AS THE ANGLICAN WORLD TURNS

Colbert King, of The Washington Post, writes in an opinion piece on the continuing drama:

Last week, the Anglican Communion, the worldwide collection of national and regional churches that consider themselves Anglican or Episcopalian, suspended the U.S. Episcopal Church from full participation in the global body because of its decision to perform same-sex marriages. The suspension should have been the other way around. It is the Anglican Communion that deserves sanction. It, not the Episcopal Church, of which I am a member, has departed from the faith and teachings of Jesus with its un-Christian treatment of gay men and women.

The information in the column is generally accurate, but I'd note a few corrections. It was a gathering of Anglican primates (chief bishops) of the various member churches, not the Anglican Communion, that "sanctioned" the Episcopal Church. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby of the Church of England, the first among equals among the primates, later referred to "consequences" rather than "sanctions". Whatever. The majority of the primates are opposed to our church's welcoming LGTB members to all sacramental rites of the church, including Christian marriage. The gathering of primates has no power to legislate or enforce such "sanctions", "consequences", or "suspension", so we shall see what follows for the church.

Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, spoke with grace and eloquence following the meeting. 

This has been a disappointing time for many, and there will be heartache and pain for many, but it’s important to remember that we are still part of the Anglican Communion. We are the Episcopal Church, and we are part of the Jesus Movement, and that Movement goes on, and our work goes on. And the truth is, it may be part of our vocation to help the Communion and to help many others to grow in a direction where we can realize and live the love that God has for all of us, and we can one day be a Church and a Communion where all of God’s children are fully welcomed, where this is truly a house of prayer for all people. And maybe it’s a part of our vocation to help that to happen. And so we must claim that high calling; claim the high calling of love and faith; love even for those with whom we disagree, and then continue, and that we will do, and we will do it together. 

The link above includes the full text and the video of Bishop Curry's comments.

"WITH THE PRIMATES"

From Bishop David Chillingworth, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, at his blog, Thinking Aloud:

You have probably been wondering why I haven’t got around to saying anything about the Primates’ Meeting. Well it was interesting – and exhausting – even though it didn’t involve any serious travel for me. Here I am with my Celtic companions, Archbishops Barry and Alan.

First of all, I found the opportunities of building contacts and making friends quite extraordinary. It makes a difference – if one is talking about blasphemy laws in Pakistan – to be sitting beside Bishop Samuel Azariah of the Church of Pakistan. Far off places suddenly become very close. And that’s what Communion is about.

Secondly, I felt keenly the disappointment of not being with those who had decided that they could not be part of the meeting. It was my first Primates’ Meeting. I felt the poorer for not hearing what they had to say and having the chance of discussing with them.

But it was still a good and worthwhile meeting. As the statements make clear, the Meeting spent much time clarifying the role of the Primates’ Meeting as one of the Instruments of Communion. It should not be a place where decisions are made for the Communion or for Provinces. It was clear that most of us come – as I do – from Provinces where decision-making is collegial and consultative within our autonomous provincial structure.

So when our College of Bishops meets next week, my colleagues will not expect me to bring back a series of decisions for implementation. But they will want me to share with them the best account I can give of how other Provinces are dealing with the same problems as we face. That won’t just be an account of how far-off places are doing – because through the Instruments of Communion we expect to respond to the feelings and the difficulties of other Provinces. As they respond to us. That’s what it means to be a Communion. (My emphasis)

And we all say, "Amen!"

I'M STILL ON SABBATICAL...

...from matters Anglican, but Paul Bagshaw, at Not the Same Stream, is not. His latest post titled "End Game" begins:

I am now confident that, at last, we have finally come to the beginning of the end of the schism in Anglicanism, though not in a way I had anticipated.

Enough to whet your appetite?

And if you look at the picture, which I lifted from Paul's blog, of the primates who attended the Primates' Meeting, you see that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori does not put herself forward at picture-taking time. There she be, in the background, one woman amongst the men, but I believe she more than holds her own in the meetings.

ABOUT THE PRIMATES MEETING AND PRESENCE

From ENInews:

Some archbishops have told Williams they will not attend because of the presence of the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, and because of recent developments in her province, including the recent election of a lesbian bishop, according to a report in the Times of London.

The quote takes my breath away. Whether or not Mary Glasspool had been ordained a bishop, I expect the mere presence of the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church would have been an obstacle to the attendance of certain bishops at the Primates Meeting, because she is a woman. That the primates would object to the inclusion of Bishop Katharine seems un-Christ-like to me. What, in heaven's name, do the primates make of this passage from Luke's Gospel?

And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.’ Jesus spoke up and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ ‘Teacher,’ he replied, ‘speak.’ ‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’ And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’

Luke 7:37-50

In Jesus' time and even today in areas of the Middle East, the woman washing the feet of Jesus would be viewed as an act of surpassing intimacy. That the woman was a notorious sinner made the incident all the more shocking and scandalous.

And then this from Colin Coward at The Changing Attitude:

An article about the French essayist Montaigne and
research involving macaque monkeys in the Guardian review on Saturday by Saul Frampton suggested that there is indeed something of much greater significance in the absence of a number of Primates and even in my own absence from the Primates’ meeting.

Montaigne was concerned with the power of personal presence in moral life and a fascination with how people act on, influence and affect each other through their physical being. I connect this with Christian ideas of incarnation and real presence. We are more fully ourselves and more truly living the divine nature when we are more fully embodied and really present.

A team of neuroscientists at the University of Parma discovered something surprising about the behaviour of certain neurons in the brains of macaque monkeys. The neurons fired not only when the monkeys grasped food but when they saw the experimenter grasp it. These neurons have come to be known as “mirror neurons” or “empathy neurons”. Similar neurons have been found in humans.
....

I don’t need Montaigne’s essays or macaque monkey research to tell me something I believe and know in the core of my being; that God calls us to relationship and intimacy; that getting close to other people, especially those we find difficult and who hold different views, can be uncomfortable, risky and challenging. This is the essence of the Christian faith, of the parable of the good Samaritan, the sheep and the goats, the story of the woman at the well and the power of the crucifixion itself, of Jesus standing in the same place as Pilate, and nailed between two thieves.

To me, Christmas, the celebration of the nativity of Jesus, is the greatest feast in the church. The children get it right. God became incarnate; God CAME DOWN to become one of us, as a sign of God's all-embracing love for us. The wonderful beginning of the Gospel is the part without which none of the rest of the story would have happened. That Jesus walked in the dust with his friends, looked them in the face and in the eye, touched them, ate with them, washed their feet, and allowed his feet to be washed by a woman widely known as a sinner, is a bulwark of my faith.

With Colin, I believe incarnational presence is life-giving to relationships within the Anglican Communion. We meet Jesus when we meet our brothers and sisters in the flesh. I don't mean to say that close relationships can't be formed without physical presence, but, when possible, the relationships should be nourished and solidified by presence, and the primates who won't attend the meeting because of the presence of Bishop Katharine have their Gospel priorities all wrong.

H/T to Simon Sarmiento at Thinking Anglicans for the link to ENInews.

Thanks to Mark Harris at Preludium for the link to Colin Coward's post at The Changing Attitude.

PRAYER FOR THE PRIMATES' MEETING...

...from the Most Revd Dr Thabo Makgoba, Archbishop of Cape Town.

Lord Jesus Christ, you washed your disciples' feet,
and called them to follow your example.
Bless the leaders of our churches as they gather at the Primates' Meeting.
As they take counsel together, give them grace to grow in prayer and fellowship,
so they may bear one anothers' burdens and share one anothers' joys,
and find mutual support in their heavy responsibilities of servant leadership.
Refresh and encourage them as they meet,
and empower them to lead your people
in lives of faithful worship, witness and service,
that bring your redemptive gospel to this broken and needy world.
Amen

The meeting starts today, January 25, in Dublin, Ireland, and runs until January 30.

H/T to Torey Lightcap at The Lead

PRESIDING BISHOP'S STATEMENT ON PRIMATES MEETING

January 24, 2011

I look forward to greeting many old friends at the Primates Meeting in Dublin, and I look forward to meeting those who have been elected in the past two years. I am deeply grateful that we may begin to focus on issues that are highly significant in local contexts as well as across the breadth of the Anglican Communion. Certainly issues of serving our brothers and sisters, offering good news for body, mind, and spirit, are the central ones in our province. The Episcopal Church is urgently focused on rebuilding in Haiti, seeking increased ways to bring good news to the poor in indigenous communities, inner cities, and expanding and depopulating rural areas in all the nations in our province. Across the globe, in partnership with Anglicans and others, we seek to serve the least of these, bringing light in the midst of darkness, peace in the midst of war and violence, and hope in the face of devastating natural disasters and the growing reality of climate change. We own our domestic responsibility to change our habits and ways of life that contribute to environmental damage and destruction. In all we do, we seek to recognize the face of God wherever we turn, realizing that the body of God’s creation will only be healed when all members of the body of Christ are working together.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

H/T to Jim Naughton at The Lead.

PRAYER FOR THE PRIMATES' MEETING...

...from the Most Revd Dr Thabo Makgoba, Archbishop of Cape Town.

Lord Jesus Christ, you washed your disciples' feet,
and called them to follow your example.
Bless the leaders of our churches as they gather at the Primates' Meeting.
As they take counsel together, give them grace to grow in prayer and fellowship,
so they may bear one anothers' burdens and share one anothers' joys,
and find mutual support in their heavy responsibilities of servant leadership.
Refresh and encourage them as they meet,
and empower them to lead your people
in lives of faithful worship, witness and service,
that bring your redemptive gospel to this broken and needy world.
Amen

The meeting will take place in Dublin, Ireland, January 25-30.

H/T to Torey Lightcap at The Lead

DEFINE THE LIMITS OF THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION?

From Anglicans United comes a report on the Mere Anglicanism Conference in Charleston, SC.

In the "About" link on the home page of Anglicans United is the following:

Purpose: to grow a faithful church for the promulgation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, while forming Christian disciples in the evangelical, catholic and reformed Anglican way.

Anglicans United traces its roots to the 3R’s Conference held in Winter Park, Florida in January of 1986. The conference brought together evangelicals, charismatics and broad-church traditional Episcopalians who shared a growing sense of alarm at the continuing moral and doctrinal slide of their Church.

Opposed to moral and doctrinal relativism, the conference highlighted the Revelation of God in the Scriptures, and called for the Renewal of God’s people. Alarmed by trends within the denomination, everyone saw the need for Reformation. The conference ended with the issuance of a 3R’s Statement and publication of a book, “The Gospel Conspiracy in the Episcopal Church”, written by the Rev. Charles Irish and the Rt. Rev. Michael Marshall.

Alarm! Alarm!

This is the first I hear of Anglicans United, or, if I have heard of them previously, I've forgotten. Perhaps, I'm derelict in not knowing or remembering.

The Mere Anglicanism conference appears to be sponsored by the Diocese of South Carolina. (Note the absence of "Episcopal" in the name of the diocese.)

The theme for the 2011 Mere Anglicanism Conference, which will be held January 20-22 is "Biblical Anglicanism for a Global Future: Recovering the Power of the Word."

At the conference, Abp. Mouneer Anis, Cairo, Egypt, the Primate of Jerusalem and the Middle East and the Diocese of Egypt, gave the main address, titled “Recovering the Power of the Word for the Anglican Communion”. The entire text of the address may be found at Anglicans United.

The archbishop spoke first about the recent New Year's Eve bombing in Alexandria.

This year the bomb happened in the New Year’s Eve service 2011, as they were coming out of the church this bombing took place. It shook the nation, as well as the moderate Muslims as well. We are not used to this. We are a peaceful nation and this happening is upsetting many Christians. Something good may come out of this. Many moderate Muslims condemned this and speak of the right of the Christians to be there and worship. I want you to pray that the Church will continue to speak in love. The Church in Egypt was founded on the blood of the martyrs. Pray for us. We are not afraid and are ready to die for the sake of Jesus Christ in Egypt.

Yes. Please pray for peace between Christians and Muslims in Egypt and other countries in Africa and the Middle East.

Then, Abp. Anis spoke about faithfulness to the Word of God, meaning the Bible. He says the following in reference to the Lambeth Conference 1888: Resolution 11.1 “The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as “containing all things necessary to salvation”:

We were formed as a Biblical Communion. We are commanded to read and interpret Scripture together in order to define the limits of Anglican Communion in regard to the interpretation of Scripture. I believe we are far from that. If we followed what our predecessors decreed since 1888, we would not be an impaired, dysfunctional Communion today.

Um - no. To set limits to who is in the family of the Anglican Communion, and who is out, according to a certain group's ideas of the proper interpretation of Scripture seems quite un-Anglican, if one knows even a little of the history of the Anglican Communion.

Later, in the Q&A period, Abp. Anis gave the following response to a question about the upcoming Primates Meeting:

With the regard of the upcoming Primate’s meeting, (Dublin, Ireland Jan 25-30, 2011) we are not boycotting. Many have said that we are boycotting this meeting. We however are not attending.

Why? Because we did ask the Archbishop of Canterbury to follow up on the recommendations of the previous meeting (Dar es Salaam, 2006; no meeting was held in 2008 because of the Lambeth Conference). At that meeting we discussed, decided and recommended actions. This was never done. It is time for decisions after comprehensive discussion.

For this meeting, we received an invitation to sit in 2 separate rooms: the revisionists in one and the Global South in another. This is a joke. We were not given a chance to affect the process and have some ownership of the meeting. When we are given that opportunity, we will attend.

Can the invitations really have gone out inviting the Primates to meet in separate rooms?

Back in October of 2010, David Anderson of the American Anglican Council gave the following opinion on the arrangements for the Primates Meeting:

Dr. Williams is being advised that numerous provinces won't attend the Primates Meeting if Jefferts Schori attends. Having booked the venue, he might as well have the meeting since he is committed to paying for it, but without the orthodox Primates in attendance it could be a dangerous meeting, giving opinion and credence to teachings and beliefs that are not representative of orthodox Anglicanism.

If asked my opinion, I would strongly advise the orthodox Primates to 1) organize before the Primates' meeting, and 2) attend and remove by force of numbers the Presiding Bishop of the American Episcopal Church (not physically, but by either voting her off the "island," or recessing to another room and not letting her in). The meeting is a place to gather and potentially to settle some of the issues that are pulling the Anglican Communion apart, and to begin to restore health to a most wonderful communion.

Can it be that Abp. Rowan Williams took David Anderson's idea of meeting in separate rooms and ran with it? I don't have the answer, but I'd like to know.

And the bishops are not boycotting the Primates Meeting; they are just not attending, because Abp. Williams has not followed through on recommended actions. I'm guessing Abp. Anis refers to actions not taken by Abp. Williams to discipline certain member provinces of the AC. And it seems that Abp. Anis was offended, rather than appeased, by the invitation to meet in separate rooms - if such is the case of the invitations going out as the archbishop describes them.

If this post seems rambling, bear with me. I'm writing in part to try to get the groups and their shenanigans straight in my head, and I'm not sure I succeeded.

H/T to Simon Sarmiento Thinking Anglicans.

QUOTE OF THE DAY - "A DIFFERENT KIND OF PRIMATES MEETING"

From Canon Kenneth Kearon at the Anglican Communion Office:

“The proposal is that it begins with a number of different conversations taking place simultaneously at first. This is to provide a safe space where dialogue can begin and progress together in a spirit of discernment.”

The Primates of the Anglican Communion will meet together in separate rooms. Priceless! Only out of the Lambeth offices could such a daft arrangement issue forth. What do the powers at the ACO fear? Fisticuffs? A reach across the table to grab a fellow Primate by the throat?

As others have said before, invite all the Primates and whoever comes is in communion.

From Simon Sarmiento at Thinking Anglicans. The quote is from the Church Times, which is available only to subscribers for a week.