The Archbishop of Canterbury's latest letter is at his website. You may read it in its entirety there. I excerpted parts of the letter. The archbishop's words are in italics.
As the proposals for an Anglican Covenant now go forward, it is still possible that some will not be able to agree; there was a clear sense that some sort of covenant will help our identity and cohesion, although the bishops wish to avoid a legalistic or juridical tone.
I don't, because I'm concerned that the Covenant will be used for the purpose of exclusion.
A strong majority of bishops present agreed that moratoria on same-sex blessings and on cross-provincial interventions were necessary, but they were aware of the conscientious difficulties this posed for some, and there needs to be a greater clarity about the exact expectations and what can be realistically implemented. How far the intensified sense of belonging together will help mutual restraint in such matters remains to be seen.
I do not agree. The moratoria have been followed quite long enough.
Many participants believed that the indaba method, while not designed to achieve final decisions, was such a necessary aspect of understanding what the questions might be that they expressed the desire to see the method used more widely – and to continue among themselves the conversations begun in Canterbury.
I agree.
First, there was an overwhelming unity around the need for the Church to play its full part in the worldwide struggle against poverty ignorance and disease. The Millennium Development Goals were repeatedly stressed, and there was universal agreement that both governmental and non-governmental development agencies needed to create more effective partnerships with the churches and to help the churches increase and improve their own capacity to deliver change for the sake of justice.
I agree that the Anglican Communion should, but there's the label of church again. There is no such entity as the world-wide Anglican Church. I believe that he chooses the label "church" quite deliberately, because he says it over and over.
...on the controversial issue of the day regarding human sexuality, there was a very widely-held conviction that premature or unilateral local change was risky and divisive, in spite of the diversity of opinion expressed on specific questions.
Whether the conviction is widely-held or not, I can't say. I suppose it depends on who is counted in. The Episcopal Church must do what it must do. If others consider what we do "risky and divisive", then so be it.
There remains the scandal that a duly elected and consecrated bishop of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, was barred from attendance at Lambeth. His voice was not heard.
I had thought that the Archbishop of Canterbury's main concern (and his continued bashing of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada) had to do with his desire to hold together the Anglican Communion and not have it split on his watch. I think that, indeed, he does not want that to happen, although it seems to me that it has already happened. But I wonder if his primary concern may be for his own Church of England. Folks on both sides of the issue of human sexuality within the Church of England are getting restive. He's trying to straddle that divide, and the actions of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada may be seen by him as encouraging those within his own church to move forward with similar actions. He must also be aware that incursions by foreign bishops into his own territory, similar to those that TEC and ACofC have experienced, may be undertaken. Of course, I'm not inside the archbishop's head, but it seems possible to me that his concern for division within his own church may motivate a good many of his words.
Just my two cents.
UPDATE: From the comments:
Blogger John Bassett said...
We are best bound together by the fewest and loosest ties. If Rowan could understand that, he would preserve the Church more effectively.
To which I answer a great and loud "Amen!"
UPDATE 2: Please read Mark Harris' reflection on the letter at Preludium AND Adrian Worsfold at Pluralist Speaks.
my dear mimi,
ReplyDeleteyour namesake in "La Boheme" holds the answer.
(shall i hit "publish"?.......
yes i shall)
What the ABC has wrong is that it is all about art, not craft.
Blessings...
Si, mi chiamano Mimi.
ReplyDeleteScott, I believe that you may be right.
Does he think that if he says the same (pardon me) shit over and over again, that it will be true, and all will fall into place.
One might think the source of "telling the same lie over and again until people accept it" (Herr Doktor J. Goebbels) would be enough to discredit such tactics; apparently the Tufti does not hold to this view.
ReplyDeleteIn wider historical context, it is arguable as to whether Rowan's craven behavior passively follows sin or actively generates its power. I do not believe he could have avoided a schism by doing the right thing any more than he has avoided it by doing the wrong thing.
Still, there is the matter of his own soul. It reminds me of the condemnation made by St. Thomas More in *A Man for All Seasons* to his betrayer, "Richard, it profits us nothing to gain the whole world if we lose our souls, but for Wales?" Or Canterbury.
I was told that the ABC was a liberal, so I'm a little confused...the idea is, Mimi, he's trying to stave off a rebellion in Great Britian?
ReplyDeletePerhaps he lacks courage.
But, since our church body also seems to lack the same virtue, it would not be for me to judge.
Johnieb, ever since he turned on his gay friend Jeffery John and pressured him to withdraw from his appointment as Bishop of Reading, his path has been downhill. He never recovered.
ReplyDeleteDiane, he was. I don't know what happened to him. The part about his main concern being the Church of England is only my opinion, but I have heard that tensions within the church are great.
Feh.
ReplyDeleteI think that when +Williams talks about the need for the Church to play its full part in the worldwide struggle against poverty, etc., he's talking about the universal Church, not just the Anglican communion.
ReplyDeletePaul Powers
(posting "anonymously" because Google/Blogger isn't being cooperative with me tonight)
"Of course, I'm not inside the archbishop's head, but it seems possible to me that his concern for division within his own church may motivate a good many of his words."
ReplyDeleteI think you're right. Too bad he feels the need to play out his angst in public for the rest of us.
I agree with Jane R.
ReplyDeleteI say throw the Archbishop under the bus, and the Covenant into Boston Harbor.
I'm tired of the British insisting that we drink our tea with tacks.
Paul, perhaps in this instance he is referring to "the church" in a wider sense than the AC, but he has recently referred to the Anglican Communion as the Anglican Church, and I find it quite unsettling. Others have commented on this transition, too.
ReplyDeleteIn his final presidential address at Lambeth, Williams said:
...I believe - as I said on Thursday - that it has the potential to make us more of a church; more of a ‘catholic’ church in the proper sense, a church, that is, which understands its ministry and service and sacraments as united and interdependent throughout the world.
He wants the AC to be more of a proper church. I don't. I want it to be a family of churches.
SCG, exactly. That's to say nothing of his decision to go against his own conscience in the matter of faithful, committed same-sex relationships.
Counterlight, I pray our bishops do the right thing at the bishops' gatherings and at GC09.
I do think he's trying to hold both the Anglican Communion and the Church of England together. I think he suspects it ultimately will not work, but he does not want to go down in history as the Archbishop on whose watch it all fell apart. He would rather leave that to a successor.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, it does seem like all the effort to keep it all together with ever more meetings and commissions and resolutions and whatever will only make it worse. A friend of mine once observed that way to deal with your family was to meet them occasionally for lunch at a restaurant, not to rent a cabin and spend two weeks with them in the mountains. The less time you spent together, the more likely it can all remain cordial.
It seems to me that Anglicans used to just meet once every ten years for a few days. That was like lunch at the restaurant. Now that we have a permanent Anglican Communion Office and Primates Meetings and Covenant Design Groups, well, we seem to have rented the cabin. And now we have so many more opportunities to argue.
We are best bound together by the fewest and loosest ties. If Rowan could understand that, he would preserve the Church more effectively.
If the AC actually were providing a safe haven for glbt individuals to share their stories in dioceses and provinces where it is not safe for them to do so, I'd be much more receptive to moving forward together. But to have a non-existent "listening" process while pretending it's actually occurring defies reason, placing all of the AC into the dysfunctional land of denial.
ReplyDeleteOh, KJ, yes! The joke that is the "listening process" drives me mad. For crying out loud, why didn't they listen to Bishop Gene?
ReplyDelete...the dysfunctional land of denial.
An apt description for the AC.
It would be edifying for the whole world to see what would happen if a liberal parish in the Global South sought access to the Pastoral Forum.
ReplyDeleteOf course, we all know that would never be allowed to happen - which is what makes Rowan's position untenable and the work of the Covenant Design Group a complete joke.
Malcolm, much, indeed, in the ABC's plans for us all could be jokes, would be jokes, and should be jokes, but, in his view, are not jokes.
ReplyDelete