Thursday, January 29, 2009
Let's Call The Whole Thing Off?
From Ruth Gledhill in the Times of London:
The Archbishops of the Anglican church worldwide are to debate the damaging effects of the row over homosexuality at a meeting in Egypt next week.
If that were truly the substance of the meeting, then my suggestion would be, "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off!". However, that first sentence may simply be Ruth's hook to attract readership. And I see that the "Anglican church" rears its head again. There is no worldwide "Anglican church". Last I heard, it was called the Anglican Communion.
He [the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams] was upset that several conservative provinces, including Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda, boycotted last summer’s Lambeth Conference. But it was regarded as a triumph of his archepiscopacy that he survived the three-week conference without presiding over a split. It is a further sign of the success of his strategy that no Primates are boycotting next week’s meeting, although one source said there will be no formal joint eucharist at the meeting, to avoid Primates the public embarrassment of former meetings where conservatives have refused to go to the communion table with liberals.
Why would a primate boycott the Eucharist? I don't get it. Is there a risk of contamination? It's the Lord's table, after all, not the personal possession of any one or group of Anglican primates. Can the members of a group be "in communion", if they can't share Holy Communion?
In an attempt to move the church on from homosexuality, the Primates will focus instead on how well their provinces are fulfilling the Communion’s official “five marks of mission”: evangelisation, catechisation, service, social and environmental action.
If the primates intend to focus on the "five marks of mission", rather than homosexuality, why the first sentence in the article? A focus on mission would surely fall into the category of A GOOD THING.
The Anglican Covenant, the rows over gays, defections, depositions, moratoria, blah, blah, blah. The meeting is a gathering of the primates of autonomous provinces in the Anglican Communion (not the "Anglican church"). Why not leave each province to administer its own affairs and focus on common mission, even if you can't share Holy Communion?
H/T to Mark Harris.
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It is taking a while for the fact to penetrate many, many skulls, but the Church of England itself CANNOT, under English law, sign on to a covenant with punitive force. At last November's meeting of General Synod, the following exchange took place between Justin Brett, a lay member of Synod, and William Fittall, General Secretary of Synod. I quote question and answer in full, because this is extremely important:
ReplyDeleteMr Justin Brett (Oxford) to ask the Secretary General:
Q. What research has been undertaken to establish the effect of the Church of England’s participation in an Anglican Communion Covenant upon the relationship between the Church of England and the Crown, given the Queen’s position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and the consequent tension between her prerogative and the potential demands of a disciplinary process within the proposed Covenant?
Mr William Fittall to reply as Secretary General:
A. The Church of England response of 19 December 2007 to the initial draft Covenant noted on page 13 that ‘it would be unlawful for the General Synod to delegate its decision making powers to the primates, and that this therefore means that it could not sign up to a Covenant which purported to give the primates of the Communion the ability to give ‘direction’ about the course of action that the Church of England should take.’ The same would be true in relation to delegation to any other body of the Anglican Communion. Since as a matter of law the Church of England could not submit itself to any such external power of direction, any separate possible difficulties in relation to the Royal Prerogative could not in practice arise.
Lapin, I know. I know. Why then does the ABC allow the nonsensical discussions to go on? I don't understand him at all.
ReplyDeletenot having eucharist together is more about those boys catching "girl cooties" -- having to break bread with KJS.
ReplyDeleteAnn, yes. And that is so sad. I still do not understand.
ReplyDeleteYou cannot understand because there is nothing to understand - there is no logic or theology. It is not you -- it is the perpetrators of sexism and heterosexism.
ReplyDeleteAnn, boycotting the Eucharist is shocking to me. It seems disrespectful and counter to the whole meaning of Eucharist. You're right that there's no theology there.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I'm concerned, without Table fellowship there is no Communion.
ReplyDeleteAppears to me that TEC has concluded that the secessionist threat is a paper tiger, and intends to proceed accordingly. It was not xDuncan's National Cathedral in which the Inaugural Prayer Service was held two weeks ago, was it? I also strongly suspect that the right-wing moolah that has been greasing the skids of the likes of Duncan, Minns & Orombi has been drying up fast in the wake of the global financial situation. Mark Harris pointed out a few days ago that the Church of Nigeria's web-page is suspended, apparently for non-payment. It is still down.
ReplyDeleteCounterlight, I see it the same as you.
ReplyDeleteBut what to do about individual churches and dioceses in the US that work with churches in the dioceses which do not want to be in communion with TEC? That mission work is quite worthy, and I'd like to see it continue. I suppose there is a way to work that out.
Lapin, in short, I hope the money is drying up.
Mimi
ReplyDeleteAllow me to suggest that tragically the avoidance of the embodied Christ in the Blessed Sacrament is a scandal which shows just how morally bankrupt the leadership of our Communion is.
The Primates meet but avoid the 'awkwardness' of meeting as the Body of Christ at the Lord's table- what obscene insanity is this?
God help us!
David@Montreal
David, I thought to use the word "scandalized" instead of "shocking", but I thought perhaps that was too strong, but I believe that "scandal" better describes the way I see it.
ReplyDeleteThere you go again, Mimi, being logical. (I mean your post, not the comments, though those are logical too.)
ReplyDeleteDeep sigh.
Mmmrrrrrroooooowwwwwww!!
ReplyDelete...bipeds....
Oh dear! Coming after +Maya Pavlova's comment is surely awkward! (Given your first name you must be Southern Cone!)
ReplyDeleteMy only comment in all of this (and remember that despite current license I remain Church of England, and not Anglican, whatever that is) that I despair that it appears that Christians, especially those wearing clerical collars, and most especially those wearing purple, are becoming more important than the Lord who inspires them.
Can the members of a group be "in communion", if they can't share Holy Communion?
ReplyDeleteSeems a bit strained, doesn't it? I'm so weary of the Kindergarten antics of the GAFCON crowd! How 'bout we send them to bed without any commeroration of the Last Supper?!
It's all Mark Harris' fault. He linked to Ruth, and then I had to go read her column, and it's all so depressing.
ReplyDeleteNo supper, no money for you! Off to bed with you.
And we all know why they don't concentrate on what they achieved in terms of social and environmental action.
ReplyDeleteA bit late to the thread but it seems to me that the refusal or denial of Communion over political differences as Anglo-Catholic/Roman roots. Bishops in the RC often direct priests to refuse communion to RC's who misbehave - case in point, in the Diocese of Chicago, on Coming Out Day (?) a few years back, folks were encouraged to wear rainbow ribbons to church - the priests were not allowed to give communion to anyone wearing a ribbon that day. To these MEN the church is a private club with rules that must be obeyed and communion is like their secret handshake. It's not my understanding of church or the purpose of communion.
ReplyDeleteErika, we do.
ReplyDeleteRenz, in the comments to Mark Harris' post, one of the commenters told me that the reasserter primates were following Paul's epistle 1 Corinthians 5-6. Jesus must have must have got it all wrong, because he associated with all manner of impure and sinful folks.