Ekklesia has published a detailed analysis of Rowan Williams’ recent Reflections paper, written by Savi Hensman.
See A better future for the Anglican Communion?
Here’s the abstract:
65 CommentsRowan Williams has recently proposed major changes in the way the Anglican Communion is organised. Because of growing willingness in the Episcopal Church (TEC) to recognise the status and ministry of lesbian and gay people, and the global disagreement on this issue, he is putting forward a “two-track” approach. Provinces such as TEC in North America would not be able to carry out certain functions such as representing the Anglican Communion in ecumenical circles, while those which signed up to a Covenant would have a more central position. This research paper describes the background, examines the evidence on which the Archbishop’s main points are based, discusses their implications, and corrects some mistaken assumptions about history and practice. Inter alia it tackles a number of key theological issues. It suggests that a two-level Communion would be practically and spiritually harmful and suggests a different approach, less focused on institutional structures, that could be more effective in addressing divisions and ultimately enabling Anglicans to move towards a deeper unity.
Updated Sunday
The Lagos Guardian has a long article New primate, same steadiness in the Anglican Church of Nigeria
From March next year when he will lead the over 18 million Nigerian Anglicans, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh will bring strict conservatism of his military background and years of close collaboration with out-going Primate Peter Akinola to bear on the Church, write Hendrix Oliomogbe (Asaba), Lawrence Njoku (Enugu) and Wole Oyebade (Lagos)
GENERALLY, Christianity is founded on strict conservatism. The heads of nearly all the old Christian groups are known for their conservatism. The heads practically take to heart the Biblical saying: As it was in the beginning, so it is now, and so shall it be, a world without end!
The world should not expect any thing less from the in-coming head of the Anglican Communion in Nigeria, Archbishop Nicholas Dikeriehi Orogodo Okoh who will assume office in March next year. Primate-elect Okoh will be an iron-cast conservative, given the constituency he is coming from: The military. Until 2001 when he retired from the Nigerian Army as a Lieutenant Colonel, Okoh has not known another profession since adolescence. He worked for about four years with his uncle in private business after leaving primary school at the age of 12 in 1964.
On the current issues tearing the worldwide Anglican Communion apart, Archbishop Okoh is on the same plane as the man he will succeed on March 25, 2010, the ultra-conservative Archbishop Peter Jasper Akinola who literarily looked the worldwide Anglican Church eye-ball to eye-ball and proclaimed that the Church was wrong to have looked the other side on a vital issue of spirituality. Since 2003 when Archbishop Akinola took the stand against the dilution of the priesthood with confessed gays in the United States (U.S.) and homosexuality, the Communion has not been the same again.
The worldwide Anglican Communion should not expect any deviation from Archbishop Okoh. In fact, he has been one of the greatest and most fastidious supporters of Archbishop Akinola on the Nigerian Anglican Communion’s stand against the “sins” of the Episcopal Church of the North Americas on the matter of embrace of gays and homosexuality in the Church…
Sunday The Lagos Guardian has Our Faith In Okoh, By Anglican Priests.
9 CommentsCatherine Pepinster wrote in The Times about how the Relics of St Thérèse highlight the flesh and blood nature of Christianity.
Jonathan Romain wrote that Rosh Hashanah opens a season of fruitfulness and reflection.
At the Guardian Musab Bora asked Is it reasonable to describe Eid al-Fitr as the Muslim Christmas?
In the Church Times Giles Fraser asks us to Respect the mystery of risk.
Barry Morgan’s presidential address to the Church in Wales Governing Body concerns the role of the church in the public square. Press release here.
Alan Wilson reported on what the CofE College of Bishops learned this week. See Sleepwalking over a cliff? and also Bishops roles in context.
0 CommentsUpdated Saturday
This is not very prominently linked on the CofE website, so is copied below.
The Church Times has a report Chalice is returning to the people. This includes the news that
Among the dioceses where advice favours the administering of the chalice to the congregation are Wakefield, Lincoln, Hereford, Gloucester, and St Edmundsbury & Ipswich.
And also this tidbit:
It is understood that at the College of Bishops’ meeting in Oxford this week “the president gave each person the option of receiving the wine or not. All bar less than a handful drank from the chalice.”
Text of Statement
32 CommentsFeast of St Ninian, Bishop of Galloway, Apostle of the Picts
16th September 2009Dear Colleagues,
SWINE FLU: STATEMENT FROM THE ARCHBISHOPS TO THE COLLEGE OF BISHOPS
At the end of July the Department of Health advised us that the pandemic had reached the stage at which ‘it makes good sense to limit the spread of disease by not sharing common vessels for food and drink.’
In the light of this we felt it would be irresponsible not to alert parishes and dioceses to this advice, and to recommend the suspension of the administration of the chalice while the Department of Health information and advice remained as it was. To date the advice we have been given has not changed.
Of course national advice given by Archbishops is just that – advice – as indeed is any separate advice that Bishops may decide to give to parishes.
Judgments about the best course of action in particular contexts may vary, but it remains important
a) to encourage everyone to recognise that the Church has a responsibility to take public health considerations seriously, and
b) to ensure that communication around the Church is good so that we don’t appear to be at sixes and sevens, and
c) to remember that responsible practice in this area is not primarily about protecting ourselves, but about avoiding transmitting infection unwittingly to others.We are keeping regular contact nationally with the Department of Health and all relevant information and advice will be passed on.
We have decided to review our own advice towards the end of October, in the light of the information, statistics, and guidance coming by then from the Department of Health. By that time the progress of the vaccination programme and the effects of schools and universities having started back will be assessed.
If at that stage the perceived risk is significantly lower than when we issued our advice at the end of July, then fresh guidelines will be given. We would urge patience and vigilance until we have reached that point.
+ Rowan Cantuar + Sentamu Ebor:
There are conflicting reports on this from either side in the dispute over who is the “real” diocese.
Living Church reports Both Sides Debate Significance of Fort Worth Ruling
Episcopal News Service reports FORT WORTH: Continuing diocese has right to sue breakaway group, judge rules.
The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth has published a PDF of the actual ruling made by the judge, see here and issued these two statements:
What the legal language of the order means
What the legal language of the order (click here to read it and note that the hand-written portions of the order are in the judge’s own hand) means is this: essentially the court refused to strike the pleadings i.e. it ruled that the reorganized Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth and the Corporation had the right to continue to sue the defendants and establish our right to seek declarative judgment. The defendants lost on their main argument that we should not be able to sue the defendants because they are the rightful diocese. This was the main objective of former Bishop Iker’s attorneys, and they did not achieve it. The court left that determination for a later hearing.
The order also barred our attorneys from appearing on this suit as attorneys for the entities associated with Jack Iker. Our attorneys have, of course, never asserted that.
As is clear in the order, no other rulings were made. The judge did make comments and he did ask questions, but he made no other rulings.
We now await the October 15 hearing.
Statement on hearing that concluded on September 16
The Hon. John Chupp, judge of the 141st District Court of Tarrant County, Texas today ruled that attorney Jon Nelson and Chancellor Kathleen Wells are not authorized to represent the diocese or the corporation that are associated with Jack L. Iker. These attorneys have never claimed to do so. The judge denied the motion by Bp. Iker’s attorneys to remove the diocese and the corporation from the lawsuit filed April 14, 2009.
While the judge did make some off hand remarks in court and asked many questions, he made no other rulings.
A hearing is set for Oct. 15 on the motion for partial summary judgment in this same court.
The Southern Cone diocese has published a statement as a PDF:
Court Issues Decision on Rule 12 Motion
10 CommentsFORT WORTH, Texas – In a hearing today in the141st District Court, Judge John Chupp granted the Diocese partial relief under Rule 12 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. He ruled that attorneys Jonathan Nelson and Kathleen Wells do not represent the diocese or the corporation which have realigned under the Province of the Southern Cone. He denied a second aspect of Rule 12 relief which would have removed the plaintiffs’ diocese and corporation from the lawsuit filed April 14, 2009.
The judge also ruled that neither the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church nor the Constitution and Canons of this diocese prohibit withdrawal from TEC and realignment under another province. Further, he found that the Diocese had done so at its November 2008 annual convention, saying that “they [the members] took the diocese with them.” The action of the November convention was not, he said, ultra vires and void, as the suit’s plaintiffs have argued. He declared, too, that the Diocese had taken its property with it in realignment. He said he did not consider any court ruling concerning a realigning parish to be applicable in the present case, and he said that he considered it “self-serving on [the part of TEC] to say that [Bishop Iker] abandoned his job.”
The hearing on the Rule 12 motion began Wednesday, Sept. 9. At that time, the judge denied a motion for continuance filed by Nelson and Wells. Each party filed a supplemental written statement in the period between the first and second portions of the hearing. The statement submitted by attorney Shelby Sharpe is available on the diocesan Web site.
Commenting on today’s ruling, Bishop Iker said, “We are pleased that Judge Chupp has recognized the legitimacy of the vote of our Diocesan Convention in November 2008 to withdraw from the General Convention of The Episcopal Church and has ruled that we had the legal right to amend our Constitution in order to do so. This a positive step in support of the position we have taken. We will continue to keep our concerns before the Lord in prayer.”
The date for a further hearing to take up the remaining Motion for Leave to File a Third-Party Petition will be set shortly. A date of October 15 has been set to hear the plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgement.
Updated again Wednesday lunchtime
The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) has issued this announcement:
New Primate for Church of Nigeria
ABP. NICHOLAS OKOH ELECTED NEW PRIMATE
A new Primate has emerged for the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) in the person of Archbishop Nicholas Orogodo Okoh. (57 this November ) He is presently the Archbishop of Bendel Province and bishop of Asaba.
The news of his election was announced today 15th September, 2009 by the Dean of the Church of Nigeria, Most Rev. Maxwell Anikwenwa immediately after the election by the Episcopal Synod held in Umuahia, Abia State.
And another longer press release says:
BEHOLD OKOH ANGLICAN’S NEW PRIMATE
BY REV CANON FOLUSO TAIWO
A new Primate has emerged for the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion. He is the 57 year old rtd Lt colonel, Archbishop of Bendel Province and Bishop of Asaba Diocese the Most Rev. Nicholas OROGODO OKOH.
The news of his election broke today after a hitch free voting exercise by the house of Bishops at the Cathedral Church of St. Stephen’s Umuahia Abia State.
Archbishop Okoh came out tops after securing two-thirds majority of the total votes cast. Three other Clerics contested with him.
By today’s Election Archbishop Okoh has become the fourth (4th) Primate of the Church of Nigeria Anglican Communion. He is taking over from the Most Rev Peter Akinola the incumbent Primate who vacates his office on March 25, 2010.
The atmosphere was suspense filled as the Bishops engaged in the secret ballot election. Immediately after the peaceful election, the Dean of Church of Nigeria the most Rev Maxwell S. C. Anikwenwa
(O. F. R.) issued a statement that the most Rev Nicholas Orogodo Okoh has been duly elected Primate in succession to the most Rev Peter. J. Akinola (CON) and has been issued with a Certificate of return.
Archbishop Nicholas Orogodo Okoh attended the famous Immanuel College of Theology Ibadan Oyo State between 1976 and 1979. He was made deacon in 1979 preferred a Canon in 1987, collated Archdeacon in 1991 and was elected Bishop of Asaba in 2001.
On the 22nd of July 2005 the Primate elect was elected Archbishop of Bendel Province at St Matthew’s Cathedral Benin. He was in the Army and fought the civil war. He retired as a Lt Col in 2001 after his election as Bishop of Asaba.
CANA has issued this press release:
CANA Congratulates Archbishop Okoh as Primate-Elect of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
HERNDON, Va. (September 15, 2009) – The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) congratulates Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, who was elected to become the primate-elect of the Church of Nigeria.
“Archbishop Okoh is a Godly leader and CANA is delighted that he will be leading the Church of Nigeria. He is a strong supporter of CANA and the Anglican Church in North America, and has been instrumental in helping to advance the orthodox Anglican GAFCON movement. Archbishop Okoh is committed to spreading the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is a personal friend, and I’m pleased that he is stepping into this leadership role during this crucial time in the life of the worldwide Anglican Communion,” said CANA Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns.
The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (http://www.canaconvocation.org) currently consists of more than 85 congregations and 190 clergy in 25 states. CANA was established in 2005 to provide a means by which Anglicans living in North America who were alienated by the actions and decisions of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada could continue to live out their faith without compromising their core convictions. Created as a missionary initiative of the Church of Nigeria, about a dozen of the congregations are primarily expatriate Nigerians. CANA is a founding member of the Anglican Church in North America, an Anglican province that includes about 700 congregations.
Updates
There is a lengthy and informative news report in the Lagos Guardian Okoh takes over from Akinola as Anglican Church Primate.
GAFCON has issued this: Gafcon welcomes new Primate of Nigeria.
The document produced by the group he chaired can be found here.
He recently visited England, see here, and also over here. (H/T Fulcrum.)
31 CommentsReaders may recall our earlier article ‘untainted’ bread?
The Diocese of Blackburn has issued this press release: Cathedral Changes Holy Communion Policy
and Blackburn Cathedral has issued this Policy Statement on Eucharistic Presidency – 12/9/2009
Mindful of our strong desire to find a way of journeying together, in a context where people cannot yet reach agreement over the ordination of women to the priesthood, we have been reflecting on the Eucharistic arrangements which we made in the light of the appointment of the first woman canon to the cathedral staff.
Though we hope that people will respect the fact that we did so for the most collegial of motives and wished to make full use of the opportunities that a cathedral offers for creative exploration, we now regret the course of action that we took.
We apologise for any hurt or pain that this has caused.
It will now be the case that the sacrament at any given celebration of the Eucharist will be consecrated by the President alone.
No alternative provision will be made when a woman presides for those who cannot in conscience recognise her Eucharistic ministry, though we continue, of course, to offer a range of Eucharistic provision on a Sunday…
WATCH has issued a statement which says in part:
77 CommentsWATCH (Women and the Church) is delighted that Blackburn Cathedral has overturned its decision to offer communion wafers consecrated by a male priest when a woman priest is taking a service.
WATCH is grateful to Blackburn Cathedral for acknowledging the offence this caused and for discontinuing the practice which they introduced a year ago after a female canon was appointed to the Cathedral staff. This practice harks back to beliefs outlawed as heretical in the 4th century.
The Church of England’s law-making body, the General Synod, passed the vote allowing women to be admitted to the priesthood 17 years ago. In 1994, 15 years ago, 1,500 female deacons were ordained as priests. Since then 4,000 women have been ordained and there are now almost 3,000 active clergywomen serving in the Church of England, nearly a quarter of all active clergy.
Christina Rees, Chair of WATCH said, “Bearing in mind that the Church is now in the process of making it lawful for women to be bishops, this is very good news. It shows that treating women in ways we wouldn’t treat men is no longer acceptable. Blackburn Cathedral has got the message and has done the right thing and we are very, very pleased.”
As happened previously with a Communion Bishops statement, a number of priests who are affiliated with Communion Partners have endorsed it. In this case, they pledged to fulfill the “non-episcopal requests” made by those bishops who met with the Archbishop of Canterbury on Sept. 1.
The Living Church reports that the 74 priests lead parishes with a collective baptized membership of 60,000.
See Communion Partner Rectors Endorse Bishops In Meeting With Archbishop of Canterbury
4 CommentsThe undersigned Communion Partner Rectors [and] associate Clergy commend and support the initiative taken by the Communion Partner bishops in meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury on September 1, 2009 in order to discuss and clarify the present circumstances of The Episcopal Church, as well as his understanding of what entities might be eligible to sign and adopt the Anglican Communion Covenant.
We echo the commitment of the bishops “to remain constituent members of both the Anglican Communion and The Episcopal Church.” Our desire is also to use the present situation as an opportunity to make manifest our commitment to becoming “a part of a ‘Covenanted’ global Anglican body in communion with the See of Canterbury.”
In support of the bishops, we commit ourselves to the five non-episcopal requests listed in their report of September 7, 2009…
The bishops of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa have issued a statement.
Statement by the Synod of Bishops, 9 September 2009
The Synod of Bishops meeting in Midrand, Gauteng from 7 – 9 September 2009, has been disturbed by various recent reports in the media to the effect that the world-wide Anglican Communion and the Anglican Church in Southern Africa are on the brink of schism. We want to assure the faithful that these reports are grossly exaggerated and in some cases, misrepresented.Our Worldwide Anglican Communion has for a number of years been struggling with the issue of human sexuality without, as yet, having reached any significant consensus. There are, indeed, broken and damaged relationships within the Communion, but there is still a deep desire among the bishops throughout the world to maintain the bonds of unity in obedience to the High Priestly prayer of our Lord that “..they may be one as we are one (Jn 17:11).
To this end the Communion is exploring an Anglican Covenant which would express our Common Unity in Christ and the criteria for accountability to each other.
We the Bishops and the Anglican Church of Southern Africa have, on a number of occasions spelt out our common mind at this stage of our journey with the world-wide Communion. We believe that we are called to love others with God’s unconditional, sacrificial love and do not believe sexual orientation a barrier to leadership within the church. However, holding as we do, that Christian marriage is a lifelong union between one man and one woman, we hold that clergy unable to commit to another in Christian marriage partnership are called to a life of celibacy.
We have also received the resolution of the Diocese of Cape Town requesting us to provide guidelines for the pastoral care of those in committed same sex relationships. Despite the misconceptions created by media reports, Cape Town Diocese is intending to proceed with the blessing of same sex unions, we recognise the request to be pastoral in nature and not in any way in conflict with Resolution 110 of Lambeth Conference 1998. The task of responding to this request has been referred to a team committee which will prepare a preliminary paper building upon the resolutions and statement made thus far by ACSA.
We remain committed to holding together the bonds of unity when we journey together through the difficult questions that confront the world-wide Anglican Communion. Differences of opinion are inevitable, schism is not.
Now to him, who by the power at work within us
is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think to him be glory in the
Church and in Christ Jesus
to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen
The resolution from the Diocese of Cape Town can be found at Resolution of the Diocese of Cape Town on Ministry to Gays and Lesbians in Covenanted Partnerships. (scroll down for the full text).
21 CommentsRoderick Strange writes in The Times that Great achievements call for sacrifices and failures.
Andrew Linzey writes there about Brute creatures and the Passion.
Josh Howle writes about Yom Kippur in the Guardian.
Giles Fraser writes in the Church Times that Evensong calm ends my fidget.
Simon Barrow writes at Ekklesia about A different way of reading the world.
Last month he wrote about Abandoning the religion and politics of exclusion.
Andrew Brown wrote at Cif belief about The origins of religion.
17 CommentsGraham Kings has written a response to the Cif belief Question of the Week. Go here and here for earlier responses.
Also available on Fulcrum.
…Are Anglican conservatives in the Anglican Communion turning their attention away from issues of sexuality to the threat of Islam? From reading articles and comments and taking part in various private discussions, this seems to me too simplistic an analysis. Perceptions on both these subjects may interweave and are likely to feature in future comment and campaign.
Anglican conservatives are no more a monolithic block than are Anglican liberals. Some, sadly, are so caught up in the combat of the single issue of sexuality that their words appear to many to be blinkered and splintered. Others, while remaining conservative on sexual issues, may have friends and relatives who are gay and join in with long term private conversations and organized discussions on the subject. Oliver O’Donovan has recently published A Conversation Waiting to Begin: the Churches and the Gay Controversy (SCM Press, 2009), which originated as a series of articles on Fulcrum. And there are many who are betwixt and between these general positions…
The series on Fulcrum to which reference is made, The Church of England and Islam: Hospitality and Embassy starts here.
13 CommentsLast week’s Church Times has an article by Bishop Kenneth Stevenson which was titled Rootless, isolated, and churched out.
This was edited from his farewell address to the Portsmouth diocesan synod which can be found in full at THE BUSINESS OF BISHOPING – A BOTTOM UP THEOLOGY’.
2 CommentsWHEN I went to my first meeting of the House of Bishops as a member in October 1995, I sat at the back (like a good Anglican) and watched.
This provoked me into playing two games. The first, an easy one, was to identify who were the prefects and who were the rogues. I soon came to the conclusion that the system — the Church — produced too many of the former, and too few of the latter.
The second game was to spot the defining job that someone held before he became a bishop, and how this affected the way he was approaching the discussion. Some bishops are manifestly former parish priests; others were theological teachers; some were involved in lay training; others worked a great deal with ordinands. Some ran cathedrals, often giving them a convincing civic awareness, while others were archdeacons, who seemed to know the ropes better than the others…
Ruth Gledhill has the details of this event, which happened in Canterbury Cathedral last Friday. See Archbishop of Canterbury laments loss of Christian knowledge.
There is a transcript, and links to a complete audio recording on Ruth’s blog.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has blamed education and pluralism for Britain’s loss of Christian culture. He said the Church does still have its foot in the door but the foot is being ‘squashed very painfully’. Writers in the past such as PG Wodehouse could assume knowledge in the reader of the Bible and Hymns Ancient & Modern. No longer. ‘It’s all gone, gone because of shifting patterns of education not just religious education, it’s gone because of a much more anxious awareness of a plural society and not wanting to privilege one religious tradition over another. What to do about it? I’m not sure I have a quick answer. The good side of it is that if not everybody knows it the story isn’t necessarily boringly familiar.’
The Archbishop was speaking at a Christian ‘gathering’, a new form of community meeting that seems to be gaining ascendancy. There was one such last Friday at Canterbury, where the sell-out event was Private Eye editor Ian Hislop in conversation with Dr Williams…
The Church Times also has a report, Door is closing on Church’s foot, says Williams by Ed Beavan.
13 Comments“THE FOOT is still in the door, even if it is being squashed very painfully,” the Archbishop of Canterbury said last weekend when he was asked about the Church’s participation in public debate. He did not think that the Church had yet “dropped off the radar”.
Dr Williams was in dialogue with Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye and panellist on the BBC’s Have I Got News for You, at an event during “The Gathering”, a series of activities for all ages at Canterbury Cathedral.
Mr Hislop described the difficulty that Dr Williams faced with the media when people called for a moral lead from the Church. “When the Archbishop of Canterbury says anything, they say, ‘Shut up,’” he suggested.
Dr Williams responded that “the leadership thing is a problem.” It was “a matter of trying to remember that when you’re speaking from the Church you’re trying to give some sort of critical perspective to try and show something”. The Archbishop admitted that he was “not brilliant at sound-bites”…
TA reported earlier that a new bishop had been elected for the (Swedish Lutheran) Diocese of Stockholm.
Some procedural objections were raised, but earlier this week the election review board decided to reject these appeals.
At its meeting on Monday the Board received six complaints about the handling of the elections last April. It was argued that the election results, in which Eva Brunne got the most votes, were not accurate because of an ambiguity in the notice of the election which was not implemented uniformly across the diocese. But the Election Review Board says in summary that “the errors committed in connection with the election on April 21, 2009 are not reasonably likely to have affected the outcome of the elections”. They thus rejected the appeals, while criticising some parts of the electoral process.
Eva Brunne will now be consecrated as a bishop in Uppsala Cathedral on 8 November.
3 CommentsTwo further contributions to this week’s Guardian Question series.
Julian Mann wrote Nazir-Ali is right.
Dr Michael Nazir-Ali has been of one of the well-informed voices that has exploded the myth that the Qu’ran really belongs to moderate liberal Muslims and not to the militants who ex animo believe it.
But I would respectfully argue that Nazir-Ali would be better placed to counteract the persecution of Christians by Muslims as a diocesan bishop than he is in the peripatetic role he is anticipating for himself. It is difficult to see how an ex-bishop hopping on and off airplanes can influence foreign governments, such as Pakistan’s, to provide proper protection for their Christian minorities.
Apart from a newspaper editor, who is more “ex” than a diocesan bishop?
Jim Naughton wrote The right gains ground.
17 CommentsThe Anglican Covenant may never come to pass. Or its doctrinal statements may be so unobjectionable, and its enforcement mechanisms so weak, that every church in the communion will hastily sign on. Or the gay-friendly churches threatened with diminished status may realise that they will always have more opportunities than resources for mission within the communion, and happily agree to run their trains on track number two.
Yet if Rowan Williams succeeds in his misguided effort to establish a single-issue magisterium that determines a church’s influence within the communion, a significant risk remains. That risk is run not by the Anglican left, which has nothing practical to lose, nor by the Anglican right, whose leaders embarrass less easily than Donald Trump and don’t fear public opprobrium. Rather, the parties at risk are the Church of England and the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which may find themselves at the head of a communion synonymous with the agenda of the American right…
Updated again Thursday evening
Not content with their recent magnum opus the Anglican Communion Institute has published another (shorter) essay, titled Communion Partner Dioceses and The Anglican Covenant.
We address below issues related to the capacity of CP dioceses to sign the Anglican Covenant. We consider the text of Section 4 of the Ridley Cambridge draft, ACC Resolution 14.11, the unique polity of TEC and the ACC constitution and membership schedule. Although the final wording of Section 4 has not yet been agreed, the principles discussed below, particularly the constitutional integrity of member churches, are fundamental to Anglicanism and not in dispute…
Pluralist has already responded.
Updates Mark Harris has now also responded with Why bother, #1
Why bother with the in house realignment crowd (the Communion Partners Bishops, the Anglican Communion Institute, the Covenant-Communion writers.) The logic chopping is so bad in some of their essays that the noise of it turns the brain to Wheatena.
Here is example #1…
And later, with Why bother, #2
The Covenant-Communion article, subject of my first “Why bother?” post, was published just the day after the seven bishops who visited with the Archbishop of Canterbury published their report.
The “realignment-from-within” Bishops, the RFW Bishops aka the Communion Bishops, have produced a somewhat odd report, as if jet lag had not yet left them able to work at full speed…
Mark Harris has also written The Anglican Covenant: A tempting but wormy apple.
The notion of an Anglican Covenant is as tempting for some as the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The promise is that the Anglican Covenant would make it clear to ourselves and to all the world just who we were and what we stood for and how we would comport ourselves as a Christian fellowship. Many Anglicans can just taste it! A sense of self esteem when we are compared to other world wide churches and a sense of religious order when we look at our own community. The Anglican Covenant would make us one of, you know, THEM, world wide Churches that have real apostolic heft, with bishops and all.
The Anglican Covenant promised a lot, but preliminary taste tests seem to indicate that the fruit is wormy. The apple, it seems, is a bit rotten in places…
Further criticism of the earlier ACI document comes from Tobias Haller who has written The Heterosectual Communion.
4 CommentsThe soi-disant Anglican Communion Institute has a knack for inverting the old Latin tag, “the mountains labored and bore a mouse.” In this case the gang of three, augmented by an attorney and a bishop, have given birth to a mountain of verbiage which in the long run, fundamentally flawed as it is, amounts to less than a mole-hill…
Episcopal Café has published an essay by Frank M. Turner The imagined community of the Anglican Communion.
13 CommentsOne of the most fertile political concepts to emerge in the past quarter-century is Benedict Anderson’s “imagined community.” Anderson, now a retired Cornell professor of international studies, government, and Asian studies, contended that the emergence of modern nationalism involved the creation among various groups living in their own localities with no direct interaction between or among themselves of the idea of an imagined community with other people on the basis of supposed common histories, customs, language, and ethnic identity. The reality of the community resided in the imagination of those drawn to these ideas that circulated in the print media of the day.
Over the past twenty years proponents of what is called “The Anglican Communion” have sought to establish a similar imagined ecclesiastical community among various provinces around the world whose churches derived in some fashion from the Church of England. In the case of the Episcopal Church the derivation of Episcopal orders was not direct but through the Scottish Episcopal Church and its character was strongly influenced by its eighteenth century American setting. The so-called Anglican Communion exemplifies a religious version of Anderson’s “imagined community.” At its most banal, the Communion exists to justify bishops traveling about the world on funds contributed by the baptized. At its worst, it has come to represent an imagined community several of whose Episcopal spokespeople now seek to persecute and degrade or relegate into a second track churches who have opened themselves, their process of ordination, and their episcopate to gay and lesbian people. In this respect, it this ecclesiastical imagined community replicates in its drive to exclusion the persecution that ethnic minorities have experienced at the hands of dominant nationalist groups from the early nineteenth century to the present day…
Updated Wednesday morning
The seven “Communion Partner” American bishops who recently visited Lambeth Palace have issued a statement.
The full text of their statement was first published at Cotton Country Anglican and is reproduced here below the fold.
It includes a recommendation to urge the adoption of the Anglican Covenant by the US General Convention. This would appear to be at odds with the views expressed recently by the ACI and the Bishop of Durham.
ENS now has a comprehensive report by Mary Frances Schjonberg at Seven Episcopal bishops urge covenant endorsement at all church levels.
21 CommentsRecently the Quakers made news on this topic. See for example, this report in The Times by Ruth Gledhill Quakers back gay marriage and call for reform:
The Quakers sanctioned gay marriages yesterday and called on the Government to give same-sex couples who marry in their ceremonies the same standing as heterosexual people.
Other Christian churches and religious denominations have approved blessings for same-sex civil partnerships but the Quakers are Britain’s first mainstream religious group to approve marriages for homosexuals…
Some background to this decision may be found in one of the papers from The Interfaith Legal Advisers Network meeting in June 2008:
At the second meeting, Network Members shared their experiences on how their own religious traditions interact with the law on marriage, including divorce, re-marriage, interfaith marriages and civil partnerships.
The papers are available as PDF files:
The concluding paragraphs of Mark Hill’s paper make interesting reading:
Thus we find ourselves in the curious position whereby Church of England clergy (i) are under a legally enforceable duty to solemnise the matrimony of atheists, non-believers and adherents of other faiths; (ii) have a statutory discretion to refuse to marry divorcées, transgendered and certain others exercisable in accordance with their conscience irrespective of the religious beliefs and affiliations of the couple; and (iii) are canonically prohibited from conducting a service of blessing following the registration of a civil partnership. Ironically, devout Christians in the latter category are denied the ministrations of the Church by way of a blessing whereas Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews and non-believer couples can compel the use Church of England rites and liturgy and the ministrations of its clergy. The pastoral damage which might result from this mixed message cannot be adequately explained away as an anomaly of the historic accident of establishment in a plural society.
CONCLUSION
The Civil Partnership Act 2004 is one of a number of pieces of legislation that have had an impact upon religious communities and individuals. The Act creates a newly recognised legal relationship which cannot be entered into on religious premises, at which no religious service can be used, and the blessing of which is expressly forbidden by the Church of England. Moreover despite political and judicial rhetoric that civil partnerships are different and distinct from marriage, the exact differences have yet to be fully explored and clearly articulated by the domestic judiciary or by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Although the Act defines the relationship a being for two individuals of the same gender, physical intimacy, still less sexual fidelity, do not feature in the provisions of the Act. This means that the House of Bishops’ Pastoral Statement is wholly consistent with the letter of the legislation; whether it accords with popular perceptions of the legislation is another matter. Future judicial interpretation of the Act may pose challenges for the clergy of the Established Church. The implications for Church of England clergy who are commonly understood to be under a legal duty to solemnise the marriage of parishioners creates what can at best be styled a pastoral anomaly. Whether promoted by accident or design, the effects of the Civil Partnership Act on the nature of Establishment in times of changing social mores are far from insignificant and not yet fully understood.
(See PDF for omitted footnotes.)
11 CommentsHere’s a document I should have linked over two years ago, but I only discovered its existence today.
The Church of England Archbishops’ Council published this guidance on the Equality Act 2006, prepared by the Legal Office at Church House (.rtf format), in May 2007.
As the CofE website page says:
7 CommentsEquality Act 2006
The Equality Act 2006 – relating to religion and belief, and sexual orientation – came into force on 30 April 2007. Guidance on this legislation has been issued by the Archbishops’ Council and is available here. The guidance is intended as a basic guide for dioceses, parishes and incumbents and should not be treated as a substitute for specific legal advice.