ECUSA to repentance giving it a three -months period to show signs of such repentance. Failing that, discipline should be applied.
As CAPA Primates we stand firm to what we have decided that if there is no sign of repentance on the part of ECUSA, the consequences will determine the next line of our action.
f) WEST AFRICA
The question of the enthronement of the Primate that did not take place was received with sadness and asked the secretariat to write to the Dean of the Church of West Africa assuring them of our prayers and expressed the availability of CAPA if there will be need for consultation with them.
g) CHURCH OF RWANDA
We congratulate and rejoice with the people and government of Rwanda on the efforts being made at reconciliation.
We support the Primate of Rwanda, the Council of Churches and the Government of Rwanda in their reconciliatory efforts..
Emphasis on the catechistical teaching of the sanctity of human life and the ministry of healing of memories are of great importance for this situation.
h) CHURCH OF SUDAN
The Primates are encouraged by the progress that was made in the peace process in Sudan. We hope and pray that both the government of Sudan and SPLA would reach the final peace agreement.
i) THE MIDDLE EAST
The CAPA Primates are saddened by the continuing violence in the Holy Land and appeal to the international community to intervene to achieve peace for both the Palestinians and the Israeli people.
Our hope is that Iraqi people resume their peace and develop their country under Iraqi government.
The ENS has a detailed report about the news from the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA): Mixed signals emerge from Nairobi meeting of Global South primates.
This refers to a formal statement from CAPA the full text of which I have yet to find published on the web is now available on TA here, although Kendall Harmon has some earlier notes from Nairobi here, here and here. ENS also refers to a separate press statement by Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town, which again I have not seen the full text of yet.
It contains information about the complexity of American financial support to Africa:
It was not clear what would be the immediate effect of Akinola’s declaration that the CAPA primates would not accept donations from certain dioceses within the Episcopal Church.
“All disbursements for mission from the national budget for this year have been made already,” said the Rev. Pat Mauney, director of Anglican and Global Relations (AGR) for the Episcopal Church. “The disbursements are offered without strings attached. If they decide not to accept, we respect their decision.”
Of the 12 African provinces, Nigeria and Central Africa do not request mission funds from AGR. Of the remaining ten, only Uganda has rejected a $7500 grant, and Rwanda has not yet responded for the 2003-2006 triennium. The CAPA secretariat accepted a $16,000 grant from AGR for 2003.
Other mission funds come through wealthy parishes such as Trinity Church in New York and Truro Church in Virginia, as well as independent foundations and mission organizations. Another source is the companion diocese relationship between American and African dioceses and provinces. Currently 19 US dioceses whose bishops voted in favor of the Robinson consecration have formal or informal relationships in Africa, while another 17 whose bishops voted against Robinson have formal or informal links with African dioceses.
In Britain, The Times reported the story African Anglicans spurn gay funding and also gives some figures:
ANGLICAN bishops in Africa are to refuse all funding from dioceses that ordain homosexual clergy and bishops.
The Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa, headed by Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, a leading conservative evangelical, could lose up to 70 per cent of its funding if it acts on the motion passed at a meeting in Kenya this week.
The motion was accompanied by a demand that the Episcopal Church of the United States repent within three months for the ordination of the openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson. The African bishops called also for the Episcopal Church to be disciplined, a demand unlikely to be met because all Anglican provinces are autonomous.
The Episcopal Church alone provides nearly a third of the African council’s annual budget, amounting to $106,000 or £59,000 in 2002.
The council represents 12 national and regional churches in Africa plus the diocese of Egypt. Many of these, as well as other Global South provinces, have already severed ties with the New Hampshire diocese by declaring themselves “out of communion”. But eight provinces have already taken money this year.
Episcopal leaders believe the vote to refuse funds is little more than a symbolic protest. But Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya said the Africans would have to sever links with New York’s Trinity Wall Street, a prominent parish that distributes grants worth millions of dollars.
The Telegraph also has Archbishops reject US cash in gay clergy row.
African archbishops representing more than half the worldwide Anglican Church are to refuse millions of pounds a year from their US counterparts in protest at its first openly gay bishop.
Their action will be seen as another step towards schism over the issue of homosexuality. Many of them are disillusioned with the efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to keep the worldwide Church together, and they are making preparations for a rival Church with an alternative leader.
The most likely candidate, the Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola, said the liberal leadership of the American Episcopal Church must be disciplined for supporting the consecration.
African Churches Take Stand Against Gays
By TOM MALITI
Associated Press Writer
NAIROBI, Kenya
read the full article here
Peter Akinola (pictured right) said:
“If we suffer for a while to gain our independence and our freedom and to build ourselves up, I think it will be a good thing for the church in Africa,” Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria told journalists. “And we will not, on the altar of money, mortgage our conscience, mortgage our faith, mortgage our salvation.”
Update an even later revision of the AP story is here on CNN (thanks KH), with additional quotes e.g.
Akinola said the South African leader, Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town, told him in a telephone conversation Thursday that he supported the stand taken by the other African archbishops.
He added that Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the Bahamas, who listened in on the conversation, “is firmly in support of the views which we are espousing. He made that quite clear.”
The Guardian has a report by Stephen Bates US church ‘must repent’ for gay bishop decision.
The BBC reported all this as African clergy reject ‘gay’ funds
The bishops made it plain that money from like-minded Americans, that is those who oppose the ordination of homosexuals, would not be turned away.
They said they were now conducting a review of how many programmes would be affected by a ban on official donations from the American church.
Archbishop Akinola also said they would take “action they deem necessary” if the US Church failed to “repent” over the ordination of homosexuals within the next three months.
“We shall cross that bridge when we get there,” he said. “We represent more than half of the entire Anglican world. I don’t think anybody would simply want to wish away our opinion”.
Further update
Another report from Nairobi, this from IPS: Africa Rejects Donations From Churches That Support Gay Unions
Africa’s Anglican archbishops have vowed never to receive donations from western churches which support the ordination of gay priests.
“We do not want any money from the Episcopal Church of the United States of America. This is not rhetoric. It is not a matter of a joke. We mean what we say,” the chairman of the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa, Nigeria’s Archbishop Peter Akinola said, as the other clergymen nodded in affirmation.
Akinola was addressing a news conference in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, on behalf of the continent’s 12 archbishops, on Friday. The conference followed a two-day meeting to review the African bishops’ stand on homosexuality. Five archbishops from Latin America, Asia and Middle East also attended the gathering. The church in the four regions does not condone homosexuality.
“Those who have chosen a different path away from Anglican doctrines must repent and come back to the Anglican fold or be kicked out of the communion,” Akinola said. “We have recommended to the Lambeth Commission (in London) to take this clear line of disciplinary action against ECUSA because of what it has done.”
The Press Association issued a news story about the meeting of African and other primates this week, which The Scotsman headlined as shown here:
African Anglican Leaders Revue Gay Stance.
The BBC reported this story as African bishops mull ‘gay’ funds.
The Mail & Guardian in South Africa had more detail African clergy mull funding after gay debacle,
while the South African Star headlined it Anti-gay African bishops to meet over funding.
Update
A longer report in the Durban Mercury Boycott threat over gay bishop contains further quotes from Peter Akinola:
“Already there is a tear of the very fabric of our communion,” Akinola said in a telephone interview this week.
“Last year, we said if the Anglican Church of the United States of America should consecrate that man, it will mean that (it) has pulled out of communion. Ordaining and consecrating an openly gay (man) . . . has amounted to crafting a new template and we can’t log on to that template.”
Capa has about 42 million Anglicans, more than half the world’s Anglicans. Bishops from Latin American and Asia are also expected to attend the meeting today.
“Our brothers in Singapore said no to a meeting that (the US church) would attend in February next year . . . going to that meeting will undermine our position,” Akinola said.
He said the Capa meeting would almost certainly conclude that churches in Africa, Latin America and Asia should refuse to accept donations from Western churches that support the ordination of gay bishops.
About 70% of Capa’s funds come from donations by rich Western churches, mostly based in the United States.
“It is wrong for any bishop to go to them for money,” Akinola said.
“For so many years the church leadership in Africa has been led by the dependency syndrome.
“The goal of Capa is to work for self-reliance, and the question of thinking where to look for money is a thing of the past.”
He said the meeting would also discuss how to accommodate African bishops serving in America who did not support having gay bishops or being part of the US church.
“African Anglicans in America are unhappy to be there.
“We will not force them to be there. We will give them a spiritual home where they want to be,” the primate said.
Further update
African Anglicans to Refuse ‘Gay Cash’ from PA via the Scotsman
African Anglican archbishops resolved today to reject donations from any diocese that recognises gay clergy and will refuse cooperation with any missionary that supports the idea.
It was the latest attack by church conservatives on the consecration of an openly gay bishop in the US state of New Hampshire.
The archbishops, meeting in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, also recommended that the Episcopal Church - the American branch of the Anglican church -, be disciplined and be given three months “to repent” for the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson, an openly gay man.
If the Episcopal church is not disciplined, African Anglicans will be free to take whatever action they see fit, but breaking away from the worldwide Anglican Communion “is not an option”, said Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria.
Yesterday The Times reported some statistics about Britain:
We believe in Easter, but not in going to church
Sixty-three per cent say that they think of Britain as a Christian country. There is a direct correlation between age and these perceptions. Fewer than half (48 per cent) of 18 to 24 year-olds take this view, compared with roughly three quarters of 55 to 64 year-olds (72 per cent) and of over-65s (75 per cent).
This ties in with the findings of the 2001 Census which showed that nearly seven out ten people in England and Wales identified themselves as white Christians.
Moreover, a similar proportion of black people and a half of those of mixed ethnic backgrounds also identified themselves as Christians.
Fewer than two in five (37 per cent) say they will go to a church service at some point over Easter, and 61 per cent say that they will not go. Even so, these answers are almost certainly an exaggeration of probable church attendance (regularly fewer than one in ten on Sundays, though higher over Easter).
People aged between 18 and 24 are half as likely to say they will go to church as over-65s (23 to 50 per cent). However, more than half the public (55 per cent) say that they personally believe that the “Easter story that Jesus rose from the dead is true”. Personal belief in the Resurrection rises from 39 per cent among 18 to 24 year-olds to 64 per cent among the over-65 age group.
Women are significantly more likely than men to say they plan to go to church (42 against 33 per cent) and to believe in the Resurrection (60 against 48 per cent).
Today the Independent reports Clergy need remedial lessons in Bible, says bishop
Church of England clergy have become so blasé about the Bible that they need “remedial” lessons in its meaning, says Dr Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham and the third [sic] most senior figure in the Anglican hierarchy.
In an Easter message he complains about the lack of “biblical literacy” even in established congregations. Speaking to The Independent on Sunday, he also attacked the view of the afterlife held by many worshippers.
“The great majority of people think that ‘going to Heaven when you die’ is the name of the game. Yet it ignores the real message of Christianity. This is about commitment to equality, justice, working in the world in the present, which the old platonic dream really doesn’t give you.
“The Bible story is about resurrection and new creation, not about abandoning this world and going off to some disembodied, platonic place called Heaven. Most people in the church have only a sketchy idea of what the biblical world is like.”
and also Prince’s glorious prayer book at risk from ‘dumbing down’
Defenders of Book of Common Prayer warn of ‘piracy’
Foreign imitations are confusing worshippers and destroying the authority of the original, says the Prayer Book Society (PBS), whose influential backers include its patron, the Prince of Wales.
Alternative “Books of Common Prayer”, couched in contemporary language have sprung up around the Anglican world, and from next month, worshippers in the Church of Ireland will be told to use yet another new publication, still titled the Book of Common Prayer.
Now the PBS has issued a call to arms, predicting that correct use of the book will soon be confined to “a minority” and urging its 16,000 members to “act now to prevent this development”.
The society describes the new publications as “acts of piracy” and “breaches of the Trades Descriptions Act”.
The Labour MP Frank Field, a PBS member, is also concerned. “New ordinands don’t actually know the Book of Common Prayer or how to use it,” he said.
The 1662 version is still in use in England, where the modernised service book - including parts of the original - is labelled Common Worship.
But elsewhere in the Anglican Communion, there is no such distinction and new books are given the old title.
“This is clearly ‘passing off’, if not breach of copyright,” protests Roger Evans, PBS chairman, former Conservative MP and a barrister specialising in ecclesiastical law.
The Rev Dr Peter Toon, a PBS spokesman, said that the changes have serious theological implications, as the prayer books are the “standard of doctrine” for Anglicans.
“People will accept the notion of common prayer on the American and Irish models, ” he said.
The Church of Ireland says that its new book contains both new and traditional liturgy: “The Church is again to have one unifying book of common prayer, including within its covers material in both traditional and contemporary language.”
We seem to have the first instance of an Employment Tribunal case relating to the new regulations. The Independent and The Tablet both report the case.
Tablet
Gay man denied job as chaplain to seafarers
A gay man is taking legal action against a Catholic charity which he alleges withdrew a job offer on the grounds that he was in a homosexual relationship.
The man had been verbally offered a post as a lay chaplain with the Apostleship of the Sea (AOS) when he disclosed to them that he was living with his partner. His case will test new government legislation which outlaws discrimination against homosexuals in the workplace. It will also challenge the effectiveness of an exemption granted to religious organisations.
The 27-year-old man, who has asked to remain anonymous, says he is determined to fight the AOS decision and has taken his case to an employment tribunal. For its part, the AOS believes it was fully justified in its decision not to employ an active homosexual in a pastoral role. The AOS is an agency of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales and is concerned with the spiritual and social welfare of seafarers.
The charity’s National Director, Commodore Chris York, confirmed that he offered the man a job as a port chaplain before he knew he was homosexual. York told The Tablet that during a discussion about where he would be based, the man disclosed that he could not be completely flexible because he had a lease on a house and was in a relationship with another man.
Independent
Gay man sues Catholic church for withdrawing job offer
The Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations, which came into force in December, make it illegal to discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation. But the change has been a matter of controversy for religious groups, which maintain that their churches, schools and charities should be free to turn down non-believers and other applicants who do not conform to church teachings.
Pressure from faith groups helped to force a special exemption from the regulations, but this exemption has already been taken to judicial review in the High Court by a group of unions, including Amicus, which has a section for clergy. A decision is pending. It is understood that a second employment challenge to the Catholic church using the same legislation is in the pipeline.
The Guardian prints a column by Giles Fraser The dry eyes of deep grief
and Stephen Bates reports that Churches take ritual of Passion on to the streets.
The Times has an editorial The Passion. Two excerpts from this appear below.
Extreme sacrifice and extremism
Given the suffering which so many endured during the 20th century’s age of extremes, the ebbing of faith in certainties might seem to be a welcome development. And for many contemplating what has been done in the name of religion in Iraq this Holy Week, the influence of a highly politicised form of faith must seem almost wholly malign. If this is what mankind does in the grip of religious fervour, then many will yearn for a world without such passion.
On this day, however, we are called to remember a passion of a different kind, and the extremes to which one man was driven because of faith, and draw a very different message. The Easter narrative helps us to understand that what the world needs is not a retreat from faith, and religion’s moral codes, but an approach towards the mystery of creation marked by the humility of Jesus and infused by the sympathy that He showed to all mankind.
The journey to Calvary that Jesus made was, however, for them as much as anyone. He confronted the ultimate extreme - a painful death and the cries of the world jeering in His ears - to prove that compassion can triumph over calculation, and that sacrifice can redeem sin. He required a faith that might be considered so strong as to be extreme. But His quiet adherence to the principle of love, and the willingness to sacrifice His interests for others, and then His Resurrection, completed a symbolic but real journey, and began a new phase of human spirituality.
The extremists who challenge our peace this Easter come not as Jesus did, to redeem, but as His tormentors did, to uphold an arid purity and proclaim a vengeful power. Their faith is a political religion, like fascism or Marxism, their vision is exclusive and self-indulgent, and their hands are clenched round a gun. The faith of Jesus was of a very different kind: His outstretched hands on the Cross were there to embrace all mankind. If the world is to overcome the dark passion of those whose hate drives them to violent extremes, it can only be helped by contemplating the message of compassion from the One who went to the ultimate extreme for love.
The Diocese of Sydney made news in Australia recently because of the questionnaire that all candidates for ordination, or clergy seeking to become licensed in that diocese, are required to complete.
The Australian Priests forced to reveal sexual past
Sydney Morning Herald New priests to be quizzed over sexual history
ABC Radio Anglicans use questionnaire to weed out potential paedophiles
ABC Bishop stands by sex questionnaire
Today, the Church Times publishes further reports on this, at Sydney probes clergy sex-lives and also publishes the full text of the questionnaire itself. The text of the covering sheet entitled “Privacy Statement” is shown below.
I will have more to report on this topic soon.
ARCHBISHOP’S OFFICE PRIVACY STATEMENT
The Archbishop’s office respects your privacy.
The Archbishop’s office is responsible for supporting the Archbishop in discharging his episcopal functions and also administers the diocesan Registry, Professional Standards Unit and diocesan Archives.
We usually collect personal information such as a person’s name, age, contact details, occupation and family details to discharge these functions but we may collect other personal information as well. We use this information for the proper administration of the Diocese including assessing ordination applicants, licensing clergy and lay people for ministry in the Diocese, administering professional standards within the Diocese and recording significant historical events in the diocesan archives. When we collect sensitive information, as defined in the Privacy Act, we will collect it with your consent when required to do so by law.
We may share your information with other entities who are members of the Anglican Church of Australia usually within but sometimes outside the Diocese of Sydney. We will handle such personal information in accordance with the standards set out in our Privacy Policy.
The Archbishop’s office may disclose your personal information to third party service providers, agents or contractors such from time to time to help us to provide our services. If we do this, we generally require those parties to protect your personal information in the same way we do.
We use a variety of physical and electronic security measures including restricting physical access to our offices and the use of firewalls and secure databases to keep personal information held on IT systems secure from misuse, loss or unauthorised use or disclosure.
Where appropriate, we will handle personal information relying on the small business exemption.
Generally, you can access personal information we hold about you. If we deny your request in some circumstances we will tell you why. Please contact the Registrar at Level 1, St Andrew’s House, Sydney Square, Sydney NSW 2000 or on 9265 1519 or at pselden@sydney.anglican.asn.au to ask for access to your personal information, if you have a complaint about the way we handle your personal information, or if you would like more information about our approach to privacy, other members of the Anglican Church of Australia or our third party service providers, agents or contractors.
Peter Akinola spoke out again. The Associated Press reported it, for example Africa’s Top Anglican Warns U.S. Church.
Archbishop Peter Akinola said the future of true Anglicanism in the United States lies with conservative minority opposition groups within the Episcopal Church who oppose gay marriage and the church’s approval of an openly gay bishop. The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion.
Akinola also said in a telephone interview that unless conditions change, he will not attend meetings alongside the leader of the Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, or attend the 2008 meeting of the world’s Anglican bishops if the U.S. hierarchy participates.
Akinola underscored his support of the conservative minority over the weekend when he met in Atlanta with leaders from the two main U.S. organizations that oppose toleration of homosexual activity: the American Anglican Council and the recently formed Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes.
Akinola said the Episcopal Church “is trying to redefine Christianity and rewrite Scripture, and we have no right to do that. The historic faith of the church is what we stand by, and there is no going back.”
In the archbishop’s view, although those who favor liberal policies on homosexuality have a clear operating majority in the U.S. church, he strongly backs the minority and its new network.
“It’s either repent and come back to the fold, or give up on the Anglican family,” he said.
Another blogger, Fr Jake, has reminded his readers about Peter Akinola’s past statements, which saves me the trouble of doing so too.
Kendall Harmon describes this as Akinola under Fire.
And read this about Nigerian religion, from a Lagos newspaper: Nigerians Only Pretend to Be Religious — Mbang
Nigeria is said to be the most religious nation in the world. How do you react to such a report?
I’ve talked about this several times. We have so many churches on the streets, in fact in every street, you have a church, but that doesn’t make a country religious. It is the quality and calibre of people you have that can make you describe a country as being religious. The kind of people we have in Nigeria, with all these killings and corruption at the high and low places, it is difficult to say that Nigeria is religious or it may be religious through other religions; talking of Nigeria being a religious country outside Christianity and Islam, maybe you can say so. People in these two religions, they pretend to be very religious but when they go into their offices, it’s a different story. Most of these people who kill people, come to our churches and when they come to take Holy Communion, they will walk very holy and shout holy, holy, and you don’t know them. So that’s the problem, and I’ve raised the issue at various occasions I have gone to. What Nigerians need to work for is to see how they can produce quality God-fearing people, Christians after God’s heart. We have very few of them in Nigeria today.
Stephen Bates reported in the Guardian some time ago now:
Bishop gives warning on equality law.
A Church of England bishop has stepped out of line with his colleagues by warning religious organisations not to campaign too vociferously for exemptions from equality legislation to avoid having to employ gay or transgender people.
David Walker, the Bishop of Dudley, warned that if faith-based groups campaigned too hard to be allowed to employ only those who shared their religious beliefs, they risked losing their special status in society.
Here is a fuller version of what David Walker said on this subject.
Completely unrelated to the above, I found this story from Uganda about Equality in Norway:
So Many Rights Yet So Far From Utopia. The whole report is interesting, but I can’t help mentioning that Norway has had a woman bishop since 1993.
The Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, is in Pittsburgh this week. He was interviewed just before he left England by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette resulting in this: Visiting bishop wants end to rhetoric on gay clergy.
His quoted remarks here, comparing ECUSA to the Bush administration, have provoked considerable criticism in America. In fact they are quite similar to earlier expression of his views. See for example, That special relationship in the Guardian last October.
However, the Pittsburgh story does contain some rather odd details. Leaving aside for now all the issues arising from the comparison with the Bush administration, just consider the ECUSA facts.
He compared that action to the Episcopal Church’s consecration of an openly gay bishop against existing church polity. “So why should the world listen to the [Episcopalians in the] United States when changing Episcopal Church law?” he asked. “It is bound to be perceived as, ‘There you go again.’ It’s more of the same.”
But the consecration of Gene Robinson as a bishop in ECUSA is not against “existing [ECUSA] church polity” and the only relevant changes to “Episcopal Church law” were made several years ago. Specifically:
1. The canons of ECUSA were modified by General Convention in 1994:
All Bishops of Dioceses and other Clergy shall make provisions to identify fit persons for Holy Orders and encourage them to present themselves for Postulancy. No one shall be denied access to the selection process for ordination in this Church because of race, color, ethnic origin, sex, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, disabilities, or age, except as otherwise specified by these Canons. No right to ordination is hereby established.
Title III, Canon 4, Section 1 of the Constitution and Canons for the Government of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, p. 60
2. Then in 1996, an ECUSA ecclesiastical court ruled that retired Bishop Walter Righter had violated no church law or “core doctrine” when he ordained (back in 1990) a non-celibate homosexual man. The court therefore declined to consider further the heresy charges that had been made against him (by ten bishops, many of whom are those now forming the NACDP). The bishops chose not to appeal the decision.
3. And for good measure, in 1997, the ECUSA General Convention approved health benefits for domestic partners to be extended to the partners of clergy and lay employees in dioceses that wish to do so.
So, it is hardly surprising that, seven years after the Righter judgement, a non-celibate homosexual has been consecrated as a bishop in ECUSA. Much of the comment about the Robinson case has related to the events of 2003 (election, confirmation, consecration), all of which were conducted entirely in accord with existing ECUSA requirements and involved no changes in church law. But the initial eligibility of the candidate for the office was established in law long before that. Surely the time for complaining about any of the changes listed has long since expired?
A letter, written by ECUSA Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, to Archbishop Robin Eames in his capacity as Chairman of the Lambeth Commission has been published on the web. The PDF original is on the Lambeth Commision site.
You can read the full text here. (Note that the use of boldface for one section is an editorial action of that website, not something in the original letter).
This very interesting letter recounts events in the history of ECUSA leading up to Gene Robinson’s election and consecration. I noticed in particular:
Ten years ago at the General Convention in 1994 a resolution was passed amending the canons such that “no one shall be denied access to the selection process for ordination in this Church because of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, disabilities or age.”
and also
When we met at Lambeth the primates asked me if I couldn’t have intervened and stopped the consecration. I made it clear that I could not because of the canonical realities by which I am bound, and that it is my responsibility to uphold the decisions formally made by the church.
Meanwhile, a meeting took place in Georgia of representatives of several groups of moderate Episcopalians who live in conservative (typically “Network”) dioceses and are worried that the NACDP will not stay within ECUSA. See this Associated Press news report: Episcopal groups try to mend break over gay clergy issue.
The press release is copied below.
EPISCOPALIANS UNITE IN ATLANTA MEETING
Episcopalians from 11 dioceses across the United States have joined together to promote unity within the national church.
The alliance, named Via Media USA, represents laypeople and clergy from grassroots organizations that hold diverse opinions about many issues facing the church but are solid in their desire to remain in communion with The Episcopal Church of the USA and the worldwide Anglican Communion. The name - “via media” means middle way - reflects the group’s focus on preserving the church and its traditional openness to differing interpretations of scripture, tradition and reason.
“There is room for everyone in the Episcopal Church,” said The Rev. Michael Russell, Rector of All Souls’ Episcopal Church in San Diego, CA, and a member of Episcopal Way of San Diego. “We believe that the Christian way is to love, work and worship together - to resolve disputes within the church without tearing it apart.”
The 12 groups, from California, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, New York, Illinois, Texas, South Carolina, and Florida, met for three days of worship and fellowship during which many members talked about specific concerns in their dioceses. Most of the groups are in the minority in the leadership of their dioceses, many of which have joined a newly formed network. Via Media USA has ongoing concerns that the network’s actions may ultimately result in schism within the national church.
“We learned about and from each other, drawn together in fellowship,” said Dr. Joan Gundersen of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh. “Some people who were feeling isolated now feel supported. This meeting has helped us move closer together and has given us a better working relationship.”
The organization of Via Media USA is in its preliminary stages and all of the represented groups will be consulting with their own members in coming weeks about how to move forward. Two observers from The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council attended the meeting and Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold sent a letter that encouraged the group’s efforts to promote unity.
“The diverse center is the overwhelming reality of our church and its voice is urgently needed, both within the church and in our fractured and polarized world,” Griswold wrote.
First, several reports of his Easter message to Canterbury diocese (the text of which is not on the diocesan website today):
Sunday Times Hell is Footballers’ Wives, says archbishop
BBC Archbishop’s despair at TV soap
Observer Archbishop sees our sin in Footballers’ Wives
Independent The Archbishop and the ‘Footballers’ Wives’
But better than all that, and tucked away in Christina Odone’s Observer column is this:
Grace and favour
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, came to lunch at the New Statesman last week. We had been trying to guess whether His Grace was the first head of the Church of England to lunch at the New Statesman since its founding in 1913. Had Kingsley Martin invited William Temple during his editorship? Had Paul Johnson invited Michael Ramsay? Whatever the precedents, Dr Williams confounded all prejudices, proving so interesting, intelligent and humourous that even Peter Wilby, our determinedly secular editor, confessed to being impressed. Before the meal, the archbishop intoned a short but eloquent grace, while the rest of the guests - who included Michael Portillo, Adhaf Soueif, Suzi Leather, Zeinab Badawi and Susie Orbach - bowed their heads. After everyone had left and we were conducting our usual postmortem (whom could we commission to write which incendiary piece?), Peter asked me in which language had the archbishop delivered grace. Had it been Latin? Or Aramaic, now revitalised by Mel Gibson? No, it had been in English, I replied, puzzled. Then it came to me, in a blinding flash: words such as ‘trinity’, ‘sacred’, ‘sanctity’, ‘heavenly’, and ‘holy’ have fallen into such disuse that Peter couldn’t recognise them as English.
The BBC had a radio interview: Listen with Real Audio.
Carey and the clash of civilisations
Were Dr. Carey’s criticisms of Islam valid, and should he have made them? Talking to Brian Baron the following day, Lord. Carey said his remarks had been taken out of context and called the criticism “simplistic”.
Interview with Lord Carey, and discussion with Patrick Sokdeo, Director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity and by Sahid Bleher, General secretary of the Islamic Party of Britain.
Meanwhile, the Sunday Times columnist Atticus had this:
Atticus: Kilroy Carey makes up with Muslims by upsetting gays.
George Carey, the Church of England’s answer to Robert Kilroy-Silk, has obviously not lost the incisive diplomatic skills for which he was renowned while Archbishop of Canterbury. Trying to smooth over the row about his remarks on the Muslim world, he has reopened the argument that is most bitterly dividing Anglicans, that of homosexual priests.
The former archbishop, waded in with his ecclesiastical hobnailed boots while telling Gavin Esler, on Newsnight, of the dialogue he has had with the Islamic world.
“Muslim leaders are not afraid to talk to me about western excesses,” said Carey. “They have expressed their great condemnation of practising homosexuality in the church, particularly in the United States. I hear those criticisms. They are rightly made.”
In an echo of the newspaper article that lost Kilroy-Silk his job, Carey said in a lecture earlier last week that Islamic culture was authoritarian and had contributed little to world culture for 500 years.
He insists: “I’m a friend of Muslims. I know many of them by name.”
Perhaps, but they probably won’t be inviting him round to celebrate the end of Ramadan.
And the Sunday Telegraph had this editorial comment: Leap of faith
Lord Carey’s speech revealed that he is after all a man of strong views, many of which he evidently suppressed when Archbishop of Canterbury. The question remains, however: why was he so paralysed by caution when actually in the job that would have allowed him to make a difference?
In the Independent, columnist Henry Porter wrote What God condones this?. Worth a read.
A number of important additional documents are now available on the website of the Lambeth Commission.
Most are only available as PDF files. Two key items are:
Some Legal and Constitutional Considerations
Paper by John Rees, submitted to the Primates Meeting, October 2003 (100k) download here
Communion and Autonomy in Anglicanism: Nature and Maintenance
Norman Doe (245k) download here
But there are also numerous other items. Take a look.
First, if you have trouble reading the full text of George Carey’s lecture on The Times website, here it is courtesy of the Diocese of Bradford.
Now reactions in the British press:
Independent Carey dismisses ‘simplistic’ criticism of controversial speech about Islam
Guardian Muslim dismay at Carey speech by Stephen Bates and
The right answer or the wrong question? by Brian Whitaker
Telegraph Muslims hit back following attack by Carey and
‘Islam has helped civilised world for 1,400 years’
The Times Muslim leaders hit back at Carey ‘bigotry’. Some extracts from this one:
Muslim leaders in Britain accused the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton, of “bigotry” and “religious prejudice” after he accused Islamic societies of being authoritarian and committed to power and privilege.
They called on the present Archbishop, Rowan Williams, to condemn his predecessor’s views, expressed in a public lecture at the Gregorian University in Rome.
Lord Carey, seen for more than a decade as a friend and supporter of Muslims, aroused anger and disbelief by his speech, in which he said that Muslim societies were often led by people who rose to power “at the point of a gun”. He also criticised Muslim leaders who failed to unequivocally condemn suicide bombers.
His lecture threatened to cast a shadow over a three-day conference of Christian and Muslim scholars from across the world in Washington next week, which is being convened by Dr Williams. The archbishop declined to comment officially, but a source described the lecture as a “bolt from the blue”. Church of England leaders played down the remarks last night, emphasising that they were purely personal.
…Lord Carey argued that it was not his intention to be critical. Clearly bemused by the reaction that his speech had provoked, he said that some of his closest friends were Muslims, and described how only last Saturday he was in Hebron where he had lunch with a former leader of Hamas.
…Lord Carey, 69, who has been delivering a course of lectures entitled Unity and Mission, made his comments on Islam in a public lecture at the university under the title Christianity and Islam: Collision or convergence? His speech is the culmination of a lifetime’s fascination with Islam. His views on Islam are, in fact, not uncommon in the Church of England, in particular in the evangelical wing from which he himself emerged.
…One of his most significant achievements, towards the end of his term of office, was a commitment from Jewish, Muslim and Christian leaders from Israel to the Alexandria declaration, a document which pledges all sides to a non- violent search for peace. The declaration states: “Therefore we, the members of the Alexandria permanent committee condemn all and any derogatory remarks directed to the faith, tenets and/or central figures of any of our faiths. Such remarks undermine our efforts and commitments to advance peace between our communities and, in their very character, do harm both to the faith defamed and the very religion in whose name they are made.”
The Telegraph reports that Muslim culture has contributed little for centuries, says Carey
Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, launched a trenchant attack on Islamic culture last night, saying it was authoritarian, inflexible and under-achieving.
In a speech that will upset sensitive relations between the faiths, he denounced moderate Muslims for failing unequivocally to condemn the “evil” of suicide bombers.
He attacked the “glaring absence” of democracy in Muslim countries, suggested that they had contributed little of major significance to world culture for centuries and criticised the Islamic faith.
Dr Carey’s comments, in a lecture in Rome, are the most forthright by a senior Church leader. He was speaking on the eve of a seminar of Christian and Muslim scholars in New York, led by his successor as archbishop, Dr Rowan Williams.
See also Islamic world is violent, says Carey Guardian
Carey attack on Islamic culture The Times
Note to newspapers: the forthcoming seminar is in fact in Washington DC, details here and here.
As previously, Christian and Muslim scholars from across the world will hold detailed discussions over three days. This year speakers will focus on the understanding of prophecy in the two faith communities; through intensive study of Biblical and Qur’anic texts the participants will also address topics such as ‘Prophecy and Conflict’, ‘Prophecy and Society’ and the claims to finality within Islam and Christianity.
Dr Williams said that he hoped the conference would build on the work of previous gatherings:
“Muslims and Christians share the conviction that the God who creates so generously also communicates with his creation, and they see the sending of prophets as a crucial part of that communication. So it’s an exciting prospect for Christian and Muslim scholars to spend three days together studying the different ways in which our scriptures understand prophecy. I look forward to all that we will be able to learn from each other and to the deepening of understanding and of friendship between us.”
Update
The BBC has Carey’s Islam comments condemned.
The Evening Standard has Islam ‘propping up backward despots’.
The Times has the full text of his speech here Carey speech on Islam in full
and also Muslims reject Carey’s ‘anti-Islam’ speech.
Press Association Ex-Archbishop Defends Speech Amid ‘Anti-Muslim’ Row.
No British newspaper reports yet on the bishops’ plan.
Another ENS story not yet noted here is
Bishops repudiate irregular confirmations in Ohio
which AP reported as Episcopal Bishops Rebuke Conservatives.
Other American newspapers:
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Conservative Episcopalians cool to reconciliation plan
Washington Times (Moonie-owned) Oversight plan ‘silly,’ Episcopal priest says
Houston Chronicle Unauthorized service angers church leaders (AP story with local additions)
San Diego Union-Tribune reports on local Episcopal election in light of all this,
Hunting for a healer
Orlando Sentinel reports on national meeting today of Via Media groups, Episcopalians seek middle ground
And the CEN is published, but went to press before any reports had emerged, so their headline is US Bishops pressured to find a compromise. Still it has a few tidbits, such as:
To add to the problems, four bishops - three members of Forward in Faith and one evangelical - have boycotted the meeting in protest to the presence of Gene Robinson while five bishops have refused to stay at the Conference Centre.
Conference organisers scored a spectacular own goal by placing Bishop Bob Duncan, the leader of the dissenting ‘Anglican Communion Network’ in the same Bible study and prayer group as Gene Robinson, causing Bishop Duncan to withdraw.
Statements have been issued by:
American Anglican Council House of Bishops Approves Inadequate Oversight Plan (this is quite a detailed analysis)
FiFNA FIFNA President declares it unacceptable (no idea why this is not yet on FiFNA website)
Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes HOB Oversight Plan will take ‘extraordinary new levels of trust’ (this is a bit less negative than the AAC commentary)
The Diocese of Pittsburgh has published this note.
Kendall Harmon has published Key Section of the Saturday Afternoon Version of the Plan which shows that at an earlier stage it looked less complicated.
There are lots of individual opinions floating around, which I have not had time to digest yet.
The ECUSA House of Bishops has completed its meeting in Texas and published its proposals for what is now called delegated episcopal pastoral oversight.
Here is the formal statement:
Caring For All The Churches
and here is the press release from ENS that describes the proposal:
Bishops propose plan for delegated episcopal pastoral oversight.
Here is the Associated Press report of this: Bishops Offer New Plan to Gay Dissenters.
“although the vote was not unanimous, an overwhelming majority of the bishops voted in favor of adopting the plan”.
Update
Houston Chronicle report Clergy devises plan to deal with gay bishop split
Washington Post Episcopal Bishops Reach Pact On Dissent
Later version of Associated Press story
Washington Times Episcopalians forge compromise
For basics of the plan, read on…
If for serious cause in the light of our current disagreements on issues of human sexuality, the bishop and rector/congregation cannot work together, we propose the following process for Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight.
1) In the spirit of openness, the rector and vestry, or the canonically designated lay leadership shall meet with the bishop to seek reconciliation. After such a meeting, it is our hope that in most instances a mutually agreeable way forward will be found.
2) If reconciliation does not occur, then the rector and two-thirds of the vestry, or in the absence of a rector, two-thirds of the canonically designated lay leadership, after fully engaging the congregation, may seek from their diocesan bishop, (or the diocesan bishop may suggest) a conference regarding the appropriateness and conditions for Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight.
3) After such a conference the bishop may appoint another bishop to provide pastoral oversight.
4) If no reconciliation is achieved, there may then be an appeal to the bishop who is president or vice-president of the ECUSA province in which the congregation is geographically located, for help in seeking a resolution. Those making such an appeal must inform the other party of their decision to appeal.
5) When such an appeal has been made, the provincial bishop may request two other bishops, representative of the divergent views in this church, to join with the provincial bishop to review the situation, to consider the appeal, and to make recommendations to all parties. If an episcopal visitor is to be invited, that bishop shall be a member in good standing in this Church.
6) When an agreement is reached with respect to a plan, it shall be for the purpose of reconciliation. The plan shall include expectations of all parties,especially mutual accountability. The plan shall be for a stated period of time with regular reviews.
Here is a fragment of information from the ECUSA House of Bishops meeting.
Post Card from Camp Allen
We have started our work on what has been re-named delegated pastoral oversight, and so far it has gone well.
First, the Telegraph on Wednesday carried this account of Rowan Williams and Philip Pullman’s joint appearance at the National Theatre last week:
The Dark Materials debate: life, God, the universe…
Kevin Myers, today, doesn’t like it Dr Williams has made an art of imprecision.
And today also, the Sunday Telegraph reports that Britain’s best organists are lured to America by higher wages.
Another report from last Wednesday, here is a column from the Irish Examiner which comments on what an RC bishop said to an Anglican archdeacon Liberals should stick to the point in debate on non-marital relationships.
No more news yet from Navasota, but more on the Ohio event, via FiFNA, from the person who presided at it: INTERVIEW WITH BISHOP WANTLAND, CELEBRANT IN OHIO.
Michael Bordeaux writes a very interesting article in The Times about religion in Cuba:
Communist Cuba suffers an unorthodox crisis of faith.
Christianity is making an unlikely comeback in Fidel Castro’s isolated island.
Patriarch Bartholomew came to Cuba at the personal invitation of Fidel Castro, who, in his declining years (he is now 78 and was celebrating the 45th year of his accession to power at the same time) is desperate to break out of the long isolation experienced by his country. Castro has seen eight American presidents and seven Soviet or Russian leaders come and go, but his seniority among world leaders does not put him high on anyone’s guest-list. None of the past three archbishops of Canterbury has visited the island and the growing Anglican community is eager to invite the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, to make the trip.
Ruth Gledhill writes in The Times about what the Bishop of Manchester wrote in the foreword to The UK Christian Handbook: Religious Trends published by Christian Research.
Bishop warns Church that it may disappear
(Another story about this appears in the Guardian).
Extract from Ruth’s article:
The Bishop of Manchester, the Right Rev Nigel McCulloch, said that the Established Church was in danger of becoming a minority sect. “We will, unless there is a turn in the tide, be a Church that gradually disappears from this land,” he said.
Bishop McCulloch said clergy were being diverted from their true mission of evangelism by the debate over sexuality, 25 years of church legislation and increasing red tape caused by secular regulations.
“It is almost as if the Devil is in this. It distracts people from what they are meant to be doing,” he said. “Far too many of us are being forced into managing an institution rather than engaging with souls.” The moment that an institution goes down that road, he said, it “has lost its heart, the purpose it was created for”.
Bishop McCulloch said: “The agendas which are imposed on most churches these days are almost deliberately designed to veer them away from what the spiritual issues need to be.” He was speaking to The Times after the latest figures showed plummeting membership across all the churches.
Update Thanks to Nick Ralph for pointing out that this news report was accompanied by an editorial column.
The Times opined on this matter under the title Raise the rafters and here some extracts, but note that it is not a specifically Anglican problem:
Churches need congregations as well as repairs
The irony is, however, that at a time when historic churches are more assured than ever of adequate maintenance, their congregations are dwindling to vanishing point. The Bishop of Manchester, the Right Rev Nigel McCulloch, says that the Established Church is in danger of becoming a minority sect. The latest figures of church attendance confirm the fall in numbers across all denominations and in all parts of Britain. Already there are only 800,000 churchgoers regularly attending Church of England Sunday services - fewer than the number of Muslims attending mosques. In all, the number of church worshippers has fallen more than a million since 1990, to 5.3 million. If the decline continues at this rate, there will be no one left in church by the end of the century.
Some churches have bucked the trend, drawing large congregations either because of their social cachet or in response to evangelical, often charismatic, clergy. But churches on big industrial estates remain almost empty. There is no one answer in a land where religious affiliation is so weak. Part of the problem is the Church’s pre-occupation with dogma and division, at the expense of its moral message; part is because of its incompetence in managing its finances and organising its workforce. The exceptions are the great cathedrals, which are remarkably successful in remaining at the heart of their cities, attracting visitors, worshippers and cash and spreading their influence far beyond their precincts. They should lead the churches’ fight to remain a vibrant part of Britain’s life.
The Church Times summarises the story so far as Bishop of Ohio snubbed over confirmation.
The CEN had this version of events US bishops raise stakes.
Today the Associated Press reports Episcopal Church bishops meet amid unprecedented tension over gay bishop and includes this:
The leading conservative bishop is Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, moderator of a “network” formed in January to unite Episcopal dioceses and parishes that insist upon the traditional Christian teaching against same-sex relationships.
Duncan said some conservative bishops are boycotting the Navasota meeting, some will participate fully and some - like himself - will stay offsite and attend only sessions treating the church fracture.
Here’s another report from the Houston Chronicle (Houston is near where they are meeting):
Bishops to discuss gay ordination
Episcopal retreat held in Navasota; some conservatives to boycott
The retreat will be the first meeting of bishops since the consecration of Robinson, who is expected to attend. A few conservative bishops will boycott the meeting, said Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, a member of the Anglican Communion Network, an organization of conservative dioceses and parishes formed in January.
“Some bishops have decided they cannot in good conscience attend the meeting,” Duncan said in a statement. “Others have agreed to be present only for those sessions in which (oversight) will be discussed.”
Some proposal for providing what the primates called adequate provision for episcopal oversight of dissenting minorities is expected. The last official word on what this might look like was this but…
Exactly what Griswold will propose this weekend to resolve the impasse is unknown, said the Rev. Jan Nunley, deputy director of Episcopal News Service.
“No one has seen it,” Nunley added. “No one knows what the plan is.”
The bishops are expected to take up the issue Saturday and Sunday behind closed doors, but it was unclear whether they would take any official action.
And here’s another note which gives a few details of the meeting agenda.
As noted in my earlier report the National Union of Teachers is participating in the action now under way in the High Court to challenge parts of the new employment regulations. Below is a copy of the NUT Briefing Paper on this.
The Judicial Review is expected to last three days and it is envisaged that judgment will be reserved. I attended part of this morning’s session in Court 10 at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand.
Update Here is the Press Association report on yesterday’s proceedings.
Further update Jonathan Petre filed this account in the Telegraph Unions go to court over anti-gay rules
NUT briefing
On 17 March the High Court will hear a challenge to parts of the new Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003. The NUT claims that parts of the Regulations are unlawful as they have no legal basis in the E.U. Employment Directive which they are supposed to implement, and that they are in breach of fundamental human rights.
The Union’s main concern is that Regulation 7(3) allows too broad a scope for faith-based employers to discriminate against lesbians and gays on the basis of their sexual orientation. The Regulations allow religious organisations to discriminate against some employees if they can show they have done so in order to comply with strongly-held convictions of a significant number of the religion’s followers, or in accordance with the religion’s doctrines. This could allow faith schools a very wide defence to a teacher’s claim of discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, based on the supposed convictions of the religion’s followers.
Voluntary aided faith schools can already take into account whether a teacher has upheld the tenets of their religion under existing provisions in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998.
No union or non-religious interest group was consulted on this provision, which was a last minute change introduced by the government. It did not appear in the previous draft regulations and was not canvassed in the consultation documents published previously.
We are also concerned that the Regulations allow religious organisations to determine whether an employee or applicant is of a particular sexual orientation. They can discriminate if they are reasonably satisfied as to their sexuality even if they are mistaken.
The Regulations will introduce uncertainty, confusion and animosity. Committed teachers in faith schools may become vulnerable to misinformed or over-zealous application of the provisions. Already, some organisations that run independent schools have said that they will use this law to ensure that no lesbians and gays are employed.
The Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice has issued a statement regarding the March 14 confirmation of 110 individuals in Ohio by five retired Episcopal bishops and a diocesan bishop from Brazil without the permission of the local diocesan bishop. The full text of the statement is here. These ten diocesan bishops are elected to represent their geographical regions (“provinces” within ECUSA). Two quotes:
We, the elected members of the Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice, on the eve of the spring meeting of our House of Bishops, are moved to express our strong disapproval of the action taken by five retired bishops of our church who have violated our Constitution and Canons by performing episcopal and sacramental actions in the Diocese of Ohio without first securing the permission of the Bishop of Ohio.
We also note that this action—being in violation of our Constitution and Canons—is contrary to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s understanding of how we are to move forward. As he said in a recent letter to our Presiding Bishop regarding the forthcoming meeting of the House of Bishops: “My hope and prayer is that this meeting will offer generous and constructive ways forward within the constitutional and canonical structures of ECUSA that will guarantee Episcopal care for all and avoid further fragmentation, and the consequent distraction from our main task of proclaiming Christ.”
The “executive committee” of “Anglican Mainstream” is unhappy about a service held in Canterbury Cathedral. So much so that they wrote to both the Archbishop and Dean about it. Here is what they wrote, and here is their press release telling us what they wrote.
The letter was, says the press release, signed by Dr Phillip Giddings, member of the Archbishops’ Council; the Rt Rev Wallace Benn, Bishop of Lewes; the Rev Nicholas Wynne-Jones Secretary of Church of England Evangelical Council; the Rev David Banting, Chairman of Reform; the Rev George Curry, Chairman of Church Society; the Rev John Coles, Chairman of New Wine; Prebendary Richard Bewes, Rector of All Soul’s [sic] Langham Place and Dr Chris Sugden, Director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies.
The replies to this missive should make interesting reading.
Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh and “Moderator” of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes has issued a statement about the event in the diocese next door to his:
Bishop Duncan Supports Ohio Confirmands (press release issued by the American Anglican Council)
“I pray for those newly confirmed and for the congregations from which they were presented. I also pray for the retiring Bishop of Ohio and for the Bishop-elect that they might respond with grace to the canonical irregularities with which they now find themselves confronted,” said Bishop Duncan.
“The joint confirmation service, organized by Episcopalians from five congregations and the members of one Anglican fellowship, was brought about by the failure of the Episcopal Church to provide Adequate Episcopal Oversight for orthodox minorities in revisionist dioceses,” added Duncan.
He goes on to say that the current ECUSA proposals for Supplemental Pastoral Care have been rejected by the Network.
Incidentally, the Network makes the claim that it is “commonly known as the Anglican Communion Network”.
Update
Forward in Faith NA offers its support and prayers to the ‘Ohio cluster’ in less guarded terms, actually mentioning “the bishops who took the pastoral initiative”.
Forward in Faith, North America, the oldest orthodox and traditional organization in the Episcopal Church, offers its support and prayers to both the bishops who took the pastoral initiative to reach out to beleaguered members of the church, and to the clergy and people of the “Ohio cluster.” We believe in the necessity of Sunday’s action as a response that provides Godly leadership and hope for members of the church who remain steadfastly committed to biblical Christianity as practiced in the vast majority of the Anglican Communion.
Starting tomorrow, a legal challenge to the validity of Regulation 7(3) of the Employment Equality Regulations (Sexual Orientation) 2003 will be made in the High Court by the National Union of Teachers and other trade unions. For background on this, see my earlier reports here and here.
The TUC has issued a press release which is mostly about the challenge to the part of the regulations relating to pensions, but buried in the Notes for Editors is the following important item:
The other aspect of the unions’ legal challenge, which involves the NUT as well, relates to regulation 7(3) which allows for sexual orientation discrimination where someone works for an organised religion. The unions are arguing that the law may allow employers to stop gay, lesbian or bisexual people from working at church schools and other religious organisations such as voluntary organisations.
To remind you what Regulation 7(3) says read my Church Times article here and the text of the regulations here.
I will report on this case as it progresses.
Update
Press Association report Unions Oppose ‘Anti-Gay’ Employment Laws mentions some of the Christian groups opposing the unions:
Christian groups, including the Evangelical Alliance, Christian Schools Trust and Christian Action Research and Education, are intervening in the case, which is being brought by the unions against the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
The evangelicals - who believe homosexuality is contrary to scripture - argue Christian organisations have the right to formulate and apply their own policies regarding the employment of gays as clerics and as teachers in faith schools.
Frank Griswold has also responded to the event in Ohio by issuing the following statement.
Update
There is now an ENS press release available: Irregular confirmations in Ohio spark stern response from bishops.
Text of Presiding Bishop’s Statement
By their recent action in the Diocese of Ohio, five of our retired bishops and a bishop from the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil have arrogated to themselves the right to perform episcopal and sacramental acts without the permission of the diocesan bishop. The claim that their action was pastoral and in accordance with a mandate from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates of the Anglican Communion is contradicted by the statement of the Primates last October which states quite clearly that they, “reaffirm the teaching of successive Lambeth Conferences that bishops must respect the autonomy and territorial integrity of dioceses and provinces other than their own,” and that they “call on the provinces concerned to make adequate provision for episcopal oversight of dissenting minorities within their own area of pastoral care,” and that they should do so “in consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury on behalf of the Primates.”
Provisions for “episcopal oversight of dissenting minorities” is thus clearly a matter to be resolved by the province. That is precisely what this church is seeking to do. In consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury and his chancellor, our bishops have been considering a draft plan for episcopal pastoral care which they will address further when we gather for our spring meeting later this week in Texas.
With respect to this forthcoming meeting, the Archbishop of Canterbury said in a recent letter to me, “My hope and prayer is that this meeting will offer generous and constructive ways forward within the constitutional and canonical structures of ECUSA that will guarantee Episcopal care for all and avoid further fragmentation, and the consequent distraction from our main task of proclaiming Christ.”
What is quite clear is that whatever pastoral response is agreed to, it must, as the Archbishop points out, be consistent with the “constitutional and canonical structures of ECUSA.” Here I note that according to our Constitution:
A bishop shall confine the exercise of such office to the Diocese in which elected, unless requested to perform episcopal acts in another Diocese by the Ecclesiastical Authority thereof… [Article II,Sec.3]
Why, I am moved to ask, did these bishops decide that Confirmation of these persons was pastorally necessary at this moment and act without permission of the Bishop of Ohio? Given that the House of Bishops will meet later this week, I can only surmise that their intention is to co-opt the bishops’ agenda and provoke a reaction that will appear sufficiently lacking in pastoral concern for “dissenting minorities” to justify what they have done in the eyes of others. I trust that they will be disappointed in their hope and that the vast majority of bishops of this church—occupying the diverse center—will find a way forward that is clear and just in its principles, pastoral in its approach and responsive to the needs of the church in this present moment.
The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church, USA
March 15, 2004
The bishops of the Diocese of Ohio have responded to yesterday’s event.
On the Extra-Canonical Confirmation Service Held 14 March 2004 in Fairlawn, Ohio
From the Ven. Mark Hollingsworth Jr., Bishop-Elect of Ohio:
I am disappointed that the parish priests from the Diocese of Ohio and the six bishops of the Church who were involved in this service chose to begin their relationship with me, not with direct and honest dialogue, but by acting in this manner. I certainly don’t want anyone to think that this behavior is characteristic of Christian community, especially the young people of those congregations.
An action of this sort, designed to break down the community of faith, has no place in our polity. No one group can define for the whole Church what constitutes an “emergency.” The laity and the clergy of the Diocese of Ohio, meeting in convention last November, clearly articulated their support of an inclusive theology in the larger Church, and their affirmation of its actions in last summer’s General Convention. It is a singular privilege to begin serving with them in this diocese at a time of such great potential for the Church.
From the Rt. Rev. J. Clark Grew, II, Bishop of Ohio
It is unfortunate that five Episcopal parishes, gathering people for sacramental purposes, have felt the need to participate in an unauthorized and clandestine service. I am not yet clear on what prompted such an action, one that was also decided and planned in secret, except perhaps an anxiety on their part caused by having the majority of clergy and parishes in this diocese take up the work of mission at home and abroad after the events of last summer, and center themselves in the gospel imperatives with renewed energy in anticipation of shared service with Bishop-elect Mark Hollingsworth.
It saddens me that these five congregations had to create a disturbance with our common Church polity, in order to focus attention once more on their minority position. There is no crisis in the Diocese of Ohio, except the one created by a group that hopes to hold on to attention that is slipping away as time passes, a group that may use the threat of further extracanonical action as a way to manipulate the House of Bishops in its deliberations on the matter of alternative oversight.
Neither the House of Bishops nor the Diocese of Ohio is likely to be swayed by sudden confrontational actions. Any response by the Diocese of Ohio in this matter will be prayerfully considered and characterized by the life of Jesus himself, who calls us all to unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace.
Thanks to Kendall Harmon for the following press coverage:
Two local radio reports Diane Keough talks to participants and also to ECUSA Communications Director Dan England
Associated Press Conservative Bishops Defy Episcopal Church
Cleveland Plain Dealer Episcopalians exclude bishop
British newspaper websites have carried this Associated Press report:
Conservative Bishops Defy Episcopal Church. What’s going on?
OK, the first story to appear about this was from Beliefnet:
Six Episcopal Churches Move to Split from Ohio Diocese
Then, the American Anglican Council issued this press release
Senior Bishops Cross Diocesan Lines: Confirm 110 at Unprecedented Service
and Kendall Harmon and others published
STATEMENT OF SENIOR BISHOPS AT MULTI-CONGREGATIONAL SERVICE OF CONFIRMATION AND HOLY EUCHARIST. Extract of this below.
I will post more when it appears.
Our presence today is in direct response to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the rest of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, who called for “adequate provision for episcopal oversight” in their statement of October 2003. To date no such oversight has been offered by ECUSA. We represent a spectrum of congregations and Provinces within the Anglican Communion, and our actions represent a spectrum of possible responses to the Primates directive. Our participation in today’s Service represents “emergency measures” for those ECUSA congregations in revisionist dioceses who cannot in good conscience accept the radical actions taken by our General Convention last year and who now find themselves alienated from their bishops and diocesan leadership who voted for and support such actions. Our active bishops are currently seeking means for providing Adequate Episcopal Oversight, and if an acceptable plan is approved, these kinds of measures may no longer be necessary. But right now, we consider these actions an essential and imperative response to a pastoral emergency in Northern Ohio.
In the Tablet David Edwards reviews Anglicanism and the Western Christian Tradition: continuity, change and the search for communion. A sample:
The only major criticism which seems valid is about the book’s title. This is not a discussion about the multiple crisis in “the Western Christian tradition”, and incidentally in “Anglicanism”, which is currently being reported week by week. We are not given wisdom about the massive secularisation of Europe (social and intellectual), about the rejection of ecclesiastical authority by millions who still identify themselves as Christians, about conservatism in response, about the complexities of religion and morality in North America, or about the worldwide and religiously minded backlash against European colonialism and American neo-colonialism.
More defensibly, this is not a book reporting any permanent or totally clear solutions to the problems with which it does deal. It is far from being Anglican propaganda (further than the exhibition was). Professor MacCulloch’s wisecrack that Anglicans have made uncertainty a Christian virtue is spot-on if we substitute controversy for “uncertainty”, since most Anglicans know what they think and have always done so. All these objective experts demonstrate that those who want their Church to be both Catholic and Reformed, and latterly both traditional and modern, cannot do a neat job, and in defence it can be said that Christian diversity begins within the New Testament.
The Sunday Telegraph reports that Gordon Brown will help churches pay the VAT tax on building repairs in this week’s Budget: Brown will ease churches’ VAT bills
The Observer has more about RW’s enthusiasm for Philip Pullman, Bless the archbishop for his bookish tendencies
whereas the Sunday Times columnist Minette Marrin thinks he is quite wrong in his views, Oh lord, even the archbishop is clutching at atheist straws.
The BBC radio programme Sunday has a piece about:
Women priests (listen with Real Audio)
The ordination of women priests was a revolution; over four hundred priests left the Church in its aftermath - though some sixty have since returned. Still, it was in many ways a more peaceful revolution than many people had predicted, because the Church of England continues to make special provision for those who cannot in conscience accept women priests. Ten years on from those first ordinations, with the prospect of women bishops perhaps not so far away, that compromise is coming under increasing strain. Christopher Landau reports.
The Times reports on a new illustrated Bible, A portrait of Jesus by a fresh artist
A FRESH, illustrated Bible hopes to transform the way that children comprehend the Christian scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The Life of Jesus Through the Eyes of an Artist, is designed for children between 7 and 11, and looks at the events surrounding the life of Jesus in an innovative and inventive manner. Due to be published by the Bible Reading Fellowship in July, it is the product of the work of the artist Paul Forsey and the culmination of a lengthy and unlikely personal journey.
At your service visited Southwark Cathedral and heard a sermon by Jeffrey John:
The Old Testament reading was of the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib. Canon Jeffery [sic] John took this as the base of a sermon of piercing intelligence, passion and good humour. He took three ancient and oft-repeated theological arguments for the subservience of woman: her creation from a part of Adam, her creation after Adam and her named status as “helper”, and deftly turned them on their logical heads. If being made later than something makes a thing inferior to it, is Adam lower than water? If being made from something makes you subservient to it, is Adam subordinate to dust? If Eve’s title “helper” is a lower-grade term, why is it used 15 times of God, and why does Jesus present himself as servant helper?
Whatever one’s view on the Jeffery John affair, these are cogent and demanding arguments: strong intellectual coffee for a Sunday morning.
In the Telegraph, Christopher Howse simmarises what the Church Times and its correspondents said earlier regarding What to run up your flagpole and
Jonathan Petre reports: Women priests still held back after 10 years with a sidebar ‘Nobody greeted me except my vicar’
The Guardian has a splendid Lenten meditation by Jane Shaw:
Find your own desert during Lent
Two London newspapers carry reports about Canadian plans in relation to same sex blessings.
The Times Canadian Anglicans move closer to gay ‘marriages’
Telegraph Anglicanism on brink of schism over gay ‘marriage’
From The Times:
THE Anglican province at the centre of a row over same-sex blessings has put in place a plan to allow every diocese to approve gay “marriages”.
The General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada is expected to agree in May that “the blessing of same-sex unions is within the authority of a diocesan synod and that any Canadian Anglican diocese, if the bishop agrees, has the authority to perform such blessings”.
The move is certain to deepen the crisis over gay people in the Anglican Church because it comes while the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth Commission is still in the process of finding a way forward.
And from the Telegraph:
To the dismay of conservatives, it announced that its General Synod would be asked to affirm that there was no bar to Canadian dioceses authorising the blessing of “committed same-sex unions”.
One Canadian diocese has already unilaterally approved a rite for such blessings, and officials believe there is little doubt that the Synod will validate its decision.
Although illicit gay blessings are widespread in the Anglican Church, such a vote would be seen as the first clear endorsement of the practice by an entire province.
Here is the press release from Canada about this: Anglican council crafts motion on same-sex blessings issue
And, of equal importance but little reported in England, here is the report concerning proposals for Alternative Episcopal Oversight. This is a very lengthy document (also available in pdf format here) but contains as its key recommendation a proposal which I reproduce below. This is substantially different from the current English or Welsh arrangements for opponents of Women’s Ordination, and also substantially different from the current ECUSA proposals for dealing with similar matters to the Canadian situation.
6.2 Model #1
6.2.1 In the event that General Synod passes a resolution permitting dioceses to exercise local option on the matter of the blessing of same sex unions, this Task Force recommends that such option be exercised only by a resolution of diocesan synod. In dioceses affirming local option by a resolution of diocesan synod, dissenting and distressed parishes would be given the option of being placed in trust by the Diocesan Bishop. That Trust would be delivered into the hands of a Metropolitan, who then names the AEO bishop assigned by the Metropolitan of the Province. The parish(es) are then delivered into the hands of the AEO bishop by the Metropolitan of the Province. The selection of AEO bishops happens by nomination of the Metropolitans with the concurrence of the majority of the National House of Bishops, and Metropolitans will maintain a current list of such bishops. It is recommended that the AEO be a bishop living in reasonable proximity to the parish(es) requesting AEO. The AEO bishop is designated as Episcopal Assistant to the Metropolitan.
6.2.2 In keeping with the repeated admonition heard by the Task Force that the need for AEO is urgent and that the appointment of an AEO bishop must be temporary, we suggest that the appointment be for a six month term, renewable but not exceeding six years, with a review every two years. This “In Trust” model is similar to a trial separation in a marriage and assumes that there is the will on all sides to repent and work towards reconciliation. This timeframe also permits the church at various levels to continue to pray, study and discern God’s will and allows our Province to consider this subject at two further General Synods, and to receive the outcomes of deliberations from within the Anglican Communion.
6.2.3 This model of AEO assumes a conscience clause for parishes and clergy who decline to bless same sex unions. It is our hope that General Synod would provide such a conscience clause and ensure its continuing availability for parishes and clergy.
The Archdeacon of Dublin, Gordon Linney spoke about homosexuality and gay marriages in Dublin this week. Here is what he said.
This generated press reports such as State must recognise gay civil unions, says top C of I cleric and Gay rites issue threatens an unholy row.
You can also hear a radio interview with Gordon Linney here (Real Audio).
Last week a visitor from Canada had predicted Church of Ireland to bless gay unions which probably did not go down well with his audience, the Evangelical Fellowship of Irish Clergy.
The papers are full of reports about Rowan Williams and his views on Philip Pullman’s work.
Guardian
‘A near-miraculous triumph’ Archbishop Rowan Williams reveals how it felt to see religion savaged and God killed in His Dark Materials
Archbishop praises author accused of blasphemy Stephen Bates comments:
…Archbishop of Canterbury who has risked the wrath of fundamentalists by praising the National Theatre’s adaptation of the author’s His Dark Materials as a “near miraculous triumph”.
Rowan Williams, already regarded with some suspicion by conservative evangelicals for his liberal social views, writes in today’s Guardian: “This extraordinary theatrical adventure sets a creative religious agenda in a way hard to parallel in recent literature and performance.”
The Times
Archbishop wants pupils to be taught tale of wicked priests and a dying God
Independent
Pullman’s ‘blasphemies’ should be part of RE studies, says Archbishop
Telegraph
Williams backs Pullman
BBC
Archbishop wants Pullman in class
What Rowan Williams said in his Downing Street lecture is available in full from his own website:
Belief, unbelief and religious education - Downing Street
Warning: this discussion starts with the arrest of Polycarp in 156.
Update Thursday
The Telegraph has an opinion on all this: Archbishop and atheist
In the recent General Synod debate on Future Use of the Church Commissioners’ Funds the Bishop of St Albans, Christopher Herbert, delivered a speech. The full text is now on the web and can be read here.
It’s well worth reading in full. But it is also worth bearing in mind who was on the working group that produced the report; press reports focused on Andreas Whittam Smith who presented it to the synod, but he was not alone, here is a list of the names, all of whom are responsible for the report:
MEMBERSHIP OF THE SPENDING REVIEW WORKING GROUP
Lady Brentford Third Church Estates Commissioner
Andrew Britton Southwark DBF Chairman and Chair of the Consultative Group of DBF Chairmen and Secretaries
Michael Chamberlain Member of the Archbishops’ Council and Chair of its Finance Division
Philip Giddings Member of the Archbishops’ Council and Chair of its Mission and Public Affairs Division.
The Rt Revd David James Bishop of Bradford
Canon Lyn Jamieson Senior Chaplain to the Bishop of Durham
Andreas Whittam Smith First Church Estates Commissioner and member of the Archbishops’ Council (The Group’s Facilitator)
Now back to what Christopher Herbert said:
…This report is, in my view, another jawbone of an ass: it is clumsy, inept and brutal. It is clumsy because it refers to consultation - (it’s now becoming one of the most slippery words in the Church’s vocabulary): but nowhere in the report does it indicate where changes were made to the text as a result of that consultation. It is clumsy because it arrogates to itself decision-making powers about the distribution of money - and assumes that finance and policy are one and the same.
It is inept because it recommends taking money from Cathedrals, places which are, at the very forefront of mission - and does so in the name of mission.
It is inept because it arrogantly assume that Bishops have nothing to do with mission - when much of my time is spent precisely at points of mission; and treats us as “cost centre” which cannot (and I quote) be “insulated” from cuts.
It is inept because it fails to ask why our costs have gone up and does not explain that being HR departments of dioceses, which our offices largely are, new legislation e.g. on data protection or child protection cannot be instituted without cost.
But above all it is brutal because it joins others in the Church in despising the Bishops as leaders; it despises our rôle in mission; it despises the fact that we have been called by the Church to be Bishops and does so, knowing that for us as Bishops to have to justify ourselves in public is a degrading and humiliating exercise. It is brutality with a smirk.
And it is brutal because it wilfully wants to set one part of the Church against another, Cathedrals v parishes, Bishops v Cathedrals - and there is no concept of Christian fraternity at its heart. No sense of reciprocity.
If I were its author I should want to have the grace to withdraw it now - and then spend time asking before God why such a clumsy, inept and brutal document has been placed before us.
In the interests of solidarity one with another I urge Synod to reject it.
The BBC’s Sunday morning News programme, Breakfast with Frost carried an interview with Frank Griswold, under the title “Gay Marriages”.
You can read the transcript here.
In the USA, the CBS TV programme 60 Minutes interviewed Gene Robinson, under the title “Being Honest”.
You can read about that here.
As usual, the Sunday programme on Radio 4 had some material of Anglican interest.
Women Bishops
Hardly a week seems to go by without threats of schism or at least serious fallings out within the Church of England. This week it’s not about GAY bishops - it’s about WOMEN bishops. The Archbishop of York, Dr David Hope, has said that IF women are allowed to become bishops the church may have to set up a separate “Third Province” for those who disagree. Dr Hope was speaking at a service in Leeds to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Act of Synod that established “flying bishops” to minister to those who rejected the ordination of women. This week - March the 12th - sees the tenth anniversary of the first female ordinations. Cause for celebration for Christina Rees a leading light in the movement to remove the obstacles top women becoming bishops. She’s upset by Dr Hope’s suggestion of a church within a church. Listen with Real Audio
Internet Church
In the divine supermarket that is the world wide web, you can browse for all manner of spiritual products and services. There’s even a Church of Jesus Christ the Shopper. Well now the Church of England is placing itself on the virtual shelves with its first online parish. It’s the brainchild of the Oxford Diocese’s Director of Communications, The Reverend Richard Thomas, who’s placed an ad in this week’s Church Times, for a web pastor - lay or ordained - who has the “ability to work creatively in a new and untested environment.” So for whom is the “I-Church”, as it’s being called, intended? Listen with Real Audio
From the Guardian
Silence on sex is no answer Marilyn McCord Adams
The most serious threat to the Anglican communion is not cross-cultural substantive differences about sexual norms, serious as these are, but the spirit in which the debate is conducted. Late 19th- and early 20th-century English theologians did not fear to let sharp theological disagreements coexist, and allow experiments to run their course until time proved whether or not the Lord would prosper them.
By contrast, in the present controversies, some show a tendency to slide from explicit professions of biblical infallibility into implicit confidence in the inerrancy of their own methods and interpretations. Some wish to take to themselves quasi-papal authority to determine doctrine and discipline, and to excommunicate those who refuse to conform.
Ten years on, opponents are in the minority Stephen Bates (published last Thursday)
US Anglicans ‘naive’ about gay bishop Bates interviews Griswold
From The Times
Light and love are at the centre of both Islam and Christianity Bruce Dear
Christian and Islamic traditions contain a network of overlapping insights that can create a space for mutual comprehension. This is not to say that the two religions are the “same”, in some politically-correct sense. Each has unique and incompatible claims. However, there is irrefutably an architecture of shared ideas which can help to open dialogue. This dialogue cannot share out oil, land or power more fairly; but it can help to dispel the crudest prejudice which demonises all Christians or all Muslims.
Ruth Gledhill reports on the service to dedicate the new ACO offices and spoke to Archbishop Malango:
In the congregation was Archbishop Bernard Malango, Primate of the province of Central Africa and one of those most opposed to Bishop Robinson’s elevation. “A split is inevitable,” he told me afterwards.
The split over gays is roughly defined as one between North and South. The warring factions can share Communion, it seems, but not much else. Some can not even bring themselves to share Communion. The week-long committee meeting that preceded this service was boycotted by the Primate of Nigeria, Dr Peter Akinola, because of the presence of Bishop Griswold.
From the Telegraph
Who’s in charge of leaking tub? Christopher Howse writes more about Edward Norman
The news about www.i-church.org is all over the internet tonight.
Church Times Oxford launches web church
Diocese of Oxford Web Pastor: i-church
The Times Church mouse needed for online parish
Telegraph Wanted: virtual vicar for online parish
BBC Church plans parish in cyberspace and listen to Richard Thomas here with Real Audio and Richard also writes on Thinking Anglicans about it
Reuters Church of England hunts for virtual vicar
All this rather overshadowed the reports about what David Hope said:
BBC Primate praises ‘flying bishops’
Guardian Crisis warning on women bishops
The Archbishop of York, David Hope, last night reignited the row over the ordination of women priests in the Church of England by suggesting that if women were allowed to become bishops the church would have to consider setting up a separate, third province for members who disagreed with the move.
On the one hand, Peter Akinola has made news by not coming to England this week:
Primate to snub Williams over gay bishop (The Telegraph broke this story)
Gay Bishop: Nigeria’s Akinola Shuns London Talks Vanguard (Lagos)
and this is all officially confirmed by ACNS in Nigerian archbishop will not attend Committee meeting
whereas Frank Griswold not only attended but presided at the eucharist, as shown here, ECUSA Primate celebrates Eucharist at Canterbury.
But Gene Robinson also made news by not coming to England next week:
Gay Bishop Pulls Out of Debate Press Association
Gay bishop cancels Oxford date BBC
Gay US bishop cancels Oxford Union debate Guardian
By the way, the details of the debate which VGR is not now attending were to have been:
This House believes a gay lifestyle should be no bar to becoming a Bishop
Guest Speakers:
Rt. Revd. Gene Robinson
Recently elected Bishop of New Hampshire. His elevation caused worldwide controversy in the Anglican Communion, owing to his open homosexual lifestyle.
Revd. Richard Kirker
General Secretary of the Lesbian and gay Christian Movement, Claims “the current policy and practice of the church encourages deception and rewards hypocrisy.”
Revd. Dr. Andrew Goddard, St. John’s & Wycliffe Hall.
Tutor in Theology and Christian Ethics at Wycliffe Hall. Studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics as an undergraduate.
The Revd. Canon Brian Mountford
Former student at Oriel, now vicar at St Mary the Virgin, the University Church.
York Minster saga episodes continue this week in the CEN:
Edward Norman joins Rome after Anglican disillusionment
But he will still be on the CofE payroll until his retirement date in May.
and
Dean denies awarding himself a pay rise
Actually, it’s not the dean’s salary that worries me here.
Minster accounts for 2002/3 show that Dean Furnell’s salary was then £26,300, augmentation £6,124 and pension contributions £8,294 — a total of £40,718. The four other priest-canons got totals of up to £31,397. And a lay canon — cathedral chapter steward Peter Lyddon — had a swingeing total of £63,729. This is £3,000 more than the pay of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
See also Ex-Dean hits back in Minster ‘fat cat’ row by Michael Brown of the Yorkshire Post.
The Sunday Times and the BBC both report on a forthcoming change to British law:
BBC
Sex-change weddings upset clergy
Some Anglican priests are threatening to resign if they are forced to allow people who have changed their sex to marry in their churches.
Many clergy do not accept that people can change sex using surgery, and see such weddings as same sex marriages.
However, under the Gender Recognition Bill, soon to become law, clergy in England and Wales will be unable to prevent their churches being used.
Sunday Times
Church weddings for sex swappers
The bill, which has already gone through the House of Lords, was passed on its second reading in the Commons last week with a large majority. There was controversy after the vote when it emerged that the Church of England’s General Synod, meeting in a nearby building, had not been told the debate was happening.
Although some Anglican bishops have backed the measure, traditionalists fear it will change the basis on which people’s identity is defined.
Michael Scott-Joynt, the Bishop of Winchester, said last night: “When the bill passes into law, for me the words woman and man will no longer mean what they have always meant and the government will have introduced marriage between two people of the same sex.”
On the other hand, the BBC also reports that at least one vicar understands that the church needs marketing and in another place someone understands the value of training:
You don’t expect to see a vicar on patrol with a policeman in the early hours of the morning, dealing with drunks and emergency calls. But in Northamptonshire, Church of England curates are plodding the streets with local officers as part of their training. Listen here with Real Audio.
The Sunday programme on Radio 4 also had an interview with Terry Waite on his return from Lebanon, listen here.
See also Church Times story on this here
The Church Times has this editorial The first year at Lambeth
The CEN has this The Archbishop’s First Year
The Telegraph has an interview: Outcry over gay bishop shook Church leaders
And the BBC Radio 4 Today programme had a discussion between Gillian Evans and Pete Broadbent which you can listen to with Real Audio here
More
The Western Mail had I miss Wales, its people, culture and language, says Archbishop
Martha Linden of Press Association had this interview (via ACNS) Year of hope and pain for Archbishop
The detailed reports of synod debates published in the Church Times on 13 February are now online.
Differing views on sexuality are ‘sincerely held’, Synod told
No more archdeacons, but universities to stay
Synod calls to ‘nurture loathing’ of racism
Synod approves the Toyne report
Gender-neutral language agreed
Serving the ‘network culture’
New collects approved
Bishop: report is ‘clumsy, inept and brutal’
Housing help for clergy
Lent and Easter liturgy
Sex, power and cash can lead to glory
The ABC Lateline TV programme in Australia has this:
Archbishop Peter Carnley suggests ‘lifelong friendships’ over gay marriage
The Most Reverend Dr Peter Carnley says a recognition of lifelong friendships between two homosexuals may be a way of giving gay couples the same legal status as heterosexual couples. Archbishop Carnley says churches are yet to reach a mature mind on the subject of gay marriage.
Video report using Real Player here.
ABC News has Archbishop urges church to deal with gay marriages
Other press reports across Australia on this are like this one: Gay relationships ‘here to stay’ in the Australian.
Peter Carnley was also the subject of this story in the CEN:
Primate stirs strife among Aussie Anglicans
and this review of his book Reflections In Glass appeared in the Melbourne Age.
The Telegraph has had a number of Anglican stories in the past 3 days.
‘Anglicanism is going to tip into the sea’
Canon Edward Norman has written a scathing attack on the Church of England and is converting to Catholicism. Damian Thompson meets him.
Anglican Difficulties: A New Syllabus of Errors by Edward Norman
Meanwhile, that paper also reports on
Dean of York took 23pc pay rise out of Minster’s funds
and
Church’s ancient Lambeth library faces cuts which provoked the following letter to the editor:
Doing the Lambeth talk
and for good measure
Women could become ‘second class’ bishops
There was this interview with Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh on Beliefnet:
Who is Doing the Dividing?
and this one with Michael Ingham of New Westminster in the Vancouver Sun:
Tyrant. Dictator. Heretic. Totalitarian. Revisionist. Maverick. Renegade.
and BBC World Service had a long radio interview with Njongonkulu Ndungane which you can hear by going to this page
The Church Times carried this report:
Commission warns against harming unity
The CEN carried this one:
Criticism of ‘strident language’ in gay row
The Belfast Telegraph had Gay clerics: Anglicans urge calm in which Robin Eames is specifically reported to have confirmed the September 2004 completion date. This seems possibly to be contrary to what Rowan Williams said earlier at General Synod:
The Commission has deliberately a limited life. It will report to the Primates probably at the very beginning of the next calendar year, and interim reports will be issued meanwhile.
Every Voice Network carried this report by Kevin Jones:
Conservative fireworks backfire at Eames Commission as AAC retreat continues which says that a visit to the USA by John Rees, legal consultant to the commission, has been delayed until April.
For the full text of what Rowan Williams said to the Eames (now Lambeth) Commission, go to TA here.
The Times Gay row distorts Bible, says Williams by Ruth Gledhill
THE Archbishop of Canterbury has criticised fundamentalists and extremists on both sides of the Anglican Church for distorting the message of the Bible in the debate over homosexuality.
Rowan Williams told members of the Lambeth Commission on homosexuality that a church “faithful to the biblical revelation has to exercise discipline and draw boundaries if it is to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus and not its own concerns”.
Dr Williams said the problem was not simply about “biblical faithfulness versus fashionable relativism”. He said that there were “profound biblical principles involved” and criticised those at both extremes of the debate.
Telegraph Church leaders rebuke factions over anti-gay hostilities by Jonathan Petre
Traditionalists want the commission to discipline or expel the liberal leadership of the American Episcopal Church, which supported the consecration of Canon Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in November.
If they do not succeed, they are threatening a mass exodus. They represent over half of Anglicans worldwide and could set up a rival Church. So far 11 of the 38 primates - the heads of the individual provinces which make up the Anglican Communion - have said they are in “broken” or “impaired” communion with the Episcopal Church’s leadership.
Insiders believe that the commission’s next meeting in America could be critical because trust between the Episcopal leadership and dissenting traditionalist bishops is wearing thin.
Reuters Anglicans rebuke ‘strident’ clergy in gay row
…the wounds may already be beyond healing in a broad church run by consensus across 164 countries, in contrast to the rigid hierarchy of the far larger Roman Catholic Church governed under strict papal authority.
“This statement is a signal of alarm, a sign of desperation that things could be getting out of control,” said religious commentator Clifford Longley. “People are already taking precipitate action,” he told Reuters.
No more synod :-( though see here for summary of business done.
Desmond Tutu speaks out:
Tutu tells Blair: Apologise for ‘immoral’ war in the Independent
Eames Commission changes name:
This body is now called the Lambeth Commission.
Press release: Lambeth Commission tackles tensions in the Church
Communique: Lambeth Commission on Communion Statement 9th-13th February 2004
There are several document in pdf format linked from that.
The BBC Radio 4 Sunday programme had two reports:
Synod considers New Church funding Listen with Real Audio
The Church of England Synod ended this week looking in two different directions on a question that could be critical to its future. The members were presented with a report called Mission Shaped Church, which they enthusiastically endorsed - it should mean all sorts of new and different ways of worshipping are on offer. But when they were confronted with another report on how to fund the Church’s mission it all got unpleasantly acrimonious and they ended the debate without a vote. Christopher Landau reports.
Cost of Conscience Listen with Real Audio
It is a decade now since the Church of England began ordaining women priests. It is easy to forget what passion the debate generated during the 1980s and 1990s; it was one of those issues which really tested the way Anglicans understood the essence of their faith. It has also turned out to be rather expensive. The Church of England this week released the final cost of paying compensation to clergy who resigned because they couldn’t accept the change; a cool 26 million pounds. Christina Rees was one of the leading campaigners for women’s ordination and we are also joined by Dr Gill James, who is a member of the group Forward in Faith.
Press Association
Synod Condemns Exploitation of Asylum Seekers
BBC
Synod condemns people traffickers
Telegraph
Synod criticises report on primacy of Pope
Christopher Howse’s Sacred Mysteries column has a historical perspective on attacking bishops.
Several speeches at synod by Rowan Williams are available on his website:
General Synod Debate on the Agenda - Archbishop’s remarks (this is about the Eames Commission and about ECUSA)
General Synod: debate on the Mission-Shaped Church - Archbishop’s remarks
General Synod: debate on the Future use of the Church Commissioners’ Funds - Archbishop’s remarks
Added Tuesday
Archbishop of Canterbury welcome to the Secretary of State for International Development
Telling the story: being positive about HIV/AIDS - Archbishop of Canterbury’s remarks
Debate on The Gift of Authority - Archbishop of Canterbury’s remarks
Debate on Asylum - Archbishop of Canterbury’s remarks
More on yesterday’s sexuality debate:
Introduction to the General Synod debate by the Rt Revd Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford
ACNS General Synod endorses sexuality debate guide
CofE Press Release Church policy on gay relationships unchanged
BBC Synod revisits familiar divides
Related to today’s debates:
Press Association Union Steps Up Campaign for Clergy Rights
Church Times latest report here
The Times
Help fight Aids in Africa, says Williams
Clergy should get workers’ rights by law, says Church
Added Friday morning:
Telegraph Clergy to get more job security
Church Times The Archbishop of Canterbury on the new American network
Guardian
Bishops foil cash switch to fill pews
Church softens line on gay couples
Telegraph
Williams leads revolt over ‘pay cut’ for bishops
Church softens its tone on homosexuality
Press Association
Aids: Minister to Address General Synod.
Church Times latest report
Press Association
Church Postpones £5.5M Mission Plans
Forced Celibacy for Clergy ‘Abhorrent’. Synod Told
Synod Agrees Non-Marriage Relationships Need New Legal Rights
Religions Invited to Discuss Clergy Job Rights
BBC
Church debates gay clergy issue
Independent
Church policy on sexuality must reflect real world, says clergy
Associated Press via Guardian
Church of England Heads Seek Harmony
The Times
Senior clergy reject £5m cut to funding
Sex, the bishop and the important range of positions
New mood in Church opens door to gay ‘marriages’
Reuters
Anglicans clash over gay rights
Telegraph
Synod debates gay marriages
Earlier stories not yet reported here
The Times
Blessed are the poor including Bishops
Dear father-mother, please deliver us from this gender-neutral history of the world
ACNS
Debate on the Agenda - Archbishop’s remarks at General Synod
BBC
Calls for women and gay clergy
Church set to reignite gay debate
(story later changed, headline now is Church debates gay clergy issue)
Guardian
Cafe society meets gospel in church revival
Telegraph
General Synod: Latte and prayers to lure back the pagan Britons
Times
Forget prayers on Sunday - see you for coffee instead
American gay bishop to speak at Oxford
Press Association
Synod Welcomes New Ways of Reaching Non-Believers
Church Split over Gay Clergy
Newspaper reports this morning mostly ignore the news reported here last night. The Telegraph has this squib.
Only Ruth Gledhill in The Times reports about what Rowan Wiliams said earlier in the meeting: Williams supports Americans who oppose gay bishop
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has offered his support to a network of traditionalist churches being set up in America to oppose the gay Bishop Gene Robinson.
Dr Williams, addressing the General Synod of the Church of England, said that he had been following “sympathetically” the discussions about setting up a network to operate within the Episcopal Church of the United States.
Many report on the new Alternative Collect for the Epiphany.
Mystery of the magi Guardian
We three queens of Orient are? Press Association via Australia
There were three, but were they wise - or even men? The Times
Three Wise Men might have been women, church rules Independent
The Three Fairly Sagacious Persons Telegraph
The Telegraph reports on changes at the Royal Peculiars
Queen loses historic direct control of Abbey
See also Her Majesty the Queen approves recommendations for Westminster Abbey.
The columnist Philip Howard in The Times discusses women bishops
The church’s last glass ceiling.
Here is the Church Times overnight report.
Reports from synod that I write myself (one so far) will be found on Thinking Anglicans here.
Reports from other sources will continue to be linked right here.
Another BBC story Vicar condemns ‘racist’ voting.
The business committee of the synod arranged today to give this motion a higher priority in the agenda than initially provided, to ensure that it got a hearing this week. In fact, it got a hearing at the end of today’s session.
The Press Association has reported part of the remarks Rowan Williams made at the start of the synod about the Eames commission, which starts work this week in Windsor. Gay Priests Commission Faces ‘Unprecedented Difficult Challenges’.
The Times has a report by Ruth Gledhill on Cathedrals condemn plans for cut in funding.
THE deans and canons of England’s 42 cathedrals have said that Church of England plans to cut their funding were disappointing and destructive.
They are calling for the proposals to be withdrawn because they say that the ideas could devastate the most successful arm of the Church.
The plans are to cut £500,000 from cathedral grants and to withdraw the stipends for two canons, leaving only the dean of each cathedral to be financed from central funds. The proposals were announced last month by the Church’s spending review group in a report that examined use of the Church Commissioners’ historic assets.
The review group wants to divert the £500,000 cathedrals cash as well as £5 million given to bishops each year towards a new £9 million fund for mission in deprived areas of the Church. The proposals will be debated by the General Synod at Church House, Westminster, this week.
The BBC has a report by Alex Kirby headlined Anglicans challenge asylum policy which starts on that topic but also covers the synod session in general.
This is the first synod meeting since the seismic row in the worldwide Anglican Communion over homosexuality erupted last year, and the failure of a meeting of archbishops in London in October to find a solution.
The row threatens to split the communion, with some churches refusing to have anything more to do with those US Anglicans who supported the consecration of a gay man, Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire.
The English church had already experienced a similar upset, when Jeffrey John, another gay man, was chosen to be the Bishop of Reading but agreed under pressure to stand down.
The synod will debate a discussion document produced by the English bishops, Some Issues In Human Sexuality: A Guide To The Debate, but a vote is unlikely, and observers say nothing will change.
However, a campaign called Inclusivechurch plans to present a petition to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, on 10 February, urging him to resist “those bent on dividing the church in response to the consecration of Gene Robinson”.
The group says the petition, calling for a church “open to all, regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation”, has been signed by more than 8,500 people and over 100 parishes.
One debate which may generate some controversy is on cohabitation.
Although the church upholds marriage as the ideal, the motion accepts as a fact of modern life that some couples who could marry will prefer to live together instead.
First, the Sunday Times Atticus column has a story Rebellion in the pulpits as clerics threaten archbishop with a pay cut about the motion in General Synod to cut clergy differentials. As already noted in connection with the earlier story in The Times on this, there is no certainty that this motion will be debated at all, as it is listed as a contingency item, to be taken up only if a gap appears in the Agenda during the week. And the headline is anyway seriously misleading, as the proposal is not for pay cuts but merely for the elimination of differentials by freezing the pay of all dignitaries at their current levels until the National Stipend Benchmark for Incumbents has caught up.
Second, the Observer reports this in the Pendennis column:
Just when Rowan Williams thinks he’s kicked the thorny issue of gay clergy into the long grass, up pops a double whammy. This week’s General Synod, the Church of England’s parliament, will hear a motion welcoming the appointment of Gene Robinson as the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion. To compound matters, Robinson will soon visit these shores to speak at the Oxford Union. How Williams, desperate not to go down in history as the Archbishop of Canterbury who presided over the break up of the Anglican Communion, must long for the days of the love that dare not speak its name.
Update: more details about this General Synod motion below.
And the BBC Sunday radio programme had a substantial feature (12 minutes) on Church of England funding. Listen with RealAudio here.
The Church of England faces some major decisions this week - about the nature of its work, and how to pay for it. A new report called Mission Shaped Church to be debated by the General Synod, proposes a new structure of “network churches” to sit alongside the traditional parish system. Meanwhile a working group of the Archbishops’ Council and the Church Commissioners has come up with radical proposals about how to fund these new projects, in part by taking money away from richer Cathedrals. Not surprisingly the proposals face widespread criticism. Sunday obtained a copy of a document written by the Archbishop of Canterbury, which summarises the corporate opposition of the Church of England’s bishops to this report in its current form. And its not just Bishops who are opposed. England’s cathedrals deans also say that they’ve been largely ignored in the consultation process. Christopher Landau reports. Roger then spoke to Phillip Giddings, a member of the Spending Review Working Group.
The motion tabled at the General Synod mentioned above reads as follows:
“This Synod commends the 2003 General Convention of the Episcopal Church (ECUSA) for approving the decision of the Diocese of New Hampshire to consecrate Gene Robinson as a bishop in the Church of God; noting in particular that this was the democratically expressed wish of the majority of Episcopalians, a Church in which we have full confidence and in which we, members of the General Synod of the Church of England, gladly remain in full communion.”
This is a Private Members Motion tabled by the Revd Anthony Braddick-Southgate (Southwark). There will be no debate on it this week. It will be on a notice paper and will be available for members to sign this week. Private member’s motions are normally debated in order of the number of signatures. If it gets enough signatures to rise to the top of the list it could get debated in York in July. Alternatively, it will lapse if it attracts less than 100 signatures after three groups of sessions. The pay differentials motion mentioned above reached the top of the list with 122 signatures.
This was aired on the BBC’s Sunday programme on 1 February. Listen with RealAudio here (7 minutes).
This week Rowan Williams, the present Archbishop has been making a pastoral visit to the Diocese of Jerusalem, visiting church and community projects in Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. Amanda Hancox talked to him on Friday, just as he was leaving lake Tiberius at the end of his visit and asked him whether there was anything he could do to stop the haemorrhaging of Christians from the region.
Richard Chartres has made news: Pay parents to raise children, says bishop.
Jonathan Petre reports that Women priests cost the Church £26m in payouts (the previous estimate was £23m). The money you understand does not go to the women priests but to those men who object so strongly that they resign.
The next meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council will be held in Britain, not America, says The Times in Church council thwarted by US security curbs.
The meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council, which comprises 120 senior clergy including the Archbishop of Canterbury, is to be moved to Britain after America was deemed a “no-go area” for many members.
Such are the anti-terrorism regulations now enforced by US Customs - including the extensive vetting of travellers from Africa and the Middle East - that many organisations no longer consider America suitable for international conferences.
Matthew Davies, of the Anglican Communion [Office], said that the immigration and visa difficulties which some senior clergy were expected to experience had forced the Church to move the triennial meeting from North Carolina to Europe.
“The US regulations for foreign visitors have been getting more and more difficult and we just thought better of it,” he said. “You have to think twice about holding anything in America, because if it means that half your delegates from Africa can’t attend, whether they’re archbishops or not, then it’s just not worth having the meeting.”
And, finally, Vicar carpeted over revamp of historic church. This might sound unimportant, but the Church Times carried the story too, complete with pictures of the church and the carpet.
First, the Diocese of Pittsburgh joined the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes. See picture here of the network charter being signed.
See this report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Episcopal diocese here joins anti-gay group.
By a 16-4 vote at a diocesan council meeting Tuesday night, members ratified inclusion in the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, chartered last month by lay and clergy representatives from 12 dioceses to “constitute a true and legitimate expression of the world-wide Anglican Communion.”
Pittsburgh is the third diocese — joining Central Florida and Fort Worth — to join.
Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh issued a press release, Pittsburgh Episcopalians Deplore Affiliation with ‘Orthodox’ Network which said in part:
Diocesan Council, following the lead of Pittsburgh bishop Robert W. Duncan, Moderator of the Network, has voted to associate this diocese with an organization whose aim is to divide the Episcopal Church, USA, and to create a new fundamentalist church to replace it as the sole true representative of Anglicanism in the United States.
Following the issue of this statement about the network by Anglican primates from 13 “Global South” provinces, containing:
We re-affirm our solidarity with faithful Bishops, clergy and church members in North America who remain committed the historic faith and order of the church and have rejected unbiblical innovation. We offer our support and the full weight of our ministries and offices to those who are gathering in a “Network of Confessing Dioceses and Congregations” now being organized in North America. We regard this network as a hopeful sign of a faithful Anglican future in North America. We invite those who are committed to the preservation of historic Biblical faith and order, to join that work and its essential commitment to the Gospel.
the Bishop of Pittsburgh then issued this statement which includes:
We seek humbly to serve Christ as faithful Anglicans and to offer hope to those in North America devastated and disenfranchised by actions of the Episcopal Church, a Church of which we are a part. This recogntion by 14 Primates, representing 45 million Anglicans worldwide, gives us great encouragement and affirmation of our mission, and is a clear sign that the Anglican realignment in North America is moving forward.
The remaining three Church Times articles from 23 January, about next week’s General Synod, are now online.
Toyne seeks to tamper with C of E’s brakes
A new Dioceses Commission “with teeth”, which would “keep under active review the diocesan structure of the Church of England”, and could keep a tight rein on the number of suffragan bishops, is among the recommendations of the Toyne report, to be debated by the General Synod next month.
The Pastoral Measure 1983 and the Dioceses Measure 1978 would be replaced by a new Mission and Ministry Measure in three sections: Dioceses; Neighbourhood and Network; and Church Buildings. The authors of the report hope to “give coherence to procedures which to many at present seem disparate and inflexible”.
The report, A Measure for Measures: In mission and ministry, is by a review group chaired by Professor Peter Toyne, who is a former Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, and a member of the Archbishops’ Council. The present map of the dioceses “bears little resemblance to the reality of the present distribution, structure and mobility of population”, Professor Toyne says in his introduction.
“Having considered this situation carefully, we concluded that there is a clear prima facie case for taking a fresh look at the distribution of dioceses and their boundaries.”
The General Synod will be invited to express reservations about the work of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), when it has a full debate on an ARCIC report for the first time since 1986.
See here for a link to the synod report GS 1532 to be debated, and here is the ARCIC report itself.
The draft Common Worship Ordinal, a revision by the Liturgical Commission of the Ordinal in the Alternative Service Book (ASB) 1980, is to be given first consideration by the General Synod next month.
The draft text is not available online. It is available on paper here.
The Times has a column today about the proposals coming before Synod to grant new “employment rights” to clergy. In Heaven only knows how Church will cope with employment rights two lawyers write:
Could a vicar be sacked for failing to reach his performance targets
IF A clergyman is sacked, he has no legal redress. Clergy are considered to be office-holders answerable to God rather than any terrestrial authority. This spiritual, instead of temporal, relationship means that they cannot take their employers to court.
But now the Church of England is considering granting the rights enjoyed by most other employers to its clergy. If accepted by the Government this would mean ministers becoming entitled to redundancy payments, holidays and protection from unfair dismissal and having access to employment tribunals to resolve disputes.
The article goes on to discuss discrimination:
The proposal to bring the clergy within the employment fold raises interesting issues. Laws introduced in December prevent discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation. The issue of clergy who are practising homosexuals is already a hot topic. Where the employment is “for the purposes of an organised religion”, the new laws do allow discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation to avoid conflicting with the strongly held religious convictions of a significant number of the faith’s followers. The Church will now have to satisfy these criteria if it seeks to justify discrimination against homosexual applicants.
They do not make clear that this is already the case, as the new employment regulations mentioned already apply to all clergy (despite the doubts expressed by Church House officials) and this situation is unaffected by the new proposals. Nor do they make clear that the new proposals will not alter the “office holder” status of many clergy, but instead will confer these “Section 23 rights” upon them as office holders, in exchange for them accepting various responsibilities.
Undeterred by the previous item, here are some more reports from American dioceses.
In Diocese rebuffs dissenters we learn that in the Diocese of North Carolina (one of three in that state):
Episcopalians hoping to steer the diocese of North Carolina back to its traditional understanding of sexuality left the annual convention Saturday disappointed and discouraged after delegates soundly defeated a dozen resolutions proposed by the dissident group.
The defeat signaled that the diocese — spanning 39 counties in the Piedmont — is squarely behind the national church, which in August voted to confirm its first openly gay bishop, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
It was also a vote of confidence in North Carolina Bishop Michael B. Curry. Some had challenged his authority after he voted to ratify Robinson’s election.
Meanwhile in the liberal-minded Diocese of Washington which covers parts of Maryland as well as DC, the annual convention passed this resolution on Conscience
The Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane preached this sermon.
The bishop John Chane said in his address the following:
The genius of Anglicanism has always been that it is theologically roomy, respectful and tolerant. The European struggles of the 16th Century between Catholicism and the Protestant Reformers literally gave birth to the Church of England and Anglicanism. Precision in doctrine was not our Anglican founders’ desire, but rather it was the writing of magnificent liturgy, the creation of a beautiful Prayer Book language and poetry, the adherence to the discipline of the daily reading of Holy Scripture and sound preaching. As many have said far more eloquently than I, Anglicans enter theological reflection from practices rather than doctrine. For those of us who continue to work toward a definition of what makes Anglicans Anglicans, I can only say that our theology holds that our primary responsibility is to help people to know and to love God. Our theology is a pastoral theology! For any of us to focus on fostering disunity within our branch of the Anglican Communion by using a theological hammer as the tool of choice at the expense of our own pastoral, Episcopal domestic and global mission imperatives is, in itself, a tragedy that claims the original sin of a divided and broken humanity above the promise of our unity in the Body of Christ. Our mission as a diocese is about healing, building, growing, reaching out, and believing that our ministry can make a difference and that in all things we place Christ and the teaching of the Gospels ahead of our own personal agendas. Our mission strategy must be based on the direction set for us by the Gospels, as we know them. It is time now to seriously get on with the mission of this diocese and the larger church. Remember the words of Jesus to his disciples; 2As you have done it to the least of these my friends so have you done it to me.”
I was fascinated by this report from South Carolina. Under the headline Tough to say ‘enough’ with some stories a reader of the Post and Courier, Charleston, complained:
This week, several readers said they have read more than enough, thank you, about a handful of topics: … the Episcopal Church, ….
The reader who took issue with the amount of Episcopal Church reporting in The Post and Courier wonders if anyone but Episcopalians are interested in the stories about the rift in the denomination. The staff has had lots of discussions about the same questions over a long period of time. Religion reporter Dave Munday outlines reasons he has covered the story so closely.
— The denominational rift took root here in this diocese, and local church leaders are at the forefront of the international debate.
— The division goes beyond the 2 million-member Episcopal Church. “What’s at stake is the future of the worldwide Anglican Communion, the Episcopal Church’s parent group.”
— The bigger story that is facing or is likely to face other denominations is whether Christians of different stripes can find a way to worship together despite their differences.
— The issue of homosexuality, one of the key issues being debated in the Episcopal Church, has taken a prominent role among national figures including presidential contenders.
Still, in 2003, The Post and Courier published at least 58 news stories about the Episcopal Church split and dozens of letters to the editor — a number of which offered Scriptural interpretations.
To one reader, that was too much. “My husband and I do not go to the editorial page for a daily sermon,” she said.
The Diocese of Mississipi has its council meeting next weekend. Its bishop, The Rt. Rev. Duncan M. Gray III, is reported in the Sun Herald as follows:
In August, Gray was one of 43 bishops who did not vote to confirm the gay bishop but said he accepted the majority’s decision as “the mind of the Church at this moment in faith history.”
Since then, the bishop has held meetings throughout the state to keep dialogue open. For the council, which begins Feb. 6, he has requested open hearings for all sides to debate the resolutions before they are presented to the council for vote. Delegates include laity and clergy from each of the 82 parishes and missions.
“I hope we can openly and constructively address the deep disagreements,” said Gray, who is third in his family to be a Mississippi bishop.
He estimates less than 1 percent of the diocesan members have left the Episcopal Church over the general convention’s decisions, but he said some Mississippians are expressing their feelings by withholding their normal tithings and support.
“There is a lot of uncertainty in our church,” Gray said. “We’re in unprecedented times, and this year’s council theme, ‘Praying Into God’s Future,’ is an acknowledgement of that uncertainty but also an affirmation that God greets us. Through prayer we can learn to walk confidently through uncertainty.”
In Northern Florida, the Diocese of Florida convention met, and for procedural reasons refused to consider a motion relating to joining the Network but the bishop made his position clear as reported in the Jacksonville Times-Union Episcopal unity in state is in danger
Clarifying his own place in the disagreement after months of silence, the newly installed bishop said he would not ordain active homosexuals or allow their unions to be celebrated, but promised to oppose any limits on the diocese’s participation in the national Episcopal Church.
By the end of the day, the success of Howard’s supporters in upholding that agenda had endangered his hopes for unity. Representatives from several of the most biblically orthodox churches said they stood on the brink of divorce from the diocese because the diocese would not divorce the Episcopal Church.
After a majority of delegates voted to continue contributing to the national church, representatives from 12 of those churches, comprising about 16 percent of the diocese, withdrew their annual contributions to the diocese. Six of those were from Jacksonville, and two from Orange Park.
Most of the dissidents said they simply wished to reconsider their contributions in the wake of the decisions by the convention. But some said their very membership in the diocese was in question.
In Central Florida, the diocese has joined the network. This news story from the local Scripps-Howard newspapers, Episcopalians say conservative network lets them protest gay bishop without leaving fold comes complete with a picture of animal blessings.
By joining the network, the diocese chose not to split from the Episcopal Church, which is the American branch of the Anglican Communion, the worldwide body of churches affiliated with the Church of England.
Meanwhile, one parish left the diocese for the AMiA anyway: Melbourne Episcopal church leaving denomination
Many ECUSA dioceses are holding their annual synods (called conventions or councils) at this time of year. This weekend, that included the Diocese of Virginia, the largest diocese.
Here are reports beforehand from the Washington Post Episcopalians to Face Major Issues
and the Richmond Times-Dispatch Meeting of Virginia Episcopalians starts today
Declining revenue and challenges to the authority of Richmond Bishop Peter James Lee will be two of the major issues on the agenda of more than 700 Episcopalians from Virginia as they gather today in Reston to begin their diocese’s annual convention.
The two-day meeting of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia takes place at a time of rising turmoil in the denomination set off by the consecration last summer of its first openly gay bishop, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
That turmoil is reflected in the convention’s agenda, which includes adoption of a 2004 budget that is reeling from a drop of nearly $900,000 in parish pledges. The delegates will also deal with a resolution asking Lee to allow conservative parishes to have another bishop lead them.
The full text of the bishop’s address to the council yesterday is online. Part of it is reproduced below.
After the convention the Washington Post published this account, Virginia Episcopalians Avert Split Over Gay Bishop
Episcopalians of Virginia voted yesterday to set up a year-long “reconciliation commission” to examine ways of maintaining their unity in the face of deep theological differences over what the church’s stance on homosexuality should be.
The vote, taken on the last day of the diocese’s annual convention, had wide support among the 700 delegates gathered at a Reston hotel — a sign, many said, of the desire not to let their differences lead to an open split.
From the bishop’s pastoral address:
The church’s current debate over sexuality is a controversy we may have no desire to discuss, and we do disagree, but it is a debate that distracts us from the mission that unites us. The reality is that serious Christians in our diocese differ over numerous traditions of Biblical interpretation that underlie our differences.
I appeal to members of this Council to see the unifying power of Christ in the midst of our differences and to take no actions to exacerbate our differences.
I hear the pain and grief expressed by those angered by the election and consecration of Bishop Robinson of New Hampshire and by my role in that. And I hear the pain and disappointment of gay and lesbian members of our diocese who are frustrated at the lack of availability to them of rites of blessing.
Members of a Christian community bear one another’s burdens. Listening to each other and finding those areas of mission where we can unite are important patterns of discipleship.
I appeal also to members of our diocese who are tempted to separate from our body because of their anger at what we have done or disappointment at what we have not done to stay the course and to learn of Christ’s desire for our unity through our engagement with one another.
James I. McCord was a twentieth century Presbyterian leader and scholar who warned his students: “If you must make a choice between heresy and schism, always choose heresy. For as a heretic, you are only guilty of a wrong opinion. As a schismatic, you have torn and divided the body of Christ. Chose heresy every time!” (The Anglican Journal, January 2004, p. 15)
Now, I hope we will avoid both heresy and schism. The best protection against heresy is the breadth of the community of faith, wrestling with the interaction of scripture and tradition with the stresses and questions of contemporary life. Schism diminishes the corrective power of differing opinions.
I am aware that some of our congregations are so unhappy with my decisions at General Convention that they will not welcome my visits to them. I remind you that Christian communities often consist of solidarities not of our choosing. Our faith teaches that people with whom we differ often have important truths to teach us. So I want very much to remain in touch with those who differ with me. I am willing to ask another bishop to come into a parish for pastoral and sacramental ministries, but I believe deeply that God has called us together to ministry in Virginia, and we have gifts to offer each other. We are one body, not a federation of individual, isolated congregations, and I am committed to serving the whole body.
There is One Lord, One faith, One baptism, and we are called perhaps especially at times of difference, to affirm that our unity in Christ transcends our differences. Claim that unity and pray that God will reveal more fully the bonds that bring us together.
Today’s Observer has an article by Jamie Doward headlined Church to serve up coffee with religion which describes one aspect of the Cray report, Mission Shaped Church.
Communion over cappuccino? Christian worship amid the phat beats of Fatboy Slim? At the risk of causing uproar among religious conservatives, the Church of England’s parliament will next week discuss plans to draw on bar culture as inspiration for new ways of worshipping.
‘The Church has got to realise its missionary responsibilities,’ the book notes. ‘We live in a society which is now basically second, or even third-generation, pagan; we cannot simply work on the premise that all we have to do to bring people to Christ is to ask them to remember their long-held but dormant faith.’
More than 40 per cent of people have had no involvement with the Church at all throughout their lives, and the percentage of children attending Sunday school has dropped from 55 per cent in 1900 to 4 per cent today. Attendance among adult worshippers on Sunday now stands at 835,000, a 4 per cent drop on last year.
Last week, The Tablet published an article by Stephen Bates under this title.
The full text of this has now been added to the Tablet website, and can be found here. This article includes many details of how English conservative evangelicals are involved in these plots. Some key extracts:
Many ironies resound around the debate about the future of the Communion. English conservative evangelicals, who could never stomach the idea of a pope and Curia - forms of authority which are indeed inimical to the whole Anglican tradition - are calling for the imposition of some form of centralised authority within a traditionally autonomous Church. This, they believe, would discipline provinces that step out of line doctrinally. By this, of course, they mean provinces that don’t toe their particular line, as on homosexuality - for this is a debate about authority and political power more than sexual practice.
This authority, as they perceive it, is far too precious to be entrusted to one man, particularly someone like Rowan Williams, so an executive body can decide what is right. As Maurice Sinclair, the evangelical former Archbishop of the Southern Cone, the archdiocese [should read province] which stretches from Peru to Tierra del Fuego but yet contains only 22,000 Anglicans, has argued: “Some light-handed but wise-headed supervision of a collegial nature would do us all good. Authority in the Anglican Communion would continue to be distributed authority but it would gain the necessary coherence we cannot afford to be merely a loose federation or a separating family.”
What the American traditionalists say they want is alternative - or adequate - episcopal oversight: the ability to call in like-minded bishops to supplant the authority of those diocesans with whom they have fallen out, probably because the bishop supported Robinson’s consecration. This has its precedent in the Church of England where a decade ago parishes which could not approve the decision to ordain women could opt for like-minded flying bishops.
Thus was the pass of episcopal authority sold as a short-term expedient. But why should such a precedent be limited to women’s ordination? If you don’t like this bishop, choose another. This is congregationalism that some militant conservatives in the pressure group Reform would endorse.
Money from Ahmanson’s foundation has been channelled to at least one English evangelical organisation, the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, whose leadership has been active in stirring dissent in the Anglican Communion during the current crisis.
In the US, the traditionalists believe they are a persecuted minority, prey to liberal bishops. In England, by contrast, the conservative evangelicals, with whom the Americans might otherwise have little in common in terms of forms of worship, believe that they are on a rising tide in a numerically declining Church and that their views should prevail.
Some are still not reconciled to Rowan Williams as their archbishop. When he was invited, after some agonising, last September to lead prayers at the evangelical national congress in Blackpool, the organisers set aside a separate room so that those who could not bear to be in the same room as the leader of their Church - even while he prayed - could maintain their pristine consciences. Even though he forced his old friend Jeffrey John, the gay but celibate canon theologian of Southwark, to resign from his appointment as suffragan Bishop of Reading last summer - an appointment Williams had earlier endorsed - he is still not entirely trusted by the militants.
They want to push him further, or tell him to get out of the way. At a conference held with the American conservatives in Charleston, South Carolina on 8-9 January, the traditionalist leaders were making clear the archbishop had to choose to back them or be cast into outer darkness. The Revd Chris Green, vice-principal of the highly evangelical Oak Hill Theological College in north London - and one of those who organised the Blackpool conference - told the Americans: “There are very senior figures among evangelical circles in Great Britain who would like to say to you: ‘Elect your own presiding bishop and force Rowan Williams to choose’.”
One of his colleagues, the Revd Peter Walker of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, spoke of a growing archway of interest between Anglicans of the global south and northern conservatives, becoming stronger every day regardless of any future involvement by the archbishop: “This is the picture I have in mind. The question is whether Canterbury will be the keystone of the arch or will be left out.”
Uganda installed a new archbishop, Henry Luke Orombi, last Sunday. Kampala newspapers had several reports, for example:
Archbishop Orombi Enthroned
Rev. Sandy Millar, the Vicar of Holy Trinity Church of Brompton, London, delivered the day’s sermon. Archbishops from Sudan, Kenya and representatives from Rwanda, Burundi, UK, US, Korea and Nigeria attended.
A lot of background detail on the history of the province is in Viewing Orombi in the Context of the Church.
Luwum Statue Erected in UK
Bishops Pledge to ‘Exorcise Gay Ghosts’
What the new archbishop said
Rowan Williams went to Jordan and preached at the Anglican Church of the Redeemer, Amman and then to Jerusalem, where he preached this sermon at an Ecumenical Service at St George’s Cathedral Jerusalem. Meanwhile this Joint Statement on Antisemitism by the Presidents of the Council of Christians and Jews was issued in London.
The Jerusalem Post reported the statement here.
The Guardian had Israel’s wall a symbol of fear - Archbishop
Aljazeera carried this editorial from the Jordan Times A Christian issue
I failed to note previously the official CofE press release concerning the forthcoming session. Here it is.
Today The Times has Bishops urged to make vows of priestly poverty. The motion to which this story relates is not necessarily going to be debated. It is listed as a contingency item on the agenda, i.e. it will only be taken at this session if a gap in the timetable opens up due to other business completing early. An extract from Ruth Gledhill’s account:
The General Synod is to debate a private members motion in which bishops will be asked to give up nearly half of their £33,000 stipends to earn the same as a parochial clergyman or woman.
The motion, if successful, will cut the stipends of all dignitaries in real terms over time to the £17,940 earned by the ordinary parish priest in the Church of England, a stipend still about six times the allowance of priests in the Roman Catholic Church.
The motion is thought to be unlikely to succeed but is certain to arouse fierce debate as bishops seek to defend their rewards in the face of an attempt by Church officials to force parishes instead of the Church Commissioners to fund them. The commissioners want to switch more than half of the burden of financing the Church’s 110 bishops on to the dioceses, which means that parishes will soon have to find an extra 5 million a year to pay for their ministry, on top of financing clergy stipends and pensions and repairs to church organs and roofs.
Meetings planned to debate future of All Saints Church Sun News Myrtle Beach, South Carolina - relates to the parish that left ECUSA recently to join AMiA:
The future of All Saints Church, and whether it will remain part of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, will be the topic of meetings this week on the Waccamaw Neck.
A group of about 38 people who opposed the church’s vote to leave the diocese is scheduled to meet Tuesday with Bishop Edward Salmon.
“The meeting is meant to support members of All Saints who want to remain part of the diocese,” said Craige Borette, president of the standing committee of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.
The 1,000-member church, which is the third-largest congregation in the Diocese of South Carolina, voted overwhelmingly Jan. 8 to leave the diocese.
Parsley opposes protest group Birmingham News Alabama (Bishop Parsley opposes the Network)
The formation of a national protest network last week in response to the denomination’s first openly gay bishop is “clearly divisive,” said Alabama Episcopal Bishop Henry N. Parsley.
While 12 bishops have signed on to the new Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, Alabama’s bishop won’t.
“This is unfortunate,” Parsley, head of the Diocese of Alabama, said about the formation of the network. “We do not need ‘a church within a church.’ As the New Testament bears witness, we are to be the church together, with inevitable differences of opinion at times.”
Central Florida Episcopals vote to join conservative group Lakeland Ledger Florida (Bishop Howe was previously worried about the network when he read the Chapman memo, but now seems happier, see next item)
The Diocese of Central Florida is the state’s first to align itself with the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, in existence only since Tuesday.
The diocese consists of 48,000 members in 87 parishes across 15 counties.
Bishop Seeks Calmer Tone In Episcopal Controversy
…he [Bishop Howe] urged the diocese to move beyond the rancor that has gripped the church since the consecration of the Rev. V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire in November.
A response to a ‘Call to repudiate the American Anglican Council and Network’ appeared on Kendall Harmon’s blog but is written by Ephraim Radner.
He disagrees (at some length) with this Via Media Groups’ statement.
Kendall Harmon has written an even longer piece On the Matter of the Geoff Chapman Memo.
In this, among many many other things, he complains again about my choice of headline, based directly on the Washington Post’s own wording, which in turn reflects the content of their story.
He also comments that I attributed this and this to the American Anglican Council when I first listed them here. Both items were published on the AAC website at about the same time as their own press release with three URLs differing only in serial number (947, 948, 949). They also appeared in due course elsewhere here and here.
The Sunday Times has a report that there are more Muslims than Anglicans attending weekly worship in Britain, Muslims outpace Anglicans in UK.
Figures compiled from government and academic sources show that 930,000 Muslims attend a place of worship at least once a week, compared with 916,000 Anglicans.
The Muslim community does not keep registers of attendance in mosques. However, the 2001 census included a question about religious adherence.
The census recorded 1.59m Muslims but academics believe the true figure is at least 1.8m. Ceri Peach, professor of social geography at Oxford University, said the census failed to record the balance because the question was voluntary.
Research by Tariq Modood, a professor of sociology at Bristol University, found that 62% of Muslims pray in places of worship. The total is about 930,000 if young children, most of whom do not worship in the mosque, are excluded. The figure underestimates the number of practising Muslims. Mohammed Anwar, professor of ethnic relations at the University of Warwick, said: “In addition to those who go to the mosque, many Muslims also pray at home.”
And another report from The Times on Saturday:
Mammon needs God, says Carey. He was at the World Economic Forum at Davos.
The servants of God should be employed to keep watch on those of Mammon, according to Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.
Clergy should sit on boards of big companies as moral guardians to prevent financial scandals in Britain, he claimed.
There were many Anglican priests with business experience, including former accountants, who could help directors to achieve the highest standards of accountability, he said. They could have the same status as independent non-executive directors, who provide a check on executives, and would not require a fee.
The Church Times has this report US conservatives deny they want a split.
Now as Kendall Harmon notes, this is a little incorrect. Credit for publishing the AAC letter should go exclusively to the Washington Post which published the full text as a pdf file. The letter itself first appeared in html right here on TA. The CT’s own press column (not on the web for another 2 weeks) discusses only the stories in the Guardian the next day.
Meanwhile, from around the USA:
In Texas, a Tall Order by Doug LeBlanc, in the Wall Street Journal
Episcopalians remain split on gay issues, New Jersey Herald
Diocese joins conservative group Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Bishop: Episcopal splinter groups ‘breeding schism’ Houston Voice
Forward in Faith North America has published this comment by David Moyer, FiF North America and The Network
Update
Another article by Diane Knippers of IRD. The following comments were given by IRD President Diane Knippers at the American Anglican Council “Plano East” Conference in Woodbridge, VA on January 10, 2004. Exploding Myths about the Episcopal Church Crisis.
The Church Times has extensive coverage in its paper edition. Only some of these are on the web today:
Heavy agenda and serious issues facing General Synod
Clergy could gain job rights
Culture change needed to let the fresh air in
with Fresh expressions of church and the editorial The end of geography
The others will appear on the web just before the synod starts.
The CEN had these:
Synod to tackle pressing social issues as MP speaks
Synod to be asked to bless cohabitation
The big idea to renew the Church’s mission
Clergy give a cautious welcome to Church’s employment proposals
Synod prepares for battle over relations with Rome
The CEN has US group fears retribution. The CEN went to press before the outcome of the meeting was known, but said:
Claims that the Network was an attempt to create a cocoon for conservatives within the Episcopal Church were inaccurate, one bishop noted. The Rt Rev Peter Beckwith of Springfield told The Church of England Newspaper “a Church within a Church is not what we are about”; such a solution would be “unworkable”.
ECUSA’s Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold, has issued this statement: A word to the Episcopal Church.
Every Voice Network has published AAC backtracks on breaking the law.
In Upstate New York the Albany Times-Union has Dissent network divides diocese.
In Kentucky, the Lexington Herald-Leader has Episcopal dispute on the front line.
Chicago Tribune Conservative bloc taking on Episcopal Church USA
Charleston Post and Courier Episcopal network OKs charter
Fort Worth Star-Telegram Episcopal group sets its course
Jacksonville Florida Times-Union Episcopal dissidents create ‘network’
AAC President’s Letter to AAC Members Concering the Adequate Oversight Memo
Press Release from Via Media groups GROUPS CALL FOR REPUDIATION OF AMERICAN ANGLICAN COUNCIL AND NETWORK
Update
Episcopal News Service New Anglican network signs charter, elects Duncan moderator
Associated Press Questions and answers on the Episcopal Church’s gay divide
Peoria Journal Star Episcopal bishop: Leaders trying to end exodus from denomination
Reuters UK Anglicans could head for schism
“This is a definite step in the direction of schism,” Church Times Editor Paul Handley told Reuters after conservative U.S. Anglicans formed their own Episcopalian network in protest over the ordination of an openly homosexual bishop.
“There is no way this group of traditionalists will stay in the same organisation as the Liberal leadership of the U.S. Episcopalians,” he told Reuters.
“They are definite and determined,” he added. “This is a confirmation that they are not going to buckle under.”
The meeting in Plano has released the text of the Charter for the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes they have unanimously agreed.
Wednesday morning update
American Anglican Council press release.
The Charter is also now here along with this statement.
Reuters reported it thus: Conservative Episcopalians Form New Network
The Associated Press had Launch of dissenting ‘network’ ensures a protracted Episcopal struggle over gay issues and Dissident Episcopalians Form Protest Group but Not Schism.
Earlier…
Beliefnet carried this interview What Do Conservative Episcopalians Really Want? with Diane Knippers, an Episcopalian who is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a completely separate body from the American Anglican Council.
What we really want is an amicable realignment of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. One possible scenario is that membership in the Anglican Communion is redefined with more obligations and with some measure of accountability. For example, perhaps the question of who gets to be an Anglican bishop might be settled, not only by national churches, but also through confirmation by some sort of global body. The Episcopal Church would presumably opt out of a Communion that requires such accountability, leaving the way for another entity to be granted the Anglican “franchise.”
The Christian Science Monitor ran this article: New Episcopal ‘network’: path to schism?.
The press were briefed on Monday about the February session of the General Synod. See Peter Owen’s blog for a list of all the documents, and a link to the agenda. The meetings are 9-13 February. More about all this later on.
Some stories that relate to items to be discussed:
Archbishop backs guerrilla tactics in war on secularism (Times) This is about the report GS 1523 Mission-Shaped Church -Church planting and fresh expressions of church in a changing context.
Why Is Sunday Sacred, Church-Goers Asked (Press Association)
Book challenges gay sex ban (Telegraph)
Synod to hold gay debate (Guardian)
Church to explore law on ‘gay marriages’ (Press Association)
Synod to debate Pope’s supremacy (Telegraph)
Clergy to be saved from the sack by job protection law (Times)
Clergy close to workers’ rights (Telegraph)
Priests to get employment rights (BBC)
New Clergy employment rights ‘A bit of a Curates Egg’ says Amicus (press release from trade union)
Sell churches, keep bishops’ palaces (Telegraph, opinion column)
Minister Benn to Address Church on HIV (Press Association)
Church Could Rent Out Vestries to Raise Money (Press Association)
The Organizing Convocation of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes today and tomorrow in Plano, Texas. The Convocation sessions will not be open to media or observers, but there will be press briefing or conference each day. Note that this body is not to be confused with the American Anglican Council.
This was front page news in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today, Rules jettisoned in Episcopal rift over gay bishop. Bishop Neil Alexander of the diocese of Atlanta ‘slammed the conservative coalition’s plans to break church law. “They seem determined to have their way, regardless of what kind of destruction it may cause the church rather than engage in the hard work of reconciliation.”’
Whether the Diocese of Central Florida would join seemed unclear, according to the Orlando Sentinel: Local Episcopalian bishop to convene with conservatives
and Episcopal Church’s Future Uncertain in the Lakeland Ledger.
The BBC reported it tonight: Anti-gay US clergy mulls ‘split’.
Meanwhile, Beliefnet’s Deborah Caldwell interviewed Frank Griswold, Presiding Over Crisis—and Maybe Schism.
Earlier, the Chicago Tribune had reported on the separate South Carolina defection of a parish as A fractured covenant.
And this press release supporting Bishop Johnson of West Tennessee was issued by all the Via Media diocesan groups together.
The BBC interviewed Bob Duncan on the radio this morning, listen here with Real Audio.
The Bishop of West Tennessee wrote a pastoral letter, severely critical of the American Anglican Council and in particular of the Chapman letter (first published on the web here).
They replied with a press release, and two other responses.
From the UK papers on Saturday:
The states we’re in, Ian Bradley writes in the Guardian, comparing church/state relations in the UK, USA and France.
Wise men say: our life and our death are with our neighbours Geoffrey Rowell writes in The Times about spiritual direction.
Also in that paper, a report of ICS-sponsored chaplaincy work on the Swiss ski slopes, Because skiers have spiritual needs too, one aspect of work in the Diocese in Europe that Bishop Geoffrey leads.
What is stopping would-be worshippers going to church?, Paul Handley writing in the Independent discusses the latest CofE church attendance statistics.
Greene saved by damnation, Christopher Howse writes in the Telegraph about Graham Greene.
By far the most interesting Church of England news story this week is the leak to the Church Times of the report due to be published on Monday, Future Use of the Church Commissioners’ Funds. The story is here, Dioceses should pay for own bishops, say Commissioners.
There is also a report in The Times, Collection plate needs £5m to pay for bishops but this contains no additional information about the report itself.
What makes this interesting is that the Church Commissioners now appear to be quite happy to contemplate new legislation, radically altering their statutory obligations, e.g. to pay the stipends of bishops and deans. This conflicts with another report from them released earlier in the week, in they state that they were not prepared to contemplate anything of the kind with respect to the provision of housing for bishops, a much more labour-intensive task.
In report HB (04) 11 STRATEGIC REVIEW OF SEE HOUSES RECOMMENDED PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES, they said (emphasis added):
The genesis of this review lies in the Mellows Report, “Resourcing Bishops”, commissioned by the Archbishops. This recommended that the Commissioners should reappraise the guidelines for see houses, and commented on certain specific issues such as the image presented by the see house, the size of the garden and grounds, the location of the bishop’s office, and the special considerations which should apply to “heritage” see houses. While recognising that the Commissioners were not empowered to do so, the report recommended that the law be changed to enable the Commissioners to transfer the ownership of the see houses to each diocese without payment. This was subject to each diocese being allowed to change the house, if it so decided, before ownership was transferred. The prospect of legislating for something so fundamental to the Commissioners’ purpose - the holding of assets on behalf of the Church - caused them grave concern. This concern was acknowledged by the Archbishops’ Consultations Group which endorsed the alternative proposed by the Commissioners, that they should undertake a strategic review of see houses.
They failed to note in the report that if the highly sensible recommendations of the “Mellows One” report are followed, then virtually the entire administrative cost of the Bishoprics Committee - around £300,000 a year - will be saved. The alternative approach adopted seems certain to preserve those Bishoprics Department jobs that would have become redundant under Mellows.
But now the Commissioners are actually proposing major legislative changes, there is no logic in excluding the arrangements for see houses from their scope, and thus scuppering a major part of the Mellows reforms.
It seems the CEN was wrong to report previously that Zambia had broken communion with the Church of England. However, as Zambia is only part (along with Botswana, Malawi and Zimbabwe) of the Province of Central Africa, it’s unclear to me what it would mean if they had. Zambia and Botswana have broken communion with ECUSA, but as I have noted previously, no formal official statement from the province has yet been seen. Curiously, the same is true of Rwanda which acts as a “host” so to speak to the AMiA. The CEN does report on the defection of a South Carolina parish to that body.
Meanwhile in The Times Ruth Gledhill reported on the episcopal housing review. You can download the report yourself here (Word format).
Yesterday’s story has produced plenty of follow-up.
First, here is the Associated Press version of the story as headlined in the Philadelphia area, Strategy paper asks ‘replacement’ for Episcopal Church due to gay bishop.
This version met with less disapproval than any other version from Kendall Harmon who even objected to “anti-ECUSA plot revealed” as my choice of title, though he failed to comment on our main blog headline Plot to supplant ECUSA.
Anyway, he really didn’t like the Washington Post story one little bit, not to mention the ENS version.
I don’t suppose he’s any happier about Stephen Bates who managed to get both a front page article, US Anglicans plot to break up church, and a more detailed inside story, Leaked letters reveal plot to split US church in today’s Guardian. The front page starts out:
American Anglican traditionalists are plotting the break-up of their national church and the creation of a new fundamentalist church in the wake of its consecration of the openly gay bishop Gene Robinson.
In spite of public assurances that they only wish to secure oversight by sympathetic conservative bishops, rebel parishes are being secretly told to prepare for the ultimate goal of breaking up the US Episcopal church - the American equivalent of the Church of England - the Guardian can reveal.
And that was not all: Stephen also had a third story in the same paper, this one about English plots: Bishops attack pressure groups which reports that Bishop Colin Buchanan has joined Bishop Pete Broadbent in complaining about the dreadful notes written after NEAC.
And for good measure today, the Guardian also has Karen Armstrong weighing in about third province apartheid proposals, The Eve of destruction.
Some other items today:
Slate published an article by Deborah Caldwell of Beliefnet Where Anglicans Fear To Tread - Will a schism destroy the Episcopal Church?
The American Anglican Council issued this press release in reaction to the Washington Post story.
The ECUSA Episcopal News Service issued this story about the report in the Washington Post, Memo discloses AAC’s strategy for replacing Episcopal Church (which also includes the full text of the memo).
Here also is an earlier ENS report on a conference of conservatives held earlier this month. Although titled North American conservatives and global South Anglicans seek discipline of ECUSA, in fact the speakers included several UK residents. Perhaps UK is Global South?
Today’s Washington Post carried this story:
Plan to Supplant Episcopal Church USA Is Revealed
The full text of the document mentioned in the story can be found below. It is also on the Washington Post website as a PDF document but is over 30 megabytes in size, so downloading is not recommended. PDF file later replaced by smaller one, only 4 Mb
It may be worth mentioning that the website listed at the end as being “in Great Britain” is not in Great Britain but is part of a Canadian one. Close :-)
December 28th, 2003
Dear Friends,
I am Geoff Chapman, Rector of St Stephens Church in Sewickley, Pa. (Diocese of Pittsburgh). I am responding to you on behalf of the American Anglican Council and their Bishops’ Committee on Adequate Episcopal Oversight (AEO). Thanks for contacting us; we very much want to network with you in these difficult times and be of real help to you.
The AAC Strategy Committee has been working for months on AEO. In consultation with a wide circle of friends - inside this country and beyond - we have clarified our strategy and are now moving to implement it. I am serving as their response person for AEO, and I want to brief you on our progress. This document will get you up to speed on where we are going. Please keep this document confidential, sharing it in hard copy (printed format) only with people you fully trust, and do not pass it on electronically to anyone under any circumstances.
1) Our ultimate goal is a realignment of Anglicanism on North American soil committed to biblical faith and values, and driven by Gospel mission. We believe in the end this should be a “replacement” jurisdiction with confessional standards, maintaining the historic faith of our Communion, closely aligned with the majority of world Anglicanism, emerging from the disastrous actions of General Convention (2003). We believe this goal is now pressed upon us by the Holy Spirit as a result of the rejection of the historic Christian faith and the rejection of biblical and Communion authority by the leadership of ECUSA. We will lead our congregations and partners in making the adjustment to adopt this strategy. We seek to retain ownership of our property as we move into this realignment.
2) As an intermediate step, we will respond to the urgent pastoral need in our country by offering Adequate Episcopal Oversight to parishes or remnants of parishes who share our deeply held convictions, proceeding under the guidance of our Bishops and the Primates. Bp Griswold’s offer of “Extended Episcopal Care” is unacceptable, fundamentally flawed and disingenuous, and does not meet the needs of our parishes or the intentions of the Primates. Our AEO will maintain confidentiality in the application process, and seek transfer of Parish oversight across geographic diocesan boundaries to an orthodox bishop, the right of pastoral succession, liberty of conscience In financial stewardship (the right to “redirect” funds), and negotiated property settlements affirming the retention of ownership in the local congregation.
The implementation of Adequate Episcopal Oversight will normally follow a two-step, “Stage 1 Then Stage 2” process.
Stage 1 will feature “spiritual realignment” while remaining within the letter of current canons. Parishes would publicly announce that their relationship with their diocesan Bishop is “severely damaged” because of the events of the summer, and that they are now looking to one of the Primates or an AAC orthodox Bishop for their “primary pastoral leadership”. Announcements will need to be carefully phrased to avoid canonical violations.
During the months of Stage 1, we will begin to reform our relationships to build the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes. We will move to initiate support structures for fellowship and strategy, We will act courageously and faithfully to support “at risk” parishes. We will creatively redirect finances. We will refocus on Gospel initiatives. We will innovatively move around, beyond or within the canons to “act like the church God is making us”. Stage 1 will enable congregations/clusters to keep clear use of their buildings for the foreseeable future, and would give critical time to strengthen our leadership circles for what promises to be a turbulent spiritual season.
Stage 2 will launch at some yet to be determined moment, probably in 2004. During this phase, we will seek, under the guidance of the Primates, negotiated settlements in matters of property, jurisdiction, pastoral succession and communion, If adequate settlements are not within reach, a faithful disobedience of canon law on a widespread basis may be necessary.
Some congregations have already proceeded to “Stage 2” because of local circumstances. While we cannot offer AEO under an AAC diocesan Bishop at this time, we do have non-geographical oversight available from “offshore” Bishops, and retired Bishops. We may also be able to offer oversight from special designated priests acting on behalf of our AAC Diocesan Bishops.
3) Our local strategy for developing AEO will have to keep our goal and current hostile circumstances in mind. We call it a “cluster strategy”, and it will closely sync with the establishment and spread of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes. We are developing clusters of churches (3-30 churches per cluster) in 15-30 varying dioceses. These churches would join the Network and apply for AEO whenever possible as diocesan clusters. When they are prepared, we will sequence public announcements of their intentions to realign in successive weeks to build impact. These churches will need Clergy and Vestries who are unified, well networked, and ready for a season of conflict if necessary.
Smaller, isolated congregations that cannot connect with a supporting cluster will be welcome to apply, but encouraged to make a public announcement later in 2004. They will sail in the wake of the leadership of stronger clusters.
Parishes/clusters that go through this process in a “Stage 2” mode and Bishops who receive such parishes/clusters will be at risk of litigation and presentment, and should be prepared for such.
An AAC Bishop could be available to go with any parish/cluster to meet with the diocesan Bp, as needed. We think the presence of an AAC Bishop with a stated partnership with the Primates could change the dynamics of such a meeting.
This “Stage 1, Stage 2, Cluster Strategy” has several advantages: It will…
4) We are building a network of “Cluster Moderators” who will serve emerging clusters as they gather. These leaders should have a servant’s heart and a broad base of support in their own parishes that will enable them to come alongside conflicted or imperiled congregations. They must be able to bridge the lines of our coalition with genuine respect for the differences within the orthodox community. We will identify these key leaders as soon as possible.
5) We would cover everything in intentional, dependent Christ-centered prayer, seeking the Holy Spirit’s leading and provision at every point, Prayer support cells will be developed around the country and mobilized at critical moments.
Here are some “Frequently Asked Questions” :
1) What does it take to apply for AEO (Adequate Episcopal Oversight)? Normally we would ask for the signature of the Rector and a supporting vote of the Vestry. When you have reached this point of decision, send the application to the AAC office. There is no need to inform your Bishop yet of the application. We will inform him with you in due time. You can find the application and guidelines here:
http://www.americananglican.org/News/News.cfm?ID=827&c=21
2) Does AEO mean that the orthodox overseeing Bishop would have control of the call, licensing, and canonical residence of the clergy? We do not know the answers to that, but our Bishops will be exploring these issues as we move forward. The AAC bishops are not prepared to sign off on an arrangement that will leave a congregation in continuing high risk, and that means that issues of spiritual authority, pastoral succession and episcopal oversight must be solved, That Is the fundamental difference between Adequate Episcopal “Oversight” envisioned by Canterbury and the Primates and the Episcopal “Care” offered by Griswold. However, there are many details yet to be ironed out.
3) What legal liabilities would you face if you wanted to leave your current diocese? Recent litigation indicates that the local diocesan authorities hold almost all the cards in property disputes and clergy placement if they want to play “hardball”.
But we think that the political realities are such that American revisionist bishops will be reticent to play “hardball” for a while. They have just handed the gay lobby a stunning victory, but are being forced to pay a fearsome price for it. The opposition at home is far greater than they anticipated and the opposition overseas is serious and inflamed. ECUSA will certainly lose members and funds at a high rate over the next months, accelerating their decline. In one short summer they have managed to radicalize all the orthodox in our communion and take away the “middle ground” where so many of our members have hidden! This has put many (perhaps even most) parishes in conflict and made the survival of many smaller parishes a large and urgent question. No one is very happy about this inside ECUSA, and the American public is hardly cheering the events in New Hampshire.
ECUSA leaders know well how conservatives could quickly become the “victims” in the public mind. They also know that all of our AEO work will eventually find its way across the desk of the Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC). All of this together will create pressure for them to cooperate with the ABC/Primate’s call for AEO. So we suspect that there will be a window of time before they return to “hardball” tactics.
The AAC has a new “Legal Resources” link on their home page, and if you or your new Vestry need help in this area, we would suggest contacting them.
http://www.americananglican.org/Issues/IssuesList.cfm?c=47
4) Can we redirect our funds? This is happening on a widespread basis. There are several strategies to consider. Some parishes have used “donor intent” to trump diocesan canon. The argument goes something like this… “In these conflicted times we will offer our congregation pledge forms with options to indicate their preferred use of their funds. The options go… “Would you like to have a canonical portion of your gift sent (1) to the Diocese? (2) To the National Church? Or (3) To the Vestry for their judgment on whether to pass on funds to the Diocese or National Church? All redirected funds will go to Anglican missions who are committed to biblical faith, values and Gospel ministry?
The Vestry then informs the Diocese that they feel it important to allow their members to follow their conscience. Arguing for “freedom of conscience” and the honoring of “donor intent” is very difficult for liberals to oppose, regardless of the strength of your state law. And it should give your parish some breathing room as you seek to move through this difficult season together.
For a biblical/theological understanding of redirecting funds, look at John Guernsey’s talk from the Dallas Conference. You can find it here:
http://americananglican.org/News/News.cfm?ID=784&c=21
5) What is important over the next months? Here are some concrete suggestions for your consideration:
a. Join the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes. Here’s some basic information:
http://www.americananglican.org/News/News.cfm?ID=920&c=21
Look to the AAC website for updates.
b. Form diocesan “clusters” with sympathetic churches. This is essential. An AAC chapter can be the seedbed for a cluster that is seeking realignment. Circle up, pick a moderator, and contact us at AAC headquarters.
c. Be careful of your language. Don’t declare yourself “out of communion” with your diocesan Bishop as such statements have been used as evidence for canonical action against clergy (“abandonment of communion” in Philadelphia). To say that your communion is “impaired” or “damaged” is a wiser response for the moment. Let the excommunications come from the Primates.
d. Prioritize your issues and pursue them in due order. Sort out the challenges you face and go after the most important first, while saving the least important till last. The issues you face could include securing new leadership, consolidating and educating your Vestry, building a network of support within your Diocese, stabilizing your, congregation, etc. Take first things first. Operate in God’s time. Don’t be stampeded to early and untimely actions. The Primates will move over the next months to build a growing and determined solution to the crisis. It will be good to follow their lead and that of the AAC Bishops.
e. Be measured, deliberate and courageous in your responses, “Wise as serpents and gentle as doves was Jesus’ phrase for it! This is a moment for courageous and clear leadership. Watch out for the spirit of anger or self-righteousness! It will kill fractured parishes.
f. Join and build the network of churches committed to biblical values and faith. There will be safety in numbers. See if there are other parishes in your diocese who could also apply for AEO. Work in partnership with us in the AAC. Either we hang together or we hang separately! And don’t forget (when it seems like you are all alone) that Christ himself has promised to walk with us through these times!
g. Familiarize yourself with the strategy affirmed in Dallas in October and talk and pray about how you can apply it locally. It can be found here:
http://www.americananglican.org/petitions/Petition.cfm?petitionID=8
h. Keeping close to Christ is essential. Read your Bible. Pray lots. Be aware of Satan’s opposition and resist him. Worship regularly. Stay in good fellowship with close Christian friends. Watch out for your own emotions, especially anger and frustration, and remember that the Holy Spirit’s leading is not the same as your emotions! We will be of no use to the Lord Jesus in these struggles if we are not fully His!
i. Remember confidentiality! Much is at stake over these next months. The careers of godly men and women, the possibility of congregational survival, the Anglican witness to Christ in our culture and generation, etc. We ask you not to spread these emails over the internet, and to speak of them only to people you trust. In the end, everything will be spoken plainly, but the ability to get organize and take counsel together effectively depends upon our readiness to keep confidentiality.
Here are some Internet resources that might be of value in keeping you informed…
A site in Great Britain: “Crisis 2003”
http://london2003.anglican.tk/
Kendall Harmon’s excellent web site
http://titusonenine.blogspot.com/
David Virtue’s web page with a wide ranging collection of news stories
http://listserv.episcopalian.org/archives/virtuosity.html
The American Anglican Council
http://www.americananglican.org/News/NewsList.cfm?c=21&num=1000The AAC Legal Resources page
http://www.americananglican.org/Issues/IssuesList.cfm?c=47
The AAC Dallas Strategy affirmed by over 2300 people
http://www.americananglican.org/petitions/Petition.cfm?petitionID=8
Guidelines and Application for the AAC’s Adequate Episcopal Oversight
http://americananglican.org/News/News.cfm?ID=827&c=21
We will keep all details of our contact with parishes in confidence. Please do not hesitate to keep in touch with me or with the AAC office if we can be of further help. God bless you, as you courageously serve Christ and his gospel.
Here is my contact information…
Geoffrey W. Chapman
Rector, St Stephens Sewickley, Pa
xxxxxxxxxxxxx (work)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (cell)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
First Pittsburgh where the Post-Gazette reported on 7 Jan a story misleadingly headlined Attorneys withdraw Episcopal land-grab resolution (but see 9 Jan correction at end of article) and this news was also reported by AP, for example Church leader withdraws local property-control call.
Second South Carolina where an ultra-conservative parish has decided to withdraw from ECUSA completely and join the AMiA, despite being in one of the most conservative dioceses of the church. Charleston Post-Courier: Church severs Episcopal ties or Myrtle Beach Sun News All Saints declares its independence. The diocese had previously reduced the parish to mission status under the direct control of the bishop.
Update here is what the diocesan standing committee said.
The AP also carried this story on Via Media groups in conservative dioceses across the country: Dissenting in place.
Meanwhile, there’s another gathering of conservatives right now in “Plano East” which turns out to mean Woodbridge, Virginia. Here’s the latest AP report as carried by the New York Times, Episcopalians Meet to Discuss a Possible Split.
Update here is a further report from the Washington Post, Episcopal Dissenters Plan Their Strategy.
And the Southern Cone province has unsurprisingly condemned ECUSA.
The Guardian interviewed Geoffrey Kirk, national secretary of Forward in Faith, and some others, about the threat of schism in the CofE over women bishops, A traditional revolutionary. I was interested in the statistics claimed by FiF:
…the organisation claims to have 7,000 members, including 1,000 clergy. Fr Kirk is particularly proud of the “amazing” number of women members - “ballpark 4,000”.
The Guardian also has an article by Michael Nazir-Ali entitled The Cross and the Crescent about whether Muslims and Christians believe in the same God.
The Times reports that Tory leader Michael Howard’s son is training to become an Anglican priest, Howard’s son to be Anglican priest. I’m not sure this is newsworthy.
Yesterday, The Times printed an extract from a forthcoming book by Rowan Williams, Anglican Identities, Passion and patience, liberalism and sexuality: what makes an Anglican?. An extract from this extract appears below, and another one is here.
In the Telegraph Christopher Howse discusses “new styles of church life” in his weekly Sacred Mysteries column. He refers to recent Church Times articles that are not yet online. I will provide links to those articles when they are.
extract from Anglican Identities by Rowan Williams
Anglicans have always been cautious about laying too much stress on formulae over and above the classical creeds; and that has proved both a strength and a weakness. A strength because it has at best focused attention on the fundamentals of Christian orthodoxy in a way that allows people to “inhabit” this tradition without too much defensive anxiety about contemporary battles; a weakness because this makes rather a lot depend on the capacity of individual theologians and teachers to orchestrate the central themes of the tradition in a satisfactory way at times when the lack of external norms and boundaries has become a serious worry.
It is not true that there is no distinctive Anglican doctrine. But the discovery of it may require some patience in reading and attending to a number of historical strands, in order to watch the way in which distinctiveness shows itself.
There is in the Anglican identity a strong element of awareness of the tragic, of the dark night and the frustration of theory and order by the strangeness of God’s work.
God does not belong in a limited area of human life; but one implication of this is that we do not find or identify God with ease. He may be encountered in any area of psychological experience or of political challenge. To recognise Him in these unexpected places we need, most certainly, a discipline of scriptural thinking, informed by all the resources that can be summoned in the intellectual sphere, and an inhabiting of the doctrinal tradition that reminds us again and again of what we are for as creators and as adopted children.
The Church Times carries a report, Conservative groups ‘two-faced’ says bishop.
Pete Broadbent, Bishop of Willesden, and a card-carrying evangelical (he signed the letter of the Nine Bishops last June) has written a letter to all the bishops who attended NEAC, criticising severely two notes which were sent to him anonymously. These documents are the minutes from a “post-mortem” meeting of the NEAC4 steering group, and a paper from a separate meeting of representatives from the Church Society, the Fellowship of Word and Spirit, and Reform.
The documents attack Rowan Williams, David Hope, James Jones, and “Open Evangelicals” most particularly Fulcrum. See full article for details. It describes what Broadbent said as follows:
Bishop Broadbent wrote to all the bishops who attended NEAC4, describing the two documents as “inflammatory”. “The document is explicit in asserting what Reform et al have always denied - that there has been a deliberate attempt by the right wing to take over,” he writes.
The ultra-conservatives believed the bishops were the enemy. “These are, of course, the same people who write and speak to us telling us how much they respect us when we make a stand for what they believe in. In reality, they are two-faced and show themselves to be completely untrustworthy.”
He concludes: “It would seem to me that there is little to be sanguine about in relation to the climate of Evangelical Anglicanism post-NEAC4. Whatever sense of unity we may feel across the spectrum, it is clearly not reciprocated.”
More newspaper coverage of Peter Carnley’s announcement yesterday that he will retire in May 2005.
West Australian Carnley plans to keep conservatives on their toes
Sydney Morning Herald Anglican fault line deep, if not irreparable and Retreat from liberalism likely as bishops come under orders for Anglican primacy
Australian Three-way struggle to lead Anglicans
Brisbane Courier-Mail Search begins for new primate
Melbourne Age Three in the running to lead church and Outspoken cleric says it’s time to move on plus a comment column by Muriel Porter Anglicans’ leading light dims
and a transcript from ABC Radio of an interview with Peter Carnley plus a second transcript of a discussion about it all.
Suffragan bishops never used to get this kind of national attention. The Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian and the Independent all reported on the appointment of a new Bishop of Reading. “He is a liberal Anglo-Catholic, and no less radical in his beliefs than Dr John” says Ruth Gledhill. “Anglican Mainstream, the evangelical group formed to campaign against Canon John, said it was “delighted” by the appointment” says Jonathan Petre.
Meanwhile in Australia, Peter Carnley has announced he is retiring in May 2005. Reports on ABC, in The Age, The Australian and also this commentary, and his hometown paper, The West Australian.
Update Thursday morning
Clergy must speak out: Carnley in The Australian
Anglicans face change of direction from ninemsn
Stephen Cottrell, currently Vice Dean of Peterborough was nominated as the new candidate to be Bishop of Reading today, and this apparently pleased absolutely everybody, even those most opposed to the previous nomination, and the previous nominee.
Earlier in the day, the Guardian had reported on the women bishops story from yesterday’s Telegraph, All-male enclave ‘would split C of E’ and also on an unusual religious event in Lincolnshire, Special church services bless road gritting crews.
Meanwhile, The Times reported on the plans of the Museum of London to rebury 17,000 skeletons, Museum bones ‘should have a Christian burial’.
The Church of England gets the year off to a good start :-)
First, a story about “new” legislation, Sex case vicars will be tried in new, secret courts turns out to be about the latest draft of the Code of Conduct (already mentioned by Peter Owen) to support the Clergy Discipline Measure. Really very old news except apparently to the legal correspondent of the Independent.
Slightly more to the point was the CEN story Bishops plan heresy courts for unruly clergy about a new report from an episcopal working group chaired by Peter Forster about proposals to reform the handling of the cases excluded from that measure, i.e. doctrine and ritual. But I seriously doubt the bishops are panting to prosecute clergy for not wearing robes.
Really much more important is Jonathan Petre’s story in the Telegraph about the draft report from the other episcopal working group chaired by Michael Nazir-Ali on women bishops. Church’s ‘third way’ on women bishops and the accompanying editorial Church’s third way.
But the best piece of writing about Anglican matters was a major article by Michael Massing in Sunday’s New York Times magazine, Bishop Lee’s Choice.
Update
The Anglican Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo has issued a statement of condemnation of homosexuality etc. This was one of the statements that was previously missing. It’s dated 20 Dec 03.
The Moonie newspaper, the Washington Times has this article about blogs and episcopalians, Episcopalians grapple on Web.
Stephen Bates reported on the AM petition story in the Guardian, Evangelicals say 13m back anti-gay move which starts:
Evangelicals opposed to gay people within the Anglican communion presented an email petition yesterday to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, calling on him to provide alternative oversight for those congregations which oppose bishops supporting Gene Robinson, the gay bishop of New Hampshire.
You can see a picture of the petition being presented here and you can read the press release they issued. But you still can’t find out which are the 8 dioceses and which are the 249 “parishes and organisations” included as block signatures.
The Bishop of Lichfield was reported by PA via the Scotsman: Bishop Attacks Treatment of Terror Suspects.
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s New Year Message was also reported.
The Canadian Anglican Journal reports on the proposal to have same-sex blessings in the Lutheran Church of Sweden. (British Anglicans are in full communion with the Church of Sweden via the Porvoo Agreement).
See TA blog for yesterday’s Tom Wright interview and related stuff.
Also yesterday, The Times had an interview with David Hope, Let us pray for humility in high places and he also criticised Tony Blair:
In an exclusive interview with The Times today, the Archbishop called on people to pray for Mr Blair and urged the Prime Minister to consider the “higher authority” he would one day have to face.
…He urged Mr Blair and President Bush to heed the message of the Incarnation, that success was ultimately achieved through humility and vulnerability not through worldly power. He gave a warning that they, like him, would one day have to answer before God for their actions. “I want to say . . . that there is a higher authority before whom one day we all have to give an account,” he said.
He added that effective leadership was also vital in a world which is “increasingly unstable, increasingly anxious, a world where terror stalks us on every side”.
“In that sort of climate people do begin to act in more extreme ways because of the fear. Therefore one needs to look to those in leadership positions to exercise a calm, quiet authority,” he said.
Some American reports:
David Steinmetz filed this column in the Orlando Sentinel on 23 December, Staying inside, thinking outside
Laurie Goodstein wrote again in the New York Times about Episcopalians, Changes in Episcopal Church Spur Some to Go, Some to Join
Dave Munday wrote in the Charleston (SC) Post and Courier about a third element in the local Episcopalian scene, A call for tolerance and unity. This is about a via media group in a diocese that already has to contend with the AMiA on its doorstep.
And an interesting item from Nigeria
Kaduna Anglican Turns Out Graduats in Islam And Christianity
The BBC has two reviews of the year for the Anglican Communion:
This one is a web page, Anglican church rues lost unity and this one is from the Radio 4 Sunday programme, listen here using Real Audio (7 minutes long). If you have audio, do listen to this in full, it is well worth the time to hear what Stephen Bates has to say to Roger Bolton.
In the first item Alex Kirby concludes:
Both camps are sincere, and neither has a monopoly of the truth. But in those parts of the world where sexual definitions are increasingly irrelevant, a church which sets such store by them is left more and more with only itself to talk to, and nobody else remotely interested.
The Sunday Telegraph has a swingeing editorial attack on Rowan Williams, An unworthy Archbishop.
In the Observer Jamie Doward reports on Church ‘weddings’ for same-sex couples which is bound to upset anybody who was not offended by the Telegraph.
Descending further, the Sunday Times has a report that Carey diaries to reveal chats with royal mistress in which we learn, for example, that:
The Queen and the Queen Mother are believed to have got on well with him, but it is not thought Charles held him in the highest regard. The prince, a religious traditionalist who is patron of the Prayer Book Society, is thought to have seen him as a “happy clappy” and
Carey was appointed by Margaret Thatcher not long before she left Downing Street in 1990. “She spoke at me for about 10 minutes and I couldn’t get a word in edgeways.” he said. “Then I mentioned John Wesley because I knew she had had a Methodist upbringing. But she called him ‘that Christian socialist’.”
…I failed to report when they first appeared.
Jonathan Petre in the Telegraph was unduly sensationalist in saying Sceptic priests could face trial by heresy courts.
In Nigeria the infamous Bishop Chukwuma again makes news Anglican Bishop Threatens to Withdraw Deacons’ Licences (does Amicus know?)
From Canada a reliable account of the latest, wildly misreported, development in New Westminster, Diocese shuts down church over discipline, same-sex issues and another report on the financial effects of all that.
In Ireland Bishop of Cork: Church’s Bluff is being Called in the Gay Debate
And finally, on a lighter note, Anglican Church in Nigeria offers deal to American Episcopalians
Update
Another Irish report, this one is an editorial opinion from the Limerick Leader. The column refers to this Sunday Times article which I listed some time ago.
Tom Utley writes in the Telegraph about going to the Church of England for Christmas rather than his normal RC church, It’s time to cross the fine line that divides our two Churches.
And Christopher Howse writes in the same paper about music at his RC church, Sing all ye citizens, for heaven’s sake. Hmm.
Meanwhile, both the BBC and the Telegraph report on a survey of clergy conducted by trade union Amicus that finds two-thirds of them feel insecure in their jobs.
In the Guardian Geza Vermes discusses Christmas: fact or fiction
Also in the Guardian Stephen Bates has a reprise of Christmas sermons etc. (his paper did not publish yesterday) in A time for peace on earth - but not in the royal home which includes the remarks of the Moderator of the Church of Scotland.
‘Homophobic’ church slated
Time to shake off homophobia
“These are spiritual matters, because hatred may only be cured by a change of heart. We all require a change of heart, because the church not least has contributed to the prevailing homophobic mindset.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury got extensive press coverage for his first Christmas sermon, but the Archbishop of York’s sermon has already been published on the web. The Diocese of York has published the full text of it here.
I will add a link here to the Canterbury sermon when it is available. And here it is.
Press coverage:
BBC Archbishop calls for tolerance
The Times Religions should stand together, says Archbishop
The New York Times carries the Agence-France Presse report Anglican Leader Chides France for Moves Against Signs of Faith
Reuters story was Archbishop calls for multi-faith unity
and the Press Association said Christians, jews and muslims urged to ‘stand together’
AlJazeera said Archbishop attacks French hijab ban
Voice of America Archbishop of Canterbury Calls for Inter-Faith Tolerance
The Independent Stop sniggering at Blair’s faith, says Williams
The Telegraph Williams attacks ‘sniggering’ over religious faith
The Archbishop of York’s sermon got noticed too:
The Times Anglicans ‘must learn to accept sexual diversity’
Press Association (via the Middlesbrough Gazette) Archbishop condemns row over sexuality
BBC Rural areas ‘being put at risk’
The Sunday Times reports, Williams voices doubt on terror detentions, that
Rowan Williams has entered the growing row over the detention without trial of terrorism suspects. He fears the alienation of moderate Muslims in Britain.
Speaking in advance of his first Christmas Day sermon as archbishop, he has given a warning that the imprisonment of suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Belmarsh prison, south London, may be sending out the wrong message.
The BBC carries a similar story Archbishop to denounce terror law. (Note: the BBC subsequently posted a revision of this story to include the reaction of the Home Secretary, changing the headline to: Blunkett rebuts terror criticism)
The Sunday Telegraph has Revealed: the medieval church fresco depicting Judgment Day in Coventry
For the major feature in the Observer today, see the TA blog
Some real world items unrelated to ECUSA:
Tutu attacks Mbeki’s stand on Zimbabwe
Anglican bishop in Sudan sees massive church growth
Cleric Tasks Nigerian Leaders On Poverty (Yes, the famous Bishop Chukwuma)
Archbishop’s wife tells of losing babies
Get rid of sexism, Cherie tells Pope
St Nicholas visits Sloane Square
Bishops’ justice call to protest Government policy on detaining foreign nationals suspected of terrorism
Bishop of St Albans makes Christmas call for alcohol education
And a few items that are ECUSA-related:
Limerick Diocese divided by gay debate
The Province of Uganda Writes Presiding Bishop Griswold
Information about how The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission will work
And finally, Australian Radio had this
Previously I reported at length on the publication of a New York Times article, and its aftermath. Today that newspaper published Episcopalians Back Away From Break which says (my emphasis added):
…On Tuesday, leaders of the American Anglican Council, which has taken the lead in organizing conservative Episcopalians, contacted The New York Times and said that on Wednesday they would announce the formation of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes.
In an interview late Tuesday evening, Bishop Robert W. Duncan of Pittsburgh, the moderator and convening authority of the new network, said: “Thirteen dioceses are coming together to guarantee that the kind of Anglicanism that is authentic Anglicanism throughout the world is represented here in the United States and has its own voice.”
Bishop Duncan said the network would not secede from the Episcopal Church. He said the long-term goal was for foreign Anglicans and other Christian churches to recognize the network as the true representative of Anglicanism in the United States. This, he said, could force the Episcopal Church to back off its decisions on homosexuality.
Bishop Duncan supplied a list of the 13 dioceses that he said had agreed to join the network.
After the article appeared in The Times on Wednesday, clergy and some parishioners contacted church offices to protest their dioceses’ affiliation with the network.
Within two days, bishops of the dioceses of Florida, Central Florida and Southeast Florida had issued statements disavowing their participation. They gave various explanations. One explanation was that although 13 bishops had signed a “Theological Charter” for the new network, they could not include their whole dioceses as members until diocesan committees had been given a chance to approve.
… Bishop Duncan held a conference call with several concerned bishops on Wednesday evening. He said afterward in an interview that he should not have listed the dioceses because the entire effort is still “in utero.”
I already published links to statements made by the bishops of Central Florida and Southwest Florida. Concerning the diocese of Florida, Bishop Jecko has this statement on his own diocesan website which appears to be a slightly later version of what is on KH’s blog.
I wrote earlier about impaired communion between ECUSA and various provinces. At that time, I could find web documentation from only six provinces that had formally broken communion, and one (West Indies) that in my opinion had not done so.The CEN was claiming a total of nine.
Since then, I have seen several emails containing such a statement purportedly from the Province of Rwanda but it has still not appeared on the web. The AAC has published a press release which mentions in passing that:
The Church of Uganda … joins seven other provinces (Southeast Asia, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, West Africa and Central Africa) within the Anglican Communion - representing over 38 million Anglicans - in severing ties with the Episcopal Church.
This agrees with my interpretation of the West Indian statement. But I still cannot find any provincial statement from either Rwanda, West Africa or Central Africa on the web. If I have missed these, please will someone point them out to me. Why wouldn’t the AAC, or some other manifestation of the ECUSA dissidents and their global supporters, want to publish them?
Yesterday’s report in the New York Times that claimed 13 dioceses had joined the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes seems to have been inaccurate in various ways. I understand the basis of the report was an exclusive interview with Robert Duncan.
First, the St Petersburg Times reports Bishop denies intent to join splinter group (here’s the missing picture) and this is confirmed on the Southwest Florida diocese’s own website.
Second, as noted in that report, the Central Florida diocese has not joined either:
Both Lipscomb and Bishop John Howe of the Diocese of Central Florida said they were surprised by the New York Times article and insist that the network is not yet a reality.
“I, along with 12 other bishops, signed a letter of intent that said we thought a network was needed at this time,” Howe said.
The idea came after a meeting in London this fall, where church leaders talked of ways that conservative parishes could opt out of liberally-minded dioceses by choosing to be under the authority of a conservative bishop.
At the time, the group had the backing of Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury.
“It was on the basis of that that we signed this memo of intent,” Howe said. “And suddenly, the cart has gone way, way, way before the horse.”
He said Williams recently backed away from the idea, saying that Americans should work it out.
Third, in Pittsburgh where the Tribune-Review said Local bishop to lead ‘network’, it was asserted that many other dioceses named have not approved this action:
Local supporters of the Episcopal Church’s decisions this summer, however, say that despite Duncan’s contention that conservatives are not seeking a split, their actions indicate otherwise.
“Of course, they want a schism,” said Lionel Deimel, president of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh, which claims between 100 and 150 members. “On one hand, they say the don’t want to break apart, but then they say they cannot remain in communion with the church because of its decisions.”
Deimel, of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh, contends that because no formal votes on whether to join the network were taken in those dioceses, they cannot be legitimately counted as network supporters.
“As far as we can tell, these dioceses have not signed onto this,” Deimel said. “This is basically a group of conservative bishops doing their own thing. The level of support they have here, and in the dioceses that have supposedly signed on, is highly questionable.”
And indeed, further down the Florida news report we find:
[Kendall] Harmon said Lipscomb chaired a meeting in Orlando where the new network’s theological charter was drafted. He said an organizational meeting will be held in January in Plano, Texas. Only the dioceses of Pittsburgh, South Carolina and Fort Worth have formally agreed to be part of the group, Harmon said.
[item added at 15.20]
And in the The State a South Carolina paper, Kendall Harmon says
Dioceses formally joining the network as of Wednesday are Duncan’s in Pittsburgh, the Charleston-based Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, and the Diocese of Fort Worth in Texas.
Ten other dioceses are formally considering joining the network, said the Rev. Kendall Harmon, canon theologian for the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. He said earlier reports Wednesday naming those 10 as having formally joined were premature.
So what kind of a story was Robert Duncan putting out to Laurie Goodstein yesterday? And where is the confirmation of formal diocesan action by Pittsburgh and South Carolina? In Fort Worth, we know the action was taken ‘By joint action of the Bishop and Standing Committee’.
some other press coverage of all this:
The San Francisco Chronicle put it this way:
Old-line Episcopal bishops form rival assembly 13 prelates disturbed by gay’s admission to ranks of clergy
Beliefnet had an excellent detailed report The Schism Begins
The Boston Globe carried this AP report, Episcopal bishops form protest network
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said Episcopalians against gay bishop form ‘network’
The Chicago Tribune has 13 Episcopal bishops form rival network, move closer to split
The St Louis Post-Dispatch New Episcopal group will work to oust gay bishop
And the Moonie-owned Washington Times combined news of this with a report that
In a related development, the Religion Newswriters Association, a group of 240 religion reporters for the secular media, voted Bishop Robinson Newsmaker of the Year for 2003. They also voted his ordination as the top religion news story of 2003, followed by stories on religious differences over the war in Iraq.
Also, note this announcement on the AAC site of the January charter meeting
The New York Times has published a report about this:
Dissident Episcopal Bishops Form New Group in which Laurie Goodstein says
The dioceses that have agreed to join the network are Albany; Pittsburgh; San Joaquin in California; South Carolina; Florida, Central Florida, and Southwest Florida; Dallas and Fort Worth; Quincy and Springfield in Illinois; Western Kansas; and Rio Grande, which includes parts of Texas and New Mexico.
Update: this list published by the New York Times has been challenged. Denials have been issued by Central Florida and Southwest Florida.
In an interview, Bishop Duncan said that the network is not seceding from the Episcopal Church U.S.A.. Instead, he said the eventual goal is for the network to win recognition as the authentic Episcopal Church from Anglican bishops overseas and from Roman Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox denominations that have already condemned the Episcopal Church for its actions.
We’re not leaving, we’re not separating ourselves,” Bishop Duncan said. “What we trust is going to happen is that the rest of the world and the rest of the Christian community are going to bring such pressure to bear on the whole of this church that it steps back from this event.”
The group has also published what it calls a theological charter.
The group now calls itself Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes and its website uses the newly-minted (11 December) URL anglicancommuniondioceses.org whose registered owner is the same group based in Colorado Springs, Communion Parishes, that owns anglicancommunionparishes.org.
Update
Kendall Harmon tells Why Today’s Launch of the Network Matters, and in particular that:
The Network has the full support, already, of some sixteen Anglican primates. The full statement of these primates, yet to be released because signatures are being sought carefully, contains this remarkable section:
“We re-affirm our solidarity with faithful Bishops, clergy and church members in North America who remain committed the historic faith and order of the church and have rejected unbiblical innovation. We offer our support and the full weight of our ministries and offices to those who are gathering in a “Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes” now being organized in North America.”
update 22 Dec a full interview in NCR with Mary Tanner is here
Some more from the National Catholic Reporter related to current Anglican-Roman Catholic relations is in this article, scroll about halfway down the page.
On Dec. 11, an eminent English ecumenist, Mary Tanner, lectured at Rome’s Centro Pro Unione. She argued that while the controversy has revealed serious fissures within the Anglican world as well between Anglicans and Catholics, it also reveals the closeness between the two branches of the Christian family. She argued that when Pope John Paul II in early October warned the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, of “new and serious difficulties” related to the ordination of Gene Robinson, it reflected a climate in which the pope felt he could speak the truth as he perceives it in love.
The same journal also published this comment on scripture and homosexuality, Hold the condemnations.
Something different from Nigeria, Clergy Wants Anglicans Separated From Protestants
The Anglican Bishop of Egbu Diocese, Prof. Emmanuel Iheagwam, has decried the situation in higher institutions where Anglican Church faithful are meant to worship with other denominations in the name of “Protestants”.
From Fort Worth, this story about how A local Episcopal group is working to keep its house undivided
Two fragments of the forthcoming Network of Confessing Dioceses and Congregations in ECUSA manifesto have emerged on Kendall Harmon’s blog, here and here
while an Advent letter to the diocese of Pittsburgh from the Moderator of the Network, the ECUSA Bishop of Pittsburgh is here.
The article in the Moonie-owned Washington Times to which Bishop Duncan makes reference can be found here.
One has some sympathy for Duncan in relation to this article: it attributed the number of “signatures” then being claimed by the Anglican Mainstream petition, 384,935 - most of which are demonstrably bogus and many of which come from outside ECUSA - as signed-up members of the forthcoming Network. Of course, normally the Washington Times is viewed as one of the ecclesiastical rightwing’s stoutest supporters. It must have been galling to see such a strong natural ally expressing the same opinions of AAC and Network actions as those held by many whom the AAC and its cohorts would normally describe as apostate.
The Toronto Globe & Mail visited the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Abuja Nigeria, and reported on what it found there, Conservatives could spark Anglican split.
The vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, Njabulo Ndebele took a rather different view of life, Those Who Look Through a Keyhole With Two Eyes Are Blind to Humanity’s Riches.
The Telegraph reported and commented favourably upon CofE Bishops’ expenses, and also reported on US parishes revolt against gay bishop.
One vacant deanery was filled this week and The Times got very excited about the possibility that another one would be filled soon. For the benefit of overseas readers unable to access those stories, they claim that June Osborne, currently acting dean at Salisbury has been offered the job. Here’s a copycat article in the Guardian.
The Guardian reported on the royal grave story, No aye for Harold seekers and today it has a leading article, Hell hits back that refers to a Church Times feature which won’t be on the web for 2 weeks or more (sigh).
The list of formal statements on the New Hampshire consecration on the main TA blog has been updated to include the latest information available as of 11 December. I am still looking for the formal provincial statements reported to have been made by Rwanda, West Africa, and Central Africa. Quotations from the statements that are available can be found here.
Addition
I forgot to add this one: Botswana’s Anglican Church Leaders Denounce Gay Bishop (Botswana is a part of the Central Africa province.)
Some articles read recently:
In the Sunday Times (Ireland edition) Irish Bishop says gay clergy are a fact of church life. A couple of excerpts:
THE Church of Ireland should recognise gay relationships in the clergy, according to the Anglican bishop of Limerick.
Michael Mayes, who was a private guest at the consecration of the first openly gay bishop in America, said he had no regrets about attending the ceremony that has caused a global schism in the Anglican church. He called on his own church to accept same sex relationships as “a fact of life”.
Mayes refused to back down yesterday, saying: “Gay relationships have always been there, they didn’t come down in the last shower of rain and the Church of Ireland needs to accept that. There have always been people in these sorts of relationships, so I think the church will have to try and acknowledge that, even though it is very difficult for us.”
He said Bishop Robinson was “innocent of any wrongdoing and he is entitled to be left in peace”.
In the American National Catholic Reporter The Episcopalians? They are us. A long essay.
In the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer Episcopal pioneer urges unity at Trinity
The Rev. Fleming Rutledge — a renowned teacher, author and preacher in the Episcopal Church who’s been in Columbus since Thanksgiving weekend — offered wide-ranging views about her denomination’s recent troubles at a forum Monday night.
In the Los Angeles Times Larry Stammer reports Bishop Asserts There’s Room for Gays
In a ringing defense of an openly gay bishop and same-sex unions, Los Angeles Episcopal Bishop J. Jon Bruno declared here Saturday that the Episcopal Church is “a roomy house” for all, and warned that those who leave would be leaving “the presence of God.”
Update This ENS story was published on 18 December, Via Media groups resist calls for realignment, redirection
Although it’s not yet clear exactly which are the 13 ECUSA dioceses already participating in the Network of Confessing Dioceses and Congregations it is clear that in several dioceses people are actively organising themselves to resist the actions of their leaders.
Here are several websites belonging to such groups:
Progessive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh
Albany Via Media
Episcopal Voices of Central Florida
Remaining ECUSA in the Diocese of San Joaquin
Fort Worth Via Media
Other similar groups appear to be organised, though as yet without websites, in Rio Grande, Quincy, and Springfield. I will add new websites to this list as they appear.
I asked recently who exactly was in this Network of Confessing Dioceses and Congregations. Some partial information appeared today on the website of the ECUSA diocese of Fort Worth.
It includes the signatures of the following 4 ECUSA diocesan bishops:
Edward L Salmon (South Carolina)
James M. Stanton (Dallas)
Jack L Iker (Ft. Worth)
Robert W Duncan (Pittsburgh)
Presumably there are already 9 other dioceses which together with those listed above comprise the 13 dioceses mentioned as initial members. These are likely to come from among the total of 16 diocesan bishops are described (by Anglican Mainstream for example) as “dissenting” (although a total of 43 diocesans actually voted no on the Robinson confirmation) and the other 12 ECUSA diocesan bishops who signed the statement in visible protests at the ECUSA General Convention are:
Keith Ackerman, Bishop of Quincy
James Adams, Bishop of Western Kansas
Peter Beckwith, Bishop of Springfield
Bertram Herlong, Bishop of Tennessee
Daniel Herzog, Bishop of Albany
Gethin Hughes, Bishop of San Diego
John Howe, Bishop of Central Florida
Russell Jacobus, Bishop of Fond du Lac
Stephen Jecko, Bishop of Florida
Terence Kelshaw, Bishop of Rio Grande
John Lipscomb, Bishop of Southwest Florida
John-David Schofield, Bishop of San Joaquin
A meeting is scheduled, it says, for 19/20 January 2004. No doubt they will identify themselves by then.
Some further extracts from the Fort Worth announcement:
The Network is comprised initially of 13 dioceses. Each has accepted as its founding document a Memorandum of Agreement formulated November 20, 2003, and reproduced below. The Network will continue to operate in good faith within the Constitution of ECUSA, with membership open to all dioceses and congregations sharing the intent of the Memorandum of Agreement.
The Rt. Rev. Robert William Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, has been appointed Moderator and Convening Authority of the Network, and he is charged with taking the necessary steps to obtain recognition of the Network from Anglican Primates and Provinces worldwide, as well as from other churches with which we have ecumenical relationships.
The Network will, in co-operation with the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Anglican Primates, participate in the provision of adequate episcopal oversight to congregations within ECUSA that request it.
An organizing convocation of the Network is to be held January 19 & 20, 2004, for the purpose of adopting a charter. Each member diocese will be represented at the convocation by its diocesan bishop, two clergy delegates, and two lay delegates.
MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT
The undersigned bishops of the Episcopal Church (“ECUSA”), being of a common mind on the unfortunate divisions and canonical oppression within our Church, declare a need to establish a Network of Confessing Dioceses and Congregations, and to that end agree as follows:
1. The purpose of the Network is to bring together those dioceses and congregations which hold to the centrality and authority of Holy Scripture and, in keeping with the Preamble to the Constitution of ECUSA, to be faithful in upholding and propagating the historic faith and order; pursuing the apostolic mission to a troubled and fallen church, nation and world.
2. The Network shall be formed and shall operate in good faith within the Constitution of ECUSA.
3. Membership in the Network shall be open to those dioceses and congregations which share the intent of this agreement.
4. We hereby appoint the Rt Rev Robert William Duncan as Moderator and Convening Authority of the Network to be formed.
5. The Moderator shall direct the preparation of an appropriate Charter as the incorporating document for the Network for formal adoption by member dioceses.
6. The Moderator shall appoint a steering committee to provide for the prompt and orderly formation of the Network.
7. The Moderator shall take necessary steps to obtain recognition of the Network from Anglican Primates and Provinces, as well as from other churches with which we have or may have ecumenical contact.
8. The Network, in co-operation with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates, shall participate in the providing of adequate episcopal oversight to congregations within ECUSA that request it.
9. The signatory parties may amend this Memorandum of Agreement by subsequent written agreement.
In witness whereof we have fixed our hands this twentieth day of November 2003.
four signatures as above
First, for the lack of deans:
Patience wears thin in long wait for deans in the Church Times
Shortage of deans hits Anglican church in the Guardian
Update 9 December
The Telegraph has also published a version of the original story about the vacant deaneries
Next for threats to the financing of cathedrals and bishops:
Church to ask the faithful for an extra £5m in the Telegraph
The Church of England is preparing to ask churchgoers to find an extra £5 million in donations to support their bishops and cathedrals. The far-reaching plans have been drawn up by a group set up by the Archbishops’ Council and the Church Commissioners to review the Church’s parlous finances. The review group wants to save up to £5 million from the £26 million the commissioners pay annually towards the upkeep of the Church’s 113 bishops and staff at its 43 cathedrals.
and in one case for their lack of child-friendliness:
