AN Wilson on Rowan Williams
The Spectator magazine has this feature article about Rowan Williams, written by AN Wilson:
Holy sage
(and continued on page 2). The entire article should be read, but here is one quotation:
0 CommentsIn spite of what some Christians today believe, the future of Christianity does not depend upon what a few bigots on the one hand, and a few homosexual enthusiasts and their friends on the other, believe about same-sex unions. It really does not.
The loudest critics come from some little enclave within the Church — whether ‘high’ or ‘low’ — where they are so busy with their church hobby and so smugly certain of their own rectitude that they have managed to overlook a rather obvious fact. Their churches, such as Holy Trinity Brompton or St Helen’s Bishopsgate might be full to the rafters on Sunday mornings, but the numbers who enjoy their particular form of holy club are a tiny minority of the population of this planet. Rowan Williams is sufficiently intelligent and normal to be aware that in the West, being religious these days is, outside America, very distinctly odd, and trying to defend Christianity against the whole ethos of materialism and scientific rationalism which most intelligent people take for granted is a more than intellectual task. We might very well be living in Christianity’s last days. Many of us who go to church do so a little wistfully, knowing that, unlike Rowan Williams, we do not believe in the ways which our ancestors did. ‘Our prayers so languid and our faith so dim’ is one of the few lines of a hymn which we could sing with gusto. ‘Fightings within and fears without’ might be another.
Christmas Eve newspaper columns
Tom Wright has written in a local newspaper the Northern Echo about Cracking the Christmas code
Giles Fraser has written in the Guardian that Empires prefer a baby and the cross to the adult Jesus
and Stephen Bates ( with a little help from Jim Rosenthal) has profiled Saint Nicholas
Bishop, legend, saint, fairy story, retail therapist, and film star … How did a pile of bones in an Italian basilica become the soft drink-swigging patron saint of brides, and our last remaining link with the original meaning of Christmas?
John Bell writes in the Independent
At Christmas we can dream and imagine how the future should be
But this year, I sense a new affection displacing seasonal cynicism. I don’t believe that the fascination with Christmas is simply a reminiscence project, a season dip into sentimentality or (depending on the carol concert) banality. Rather, I suspect that in the retelling and rehearing of the Christmas narratives, there is some latent yet profound hope stirred within us. Increasingly the skies above us are associated with dread as much as beauty. This is the result of being exposed to almost weekly conjectures about the state of the ozone layer or the discharging of carbon dioxide. Might it not be that deep in our hearts we want to believe that the air above us is a place for angel-song and celestial harmony, and that somehow ecology has to do with cosmic praise as well as freedom from pollution?
The Telegraph leader column is titled The disarming paradox of the child Emmanuel
In The Times Geza Vermes asks When you strip away all the pious fiction, what is left of the real Jesus? He says in part:
The ingredients of Jesus’s religion were enthusiasm, urgency, compassion and love. He cherished children, the sick and the despised. In his eyes, the return of a stray lamb to the sheepfold, the repentance of a tax collector or a harlot, caused more joy in heaven than the prosaic virtue of 99 just men.
Because of His healings, many saw in Jesus the Messiah, triumphant over Rome and establisher of everlasting peace. Yet he had no political ambition. Rumours that He might be the Christ were nevertheless spreading and contributed to His downfall. His tragic end was precipitated by an unpremeditated act in the Temple. The noisy business transacted by the merchants of sacrificial animals and the moneychangers so outraged the rural holy man that He overturned their tables and violently expelled them. He thus created a fracas in the sanctuary of the overcrowded city before Passover and alerted the priests.
So the Temple authorities, the official guardians of peace, saw in Jesus a potential threat to order. They had to intervene promptly. Nevertheless even in those circumstances, the Jewish leadership preferred to pass the ultimate responsibility to the cruel Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who condemned Jesus to death. He was crucified before Passover probably in AD30 because in the eyes of officialdom, Roman and Jewish, He had done the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Just as the New Testament had prefaced the biography of Jesus by the joyful prologue of the Nativity, it also appended an epilogue to the tragedy of the Cross, the glorious hymn of the Resurrection. Indeed, Jesus had made such a profound impact on His apostles that they attributed to the power of His name the continued success of their charismatic activity. So Jesus rose from the dead in the hearts of His disciples and He lives on as long as the Christian Church endures.
Also in The Times Simon Jenkins writes about stained glass in Marvel at Heaven’s doorway and there is a leader entitled Have faith which ends:
5 CommentsToday, perhaps, faith comes less easily to most than it once did. There is more competition for attention and, in the West, we seem to have more power to choose and a greater range of choices. What does it say about human nature that so many choices impoverish the spirit?
The case for appreciating what a religious dimension can bring has, of course, been made more difficult in a world scarred by fundamentalist violence and blinkered zealotry. But it was just such a world into which Jesus was born. And His message has endured, while the fanatics of His time have become history’s footnotes. It is paradoxical indeed that a message of love, which survived centuries of hate, is now in danger of being lost through mere indifference and self-absorption. Our culture would lose so much if what we owe to faith became forgotten. That is why we are glad to say to all our readers, whatever their beliefs, that we firmly hope the spirit of Christmas is with them.
Rosemont reported in England
The Church of England Newspaper reported the Rosemont story this way: American traditionalist takes rival consecration
The report includes the following comments from others:
“Fr Moyer’s deposition by the Bishop of Pennsylvania accused him of ‘abandoning the communion of this church’,” Bishop Jack Iker of Fort Worth, a leading Forward in Faith bishop, told The Church of England Newspaper. “He had not done that; but now, if he is consecrated, he will have removed himself from the Anglican Communion,” said Bishop Iker, who also asked Dr Moyer to resign as president of FiF (North America).
Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh counselled Dr Moyer not to accept the post and later released a statement distancing the Anglican Communion Network from the announcement. “I regret that his decision raises difficulties in his relationship to the broader Anglican Communion,” he stated on Dec 20, noting that Dr Moyer had resigned as FiF’s representative to the Network.
Lambeth Palace spokesman, the Rev Jonathan Jennings, released a statement confirming that Dr Moyer had discussed the matter with Dr. Williams but that “the Archbishop was not asked for his blessing on the proposal; he expressed himself in terms of pastoral support to Fr Moyer during what will be a transitional phase from one form of ministry to another.”
“Dr Williams was clear with him, however, that this development would pose serious canonical obstacles to the prospect of Fr Moyer exercising a priestly ministry within the Anglican Communion and advised Fr Moyer to discuss the matter fully with his Ordinary as part of the process of discernment,” wrote Mr Jennings.
The Church Times in its News columns this week (not on the web yet) carries only a short notice of the bare facts, but does remind its readers of what happened in 2002: Carey and Williams back leader unfrocked by US bishop is how the Church Times reported it then.
Meanwhile, although Dr Moyer is no longer the Dean of the FiFNA Convocation within the NACDAP, he remains the President of FiFNA, and as such issued this Message from the FiF North America President.
update a further comment on 20 December from Fr Cantrell.
1 Commentmore Rosemont reaction
The Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes has issued a press release. It is not yet on their own website, so the full text is below.
It announces the resignation of David Moyer as dean of the FiF Convocation within the Network.
Update 11.45 pm GMT
This release is now available on the Network website:
The Anglican Communion Network Announces Resignation of Moyer as Dean
Rosemont reactions
Forward in Faith has now posted two items relating to this:
A statement from FiFNA: Fr David Moyer is Elected as a bishop in the Anglican Church in America (the official copy of what was first published at titusonenine). This includes the following:
The date of Fr. Moyer’s consecration, February 16th, was chosen to coincide with a previously-scheduled international meeting which will bring the bishops who will consecrate him into the Philadelphia area. Some concern has been expressed that it will come just before the meeting in Ireland at which the Primates of the Anglican Communion will respond to the Windsor Report. Fr. Moyer has assured FIF/NA that this timing is simply a matter of coincidence: it is not meant to sent any message to the Primates, and FIF/NA hopes that Fr. Moyer’s election and consecration will have no impact on their deliberations.
While his consecration in the ACA will not affect his constitutional standing within FIF/NA, the Council and Fr. Moyer are considering whether or not he will continue as its President.
A statement from Fr Geoffrey Kirk of FiF UK: FiF UK reacts to Fr Moyer’s Election . This reads:
Forward in Faith UK has learned with interest of the proposed consecration of Fr David Moyer, currently President of Forward in Faith North America, as a bishop in the Traditional Anglican Communion. We trust that Fr Moyer will be able to use his new role in the Anglican Church of America to assist those in the Episcopal Church who have been disenfranchised by the ordination of women as priests and bishops. We regret however that those responsible did not see fit to consult the bishops of Forward in Faith around the world before reaching their decision.
Meanwhile the Philadelphia Enquirer had this report for its readers this morning: Embattled Episcopal rector joins Anglican denomination. This headline reflects the confusion!
Update And the Associated Press via the Centre Daily Times reported it as Defrocked Episcopal minister moves to Anglican church post
which is equally likely to upset all concerned.
Christmas religious attendance
Several newspapers are reporting this story:
Cathedral city prays while the rest of Britain plays
Residents of Hereford are Britain’s most devoted churchgoers
Manchester comes top of the godless league
Christmas cancelled due to lack of interest
Cities ‘shun church at Christmas’
but only the BBC links to the data on which the reports are based.
Rosemont in Wonderland
Los Angeles is not the only diocese of ECUSA that has experienced the intervention of African bishops. In 2002, there was an intervention in the Diocese of Pennsylvania at The Church of the Good Shepherd, Rosemont (whose parish website appears to be inactive). A full archive of documents relating to that intervention can be found at Forward in Faith. The upshot of it all was that David Moyer was:
- deposed from the ministry of the Episcopal Church by Bishop Charles Bennison of Pennsylvania (his name does not appear in the ECUSA directory of clergy)
- accepted as a priest in the Diocese of the Upper Shire in Malawi, in the Province of Central Africa by Archbishop Bernard Malango (who is also bishop of that diocese, and
- supported at the time by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey and the then Archbishop of Wales, Rowan Williams, see correspondence here and also here, not to mention here.
Nevertheless, Dr Moyer, who is president of Forward in Faith North America has remained in office as Rector of the ECUSA parish for two years without further legal action by the diocese being taken against him or the vestry of that parish.
This seems unlikely to continue. This weekend, it was announced that:
The Rev. David Moyer, rector of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Rosemont, Pa., has been elected a bishop in the Anglican Church in America (ACA), a breakaway Episcopal group including 8,000 U.S. members and 500,000 members worldwide.
Mr. Moyer will be consecrated Feb. 16 at Good Shepherd by three bishops of the ACA. He said he will continue pastoring the church as well as overseeing ACA military chaplaincies.
The priest is currently serving under the auspices of the Anglican Province of Central Africa. Archbishop Louis Falk, head of the ACA, said Mr. Moyer has the permission of Central African Archbishop Bernard Malango to remain at Good Shepherd. The actual election, he said, occurred in late November, but the result was only announced yesterday.
The official news release about this is here:
The Rev. Dr. David L. Moyer Elected Bishop by the Anglican Church in America and a detailed news report is here:
MOYER TO BE CONSECRATED BISHOP Timing Gets Mixed Reactions Among Conservative Leaders
titusonenine has published A Statement from the Executive Committee of Forward in Faith, North America regarding the election of Fr. David Moyer as a bishop in the Anglican Church in America although at this writing nothing has appeared on the FiF website itself [FiF site now updated] although other comments from FiF members appear here and here and here.
This development is bound to be of concern to other American conservatives outside FiFNA, because FiFNA is a major constituent member of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes.
The Anglican Church in America is itself a constituent part of The Traditional Anglican Communion. This body is active in various parts of the world but in particular with FiF in Australia, where as mentioned in the Christian Challenge story linked above, reports suggest that another consecration by the TAC archbishop John Hepworth, of an Australian FiF leader, David Chislett, is likely soon.
Despite these close links with FiF, ACA was not a party to the agreement announced last July between NACDAP and other groups.
15 Commentsis the UK religious?
There are some hard facts about this from the 2001 Census, published by the Office of National Statistics here:
Census 2001 – Ethnicity and religion in England and Wales
This was reported on last October by the Guardian under the headline Census shows Muslims’ plight.
Last week, the same data was reported on in the Telegraph including a nice graphical display.
But then The Times tried to follow up. Andrew Brown has the rest of the story here.
The Times also had a clever (?) graphic.
This week two surveys were published which also shed light on how well informed about religion some of us are. One was conducted by YouGov for Sky Box Office in advance of their TV premiere of The Passion of Christ:
Birthplace of Jesus A Mystery to Many Press Association
O Little Town of … where? Guardian
Jesus born in Bethlehem is news for many Telegraph
The second survey was conducted by GfK for the Wall Street Journal Europe and was reported by Ekklesia under the headline People believe more in God than religion suggests survey . For a more detailed report read this GfK page.
0 Commentsepiscopal newspaper columns
Update Sunday
Richard Harries writes in the Observer that We should not fear religion
Religion is now a major player on the world stage in a way that was scarcely conceivable 30 years ago. In both the Islamic world and the Bush White House religion is impinging on public policy. In the 1960s sociologists believed that the world was in the grip of an irreversible process of secularisation – though they could not account for the United States, at once the most modern and one of the most religious countries in the world.
Now sociologists are drawn to the opposite conclusion: the more modern the world gets the more religious it becomes. It has been well said that whereas the major conflicts of the twentieth century were ideological, those of the twenty-first century will be to do with identity in which religion is a key element. Globalisation draws people out of their village communities, where they had an assured place and identity, into sprawling urban areas making goods for the Western market. There, gravitating to the mosque or church, they find their identity in relation to their religion…
Today Saturday, David Hope writes in the Guardian about Christmas celebrated in styles
One of the first things I did, having been enthroned in early December as Archbishop of York in York Minster, was to attend the nativity play in the primary school of my home village, Bishopthorpe. The contrast could not have been greater…
…In contrast to the grandeur of the Minster I have usually sought to visit a parish church in the diocese for midnight mass – sometimes a church without a vicar or indeed a church that would not in the normal course of events expect the Archbishop.
Next year it will be a parish church – St Margaret’s Ilkley and that will be very different again. But then, while it has been an enormous privilege to have been able to experience the sheer beauty and wonder of Christmas celebrated in the way I have described, the place and manner of the celebration of Christ’s birth is in the end of little relevance.
For the one single fact which underlies and which is fundamental to any Christian celebration, however grand or humble the setting, is the stupendous fact of God coming to us and among us in Jesus Christ.
For in the stable we witness what the poet Christopher Smart described as the “magnitude of meekness”, the hospitality of the God who welcomes any and all who seek – the God who is constantly inviting us to work with him in His loving purposes for the establishing of His kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven – a kingdom of righteousness, justice and peace for the peoples of the entire world.
In The Times Geoffrey Rowell writes about The meaning at the very heart of Christmas. An extract:
0 CommentsFor Christians every Sunday is a feast of the Resurrection, and every Christian festival is always an Easter festival — and that includes Christmas. The Annunciation of Gabriel to Mary, the village girl of Nazareth, that she is to become the bearer of the Son of God, is a moment of new creation. So too is the birth at Bethlehem, and that is all fulfilled in the new life which bursts from the grave at Easter, a life in which through his life-giving Spirit we share. So the Christmas collect speaks both of the birth at Bethlehem, and of our new birth — of our being made God’s children by adoption and grace by the same life-giving Spirit which overshadowed the Blessed Virgin at the Incarnation. Christ went, as Bishop Lancelot Andrewes liked to say, “to the very ground-sill of our nature”. The God who comes among us is a God who empties Himself, pours himself out in love, comes down to the lowest part of our need, framed, formed, and fashioned as an unborn child, and then weak, helpless and dependent in the muck and mire of the manger, whose pricking straw is seen by St Bernard as foreshadowing the piercing nails of the Cross.
Christmas celebrates and challenges. At its heart is the overwhelming mystery of a God who stoops to us in the most amazing humility, revealing and disclosing Himself in the most human language, that of a human life. St John speaks of “the Word made flesh”, the Logos, or Divine Reason by which all things were ordered being made in our likeness. In that we behold the glory of God, and see and know what God is like, what is the source and origin of all that is, and the end and goal of our human life. That love “so amazing, so divine” is the truth we celebrate at Christmas.
More from Jayne Ozanne
Update Friday
The Church Times has this article
Archbishops’ Council distanced from ‘self-destruct’ prophecy
and also a link to Jayne Ozanne’s own website:
http://www.jayneozanne.com/
where the full text of the article is also available, together with a brief biography.
The Church Times article says in part:
A CHURCH OF ENGLAND spokesman has distanced the Archbishops’ Council from the views of a retiring member who has predicted that the Church of England will “continue to implode and self-destruct”…
…The paper was circulated at an Archbishops’ Council meeting this month, but not discussed.
The C of E spokesman said that one of the Council’s strengths was “the wide range of perspectives offered by its members. Jayne Ozanne is setting out her personal view, as she is clearly free to express it. The Church of England encourages a lively exchange of views at every level.”
Speaking on Tuesday, Ms Ozanne said that it was not a case of her against the Council. She said she had received positive responses. “I really care about what is happening. There are some deep-rooted issues that we do not like to talk about while we focus on the presenting issues.”
Ms Ozanne said that her document was “not exactly” good news for the Church of England, but was good news for the Church in England. Although she would be happy to discuss it with the Archbishops, there had not been an opportunity to do this so far, she said.
The CEN this week has published Is this the end of the Church of England as we know it? which sets out Jayne Ozanne’s views in full. This puts her previously quoted remarks into context.
The CEN also has a news report which refers to the earlier stories about her document:
Church leaders ponder the future
Earlier TA articles here and here.
9 CommentsCathedrals Count
English Heritage today published a new report, Heritage Counts 2004. (The report has its own comprehensive and accessible website, but be warned that the main English Heritage website is unfriendly to many browsers.)
This report, which covers the entire range of historic monuments, includes new research on English cathedrals. The English Heritage announcement says:
New data on cathedrals are a social and economic asset
Heritage Counts 2004 contains the first comprehensive data showing the social and economic benefits that cathedrals have been able to deliver to surrounding communities. The research, based on a questionnaire sent to all 42 English Anglican cathedrals, demonstrates that cathedrals are directly responsible for generating local spending of £91 million a year. When indirect economic effects are considered, such as the amount spent by cathedrals to procure local services, the total annual economic impact rises to £150 million. This supports 5,500 permanent full time jobs.
The Heritage Counts website contains the entire text of the report (as a series of PDF files), and also the research reports to which reference is made. These include The Economic and Social Impacts of Cathedrals (report by Ecotec for English Heritage and the Association of English Cathedrals) which can be downloaded as a Microsoft Word file here (the document is 70 pages of A4, about 20,000 words).
The Church of England has today published a press release entitled Cathedrals Count. Here is the beginning of it.
CATHEDRALS COUNT
– Thought-provoking new research reveals the economic and social value of England’s Anglican cathedrals –
New research has revealed that nearly nine million people visited England’s Anglican cathedrals in 2003 – two million more than visited Blackpool Pleasure Beach, five million more than went on the London Eye and almost twice as many as visited the British Museum in the same year. This is just one of many compelling findings in a report on the value of England’s cathedrals which is launched today (15 December 2004) as part of Heritage Counts, an annual audit of the historic environment carried out by English Heritage on behalf of the sector.
The research, which was commissioned jointly by English Heritage and the Association of English Cathedrals, provides the first comprehensive evidence of the substantial economic and social contribution made by cathedrals in their local communities. Cathedrals are first and foremost places of worship, and well recognised as places of great spirituality and beauty, but until now little consideration has been given to the boost that their presence gives to the local economy and the range of opportunities they offer for education, events and volunteering.
Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage, said: “Our cathedrals are at the very heart of England’s heritage and, as this new study shows, their contribution reaches far beyond bricks and mortar. In an increasingly complex world, these great edifices are vital forces for social cohesion and focal points for both celebration and mourning, not just in their cities, but in the large areas they serve.”
The Very Revd Colin Slee, Dean of Southwark and a member of the Association of English Cathedrals Executive, said: “We welcome this report which is published during our busiest time of the year! It underlines the key role played by England’s 42 Anglican cathedrals in the nation’s life. It shows the enormous economic benefit that English cathedrals provide for society – in addition to their vital spiritual and community role.
“In fact, more detailed research by the Church of England – which includes, for example, Westminster Abbey – indicates that across all the cathedrals in England the number of visits in 2003 was as high as 12.5 million.”
Some additional data not included in the press release itself is below the fold.
0 CommentsMore from Tom Wright
An extremely long interview with Tom Wright conducted in June 2004 for the Living Church is now appearing on the interviewer’s blog:
I will add links here to the newly promised 7 when published.
Hat tip to KH for finding this.
Tom Wright Bishop of Durham issued a press release on 10 December, which currently appears only at this URL. Complete text below the fold.
1 CommentDavid Hope television interview
David Hope the Archbishop of York, was interviewed this morning on the BBC television programme Breakfast with Frost.
The transcript of the interview is here.
A newspaper report in today’s Sunday Times published in advance of the public transmission is here:
Britain can’t be called Christian, says archbishop
Jayne Ozanne radio interview
Jayne Ozanne, the author of the document reported on yesterday was interviewed this morning on the BBC Radio programme Sunday together with Bishop John Gladwin.
Listen here with Real Player. The interview lasts about 6 minutes.
BBC blurb:
0 CommentsNow if you are a Christian prepare to have your timbers shivered. This is your future, according to a senior Anglican.
“I see a time of great persecution coming, which will drive Christianity all but underground in the West. I believe this will primarily take the form of social and economic persecution, where Christians will be ridiculed for their faith and pressurised into making it a purely private matter. Meanwhile the established Church will continue to implode and self destruct”.
It’s a bleak picture- but there is a ray of light. The writer sees a new church arising – which will “fast become an underground resistance movement”.
The author of this vision is Jayne Ozanne who has just finished a 6 year stint on the Anglican Church’s Archbishops’ Council. Also speaking is the Bishop of Chelmsford, John Gladwin who is still a member of the Archbishops’ Council.
apocalypse when?
The Times has chosen to devote considerable space today to a confidential document leaked to them, addressed to the Archbishops’ Council, and written by Jayne Ozanne, who is completing a six-year stint as an appointed member of the Council.
Church faces implosion and life underground, says senior adviser
There is also a background note on the author:
Brilliant career of evangelist marketing expert
Ms Ozanne attends this parish in the Diocese of London.
and more significantly a leader article:
Lost souls – An apocalyptic warning from within the Church of England
Extracts from both the news article and the leader column below the fold.
10 CommentsAnswerable to Parliament
Sir Stuart Bell is the Second Church Estates Commissioner. The work of the Church Commissioners as a whole is described here. As part of the Commissioners’ accountability to Parliament, MPs may ask the Commissioners questions in the House of Commons. This task is performed by the Second Church Estates Commissioner, who is an elected Member of the House of Commons.
There is a new website, still in beta, TheyWorkForYou.com, which makes reading Hansard much easier. Recent entries for the Second Church Estates Commissioner in the House of Commons look like this:
6 December 2004
Written answers: Church Commissioners
This system would be even more useful if it were to be applied to the speeches of bishops in the House of Lords.
0 CommentsRobin Eames interview
Update
On Friday 10 December, Robin Eames issued this statement:
“I have been dismayed that certain remarks of mine in a telephone interview with the Church of England Newspaper have been taken completely out of context to mean I believe the Windsor Report will not have much effect. Nothing could be further from my hopes and convictions for the Windsor Report which contains the unanimous recommendations of the Lambeth Commission after a year’s prayerful work. Those unanimous recommendations are already receiving widespread and thoughtful study and response. They will now go to the Primates Meeting in February with my full endorsement as Chairman of the Commission. Some of the recommendations relate to long-term adjustments to the way we do things as Anglicans and will need a process of continued study and discussion. Other unanimous recommendations relate to immediate problems and need to be implemented by the Primates. I would again emphasise that the Lambeth Commission Report contains the unanimous recommendations of a widely representative body of Anglicans from around the world. The Report has my full support and endorsement as Chairman of the Lambeth Commission and represents my own personal views on the problems facing the Anglican Communion at this time.”
The Church of England Newspaper has a major story this week: an interview with Robin Eames.
The interview is on the CEN website in two parts:
Robin Eames: The Eternal Optimist, part 1
Robin Eames: The Eternal Optimist, part 2
There is also a news report based on the same material:
American Church ‘never likely to face discipline’
One of Anglicanism’s most senior leaders has signalled that the American Church is never likely to face discipline for its decision to consecrate the Anglican Communion’s first practising gay bishop.
The Irish Primate, Archbishop Robin Eames, warned that the Communion’s conservative provinces should not expect calls to be answered for the American Church and diocese of New Westminster, which authorised same-sex blessing rites, to be punished.
In an interview with The Church of England Newspaper, Archbishop Eames, the Chair of the Lambeth Commission, urged the warring factions to avoid recriminations and look to the future.
Dr Eames, the Archbishop of Armagh, said: “I would welcome decisions [at February’s Primates’ meeting] more if they’re directed to how we deal with the nature of Communion rather than reiterating ‘they did something wrong’ or ‘they didn’t express regret’.
“I think we need to move on in terms of what have we learned from this – I’m a great believer in trying to learn the lessons of these things. I think we must move on.”
Primates from the Global South had demanded the expulsion of the American Church and New Westminster diocese if they refused to repent for their actions, but the Windsor Report took no action against them.
“Expulsion was one of the things that confronted us,” Archbishop Eames said. “We didn’t fudge the issues, but I have to be a realist and recognise that maybe there won’t be expressions of regret.”
The African Church is preparing to become self-sufficient in a bid to separate itself from Western liberalising influences and has planned to build more of its own theological colleges. Its Primates have vowed to continue crossing provincial boundaries to provide pastoral oversight to orthodox parishes ostracised by their liberal Church.
Archbishop Eames said that the meeting of Primates in February would mark the start of attempts to implement the Windsor Report, but conceded that the homosexuality crisis had changed the Anglican Church.
“We’re going to have to take some decisions on some of the proposals on the Windsor Report. The Council of Advice, [for example], needs to be looked at. We’ll need to see if people have moved on in their thinking from the positions that they took up before the Windsor Report was published.
“I’d have hoped that what the report has drawn attention to will provide a clearer roadmap as to how to deal with other differences that arise in the future. Those differences are going to come as the world develops and the Church develops and the Communion develops. There are going to be issues that will divide.
An extract from the interview itself is below the fold.
3 CommentsACI responses to Mark Dyer
Earlier I posted an article with links to two very lengthy presentations (one transcribed, one in audio only) by Mark Dyer, who was the only ECUSA member of the Lambeth Commission, about the Windsor Report. I noted there that conservatives had reacted strongly against his interpretations, with both ACI and IRD publishing responses.
Today ACI has published a further lengthy article by Andrew Goddard: A Critique of Mark Dyer’s Explanation of the Windsor Report, as recorded at Virginia Seminary (note that the October date on this page is self-evidently incorrect)
The ACI has also very usefully published A Complete Compendium of Tom Wright on Windsor which includes all his recently published articles on the topic, plus some additional comments not previously seen. This is item 5 in the compendium, about two-thirds down the page. The page also includes a sermon preached on 31 October, and a copy of Oliver O’Donovan’s article ‘The Only Poker Game in Town’ which can be found on the Fulcrum website but only as a pdf file.
0 Commentstrouble in Harare
The Church Times reports this week on this.
CAMPAIGNERS against the pro-Mugabe Bishop of Harare, the Rt Revd Nolbert Kunonga, are increasing pressure to have him brought to trial in a church court.
Charges were filed against the Bishop, including one for incitement to murder, in October 2003 (see below). The Archbishop charged with forming the court, the Most Revd Bernard Malango, has so far been unable to do so, despite constant pressure from those who say that the Bishop is bringing the Church into disrepute.
It emerged on Tuesday that lawyers for the campaigners have now applied to a secular court to compel Archbishop Malango to bring proceedings against Bishop Kunonga…
Courts used to end delays over bishop
A further article featuring a interview with Pauline Makoni will not appear on the Church Times website until later. I will add the link here in due course.
Meanwhile similar details are contained in the BBC radio report on the Sunday programme. Listen with Real Audio here.
3 CommentsIt’s not only President Robert Mugabe and the Government of Zimbabwe which is mired in controversy, the Anglican bishop of Harare is being taken to court by some members of his diocese. They say it is a last resort as the Anglican communion has let them down by refusing to act against the Bishop. They accuse Bishop Kunonga of falsifying minutes, withholding church finance records and even of incitement to murder. It has been alleged that the pro-Mugabe Bishop diverted 1.3 million dollars into an account of which he was the sole signatory and that in October 2003 he seized a white owned farm close to the city, evicting black workers in order to move his son into the 2,000 acre property. Pauline Makoni is a lay councillor at the Harare Cathedral and one of those involved in the campaign. Roger [Bolton] asked her how much support she’d received from the people in the diocese of Harare for her actions. So why can’t the Anglican Communion do more to help Pauine Makoni and the Harare diocese? We asked the Anglican Consultative Council for an interview but no-one was available to comment. However Roger is joined by the Bishop of Southwark, Tom Butler whose own diocese has links with churches in Zimbabwe.
Improvisation: the Drama of Christian Ethics
In The Times yesterday Stephen Plant wrote about a book by Samuel Wells, previously published in the USA,
Improvisation: the Drama of Christian ethics whose British edition is imminent.
Stephen Plant’s article can be read in full here: How to face moral problems in a fluid world.
An extract is below the fold.
Nick Ralph writes:
0 CommentsI thought this was a tremendously helpful insight into our ethical decision-making as Christians. We need to be reminded that what we are often trying to negotiate is not easy. Whether conservative or liberal, there are often no Biblical verses which will immediately supply an answer to complex issues in a modern world. All we can do then, as this article suggests, is to rehearse, and dance perhaps like Sydney Carter’s Lord of the dance, trying to learn the way the steps work so that we can improvise new steps in the ethical theatre in which we now play. I cannot help but find it appealing and wonder if it might perhaps help us, at least to understand each other better, in the plays we are currently trying to interpret.