TLC: No Lambeth Invitation for Bishop Robinson (nor +Minns nor the bishops of the AMiA)

I guess providing a safe place for orthodox Anglicans is an intolerable enormity in the Anglican Communion now, causing “exceptionally serious division or scandal.”

Fudge!
Per the TLC article, “He noted that Lambeth would not be “a formal Synod or Council of the bishops of the Communion,” nor does attending the conference commit a bishop to accept “the position of others as necessarily a legitimate expression of Anglican doctrine and discipline, or to any action that would compromise your conscience or the integrity of your local church.” - WHAT does this mean? Is it that if someone is there you disagree with that’s okay as it is not necessarily Anglican or does it mean that resolutions coming forth are not necessarily Anglican? Please HELP me understand.

“However, the “archbishop intends to explore the possibility of inviting [Bishop Robinson] to Lambeth as a guest or observer,” he added.”  SOUNDS like Robinson may very well go - and play victim!
Chapie+

The mixture of opinions in the CofE would mean that there are many within that province who disagree with one another. RW has to live with that reality and in anything he does with regard to the communion, that needs to be borne in mind.

It’s interesting that the ABC might be willing to invite VGR as a guest or an observer but would not invite +Minns or +Murphy in the same context. Once again, the liberal heretics get ABC support while the orthodox are left in the cold by Lambuth.

The inscutable Rowan is becoming more and more scrutable.

Interesting that the Dar El Salem Communiqué stated that VGRs difficulty for the Communion and that caused by boundary crossers were not equivalent. It appears that ABC must have meant that the boundary crossers were much worse. Of course the Communiqué was the voice of the Primates, I realize.  But if this is the Anglican Communion, I don’t need to be a part of it.  What a shame.
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ABp Orombi has said that the bishops of Uganda won’t come if the American bishops come. I wonder if they will come if some of the American bishops come?

Wow, I learn something new every day about Anglicans.  So the Lambeth tea party is not of any significance since it has no authoriety to legislate—-wonder what those four instruments of unity mean.  Does not going mean anything?  Must everyone RSVP or just not show up?  Enquiring minds want to know.

Don’t worry too much—this is all from Kearon, who admits himself that he is out of the Lambeth loop. Everytime he makes one of these statements we find that ++Rowan is out of town…and it is all quietly corrected…Kearon as a source is always unreliable.

Besides, when Rowan finally does something would it really be such a slap in the face to Peter Akinola. I really doebt it.

This whole thing fits Kearon’s own agendaand this is no more than last weeks reporting about Ft. Worth and Quincy.

This whole thing bothers me more than a little bit.  VGR should not be invited to Lambeth.  There is no question about it.  But why, oh why, does KJS get one?  She runs around spouting heresy and leading TEC into further apostacy.  Arrogantly denying the agreements she made in DES and leading the HOB rejection of the communique.  If Bennison, Bruno et. al. get invites I am bothered even more.

The sad reality is that there is a great ease with picking on the homosexual and ignoring the heretic.  (VGR is both BTW)  This is why the Anglican Communion will lose viability. 

The non-invitation of +Minns is further proof of the foolishness of the “Via Media”. Until orthodoxy and faithfulness are valued over listening, fairness and “being nice” this communion will remain anemica and will continue to grow in irrelevance.

Apparently if Minns doesn’t go then neither will ++Akinola.

He couldn’t have waited for the American House of Bishops to make the same promise? This gesture seems, among other things, politically unwise—a boycott of Lambeth would accomplish nothing for the orthodox cause, and yet would cede more control of an Anglican voting body to the progressives. I increasingly wonder if CANA under ++Akinola is not only positioning itself as the de facto North American province, but is also being deliberately provocative and belligerent in order bring about a faster break with the ABC, for whom they clearly have no use. Surely ++Akinola doesn’t think that Cantaur will relent in order to get Nigeria to come?

My understanding is that invitations are issued to bishops who are Ordinaries, the bishop who exercises executive authority in a diocese, and not coadjutors or suffragens.  +Martyn Minns is a missionary bishop, not an ordinary.  AMIA’s exclusion is long-standing, dating back to the term of ++Carey.  CANA is a missionary outreach of Nigeria.  Nigeria’s ordinaries will probably all be invited.  The exclusion of Zimbabwe’s bishop speaks for itself.

Or, Dave, it could be that the fact that a body of heretical bishops who have flagrantly violated every Anglican agreement with regard to homosexuality since 1998 have been invited to the primier council of the Anglican Communion whilst an orthodox missionary bishop who has come to the aid of parishes who do not wish to participate passively or actively in an apostate body has not…has persuaded ++Nigeria that the ABC is not worth risking Chrisitan integrity.

The only provocation here is the continuous unflagging provocation on the part of the Episcopal Church that has been met with nothing but a weak willed wimper from the see of St. Augustine. Pathetic.

Bishop Robinson should be invited, the problem is—what will he say? “I’m a good guy who is committing a sin but I should be exempt from criticism because I’m a good guy. Besides, current secular belief is sympathetic with gays.”  It adds nothing to the debate unless he tells us specifically why the gospel does not condemn his admitted conduct. Nevertheless he should be invited with the understanding that he probably will not offer any new thoughts.

Matt, I get it. TEC is heretical—I’m in the choir with you on this one. I don’t need to be convinced that TEC is a lost cause. What I’m not convinced of is that the AC is a lost cause—not hardly!! With some of the old “clever-as-snakes-innocent-as-doves” political savvy, we could have, in relatively short order (in Church History terms), a remarkably orthodox Communion free from the entanglements of TEC and finally working towards the things we would all rather be working on—missions, evangelism, discipleship, etc.

But move like this seem to me just one more instance of an “all or nothing” approach born from either political naivety or, worse, deliberate political provocation designed to hasten the end of the AC as we know it.

All I ask is that people either get smart about saving the Communion or lay their cards on the table and say that the gig is up and the Communion is lost. But actions like this fall into one of two categories, both of which make me very frustrated: either political foolishness, or Machiavellian one-upmanship unbecoming of a Christian body.

I agree with Matt+. If this is true (and it may not be) it is another pathetic lack of Godly leadership by Rowan Williams.

Archbishop Williams said he had reserved the right “to withhold or withdraw invitations from bishops whose appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the Communion,” but did not name names.

I take it we are to infer that Abp. Rowan has invited the TEC bishops other than +VGR. If so, this threat to “withdraw invitations” might serve to pressure TEC’s House of Bishops to submit to the demands of Dar es Salaam or be dis-invited. If Abp. Rowan had simply not invited the TEC bishops, he would have forfeited his ability to twist their arms and made Dar es Salaam’s September deadline moot. This invitation-with-the-threat-of-withdrawal, however, keeps the game alive through September.

There is a subtext in the actions of the AoC. 

IMHO, he has taken no meaningful steps to aid or minister to reasserters, nor has he vocalized moral support for reasserters.  Consider (i) the suggestion to form an unempowered network within TEC; (ii) the failure to state clear support for such network; (iii) the appointment of Kearon (iv) the effete and compromised PoR; (v) the failure to act or speak on the unresolved matters referred to the PoR; (vi) the abandonment of Recife; (vii) his unfriendly treatment of primates crossing borders to assist reasserters; (viii) the dishonest pronouncement that TEC complied with the WR/DC; (ix) the attempt to manage DES and gloss over MacPherson’s description of TEC; (x) the unwillingness post DES to acknowledge Shori’s flip flop and TEC’s non-compliance (e.g., lawsuits, rejection of the PV) with the communique.

The subtext I take home is not particularly positive.

I don’t know how Rowan can say Minns shouldn’t attend when he invited Akinola, Iker, Duncan, and Schofield.  They have been far more “disruptive” to the Communion than Minns.

Were the closeted gay bishops invited or just the one who told the truth about himself?

How about the bishops who are in civil litigation with parishes?  Don’t their actions qualify as having “caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the Communion”?