Thinking Anglicans

Opinion – 15 May 2019

Peter Carrell Anglican Down Under So, who is an Anglican??

Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Bishop Faull on Twitter. Message to Survivors?

Marion Clutterbuck Women and the Church Twenty-five years on; reflections on ministry
These are some memories of one of the women from Chichester diocese, who was ordained in 1994

Jon White The Episcopal Café Churches continue to defy demands for accountability

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Susannah Clark
4 years ago

I have a lot of time for Peter Carrell. I’ve read quite a lot of posts he has made over on Ian Paul’s website. I find Peter open-minded, reflective, intelligent. The article posted here is lengthy, and quotes Andrew Atherstone’s article at length. I’d simply quote a short section of Peter’s response to that, where he refers to Andrew’s refusal to take communion with others at ACC-17 in Hong Kong, and reflects on ACNA’s claim to belong to the Anglican Communion: “This question is highlighted by your own unwillingness to take communion with your fellow Anglicans. ACNA could scarcely be… Read more »

Cynthia Katsarelis
Reply to  Susannah Clark
4 years ago

Well done, Susannah. The sacramental theology is spot on. It is shockingly poor theology to refrain from the Eucharist because of disagreement on the status of LGBTQ+ people. If the Eucharist is valid regardless of the state of the celebrant, a murderer, adulterer, pedophile, etc., then it’s valid regardless of anyone’s beliefs about gay people. If we aren’t all in communion, it’s because some are choosing not to be. I find it sad, but of course, this is also a tactic of coercion and I can’t find the Gospel in it.

Kate
Kate
Reply to  Cynthia Katsarelis
4 years ago

The Lord’s Prayer is central to the Eucharist and in it we pray to be forgiven as we forgive others. Part of that forgiving others is sharing Communion with them.

Jo B
Jo B
Reply to  Susannah Clark
4 years ago

While Peter Carrell’s piece is gracious and thoughtful, it seems to ignore the elephant in the room. ACNA’s goal in being considered a legitimate Anglican province is to see TEC expelled. You cannot admit a province to the communion when their express purpose is to force compliance or removal on another province.

Cynthia Katsarelis
Reply to  Jo B
4 years ago

True. There’s a letter that outlined the whole strategy to supplant TEC with ACNA. It’s in writing, no one is making it up. And surely Foley Beach’s election to head GAFCON (I don’t recall the title) is part of that strategy and shows that GAFCON embraces that goal. It’s terrible that TEC moved ahead on SSM but OK for GAFCON to include ACNA, after the ABC and ACC made it clear that ACNA isn’t in communion with those two instruments of communion. (What an alphabet soup). I would still receive the Eucharist with Foley Beach. In my view, that is… Read more »

Jeremy
Jeremy
4 years ago

Stephen Parsons is whitewashing recent history at York Minster. His account of the “basic facts” must be corrected. To review the true facts: in the spring of 2015, the Dean and Chapter of York banned one person from the Minster close on alleged safeguarding grounds. Then in October 2016 the Dean and Chapter suddenly sacked an entire band of 30 volunteers, some of whom apparently had had the temerity to ask privately why the 2015 ban was continuing. The sacking of 30 people was followed by a lockout that lasted almost a year. Among other consequences, the lockout had the… Read more »

EnglishAthena
EnglishAthena
4 years ago

I’m afraid your view of it depends on whether you think +Faull is a bit of a control freak, or whether she was sorely tried and simply had to put her foot down. I’ve heard views tending in both directions from people fairly closely connected. But like most of us, I wasn’t there.

Jeremy
Jeremy
Reply to  EnglishAthena
4 years ago

Yes, many people do seem to form opinions about York based solely on hearsay. But let me enlighten you with a statement from those who were there. https://www.yorkminsterbells.org.uk/?p=529 Please note especially this passage: “The remaining members of YMSCR. It is important to be clear that there is no possible ground for questioning the standing of the remaining members in terms of safeguarding. Twenty members of the band were DBS holders, and several had safeguarding training as part of their employment. These members of the band are as committed to safeguarding as any other volunteer at the Minster. That they have… Read more »

Peter
Peter
Reply to  EnglishAthena
4 years ago

There will indeed be those two views and many others. The problem here is that Stephen Parsons has gone public with what he understands to be “basic facts” but got them wrong. Like only a few commentators, I was there.

Father Ron Smith
4 years ago

Let’s face this truth – that ACNA can only claim to be a legitimate part of the Anglican Communion based on its umbilical relationship to GAFCON. But this latter group of provincinial Churches in the Global South refuses to attend the constitutional meetings of the A.C. – thereby indicating their self-abnegation of Communion membership. Gafcon has refused to share the Eucharist with certain Provincial Churches of the Anglican Communion. On this basis of Sacramental coherence alone, GAFCON could be accused of a form of separatism from the A.C. that denies its claim to be a full constituent member. So, where… Read more »

CRS
CRS
Reply to  Father Ron Smith
4 years ago

Just a brief fact-checking. ACNA is not in communion with “this latter group of provincinial Churches in the Global South” but in fact with the wide array of Global South churches more widely. I am not a member of ACNA, nor Gafcon, but I believe the roster of communion relationships with ACNA is available quite publicly. It approaches or is more than half of the AC, if memory serves. This is equally factually in error: “…refuses to attend the constitutional meetings of the A.C. – thereby indicating their self-abnegation of Communion membership.” I believe only a few provinces were not… Read more »

CRS
CRS
Reply to  Father Ron Smith
4 years ago

While we are “facing the truth,” a simple google search is helpful. ACNA is in communion with 65% of the Provinces of the Anglican Communion. Not, as here stated, with a small bloc of “self-abnegating” provinces in the GS.

“The Anglican Global South is a grouping of 25 of the 39 provinces of the Anglican Communion, plus the Anglican Church in North America and the Anglican Church in Brazil as the 26th and the 27th members.”

Cynthia Katsarelis
Reply to  CRS
4 years ago

Re: “The Anglican Global South is a grouping of 25 of the 39 provinces of the Anglican Communion…” GAFCON is largely from provinces that are authoritarian with little lay leadership or input. To me, GAFCON is a boys club of primates representing themselves, not all of the people in their province (since they have little or no say). The ACC is far more representative and ACC-16 chose NOT to take up the culture wars of the primates. So no, GAFCON most certainly does not represent the views of 65-80 percent of the A.C., it represents the views of those men… Read more »

CRS
CRS
Reply to  Cynthia Katsarelis
4 years ago

The point had to do with the facts about the provinces comprising the GS as being 25 in number and not a “self-abnegating” bloc of a handful, not in attendance at the last ACC meeting.

The financial straits of the ACC have been made clear at the last meeting.

Simon Sarmiento
Reply to  CRS
4 years ago

I think the further point that you were perhaps trying to make is that the “Global South” group of 25 is distinct, though overlapping, with the “GAFCON” group of only 11.

CRS
CRS
Reply to  Simon Sarmiento
4 years ago

Thank you. That is also true. In the mind of the first commentor, to whom I was responding, “Gafcon” is a sort of distasteful monikor for a small band of malcontents. Not only is it not small (as you note, 11 provinces); not only is it not “self-abnegating”; ACNA is in fact in Communion with the Global South as such, which constitutes 25 provinces and is not the same thing as Gafcon (your point). In the context of Anglican Communion politics, if at some point this grouping decided to boycott Lambeth Conference, for example, (or Primates Meetings or ACC), it… Read more »

Susannah Clark
Reply to  CRS
4 years ago

What I find “distasteful” about the GAFCON men (and if you look at their leadership, yes, it is all men – https://www.gafcon.org/about/structure ) is that, apart form the top-down male-led emphasis, there is also a top-down insistence that uniformity must be imposed on the Anglican Communion, and that communion and membership will be either limited or refused if priests, churches or Provinces don’t surrender their own sincerely held conscientious views and accept the uniformity. That theological domination is (a) unrealistic (b) disrespectful (c) immature (d) lacking in grace. If these male, top-down, clerical bosses aren’t willing to live in communion… Read more »

Jo B
Jo B
Reply to  CRS
4 years ago

Being “in communion with” =/= “in Anglican Communion”, otherwise all the Porvoo churches would be part of the Anglican Communion. Individual provinces can agree themselves in communion with whoever they like, that does not make those with whom they agree provinces of the Anglican Communion.

CRS
CRS
Reply to  Jo B
4 years ago

ACNA is in communion with the majority of the present Anglican Communion provinces and is so as an Anglican body. Porvoo is not this. Lutherans in the Baltic are and remain Lutherans. Etc, etc. There is in addition a rostering system based upon the ABC and ACC. 25 of the provinces belong to this. They are also in communion with an anglican body called ACNA. These two systems of anglican identity are sitting side by side. To repeat myself (and there is no Porvoo analogy): “I do not anticipate 25 provinces staying away and leaving a rump of 17 to… Read more »

Tobias Stanislas Haller
4 years ago

It seems to me that this is a matter of definitions. One can be, or call oneself, “Anglican” even though one is not a constituent member of “The Anglican Communion” as that body’s “instruments” define it. (Just as one can call oneself, or be, “Catholic” without being Roman.) One can be “in communion” with parts of “The Anglican Communion” without being (or calling oneself) “Anglican” (to wit, the Porvoo Churches, or ELCA) or be in communion with “all” of the AC (the churches of the Utrecht Old Catholic union). So ACNA can designate itself as Anglican, and be in communion… Read more »

CRS
CRS
Reply to  Tobias Stanislas Haller
4 years ago

I believe you have said this before. Thank you for a fresh response in the light of strong assertions re: ‘pure angiicanism.’

My own contribution was aimed at patent inaccuracies and nothing more.

I believe the idea of a ‘catholic anglican identity without seam’ is increasingly dubious. And more than previously so.

No bother in the above…

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