Tom Wright attacks GAFCON

That last point is crucial. To say “scripture is our authority” does not commit anyone to joining the small group represented by Chris Sugden, Martyn Minns, and Peter Jensen.

It’s only a small group if one neglects to mention Akinola, Orombi or Nzimbi. Wright is well aware of this, so why leave those names out?

I think that the crucial passage in this article is this:

The rationale of GAFCON (the Global Anglican Future Conference) is: “The Communion is finished; nothing new can happen; it’s time to split.” No mention is made of the Windsor report, the proposed Anglican Covenant, or, indeed, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Advent letter, insisting as it does on scriptural authority, which GAFCON seems to regard as its monopoly.

That last point is crucial. To say “scripture is our authority” does not commit anyone to joining the small group represented by Chris Sugden, Martyn Minns, and Peter Jensen.

It seems to me that he states the truth in his first sentence—then ignores that truth in his second sentence.

He says “No mention is made of the Windsor report, the proposed Anglican Covenant, or, indeed, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Advent letter . . . ” but it is precisely the Windsor report, the proposed Anglican Covenant, and the Advent letter that has ended up causing people to shrug their shoulders and say “oh, okay, we know how that game is played now . . . . The Communion is finished; nothing new can happen; it’s time to split.”

I have noticed this a lot—people in the ACI, and Fulcrum, and elsewhere commenting that “they did not mention the covenant” or “they did not mention the Advent letter”—but that’s because the non-mentioners have said “The Communion is finished; nothing new can happen.”  Why would they refer to documents which they believe have failed [or rather, the people behind the documents who were supposed to enforce the documents] in their communications about something that is going to “move on” beyond and around the Communion?

Bishop Wright then seems to imply that in the GAFCON people saying “scripture is our authority” they are somehow stating that scripture is NOT the authority of, say, Ephraim Radner.

But again . . . one must refer back to the truth that Bishop Wright stated in the first sentence of the quoted passage: “The rationale of GAFCON (the Global Anglican Future Conference) is: “The Communion is finished; nothing new can happen; it’s time to split.”

Obviously Bishop Wright and Dr. Radner do not believe that “the Communion is finished” and obviously scripture is their authority.  But the leaders of GAFCON believe that the Communion is a proven failure [including Windsor, the Advent letter, and the “Covenant process” . . . and obviously scripture is their authority.

Saying “scripture is my authority” does not mean that scripture is not the authority of, say, Matt Kennedy, who has left TEC.  But Matt and I have made two very different decisions about TEC.  When Matt says “Scripture is my authority” I do not feel defensive and as if he is somehow implying that scripture is not my authority.  I simply understand that Matt has come to different conclusions about what actions he must take in the circumstances of an extremely heretical church, and as a priest.

Finally, I can’t help but note that usually Bishop Wright is the “big gun” that blasts whenever the other smaller guns have spoken.  I mean no disrespect to either of the guns—simply noting his position and authority as a well-recognized scholar and defender of the faith.

But what puzzles me is . . . the Archbishop of Canterbury is happy and proud of all the rsvps he has received.  The ACO has been at pains to point out that basically all the really needed people are showing up—what are we at, now, 70%?

So, why is the big gun blasting at this point?  According to the ABC and the ACO, All is Well! 

So let’s say not one more bishop rsvps [doubtful].  Lambeth will end up with 70% of the bishops—still a big majority over TEC and the Canadian church.  If those bishops are concerned and distraught over the direction of the Communion and of TEC, then surely they are more than able to step up to the plate.

If not . . . then one has to wonder why a minority of bishops—the ones who wish to go to Gafcon—are the ones that are supposed to “do the leading and speaking” about these matters.  It’s a two-edged sword.  The ones that actually care enough to speak and lead . . . now wish to leave.

Reminds me of a certain meeting back in New Orleans last year.  A grand total of 4 bishops left for the CCP meeting—and supposedly, according to some, the rest of the Windsor bishops were unable to do anything in consequence of their departure.

Do they believe in the authority of scripture? So do I (including the bits they regularly downplay).

Yes, well, just don’t ask NT Wright about that “innerancy” concept, though.  And you might want to stay away from his less-than-orthodox position on justification.

It is, in other words, to say yes to a future Anglican Communion rooted in the full authority of scripture.

How is this transformation to be effected?  Is TEC going to repent?  Will the CoE hierarchy - being as guilty as TEC in these matters - risk placing itself in the dock?  Will the Anglican bureaucracy forgo all that American money, and just quietly put itself out of business? 

It’s so easy to make these grand assertions about the Anglican Communion once again being placed under the full authority of Scripture.  But it’s not enough to state the vision.  There has to be a credible road from here to there.  It’s not enough to simply say “Let’s go to Lambeth and start to fix things.”  Lambeth will end and powerful institutional forces will immediately set themselves upon the task of dismantling anything from Lambeth that offends them.  At this point the question “Then what?” must be faced.  And it can’t be faced with broad, vague visions.

In the end, these visions seem designed only to keep conservatives at the table for the sole sake of preserving the Institution.  But an Institution which cannot cannot differentiate between the Gospel and the apostacy of TEC is an Institution which has outlived its usefulness.

carl

Surely people misread both Bishop Wright and the GAFCON folks’ elevated rhetoric if they think it is much of an attempt to persuade the other side. It surely is not. Both are attempting to shore up their core constituencies. These are rallying cries largely addressed to folks who already agree. The lines of division are increasingly clear. What is still to be seen is in what ecclesial reality (if any) the existing and deep divisions will result.

where are ... the Windsor and Camp Allen bishops in the States

Good question.

I think the communion probably is finished if +Wright’s recognizes that six primates representing over half of the world’s practising Anglicans are walking out and all he can do is lamely attack Chris Sugden.  If he wants them to take the Windsor report seriously, he should first convince the Archbishop of Canterbury to do the same.

“If, instead, such bishops come, bringing their cheerful worship, their deep understanding of scripture, and their wide experience of mission among the world’s poorest, this could be a great moment of renewal. Dr Williams has made it clear that Windsor and the Covenant are the tools with which to forge our future. “Orthodox” bishops should celebrate that, and join in the task” NT Wright

This is the key passage in Bishop Wright’s letter of concern. I find it makes no sense to boycott a meeting of the Anglican Communion’s bishops and forfeit the ability to bring into the open the revisionists for what they are—“hypocrites”—-saying one thing at NO and then denying it in actions—blessing of same-sex (whatever it is), which is the revisionist way of acting. The power of true worship in the spirit, the power of the Word of God proclaimed against false prophets has the ability to renew the Church. I for one want the orthodox Anglican bishops who believe in the Faith and Practice of the early and undivided Church to go to Lambeth and speak with a clear voice,—- Yes, for the true Faith of the Saints of God.

I need them to do so, and yes, I plead that they do so, for Christ’s sake and mine and all others who are unwilling to jump into so-called life boats when the ship, as St Paul said, is still the Ship of God.

If the GS and other orthodox believers are right and Lambeth is a joke, and GC2009 proves to be the undoing of any semblance of orthodoxy in the TEC, then we will have more than enough evidence to act accordingly. I wish for us to always take the high road; and let those who do not act with true integrity be damned.

Despite the protests, The Rt. Rev. Dr. NT Wright speaks with both academic and canonical authority. We should listen to him. As President Lincoln said about General Grant when many were criticising Grant——-HE WINS——-SO DOES WRIGHT

Forever Anglican

RE: “I find it makes no sense to boycott a meeting of the Anglican Communion’s bishops and forfeit the ability to bring into the open the revisionists for what they are—“hypocrites”—-saying one thing at NO and then denying it in actions—blessing of same-sex (whatever it is), which is the revisionist way of acting.”

Hi FA, we already brought that out into the open over the past four years. The problem is, the leadership of the Communion is willing to live with that.

RE: “The power of true worship in the spirit, the power of the Word of God proclaimed against false prophets has the ability to renew the Church.”

So why didn’t it renew the church, then?  We did that—for years and years.  Perhaps the Episcopal church is not “the Church” which explains why it was not renewed.

RE: “I for one want the orthodox Anglican bishops who believe in the Faith and Practice of the early and undivided Church to go to Lambeth and speak with a clear voice,—- Yes, for the true Faith of the Saints of God.”

They did that—at the 1998 Lambeth.

Didn’t matter.  I mean, it was nice and all, but TEC won’t agree with Lambeth, and as we have an ABC who is unwilling to use his authority to discipline, Lambeth 2008 won’t matter either.

If the GS and other orthodox believers are right and Lambeth is a joke, and GC2009 proves to be the undoing of any semblance of orthodoxy in the TEC, then we will have more than enough evidence to act accordingly.

“more than enough evidence?”  Hardly.  It is already known that Lambeth 2008 will not involve a substantive discussion regarding any of the above issues; it will be like the Academy Awards, the real show is watching the entry of those who have been invited.

It is sad to see NT Wright and others arrogantly attack those that are separating from the Anglican Communion.  Wright and others apparently feel that the only appropriate time to leave the Anglican Communion (or TEC) is when THEY decide to leave.  I suppose the same can be said for some who have left TEC, criticizing those who have remained. At least Father Radner is consistent and honest in stating that he will never leave, regardless of the outcome of future Lambeths or TEC Conventions. 

In light of this tirade, I wonder where Wright will be in ten years. Will be become a Bishop Gray, Parsley, Lee, once considered conservative/moderate leaders but pushed by their commitment to denominational government to a quiet acceptance of revisionist changes and hostility toward orthodox dissent?  Will he become a Bishop Howe, torn to his core in a struggle within his Diocese with those with whom he shares core beliefs?  Or Bishop Steenson, giving up Anglicanism altogether for the Roman Catholic Church?

Whether it is defending Steve Chalke or the ‘new perspective, attacking the drafters of the C of E’s Evangelical covenant, or laying into the organisers of GAFCON (terrible acronym by the way) why does Bp Wright protest loudest and strongest at the actions of his ‘fellow’ evangelicals?

I love the line ‘the ship has not sunk yet’ and the shipwreck analogy - (did he think this through it will surely stick?).

Surely the question should be - is the good ship Anglican sinking and what is the urgent action required to stop it doing so? It seems obvious that at the very least we are taking on water, and I’ve yet to hear of a definitive plan of rescue from my brothers and sisters in ACI, and Fulcrum, or the Bishops Wright mentions, other than stay in your seats, we can see this through, the captain will think of something just give him time.

Meanwhile the rocks loom ever closer, the ship sinks a little lower, and more and more jump into the lifeboats.

I have enormous respect for NT Wright and the ACI.  I think they would be far more likely to persuade the global south primates to attend if they acknowledged the obvious.  Something like . . . TEC has been hijacked, the Windsor report has been hijacked, the Dar es Salaam communique has been hijacked, the ACO has been hijacked, and, for the moment, it would seem that Lambeth Palace has been hijacked since the ABC will not enforce the WR and uninvite the Americans. 
But the church will outlast the Americans.  The church will outlast Rowan Williams.  The church is the bride of Christ. 
Use GAFCon to lead the worldwide Communion in prayer and fasting (something Rowan has fallen short on, IMHO) prior to the Lambeth Conference.  We need your leadership in doing this, and we will follow your leadership in humility.  We will call on one another to do so as well. 
Then trust in the Lord and come to the Lambeth Conference.  (BTW, we will raise funds for your expenses).

One of the many problems faced with the Anglican Communion is that unlike hierarchical churches (Roman Catholicism is the biggy here), the Anglican Communion has no real core. The Roman church is roughly analogous to vertebrates. There is a central nervous system and information and decisions flow in an orderly stream. The Anglican Communion is more analogous to coral. An amalgam of soft shelled and hard shelled life forms joining together in a haphazard fashion.

Unlike biological life forms, human social organizations can change structure. The question now is whether or not the Anglican Communion can change and if so, to what?

That’s the meta issue, that neither the Archbishop of Canterbury nor Bishop Wright care to address. It is quite clear that this Lambeth will not be about that.

Instead of condemning GAFCON and setting it up in their own minds as a Lambeth alternative, they might want to consider articulating more clearly what benefits attending Lambeth will bring to its attendees. As it is, they are creating a Gondor/Mordor rivalry between the two events. But that level of contrast will only exist if they themselves create it, since it is quite possible for one person to attend both. They are not mutually exclusive.

/ramble

I get breezy here

It would be nice to see a more generous orthodoxy from both sides and less fundementalism. There is the comcon fundementalism that says: Not only do we have hope for the communion and believe ourselves bound to it as a matter of duty, but we also consider those orthodox who do not agree to be schismatic traitors. Then there is the fedcon fundamentalism that says: Not only do we beleive that the communion has failed and Canterbury centered Anglicanism doomed, but those orthodox who choose to remain are cowards and traitors.

It is very distressing to see NT write take a fundamentalist approach to this.

There is a middle way. That is to recognize that given the true state of Canterbury and his failure to uphold Windsor and discipline TEC, and given TEC’s embrace of heresy, there are two legitimate options:

1. Leave and set up a separate structure

2. Stay and resist within TEC and fight for structural change and ultimately discipline.

There is, indeed, one dishonorable course for the orthodox and that is to stay and collaborate and/or participate with fallen structures and heretical teachers pretending that those who embrace heresy and those who do not can coexist peacefully. They cannot. To stay is to stay and fight in order to undermine the present leadership, not support it.

fundementalism [sic]

I like it. Or even “fundeymentalism”.
fundeymentalist in the rabbit hole,

Let’s review the situation here.  Tom Wright would not be asked by the powers that be in the US seminaries to speak, much less serve as a professor.  Now he treats “certain” Primates like idiots.  Which part of koinonia is he parsing?

Spot on, N.T. Wright.  It is as if one had an infection in one’s left hand (TEC) and, instead of carefully and thoughtfully collaborating with the rest of the body to address it properly (Lambeth), the right arm (GAFCON) decides to chop itself off so as to keep itself disease-free. The problems compound, the body suffers anew, and irreparable damage is done to the whole. 
That those who so consistently claim to have the scriptural high-ground could even consider such damaging separatist maneuvers is astounding. Even among the orthodox, no one seems willing to end up on a cross.

No, ebc, for those who do not wish to attend Lambeth it is as if one had an infection in the Anglican Communion—it is is the Anglican Communion which has failed to discipline itself, restore an identity of orthodoxy, and establish its boundaries.

Forever Anglican:

Despite the protests, The Rt. Rev. Dr. NT Wright speaks with both academic and canonical authority. We should listen to him. As President Lincoln said about General Grant when many were criticising Grant——-HE WINS——-SO DOES WRIGHT

Well that’s an interesting analogy - considering Grant was a failure at everything else in his life until he went to war AND then his presidency was pockmarked by a tolerance of corruption and scandal - including allowing those who preyed on the heartbreak of the War to flourish - those who preyed on the instability of the financial world to continue - AND the allowance of those who would steal to continue.  Not to mention he also ended his life in bankruptcy.

I suppose there ARE parallels between Grant and those in positions of power who would condone doing nothing and going to Lambeth. 

Good call!

Myself, my bishop will be going to GAFCON - thanks be to God.

Thank you for posting this excellent commentary from Wright.  Well done.  Characteristically insightful.

Let’s review the situation here.  Tom Wright would not be asked by the powers that be in the US seminaries to speak, much less serve as a professor.

Which seminaries are you thinking of? 

Now he treats “certain” Primates like idiots.

Whom does he treat that way?

Sarah,
Why do you speak of the Anglican Communion with such 3rd person distancing, as if it is not you?  If the infection is in the whole body (as I think it most seriously is), then even those who mean to protect themselves through self-amputation will of necessity separate themselves in an infected state (to say nothing of the new infections to set in due to a shoddy process of removal).  Indeed, whatever problems are in the Communion, there can be none who escape responsibility for either its onset or its healing (as it is us).  Better to address the complete problem as a whole than chop ourselves off, as if we didn’t carry the disease already ourselves.
eaten_by_chipmunks

e_b_c, 
Your ‘diseased hand’ has been treated with every proven remedy, with love, patience, care and time (years of ‘listening’, ‘dialogue’, studies, commissions, etc. from L98 to DES) and all the treatments have failed to cure or improve the disease, instead it has progressed to a virulent fever.  The only medically responsible option remaining is to cut off the hand (or cancerous lump) or risk infection/death of the rest of the body.

e_b_c,  Sometimes amputation or division, though it may seem so violent, may be a mercy.  See:
http://cluelesschristian.classicalanglican.net/?p=120

RE: “Why do you speak of the Anglican Communion with such 3rd person distancing, as if it is not you?”

Not certain what you mean.  Confessing that their is an infection in the Anglican Communion [and not simply a single province of same] is not at all about claiming that it is not about me.  After all, I’m a member of the Anglican Communion. 

I have always stated that, should the Anglican Communion fail to discipline itself, establish its boundaries, and rediscover its identity, that I will not longer be a member of the Anglican Communion.

And in the nature of sinfulness, we are certainly all of us infected.  But that does not take away our responsibility not to support corrupted organizations of any sort. 

RE: “Indeed, whatever problems are in the Communion, there can be none who escape responsibility for either its onset or its healing (as it is us).”

Very true.  Whatever decisions that I make, I will certainly be responsible for them!  Should I decide—as so many else have—that the Anglican Communion cannot be healed, then I will depart from it, taking my own infected body with me.

Floridian,
I understand that perspective but I think it too quickly assumes we’ve long since passed the diagnostic stage.  I’m not so sure.  Indeed, what many seem to want to label and address as a problem with the other I think more rightly is assessed as a systemic issue in which all play an integral role.   Those seeking to leave before their relationship to/in/with the problem has been properly assessed cannot do themselves any favors thereby.

e_b_c

Better to address the complete problem as a whole than chop ourselves off, as if we didn’t carry the disease already ourselves.

Please set aside the ‘body’ analogy for the moment and tell us how this is to be done.  The problem is the the false gospel which has taken root in the church.  The solution to the problem is to expunge the false gospel.  The dilemma is that the false gospel is strong enough and rooted enough in the leadership of the church to successfully resist being expunged.  The false gospel doesn’t want to be expunged.  It wants to take over and displace orthodoxy.  That’s the struggle.  So what then is there to do? 

This isn’t an intramural fight.  It’s a fight between two different religions making claims on the same historic institution.

carl

TEC owns the ACC - bought it lock stock and barrel.
Canterbury lacks the resolve to use his office to reign in the apostates and he won’t allow Lambeth to deal with discipline.
Rowan Williams will not call a meeting of the Primates (for fear that they will move to fill the power vacuum he has created).  So other than to point to scores of instances of Anglicans reaffirming the authority of Scripture, what exactly does the good Bishop propose beside let’s all just sit on our duffs and see what happens?

I appreciate your concerns, Sarah.  I’m more than a little ambivalent about it all myself.  But, if the Anglican Communion really is you and me, then to attempt to speak of it as being somehow different than us is to speak unintelligibly.  In fact, 3rd person pronouns like “it” make no sense whatsoever.  All that is available to us linguistically, if we really believe the Anglican Communion to be us (as I think we must), are the first person pronouns “I,” “me,” “us,” and “we.”  In fact, GAFCON and other separatist movements are the equivalent of saying, “I am no longer going to be me anymore so as to properly be myself as I am.”  See what I mean?

Mousestalker, the problem with your analogy is that the Catholic Church claims(self-evident to Catholics)to be more than a human institution. It is also divine.  A Catholic would never say that the Church is merely a social institution that can be changed.  Rather the Church can develope in accord with its spouse’s plan.  If Anglicans can change the substantial structure of their church then it follows that it is not from God.  And Anglicans are back to the “who sez” problem.

I understand that perspective, carl, but I don’t think it obtains.  The reason being that I don’t think the “body” analogy is one we can set aside as Christians.  That the Spirit led Paul precisely to choose that particular image is very telling of the kind of ecclesiology I think we are to maintain.  For ultimately, this is not a problem of institutions, organizations, or any other “othered” idea.  It is us.  Try as we might we can’t escape that.  So, your question as to what we should do now is one best answered, I think, by first addressing the questions of what have we done.

Hi EBC,

“All that is available to us linguistically, if we really believe the Anglican Communion to be us (as I think we must), are the first person pronouns “I,” “me,” “us,” and “we.” In fact, GAFCON and other separatist movements are the equivalent of saying, “I am no longer going to be me anymore so as to properly be myself as I am.” See what I mean?”

That’s great EBC—and I will be leaving “us” should we be unable to establish our boundaries, discipline effectively, or reaffirm an orthodox identity.

I will still be “me” and I won’t be a member of “us”—it’s just like leaving a team, EBC.  While I’m a member of the team, I’m a part of “us” but once I leave the Anglican Communion team I will be “me” looking for a new “us” amongst Christian believers.

That’s what happens when teams fail.  You are making the argument that 1) one can never leave a team, and 2) that the “me” can never be separated from the “us.”

Yes, it certainly can.  I may be inseparable from the universal body of Christ, but I am certainly separable for individual, man-made, and temporary organizations that claim to be a part of the body of Christ.  And, as I said, I will be carrying my sinfulness wherever I go.

Is Wright aware of the events that occur when a ship sinks?  It would appear not.  There seems to be no awareness of the suction effect and the whirlpool created by the drowned vessel as it plunges beneath the water, drawing lifeboats down into a local maelstrom from which there is no escape.  If one waits until the ship is totally submerged to begin rowing away, the chances of attaining safety are minimized.  Perhaps he should get out to more movies for the visual aspects of this, but it is well documented in the literature of survivors and the bodies of non-survivors.

In the biblical story cited, the vessel grounded and was beaten to pieces by the waves and the survivors reached shore by holding onto flotsam and jetsam or what they had thrown overboard before the breakup.  I wonder has he thought his comparison through.  It would seem not.

I leave the Holy Spirit to guide such meditations and direct appropriate actions.  But I note that Wright’s complaint against GAFCON is equally applicable to his view.  That sword is two-edged.  If the Holy Spirit has indeed showered only those hanging in with grace to reach shore, hasn’t Wright elevated his understanding to the ONLY correct interpretation and limited God’s interventions to those of Wright’s choosing?  Precisely what basis makes Wright right and GAFCON wrong?

The essential problem here is an old one. Wright, Radner et cie cannot understand that there is nothing worse than heresy. How in God’s name can they yammer on about preserving TEC when the Body of Christ is being rent by open its heretical rebellion? It has taken me a long time to convince myself that these learned gentlemen actually would serve and preserve a heretical, apostate PECUSATEC rather than follow Christ. I understood that of the ACI guys, whose record of scattering like mice at a loud noise is clear. To swallow it from NT took some doing, but this latest article pretty well has me convinced. (comment edited for offensive language)

Thanks Sarah.  If I may, though, my very strong suspicion is that it is the exchange of the Pauline “body” metaphor for the “team” metaphor (i.e., being through voluntary association) that has gotten all of us into so much trouble at the start.  Indeed, I think you have demonstrably hit the nail on the head.  For my part, I don’t think existence is voluntary.

RE: “If I may, though, my very strong suspicion is that it is the exchange of the Pauline “body” metaphor for the “team” metaphor (i.e., being through voluntary association) that has gotten all of us into so much trouble at the start.”

But if you will notice, I did use the body image.  ; > )

in fact, it is a great analogy.  One cannot leave the body of Christ, which is the Church. 

But one can most certainly leave local, temporary, and man-made organizations that claim to be a part of the body of Christ.  And in that latter sense, “me” is certainly able to leave “us”, sinful though we all are.

At the end of the day, EBC, your claim about using language and asking me to use the word “us” turns out to be a mere rabbit trail.  We are back to my statement which is that if this local, temporary, and man-made [though hopefully at one time Spirit-endowed] organization called the Anglican Communion does not establish its boundaries, enact discipline, and articulate anew its orthodox identity than I will leave it—which will mean I will leave “us”.

Sarah,
I’m curious to know what you think the relationship of “local, temporary, and man-made organizations” is to the Church as Christ’s body.  How are they distinguishable, interact/interpenetrate, etc.? How is the invisible Church made visible and what kind of polis is it? Further, what is the political nature of the City of God in your view?  Do you think there is an inherent political component to the Church?  Anyway, I’m guessing that many our differences lie here.

In addition, I’m curious to know what your understanding of freedom is?  In what does freedom (such as for making choices to join/leave a group) consist?  What are its prerequisites and conditions.  Here, too, I suspect our deeper issues might be better brought to light.

I won’t be able to check the blog again until this evening but hopefully we can continue this then.  Thanks for the interaction.
eaten_by_chipmunks

tm,

Pass the KY [,] folks.

Is that really necessary?

Here again, we see the difference between the consistent catholic theology of Bishop Wright and, what Bishop Wright has accurately described as the, ecclesiastical parody of the “do as you please” morality that Bishop Minns and others have claimed to be leaving behind. 

If GAFCon is a preparation meeting for Lambeth, then Wright is incorrect in his critique of GAFCon on the basis that they are manning the life boats.  Many claim that this is the case, so I will gove them the benefit of the doubt for the moment.  However, they are invading Jerusalem without the permission of the local Primate, with whom they claim to have no theological disagreement.  Actually, they do have a theological disagreement that they will not acknowledge, and that disagreement is over the nature of the church.  Many of the GAFCon bishops hold a rather Zwinglian ecclesiology. 

If Wright is correct in saying that GAFCon is about manning the life boats, then it is truly a dark movement.  It is about surrendering the history of Anglicanism to the revisionists at the moment that the tide could turn.  It is about creating ecclesiological chaos. 

David, you say, “Blaming the GAFCON organisers for “manning the lifeboats” and thus dooming the Communion to sink is the equivalent of the Captain of the Titanic doing the same.”  It is not.  It is the equivalent of blaming someone who knew the Titanic was about to hit an iceberg for manning the life boats while he could still wrest control over the direction of the ship before it hit the ice berg.  The communion has not yet hit the iceberg.  It will only do so if the direction is in changed at Lambeth 08. 

The fact of the matter is that there are too few bishops who have a consistent catholic theology, whether they be revisionsionists or reasserters.  There are too few people in the communion who have patience (an important fruit of the Spirit) to allow time for things to work themselves out.  There are too few Anglicans who have embraced the cross of Christ and the demand it makes that we entrust our fate to the Father.

One supposes that if one has decided that the Continental Reformers, particularly the Reformed party, are infallible and essential interpreters of Holy Scripture and of justification by faith -“inerrancy” is a later topic in contrast to modern liberalism - then the Bishop of Durham is naughty. And if proven naughty on these subjects, hardly the stuff of classical Anglicanism unless ones “golden age” is Edwardian and early Elizabethan (in part) Church of Englandism, anything he proposes is nonsense. 

Well it has method in its madness but is it Anglican?

revrj,

And, in your post, again we see comcon fundamentalism. Thank you for a fine example.

Entire provinces have spoken about what their position is.  The ABC has done his best to ignore them.  They cannot participate.  It cannot be any clearer.

I think there is a better analogy than the “body parts” one.  Bishop Wright and the learned folks at the ACI remind me of an abused wife who just cannot bring herself to leave her husband.  She continues to get beat up but can always come up with a reason not to leave him; “I know that deep down he really loves me, etc.”  And TEC is great at playing the abusive husband; i.e., “Don’t make me hit you again ...”

I also am reminded of Lot’s wife wanting to look back.  Also, please read 2nd Peter, chapter 2 quite carefully, particularly vv. 17-22.  I think it aptly describes the current situation.

And, finally, let’s not forget the popular definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting the results to be different.  No, giving TEC just one more chance will not change their behavior.

Matt,

Not communion fundamentalism, but catholic fundamentalism in the same way the John Keeble was a catholic fundamentalist, or that Radner is, or that the former Dean of Nashotah House, Garry Kriss, is, or that NT Wright is.  I’ll be glad to Standfirm in that company. 

RJ+

I can’t believe someone would attack the orthodoxy and wisdom of Bishop Wright as has Mr. Ould. Instead, Wright’s words should be read, marked, and inwardly digested by those who are attempting to torpedo the ship from their dinghy.

#40 Lot’s wife left and looked back. Your problem with My Lord of Durham and many of us is that we haven’t left so can’t look back! When I was a “continuer” I constantly preached against the Lot’s wife syndrome, the disease afflicting those who having left TEC remained obsessed with it, brought news of the latest goings on to church on Sunday, filled the telephone lines with their distress and drove away seekers from other denominations or none. They ruined missions and bedeviled parishes, because they could not take advantage of their new freedom to build positive, mission-minded Anglican parishes. In stead they lurked in exilic TEC societies and dwindled to become tiny, self-absorbed groups whose delegates to synods were a right royal pain.

There appears to be a total disconnect between those who support GAFCON and people like NT Wright.  Those who agree with +Wright honestly believe that something substantial can happen at Lambeth that will cause the ship to stop sinking.  They honestly believe this is possible, yet I fail to see a plan of attack from such people to bring such change.  They have no strategy other than “Let’s keep talking”.  They also totally ignore the clear evidence that Windsor is not taken seriously by the ABC.  Otherwise, “those who took part as consecrators of Gene Robinson” would have been withdrawn “from representative functions in the Anglican Communion” (WR).  Furthermore, “that bishops who have authorized such rites [Same Sex Blessings] in the United States and Canada” would have been withdrawn “from representative functions in the Anglican Communion.” (WR).  Furthermore, that there would already be in place a “provision of delegated pastoral oversight for those who are dissenting” which is “sufficient to provide a credible degree of security on the part of the alienated community, so that they do not feel at the mercy of a potentially hostile leadership.” (WR) 

The fact remains that none of these items from the Windsor Report have been done! 
If NT Wright wants people to take Windsor seriously, then I’d suggest he himself take the above passages seriously.

The fact remains that the ABC has invited the heretics and made it clear that there will be no discipline and no covenant at Lambeth 08.  What is +Wright expecting? 

If +Wright wishes to stay and fight, then fine, DO SO!  But stop criticizing those who in good conscience must leave.  If +Wright wants to contend for the faith from the inside and lead the charge at Lambeth, then (although I think it foolhardy) he certainly has my blessing.  He may think that my desire to contend for the faith from the outside is foolhardy, yet can he not give me his blessing?

On New Year’s Day, Bp. Venables said this about the GAFCON leaders’ views of the Archbishop of Canterbury:

There is no more trust, a sense of betrayal and a sadness at the paternalistic tone to everything.

Now Bp.Wright:

To say “scripture is our authority” does not commit anyone to joining the small group represented by Chris Sugden, Martyn Minns, and Peter Jensen. It is clear that they are the prime movers and drafters, making a mockery of Canon Sugden’s claim (Comment, 11 January) that GAFCON is about rescuing the Churches from Western culture. But they have marshalled impressive support, particularly from great leaders like Henry Orombi of Uganda.

Note the implications that it is Sugden, et al. who are calling the shots, not the primates themselves.  And it is ++Orombi alone who is a great leader; the other five primates are just chopped liver.  Then there are the half-hearted references to Windsor, the covenant and the Advent letter without even a passing attempt to explain how they remain a meaningful basis for proceeding.  If he had set out to prove Bp. Venables’ point, he could not have done a better job.

Look, FrVan, you have to understand David Ould.  What really frosts him is that Wright “writes books undermining the classical evangelical understanding of justification by faith alone.”  Good grief, Wright is actually reading the Bible differently than David - and in accord with the overwhelming majority of the Church over the millenia!  How dare he!

Does that help you understand the bitterness?

Phil,

To be fair, if David believes that sola fide is, in fact, the biblical doctrine of justification (as do I)  then it is quite right for him to object when it is obscured or dismissed. It is not just a matter of +Wright disagreeing with Calvin and Luther, but a matter of biblical truth.

NEITHER Scripture NOR history support the position that e_b_c and FrVan, et al are spouting (the schism is worse than heresy mantra) nor demand the church remain in continued cohesion/association with heretics, apostates and sexually immoral is mandatory to preserve the unity of the Body of Christ - QUITE THE OPPOSITE! 

In ALL instances dealing with sin in the church, the Scriptures instruct the shepherds/overseers to separate from them and/or to PUT THEM OUT and away from their faithful and obedient flock UNTIL THEY REPENT, but to try to restore them gently. 
NOTE: The gentle restoration attempts have been executed for over 5 years now.  As evidenced by their words and actions, the heretics have NOT repented, are not listening, don’t have ears to hear or eyes to see.  (John 3:3)

In the OT and NT Scriptures, unrepentant false teachers and leaders are treated with higher contempt and greater judgment than laity.

Why would it hurt for those threatening not to attend Lambeth, and those who are encouraging splitting away from the AC, to wait until after Lambeth to leave? It is not ++Williams who has broken faith. He seems to be very consistent in his statements and plans. It is those who put words in his mouth, or have asserted what the ABC “should have done,” or “should do” into the situation that create the confusion. It is ++Williams who has given so much to save the Communion and bring about a stronger adherence to Scripture within the Communion as well. The other side seems driven by the desire to destroy rather than repair… and seems bent to disrupt, or bring about a complete failure, in any attempt to save the AC. Is the hatred of TEC really that rabid?

#43 - Let’s not start bashing the anglo catholics again!  Perhaps where you stand has to do with what you see, but that hardly describes the AMiA and CANA, both of which have been planting churches like mad, and seem at the parish level to not be terribly consumed with TEC, other than the litigation over some of the properties, and I’m sure they’ll do fine even if they lose it.

But to go back on topic, I’ll reiterate #44’s point.  What does NT Wright propose be done at Lambeth if everyone shows up?  What do Fulcrum and the ACI propose be done at Lambeth?  Why is there no answer to these questions?

They also totally ignore the clear evidence that Windsor is not taken seriously by the ABC.  Otherwise, “those who took part as consecrators of Gene Robinson” would have been withdrawn “from representative functions in the Anglican Communion” (WR).  Furthermore, “that bishops who have authorized such rites [Same Sex Blessings] in the United States and Canada” would have been withdrawn “from representative functions in the Anglican Communion.” (WR).

The Windsor Report only recommended the following:

  ”* the Episcopal Church (USA) be invited to express its regret that the proper constraints of the bonds of affection were breached in the events surrounding the election and consecration of a bishop for the See of New Hampshire, and for the consequences which followed, and that such an expression of regret would represent the desire of the Episcopal Church (USA) to remain within the Communion

  * pending such expression of regret, those who took part as consecrators of Gene Robinson should be invited to consider in all conscience whether they should withdraw themselves from representative functions in the Anglican Communion…”

Withdrawal from “representative functions” was only dependent on an expression of regret, nothing more. And General Convention resolved:

“That the 75th General Convention of The Episcopal Church, mindful of “the repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation enjoined on us by Christ”...express its regret for straining the bonds of affection in the events surrounding the General Convention of 2003 and the consequences which followed; offer its sincerest apology to those within our Anglican Communion who are offended by our failure to accord sufficient importance to the impact of our actions on our church and other parts of the Communion; and ask forgiveness as we seek to live into deeper levels of communion one with another.”

The Communion Sub-Group said of this: “These words were not lightly offered, and should not be lighted received.”, and recommended its acceptance. The Primates at Dar es Salaam duly said:

“The Primates recognise the seriousness with which The Episcopal Church addressed the requests of the Windsor Report put to it by the Primates at their Dromantine Meeting. They value and accept the apology and the request for forgiveness made.”

Whatever you may personally think of the apology, it was all that was asked for in order for TEC to return to “representative functions” in the AC, one was given, and it was accepted by the Primates.

“In the OT and NT Scriptures, unrepentant false teachers and leaders are treated with higher contempt and greater judgment than laity.”

Dear Floridian:
  I agree with that statement completely! But remember, that is a two-edged sword cutting both ways…Not only should those who teach false doctrine be afraid, but also that lead falsely regardless of their theology. What is of God is of God, what is of man’s devising is generally fool hearty. To paraphrase what Lincoln supposedly said, “A self made man has a fool for a creator.” the same could be said of religious movements, teachings, and Church factioning…

What does NT Wright propose be done at Lambeth if everyone shows up?  What do Fulcrum and the ACI propose be done at Lambeth?

Answer in one word: Covenant.

What so many on this site wants to be done simply cannot be done without a Covenant. The Covenant simply cannot be agreed until after Lambeth. Lambeth needs a strong Orthodox presence in order for the Covenant to have teeth.

The conclusions, I would think, are strikingly obvious.

Hi RevRJ,

You say “It is the equivalent of blaming someone who knew the Titanic was about to hit an iceberg for manning the life boats while he could still wrest control over the direction of the ship before it hit the ice berg.  The communion has not yet hit the iceberg.”

But—as I keep saying over and over, those who are leaving the Communion do not agree with you.  They believe that the communion hit the iceberg and after four years, they’ve decided that the Communion won’t be ultimately able to stay afloat.

All of this comes down to something that we keep avoiding here.  Some people—apparently people like NT Wright, seem to be ultimately okay with living with the whole same-sex issue and whole provinces engaged in that [and much other heresy as well].

Other people are not at all okay with that.  And they’ve waited four years, and now believe that nothing will be done to cure the Anglican Communion, and so they are leaving.

I don’t see how a disagreement on whether the Communion has hit the iceberg is really about “consistent catholic theology” unless your definition of “consistent catholic theology” is actually “you may never leave an organization.”

I can’t believe someone would attack the orthodoxy and wisdom of Bishop Wright as has Mr. Ould. Instead, Wright’s words should be read, marked, and inwardly digested by those who are attempting to torpedo the ship from their dinghy.

FrVan:  In the next couple of weeks “Mr. Ould” is going to be ordained in the Anglican Church of Australia and will be under a far more worthy primate than the washed-up cephalopodist with whom you are so thoroughly enthralled.  You may disagree with him but it’s rather hyperbolic to refer to his thread as an attack.

Hi Fr.Van,

Can you please show me where David attacked “the orthodoxy and wisdom of Bishop Wright”?

I mean, other than saying “I don’t think that Bishop Wright is correct in his assessment of GAFCON” which would necessarily mean that any time someone disagreed with Bishop Wright they were attacking his “the orthodoxy and wisdom”.

All of this comes down to something that we keep avoiding here.  Some people—apparently people like NT Wright, seem to be ultimately okay with living with the whole same-sex issue and whole provinces engaged in that [and much other heresy as well].

Sarah:  Well put.  A lot of people have gone along to get along and have found that they have gotten dragged further and further along a path that they were against taking in the first place.

Fr. Matt - fair enough, but I read that paragraph as a (yet again) gratuitous slap at Anglo-Catholics, made more so because it is completely unnecessary to advancing David’s broader point - one with which I agree.

P.S. I think, Sarah, this same paragraph (the second) is where David attacked Wright’s orthodoxy.  Protestant orthodoxy, anyway.

RE: “Why would it hurt for those threatening not to attend Lambeth, and those who are encouraging splitting away from the AC, to wait until after Lambeth to leave? It is not ++Williams who has broken faith. He seems to be very consistent in his statements and plans.”

It’s interesting.  That very line was said, with a few minor changes in wording, after the meeting of the Primates [2003], the report from the Lambeth Commission [2004], after the Dromantine Communique [2005], after the GC [2006], after the Dar meeting [2007], after the HOB meeting [mid-2007], and after the September 30 deadline [2007].

The truth is, those who want to reform the Communion from the inside wish for their allies to stay forever.  And many of those allies do not wish to stay forever.

After the frank charade of the last four years, whose purpose was merely to try to eke people to Lambeth 2008, in which the ABC baldly refused to exert the only authority he has been given—with invitations—it’s going to be extremely hard sledding to convince people to give it another go for another 5-10, in large part because the person responsible for invitations and acknowledgement of who is in communion they do not trust.  Williams has indeed “broken faith”—people who believe that the Communion is lost do not trust him, as it is crystal clear to even novices like me that the Rowan Williams will not take any action that limits the membership of TEC in the AC.  Williams has—with the aid and comfort of the ACO—deliberately delayed and manipulated so much that it is nearly impossible to list it all.  From the entirely bogus “report” on Windsor “compliance,” to the fielding of the Joint Standing Committee [note—not the Primates Standing Committee, but the Joint SC], to the helping of TEC with wording designed to obscure their non-compliance, to so much more, the ABC has been clear in his desire to delay and prevent discipline of the Anglican Communion.

And that membership is simply unacceptable to some in the AC.  It is unacceptable.  Acceptable for NT Wright—unacceptable for others.

The fact of the matter is that there are too few bishops who have a consistent catholic theology, whether they be revisionsionists or reasserters.

In response to this and all the talk about the Anglican Communion as the Body of Christ:  The problem is that those making this argument are NOT accuratly representing consistant Catholic, Anglo-Catholic, or catholic ecclessiology.

Catholic ecclessiology emphasises the Divine Nature of the Church as the One Body of Christ. 

To greatly simplify things, [and I’m not a trained theologian, so I may not be getting all my buzzwords right] they then go on to say that the One Body of Christ is expressed through the visible, insitutional unity of the Church, as manefested by bishops and their flock in communion with one another and with other bishop, with some sort of mechanisim for collectivly acting together to express a common faith and witness to carry out God’s work in the world. 

The only problem is that going from the emphasis on the Unity of the Body to the insistence the the Body is expressed through a single, unified, visible church that has full unity in faith and practice, and a unified legal, finacial, corporate structure is NOT consistent with being an Anglican or even an Anglo-Catholic.  It works just fine if you are a Roman Catholic, and you want to say the the Body of Christ, the Church Universal, has its full expression only in those clergy and laity which are under the spiritual and insitutional authority of the Pope, and that all Christians outside the Roman Catholic Church are, to use their terms, at best impaired in their relationship with the Church (and therefor Christ).  It works fine even if you are Eastern Orthodox, and think that the the Eastern Orthodox Communion is THE One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, that the Church is simply not to be found outside of their communion, and that everyone calling themselves Christian that is outside of their Communion is a schismatic and best and almost certainly a heretic.

None of the is what Anglicanism believes or has ever believed.  Read closely the 39 Articles and the introduction to the 1662 BCP.  Anglicanism started as the Church of England, and the founders never claimed to be more than the Church of England.  They never claimed to be the Church, the Whole Church, and Nothing But the Church.  None of the Classical Anglican Forumlaries or the significant founders of the Anglican schools of thought ever claimed that to be outside of the Anglican Communion was to be outside of the Body of Christ or the Universal Church.  The first Reformers and their latter apologists (such as Hooker) DID think that the Roman Catholic Church was thoroughly corrupt, not just in their manner of living and morals but in their teaching.  They DID insist that it if a church is corrupted, that it was absolutly necessary to cut one’s self off from the corrupted church and establish a new, reformed church, not only free from the errors of the old church but indepent of the secular and spiritual authority of the old church.

Now, where does Anglo-Catholic ecclessiology fit into this?  It is undeniable that a varient on Reformed (or Calvanist and to a lesser extent Zwinglian) ecclesiology influenced the development of the English Reformation (Hence the use of terms like “Church Militant). 

By the early 19th century, after over a century of being ruled by Protestant monarchs imported from the Continent, after over a century of military conflict with Catholic countries and alliances with Protestant countries, and after a century of suppressing Roman Catholics, the Church of England was looking, behaving and thinking very protestant indeed.  Most laity and perhaps even most clergy thought of the Church of England as just another protestant demonination,  and “Catholic” was a dirty word only applied to “Papists”.  Newman and company wanted to revive a more Catholic understanding of the Church, including must not limited to emphasis on the necessity of the episcopate and the sacraments.  While he started out firmly in line with the High Church thinking of the day, he ended up departing with them in Tract 90 by embracing things that even the most High Church of his contemporaries and predecessors thought of as Roman corruptions which had no place in the Church of England.

However, even Newman et al never proposed that the Church of England was The Church, The Whole Church, and Nothing but The Church.  Instead Anglo-Catholics have traditionally considered Anglicanism to be one of the branches of the Catholic Church, with Roman Catholics and Orthodox forming the other primary branches.  While Anglo-Catholics might claim that leaving Anglicanism for, say, Presbyterianism or a Baptist Church is leaving the Catholic Church, it would be absurd to claim that one can not leave the Anglican Communion for another part of the Catholic Church, whether that be a preexisting major branch (such as Rome), a recently grown minor branch of of Anglicanism (such as the Anglican Catholic Church) or a newly growing branch such as most assume that the CCP and the GAFCON will lead too.

In summary, the Anglican Communion is not THE Body of Christ.  It is a PART of the Body of Christ.  One might say that it is a part infected with a disease, and that it might become necessary to cut that part of before the disease spread.  Another analogy is to say the Anglicanism (or at least ECUSA and fellow travelers) is a branch in the tree and that those sitting on the tree (ranging from Spong to Bruno) are doing their level best to cut themselves off from the tree, which will result in the branch and everyone sitting on it falling to their death.  So, do you stay and fight to end the sawing, or are you so outnumbered by those that support the sawing that you can’t win?  Has the sawing already cut so deeply that even if it were to stop right now, the branch is to damaged to remain viable?  Or do you find another branch?  Is there another branch around that can support you, or do you need to grow a new one?  Futhermore, is it just ECUSA, ACOC, and a handful of their fellow travalers in Europe that are the endangered branch, trying to cut themselves off of the larger branch of Anglicanism, or is the Anglican Communion as a whole which the See of Canterbury is doing its level best to cut off From the Catholic Church, or at least standing by while the entire branch is endangered?

RE: “What so many on this site wants to be done simply cannot be done without a Covenant. The Covenant simply cannot be agreed until after Lambeth. Lambeth needs a strong Orthodox presence in order for the Covenant to have teeth.”

Marcu—what people wanted to be done is for those bishops in violation of the Windsor Report to not be invited to Lambeth.  Of course . . . that can well be “done without a Covenant”—in fact, only one person is able to do that.

Sadly, as now is becoming clear, the draft agreed upon at Lambeth . . . will be given over to the ACC for further drafting.  So we are already beginning to see the strategy post-Lambeth prepared for.  Endless further delays, with the ACC and the ACO as the chief “caretaker.”

After all, the main point of getting people to Lambeth is so that we can have another 10-year window in which there can be further muddling and obscuring and confusion as to “what the ABC is going to do” and who is in and who is out.

Phil, are you referring to this paragraph right here: “Wright wants to claim to be the evangelical centre-ground, but this is the man who writes books undermining the classical evangelical understanding of justification by faith alone. He does this in the face of both increasing numbers of detailed rebuttals of his position and the assumptions that it rests on, and the testimony of the Anglican Articles and Homilies. Nevertheless, Wright would insist that we look to him for the measure of what it means to be evangelical.”

Are you saying that that paragraph “attacks Wright’s orthodoxy”—because I just see it as David stating that, in the matter of the issue of justification by faith alone, Bishop Wright is not in the “evangelical centre” quite so much as he constantly [and rather self-servingly] claims.  Of course, I don’t see David Ould claiming to be the representative of the “evangelical centre” either.

So I do see that paragraph as a rather random and pointless insertion of quite another argument.  I personally think that we can rationally debate the contents of Bishop Wright’s essay without ever even entering the old tired field of “who is the real evangelical”.  Bishop Wright can be the truest example of “the real evangelical” till the cows come home . . . and still be dead wrong about the usefulness of the Lambeth Meeting.

Mick,
Not that I am agreeing with you, but supposing I did, what of the other two Windsor recommendations?

Marcus,
Have you not heard the ABC will not permit a vote on the Covenant.  Even if there were a covenant, there would still be no discipline to enforce it.  That has been made abundantly clear.

Sarah, that was the paragraph I had in mind, but I think it would be more charitable for me to adopt the reasoning in your comment (so I will).

What a great string of comments, by the way.  If anyone wants to understand the anger at N.T. Wright in this thread, they should meditate on your phrase: “After the frank charade of the last four years ...”

What I would like to see from the ACI and those with a similar strategy - i.e., what I think might make a difference to the thinking of some fedcons (of whom I am not one) - is a) an explanation of why they think the last four years have not been a “frank charade” and b) how they concretely plan to ensure the next four are not.

Sarah, we return again and again to the problem of identifying which bishops are and which bishops aren’t “Windsor compliant”. You would have to have some kind of a court , where the Archbishop of Canterbury acts as judge, either he or someone else lays the charge and the bishop in question defends himself.

Gene Robinson and the irregularly consacrated bishops are different - their very consacration was in violation of the Windsor Report.

Until the Covenant comes in, I simply cannot believe anyone would like to see this kind of structure developing. Canterbury doesn’t have the mandate for it; neither does he have the inclination to make himself Patriarch.

“a) an explanation of why they think the last four years have not been a “frank charade” and b) how they concretely plan to ensure the next four are not.”

I second that motion.  All in favor please say “Aye”!

Sarah Hey said:

So I do see that paragraph [about Wright’s views on justification] as a rather random and pointless insertion of quite another argument.

I’m glad I’m not the only person to have thought this.  The rightness or wrongness of Wright’s views on justification are irrelevant to the issue at hand.  Speaking personally, I see great merit in his theological writings, but I can still disagree with his published views about GAFCon.  In particular, as others above have noticed, there is at one point a distinctly paternalistic flavour that is most unwelcome.

I am astonished (not an unusual occurrence over the past few years). The Windsor Report and the subsequent actions of the Primates laid out a very clear roadmap of how to proceed. The clear terminus of that map was the healthy existence within the Communion of reasserter Anglican province(s) in North America, either through the reform of TEC and the ACoC or though the recognition of a new ecclesiastical structure.

From Day One, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the “Windsor Bishops,” clergy, and laity around the Communion have been trying to follow the directions published with the map. They have been aided, not hindered, in their efforts by the clear choice of many within TEC and the ACoC to reject reform and force replacement. If that were all that had happened, the moderate provinces would be increasingly alienated by this rejection of mutual interdependence and responsibility within the Body of Christ and would be increasingly driven into the reasserter camp.

If that were all that has happened, we would be looking soon at the formal proposal of a final-draft Anglican Covenant. Almost all of the provinces would adopt this through their canonical processes, thus defining the membership of the Anglican Communion. If they adopted it, TEC and ACoC would commit themselves to reform, so they probably would not do so.

By not adopting it, these churches would define themselves as outside the Communion and could properly be replaced by new North American Anglican Provinces. That whole process would take awhile, obviously, but it would accomplish everything that reasserters want in terms of getting the reappraising provinces out and replacing them with reasserter entities that could get on with preaching the Gospel as they see fit.

Unfortunately, that is not all that has happened. Instead, powerful groups of reasserters have proved themselves just as committed to having their own way as the reappraisers ever were. They have chosen to attack everyone who stands in their way, no matter how strongly they stand for Christian Orthodoxy in belief and practice (Christian Orthodoxy is, I believe, a broader concept than Moore College Calvinism). They are not content, as are folks like Ephraim Radner and +Tom Wright (and, in fact, Abp. Williams), to let the CHURCH expel the heterodox. They are determined to do so themselves, right here, right now, on their own terms and on no other.

Anyone who stands in their way is demonized as being either a dupe or a conscious agent of evil (hence the treatment of Radner+, +Wright, and +Williams). If the Church will not back their desire for immediate gratification, then they will reject the church and all the godly people in it as a synagogue of Satan and create their own church in their own image.

The demonization and caricaturation of communion reasserters and moderates is driving other reasserters and moderates, including the many liberal-leaning moderates who were originally fully committed to the Windsor process, into opposition. The Communion is being divided into pro- and anti-GAFCON factions that only poorly correspond to the reasserter and reappraiser camps. Most of the provinces are going to reject separatism, whether from the left or the right. As the GAFCON group increasingly looks like, talks like, walks like, and quacks like the core for a new, purified denomination that has roughly the same relationship as Methodism does to historic Anglicanism, an increasing number of reasserters are being forced to ally with sexual liberals in support of an orthodox and catholic ecclesiology. Almost inevitably, we will end up with multiple bodies where one once existed.

The outcome may well be to leave TEC and ACoC within the historic Anglican Communion while many reasserters find themselves involuntarily outside. What else does a communion conservative do when he lives in a federal conservative province that splits with Canterbury? Unlike the reverse situation, he doesn’t have the option of putting his own personal theology (dignified as “the teaching of the Bible”) above the teaching of the community to which he belongs.

All this was avoidable, if reasserters had simply celebrated the Windsor Report as the victory it was and let the end game play out.

My half-penny, for what its worth, and its not like I’m saying anything new…

Hold GAFCON.  I would have preferred that they had not flubbed the PR surrounding their selection of the site, and I personally think that the logistical difficuly of trying to do something like this is the Holy Land would have made another site (even Alexandria, Virginia, right under the noses of TEC) preferably, but I support the idea of GAFCON.  Use GAFCON to state clearly that TEC has NOT lived up to the Windsor report or the DES communique.  Use GAFCON to highlight the abuses by the Anglican Church of Canada and other players that have been practically ignored while the spotlight is on TEC.  Use GAFCON to emphasis the abuses by the liberals that go beyond mere questions of sexual morals, and attack they very Creedal understandings of Trinity, Incarnation, Ressurection, etc.  It has long been the mantra of the left that sexual morals are not “core doctrine”.  Surely the very nature of God and the relationship God and the other “gods” of other religians is “core doctrine”.  For example, point to Bruno’s actions and statements renouncing evangelism or placing Christianity on parity with Hinduism as ask if the standards of common faith that the Advent letter alludes to but never properly defines can really be found between the ultra-liberals and the rest of the Communion.  Ask the Church of India what they think about Bruno in effect undercutting them at a time when Hindus in India are actively and sometimes violently descriminating against Christians.  Make it clear to the whole of the Communion the full extent of TEC’s heresies.  Then offer an alternative, clear and decisive vision of Christianity, grounded in Scripture and the Anglican Tradition, broad enough to include conservative Anglo-Catholics but exluding the Unitarian Universalists and polytheists pretending to be Christian.  Set before the Church a mission based not on the MDG’s but on the Great Commission (while making it clear that they are not ignoring the Scriptural commands to love their neighbors and care for the material needs of the needy).

Then take this messege to Lambeth.  Once more into the breach, but only once more.  Make it very clear that it is now or never.  Renounce the apostasies of ultra-liberalism or renounce us.

Will TEC repent?  No.  Will the Church of England ever cut TEC off?  No.  Even if the COE isn’t as far gone as TEC, or perhaps better skilled as presenting a front of proper behavior, they share the same intellectual heritage of liberalism, the same one that Newman warned us against more than a century ago.  The important thing is to get as many of the fence sitters in the rest of the Communion to realize what is at stake and take sides against the liberalism infecting the Communion.  Reduce the Anglican Communion to its core of rich, spoiled WASP churches.  They can preach diversity all they want, but they will be nothing more than another group of smug and hypoctritical elites.

[#63] Even if there were a covenant, there would still be no discipline to enforce it.

And this is the harm in attending Lambeth.  It has been said many times: “Why not wait until after Lambeth?  There will be sufficient cause to leave at that point.”  But when Lambeth is done, the cry will inevitably come forth “Look, we have a way forward.  There is no need to leave.”  But that way forward is an illusion.  It is a mirage in the desert enticing people further into the wilderness.  Those who do not wish to discipline TEC are those who will implement and enforce the covenant.  Nothing will come of it except more meetings to decide whether the covenant is violated.  And the duplicity exhibited towards the DES communique will be repeated in matters of dispute over the covenant.

carl

RE: “Sarah, we return again and again to the problem of identifying which bishops are and which bishops aren’t “Windsor compliant”. You would have to have some kind of a court , where the Archbishop of Canterbury acts as judge, either he or someone else lays the charge and the bishop in question defends himself.”

We would?  That’s funny—because the ABC did not have to have a “kind of a court” not to invite Bishop Robinson.

And when you say “Gene Robinson and the irregularly consacrated bishops are different - their very consacration was in violation of the Windsor Report” even I recognize that that is sentencing “after the crime” and “before the law”—there was no such thing as the Windsor Report when Bishop Robinson was consecrated.

So, the ABC could make his decision about Robinson with no kind of a court at all!

No, the truth is that the ABC invited the violaters of the WR because he wished to, not because “he couldn’t tell quite whether they were doing same-sex blessings” or not.  ; > )

We should listen to him. As President Lincoln said about General Grant when many were criticising Grant——-HE WINS——-SO DOES WRIGHT

Actually!!!!! God wins….I read the last chapter of the Bible!

But Sarah, you think that but you do not and cannot know that unless the Archbishop tells the world or you. Perhaps in a private conversation over a coffee table conjecture is relatively harmless even if unsupported by evidence one way or another. In public discourse saying something is so when one goes merely on intuition is quite another matter. Over and over again one reads hunches as if they were facts and judgments then made on unsubstantiated conjecture.

Dale,

The Windsor report was received and accepted by the primates in 2004. Since then the ACO and ABC have done all in their power to see to it that TEC is NOT disciplined. The ACO’s agenda was clear from the start. The ABC’s was made plain in tanzania with his co-authorship of the Subgroup report. The invitations to Lambeth that followed subverted Windsor, turning the whole process into something of a bad joke.

The Archbishop’s most recent communication to Hilz is a case in point. He suggests that he has done all in his power to issue invitations in keeping with the Windsor report and as a result he has neither invited +VGR nor the CANA/AMIA bishops. And yet, Bruno, Andrus, Chane, +New Westminster, etc all openly defiant of Windsor have all recieved invitations.

The suggestion that Minns et al alone are to blame for our current state betrays a stunning level of blindness.

RE: “The outcome may well be to leave TEC and ACoC within the historic Anglican Communion while many reasserters find themselves involuntarily outside.”

Huh?  No—the reasserters who find themselves outside volunteered to leave, DR. 

RE: What else does a communion conservative do when he lives in a federal conservative province that splits with Canterbury?”

Does exactly what those ComCons in San Joaquin did—stay in TEC.  ; > )

RE: “The demonization and caricaturation of communion reasserters and moderates is driving other reasserters and moderates, including the many liberal-leaning moderates who were originally fully committed to the Windsor process, into opposition.”

Opposition to what?  I don’t understand that sentence.

Also, I don’t have a clue as to what you mean by “demonization”—unless David Ould’s disagreement with Bishop Wright’s beliefs about Lambeth are “demonization” which means in that case that Bishop Wright is “demonizing” the organizers of Gafcon, which is ridiculous.  There are two camps of conservatives who disagree with strategy and tactics.  One camp believes the communion, rightly or wrongly, to be lost.  The other believes the communion, rightly or wrongly, to be salveagable.  Why can’t there be a via media, as Matt Kennedy above suggests?  Why cast aspersions on the holders of the different tactics and strategies and opinions about the state of the Communion.

And I entirely disagree with this one: “The Communion is being divided into pro- and anti-GAFCON factions that only poorly correspond to the reasserter and reappraiser camps.”

Everybody knows that Wright and Orombit are reasserters.  Don’t see how “opposition to GAFCON” is making someone a “reappraiser.”

Indeed the reappraisers will be thrilled about anything that will help certain reasserting bishops to not attend Lambeth.

And Dale, this paragraph is way way over the top: “Anyone who stands in their way is demonized as being either a dupe or a conscious agent of evil (hence the treatment of Radner+, +Wright, and +Williams). If the Church will not back their desire for immediate gratification, then they will reject the church and all the godly people in it as a synagogue of Satan and create their own church in their own image.”

I don’t see anybody calling the Anglican Communion the “synagogue of Satan” or saying that Wright or Radner are “conscious agents of Satan”.  Get a grip, man, and tamp down your anxiety and anger!  Hyperbole and exaggeration of what Gafcon folks are thinking and saying will not help.  All I see is that a certain segment are not willing to “live with” the situation, nor do they believe that the Anglican Communion will “expel the heretic”.  It’s fine if Dr. Radner of Bishop Wright wish to “live with” TEC—or if they believe that the Communion is moving steadily to “expel the heretic” [which appears to me to be equally as fantastic as the words you are putting into people’s mouths who are for Gafcon].

It seems clear, Dale, that as long as the ACO and the ABC are calling the shots—which they are—no “end game” will ever occur.

Why go overboard in your description of Gafcon people.  Why not be glad for them that they will be having a meeting, since so many of them can’t in conscience go to Lambeth?

I think that Mark McCall and Jill Woodliff have hit the nail on the head with their comments:

Mark wrote:

If he wants them to take the Windsor report seriously, he should first convince the Archbishop of Canterbury to do the same.

Now I share many of the concerns about GAFCON that folks in the ACI have expressed.  I also share the concern that there is perhaps a bit too much backroom politicking going on by some of the conservative Western leaders identified by Wright.  I think that the words of Kendall Harmon given to the Colorado meeting a few months back really need to be heeded, and that the conservatives must not continue in the dark paths forged in TEC (i.e. thinking that all can be resolved by hardnosed politicking). 

But I will say this - many of the most vocal critics of GAFCON on the right, would do well to realize that it is not GAFCON, Minns, Anderson, Akinola or Venables who bears the primary culpability for the loss of confidence in the Windsor Report, Communion structures and the Covenant process.  The primary culpability lies with Rowan Williams.  As Mark says, the best - and only - way that the GS would take the Communion structures, the Windsor Report, and Rowan’s Advent Letter seriously would be if Rowan Williams did also.

But instead we have lots of evidence of Rowan not taking the actions required of him to uphold the DES Communique, of Rowan saying one thing in the Advent Letter (re:Schofield) and then another thing at the Lambeth press conference, and of Rowan not following through on the Windsor Report (Mick - sure TEC may have issued a statement of regret which was accepted by the Primates, but then TEC has announced that it will continue to do what it supposedly regreted doing - i.e. SSB’s).

So, it rings a little hollow for Wright to blame GAFCON for the failure of the Communion disciplinary processes when the root cause for such failure rests with the ABC.

That being said, I think that Jill Woodliff has the correct tack which Wright and others should be taking with regard to the GS primates.  She writes:

I have enormous respect for NT Wright and the ACI.  I think they would be far more likely to persuade the global south primates to attend if they acknowledged the obvious.  Something like . . . TEC has been hijacked, the Windsor report has been hijacked, the Dar es Salaam communique has been hijacked, the ACO has been hijacked, and, for the moment, it would seem that Lambeth Palace has been hijacked since the ABC will not enforce the WR and uninvite the Americans. 
But the church will outlast the Americans.  The church will outlast Rowan Williams.  The church is the bride of Christ….trust in the Lord and come to the Lambeth Conference.  (BTW, we will raise funds for your expenses).

Acknowledge that Rowan Williams has dropped the ball.  Acknowledge that Rowan Williams will not provide the leadership needed at this time.  Acknowledge that Rowan Williams has failed the Communion and failed the demands of his office.  But then remind everyone that the Communion will outlast the Great Ditherer, and that it is for that future that the GS should attend Lambeth.  Because that is the only rationale that makes sense for the orthodox GS to attend Lambeth.

In this distorted culture, and among the institutionalists and pansexualists, any disagreement or disapproval or withholding approval of their views, values and activities is ‘attack’ and ‘hate’ whether speech, thought, deed.

I’m still (genuinely) curious as to how those who maintain withdrawal is the best course of action understand:
a) the notion of freedom (as it pertains to being able to make a choice with regards to leaving/staying) and
b) how Christ’s body, the Church, is related to political structures such as the Communion (or TEC, CANA, etc.).
It seems to me that those two theological questions are at root at much of this but are rarely addressed directly.  I’ve take this up with Sarah and am eager to hear her views, but I’d like to hear from the rest as well.  From whence does your supposed choice come and how is polis related to Church?
eaten_by_chipmunks

Well Dale…  That was a nice rant.  Not exactly typical for you.  Are you perhaps beginning to feel a little irritated?  If so, for what it’s worth, that’s the way many of us have felt for years now.  And we are tired… very tired…  We too feel cheated, lied to, abandoned.  Now perhaps you know how we feel on a gut level to have something we deeply treasure taken away from us.

Dale - I disagree with GAFCON; my preferred strategy is for all the conservative bishops to show up at Lambeth and take conciliar action, whether Rowan Williams likes it or not, against ECUSA.

Having said that, your comment is simply misleading throughout.  You seem to see it as a virtue if a return to mainstream Anglican thought in North America takes fifty or a hundred years - the longer, the better, so as not to be guilty of wanting “immediate gratification.”  But, what is the rationale for a longer period of time being necessary?  “Just because?”

The truth is, in the age of the jet aircraft and the internet, there is no defensible reason why we should have to wait until Lambeth 2018 (or longer) to have ECUSA’s leadership and episcopate returned to mainstream Christian faith.  We had a perfectly reasonable solution set out at DES, agreed to by none other than this province’s head - who returned home to immediately lie about her consent and set about sabotaging the Primates’ plan.  Who was responsible for Mrs. Schori’s dissembling?  The impatient reasserters?  And were the impatient reasserters also responsible for the vicious, anti-Communion diatribe issued by the HOB a scant month after DES ended, when “GAFCON” still sounded like something you’d read in a bad science-fiction novel?  How about the issuance of Lambeth invitations to the entire body responsible for that statement - up to and including every single consecrator of Gene Robinson?  Is that what it looks like when the Church (sic) “expel[s] the heterodox” - they all get invited to Lambeth?

If you really want your comment to have some currency, Dale, answer one question: where’s the Pastoral Council?  Read the Key Recommendations of the Primates from DES if you’ve already forgotten what that is.

Hi EBC,

I’d need more specific questions in order to be able to respond.  Right now, they are so broad and vague that I could answer it in a thousand different ways.

#35 is exactly right.  Stay and fight.  I’m no longer in TEC but I think my bishop and archbishop should go to Lambeth.  Go to GAFCON too if they wish, but only as a strategy meeting for Lambeth.

ebc,
Your question a) is incorrectly stated.  I believe I am in correct in saying that those who make a choice to leave, do so not out of “freedom”, but out of “obligation” to the scriptures and the historic faith once delivered.  (I have no idea what you mean by the second question.)

Perhaps a good question is, what is our primary objective in these matters?

For example, my views are formed from the perspective of someone concerned primarily on the work of the church in helping to bring people into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ and disciplining those who already are in such a relationship. Everything else, while perhaps important, is secondary to me.  I am concerned about preserving a Canterbury centered Communion only to the extent that it serves this goal. 

Is this perspective shared by all?

Dale:  I think that your recipe for reasserter victory is based more on wishful thinking then reality.  If the reasserters had simply celebrated the Windsor Report as a victory and did nothing, you can bet your bottom dollar that Rowan Williams would simply have declared GC06’s response as being “Windsor compliant” and it would have been game over.  There would have been no Covenant, and no paring of the Communion.  The only reason anything has been accomplished on the path to discipline is because the conservatives have applied pressure to Williams.

Now, I don’t necessarily think that all of the moves by the conservatives have been wise.  Were I calling the shots, they would have been different.  Easy to say on my part.  But the point is, that it is naive in the extreme to think that if the reasserters had just sat quietly by that Rowan would have kept pushing the Covenant.

No problem, Sarah, though I don’t want to skew things too much.  How one conceives of the questions might be as informative as whatever answers one might suggest in response. 

At any rate, with regards to my first question, those seeking withdrawal seem to be of the opinion that such is an option.  Why is that?  Theologically, what enables such an idea?  From whence does that freedom supposedly come?  Theologically, what is freedom? I’m not sure this has been asked or all that well-probed by those presuming to use and have it (whether liberal or conservative). 

Regarding my second question, you spoke earlier about how my application of the body metaphor didn’t obtain because the Communion is not the Church but a “local, temporary, and man-made organization.”  So what is   the relationship of “local, temporary, and man-made organizations” to the Church?  How does one differentiate one from the other and what makes such possible?  And why exactly doesn’t my application of the “body of Christ” to all of us with regards to the Communion obtain?
Does that help with what I’m getting after?
e_b_c

I am coming late to this thread, but let me make a couple observations.

Firstly, the large Provinces of the Global South (Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya) made it clear more than a year ago in The Road to Lambeth that they were not going to attend the Lambeth Conference if the Americans who violated Lambeth 1.10 were invited. Those who now seemed shocked and outraged that they are not coming, whether or not GAFCon was convened, have not taken them at their word.

Secondly, Bp. Tom Wright and many like him seem to believe that the Archbishop of Canterbury has been carefully setting his ducks in a row to discipline the Episcopal Church. If that is the case, the absence of Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and others will do no harm. In fact, their absence should give the ABC good reason to convince the silent majority that bringing the Windsor and Covenant processes to a proper conclusion (i.e., TEC walking apart) is crucial to bringing these Provinces back into the fold.

This is of course assuming that the ABC has orchestrated the last 5 years toward just such an end. Then there is the possibility that the ABC does not aim to bring the Windsor and Covenant to a clear result. Imagine that Sugden, Minns, and the African bishops did come to Lambeth to wrest control from the ABC, on which side of this battle would we find Bishop Wright?

Here is my humble take on things:

1.  Those going to GAFCON should also go to Lambeth.  GAFCON should meet and make contingent plans based on the very likely possibility that Lambeth will accomplish nothing significant.  We’ve come this far, wouldn’t it be merely prudent (even if expensive) to make plans to attend? 
2.  The Anglican Communion has no true authority at the top, hasn’t been willing to develop any, and is unlikely to repeal the provincial autonomy it has consistently asserted since 1867. 
3.  The one clear point of discipline that could have been exercised, i.e. the Archbishop of Canterbury not inviting Gene Robinson (or even all of the TEC bishops who have not recanted) has been refused.
4.  Given how the process of dialogue has worked so far, even with all of the GAFCON primates involved, continued dialogue is likely to produce no resolution.  Didn’t all of the Primates say that if TEC’s answer in September 2007 wasn’t clear that there would be serious implications?  Why were the Primates, presumably with an orthodox majority, unable or unwilling to force any clear discipline?
5.  Could it be that there are far fewer orthodox bishops and Primates willing to enact any kind of Communion-wide discipline than we believe there to be? 
6.  If the GAFCON bishops boycott Lambeth, then nothing substantial will result.
7.  Even if the GAFCON bishops attended, are those willing to enact discipline or a Covenant with teeth actually a majority, given all of the bishops in the C of E and the TEC and given the inability to force any action so far? 
8.  If Lambeth 2008 were attended by all bishops and nothing substantial resulted - what would the critics of GAFCON do next?  Wouldn’t it be obvious at that point that the Communion had proved itself unable to reform itself, establish authority, or enact any meaningful discipline?
9.  Therefore, GAFCON bishops should attend, but begin making contingency plans already.

Spencer,
I’m not sure that satisfies what’s driving my question, but I understand what you’re saying. Perhaps beginning with my second question (as I’ve attempted to clarify it for Sarah) might help explain my difficulty with the manner in which you contrast “obligation” with “freedom.”  Obligated/Free as whom to do what with regards to whom? (though I’ve probably totally blown the proper grammatical use of “who” vs. “whom” here) Who are the players ecclesiologically and how are they related theologically both to each other and to the Church?  What one is obligated/free to do hinges in part on what my second question is getting after.
e_b_c

Go to Lambeth - Don’t go to Lambeth!  I don’t care any more.  I have been driven out of TEC and I now go to a small Evangelical church.  While Rowan Williams contemplates his navel, thousands of others like me, are leaving the church.  I don’t care about ComCon and FedCom and GafCon.  The whole thing is a big con job and I don’t choose to continue to be fooled by the same nonsense.  Just wait until ___________.  You fill in the blank for yourself.  That is the never changing answer.  If Nero fiddled while Rome burned, we are idly watching our bishops diddle while the Communion burns.

The Windsor Process and DES are dead.  Actually they are worse than dead.  They have been entirely subverted, but still referenced (by Wright, Little, etc.) as if they were live options.  For the ABC and Wright to pretend otherwise is blindness or malevolence.  The consecrators of Robinson are going to Lambeth, there is no Primatial Vicar, heck, the ABC won’t even use strong language with TEC. Sooo…

Dear Bishop Wright: Put up, or shut up, or get on board.  This is to say: 

Put up:
Bring about a disciplined communion.  Do it.  Use your influence and those like the ACI to bring about discipline.  Based on watching the events of the last four years, many of us doubt it is at all possible, but if you can do it, you will hear a loud “Hallelujah” from those of us who have, up to this point, only been burnt by the “Windsor Process.”  However, the odds are good that the ABC is keeping you around his council and making you feel important and ‘part of the process’ just to keep you and your constituents around and ‘part of the process.’  You may feel that your swing in the batter’s box looks good, but the fact remains that your batting average is .000 in changing the facts on the ground.  So to fans of yours, such as myself, it looks pretty obvious that you are simply being used. Blame TEC.  Blame the ABC, but don’t blame the organizers of GAFCON.  Blaming the GAFCON organizers is like blaming the paramedics who show up at an accident scene. 

Or Shut Up:
If you can’t effect change as has been the case for the last four years, and many of us suspect will be the case for the future, then stop criticizing those in the lifeboats.  If you wanna go down with the ship, God bless you, but please realize some of us care about getting on with ministry and are done wasting our time waiting for you and others (the ABC, the “Windsor Bishops,” etc.) to do what obviously needs to be done, and could be done in a half-days work if there were simply the will to do it.  The ABC has shown his hand, is in office indefinitely, and cannot be trusted (sub-group report, New Orleans, Advent letter, etc., etc., etc.).  If you can’t bring about change, we won’t be laying the blame on your doorstep, but if you continue to criticize others for your inability to effect change, then you will simply be acting the part of a collaborationist. 

Or Get On Board:
We in the lifeboats would love to have your help.  If folks like you, and Radner, and Sarah, are being called by God to go down with the ship, or be present for the miracle that might occur sometime in the next decade or two or three, then that’s what you have to do.  However, short of a divine commission in this regard, we sure would like you to consider lending a hand.

“But what about the Covenant Process?”

1) Will take forever to even formulate (thousands of responses).

2) It will be suspiciously synthesized (Canon Kearon & the Delphi Technique).

3) At which point the synthesized version will require a ‘period of discernment’ and more feedback (again thousands of responses).

4) Which will require further synthesizing (more process games to be played…  assuming the Covanant Process goes well, Lambeth 2018 would be the earliest possilbe date at which to consider the suspiciously synthesized version).

5) After a decade (at least) of batting around versions of the Covenant, one will eventually, after thousands of hours of work, need to be ratified.  (of course there are 38 different provinces, some having a unique polity, and like TEC won’t be quite sure who, within their province, actually has the authority to ratify such a document, assuming the Covenant isn’t ruled out of order as “un-Anglican’ right from the start.)

6) After a final version is ratified, it will be subject to interpretation by whichever group (Primates, Lambeth, ACC) the ABC thinks is most likely to produce the response he wants.

7) Should the ABC not get the response he wants, he will recall his predecessor’s actions in Dar Es Salaam (even an ABC with Methuselah-like longevity might not be around to see the end of this ‘process’), and simply refuse to act.

8) This will require a reworking of the Covenant (start back at step 1)

Or we could gather in Jerusalem to figure out how to get on with actual ministry, with or without Canterbury, the ACC, and the oh-so-fun shell games inherent therein.

Sarah: Regarding “I have always stated that, should the Anglican Communion fail to discipline itself, establish its boundaries, and rediscover its identity, that I will not longer be a member of the Anglican Communion.”

What signs of hope do you see (if any) that the Anglican Communion will discipline itself, establish its boundaries, and rediscover its identity? If this is something you have addressed in another post please kindly point me to it.

It sounds like Bishop Wright is placing his hope in “the Windsor report, the proposed Anglican Covenant, or, indeed, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Advent letter, insisting as it does on scriptural authority.” What else is there, if any?

Mark McCall, Jill Woodliff, and Jamesw (#76) are right.  The idea that the Covenant would enable the Communion to discipline TEC is not credible, because the discipline would have to be enforced by the very people who have subverted and obstructed discipline to date.

Some have described Rowan Williams as the “Great Ditherer” or a person frozen by fear or indecision. I disagree. The ABC shows every evidence of being quite a strong leader, and one who is most concerned, and skilled, at obscuring his true intentions. Try this thought experiment: suppose a committed revisionist held the office of ABC but, for political reasons, could not proclaim his revisionism openly. That person would emit rhetoric that was obscure and ambiguous but, substantively, would quietly ensure that the revisionists won every dispute that he could influence. Look at Rowan’Williams’ record, and one begins to see just that pattern. Frank Griswold had a similar record as Presiding Bishop. Can anybody offer a credible alternative explanation?

The ABC will not permit TEC to be disciplined, covenant or no covenant. Full stop. In fact, the ABC feels confident enough in his strength that he has already announced that Lambeth will not resolve the dispute over TEC. This is the flaw that Bp. Wright, and the ACI, fail to address. Meanwhile, TEC and its allies overseas will continue to put facts on the ground. The ABC could have saved the Communion by decisive action at many points after 2003. Unfortunately, now it is too late.

Weep for the Communion. But remember that the Communion is only one of many human implements for God’s real purpose: to save souls. The Communion is not an end in itself.

I should have added that I think Bishop Wright is naively “placing his hope” etc. I, myself, am trying in vain to find shreds of hope to hang onto…

Dear Sarah:
These are the statements I was referring to, plus the entire tenor of this article. I see where others have already written in response to your question to me, but I wanted to explain why I took it as an attack on Wright relative to his standing as as the right kind of Anglican. Also I have great respect for Wright, and am, perhaps a bit sensitive…

“Wright wants to claim to be the evangelical centre-ground, but this is the man who writes books undermining the classical evangelical understanding of justification by faith alone. He does this in the face of both increasing numbers of detailed rebuttals of his position and the assumptions that it rests on, and the testimony of the Anglican Articles and Homilies. Nevertheless, Wright would insist that we look to him for the measure of what it means to be evangelical…”
                              AND
“The problem is the destructive iceberg of unbelief which everyone is pretending could never sink the ship. Wright is playing “nearer my God, to thee” as the Titanic sinks. It may be well-intentioned but it does nothing to solve the situation and it certainly takes people’s eyes off the lifeboats as the ship continues to go under. Having authored the Windsor Report he may have a natural emotional investment in it, but if so it is clouding his better judgment.”

Dear Pied:
as to # 55, “sticks and stones…”  Oh, and Better one who studies Mollusks rather than thinks as one…... Your comment reminds me a little of the seminarian who answered that the Dead Sea Scrolls were actually Little Mollusks found in the Dead Sea…

Well, here is the sort of thing that is posted on Ruth Gledhill’s blog by a priest (either TEC or CoE; it is hard to tell):  “it is entirely possible for a conservative parish in either TEC or the ACC to call a conservative rector from a conservative theological college. Where there have been problems is in the small handful of cases where ‘conservative’ rectors or candidates have taken uncanonical action.”

Since I have been in at least two parishes in different diocese that have been told they could not have any priest from Trinity, I know full well that is false.  But if that is what people in the CoE are told, Dr. Wright’s position would seem understandable in light of it.

Amen, 97. There was a veto on Trinity grads in most Dioceses, even so called Windsor ones, from the moment the school was formed.

This is the one thing that infuriates me, the lie that it was, and is, possible for most parishes to call an orthodox Priest.

GAFCON’s organizers have described it as a new meeting in addition to Lambeth.  As noted above, those who are unable to attend Lambeth made the attendance decision prior to organization of GAFCON.  There seems to be a willful conflation of these two, separate issues - now why would that be? 

In addition, many of those who are unable to attend Lambeth have publicly stated they are not leaving the communion. 

It seems to me that there is something else going on, and it may relate to the total effect of the foregoing - leading to the conflation.  What is it about GAFCON that causes such a deep response? 

Is a non-representative Lambeth + a well attended GAFCON an embarrassment for the establishment? Is an incomplete Lambeth + an additional meeting an external manifestation that Lambeth is no longer an instrument of unity? 

Is the viability of a separate, global, dare I say - “instrument” - within the communion a threat to the pre-existing establishment?

Curious.

(SH: thanks for the image of Lambeth 08 as a reprise of New Orleans.)

revrj:

David, you say, “Blaming the GAFCON organisers for “manning the lifeboats” and thus dooming the Communion to sink is the equivalent of the Captain of the Titanic doing the same.” It is not.  It is the equivalent of blaming someone who knew the Titanic was about to hit an iceberg for manning the life boats while he could still wrest control over the direction of the ship before it hit the ice berg.  The communion has not yet hit the iceberg.  It will only do so if the direction is in changed at Lambeth 08.

Once again it is good to remember history correctly.  If you will recall the captain DID see the iceberg and tried to change course at the last moment but the boat was too heavy, moving too fast, and the steering could not compensate for these two forces.

AND… there’s a lesson in that - unless you want to be Jack on the board out there in 28 degree water.

What I’m trying to say:  it’s time to leave - leaveth beforeth thou findeth thyself wasting the rest thy God given life -  jump off - find a boat - go to the life preserver nearest you - bye bye - exit time - OR “JESUS HAS LEFT THE TEC BUILDING”.  Whichever you prefer.

frvan:

Why would it hurt for those threatening not to attend Lambeth, and those who are encouraging splitting away from the AC, to wait until after Lambeth to leave?

See above quote - half of the compartments are filling with water and the ship is groaning.  No amount of Lambeth silly putty is going to put her to rights again.

Sarah and Spencer,
This story from CNN nicely illustrates much of what my questions are designed to address (i.e, identity and its relation to freedom/choice).  http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/01/25/archbishop.coach.ap/index.html
Anyway, I’m still eager to hear your responses.
eaten_by_chipmunks

Hi EBC, thanks for clarifying.

I do not hold to the regulative principle of the Westminster Confession.  So if there is not any kind of Biblical mandate against ever leaving an organization, I see no reason why people cannot leave, within the bounds of their consciences.

In other words, I believe that many many many possible actions are “options” under scripture, since I—unlike the Truly Truly Reformed—do not need something to be mentioned in scripture in order to feel free to move forward.  I do think that, unless something is sinful, we are free in Christ.

Your second question is meatier and I’ll get to that this evening.

“If Wright thinks that there is still a future for enforcement of the Windsor Report, the Anglican Covenant, or whatever new piece of paper will be waved in front of us promising “peace in our time”, he is very much mistaken.”

David, this is where I disagree with you.  If GAFCON goes ahead as planned AND people choose it as an alternative to Lambeth, we will never know the answer to this question.  I understand people bailing out on TEC, because the situation is pretty much hopeless.  However, I do not see Lambeth as being hopeless.  Remember, the orthodox would have the vast majority of bishops there, if people were not bailing early.  If the make-up of the Lambeth Conference looked the same as the TEC house of bishops, I would agree with you.

If the orthodox bishops do not show up, and we lose the communion to the liberals, it will be just as much on the heads of the orthodox, if not more.  It reminds me of people who complain about politicians, when they never showed up to vote.

Standing applause for Fr. Gross!!

FrVan,

In the cloud of comments, you may not have seen my response regarding the paragraph that you point to.

It is here, when I responded to Phil:
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/9509/#175329

Note to Tom Wright:  Before we take your urging to take Rowan Williams and the Communion processes seriously, please explain the following:

Rowan Williams writes in his Advent Letter the following:

First: I have not felt able to invite those whose episcopal ordination was carried through against the counsel of the Instruments of Communion…

which does not apply to Bp. Schofield since his ordination was entirely in order; and

several within The Episcopal Church, including a significant number of bishops and some diocesan conventions, have clearly distanced themselves from the prevailing view in their province as expressed in its public policies and declarations.  This includes the bishops who have committed themselves to the proposals of the Windsor Report in their Camp Allen conference, as well as others who have looked for more radical solutions....  If their faith and practice are recognised by other churches in the Communion as representing the common mind of the Anglican Church, they are clearly in fellowship with the Communion.

and I have not heard any Communion-wide discernment or judgment that the faith and practice of the Diocese of San Joaquin, which recently decided to reaffiliate with the Province of the Southern Cone, does not reflect the common mind of the Anglican Church; and

I wish to pursue some professionally facilitated conversations between the leadership of The Episcopal Church and those with whom they are most in dispute, internally and externally, to see if we can generate any better level of mutual understanding.  Such meetings will not seek any predetermined outcome but will attempt to ease tensions and clarify options.  They may also clarify ideas about the future pattern of liaison between TEC and other parts of the Communion.  I have already identified resources and people who will assist in this.

In Rowan’s letter to John Howe, he stated

The organ of union with the wider Church is the Bishop and the Diocese rather than the Provincial structure as such. Those who are rushing into separatist solutions are, I think, weakening that basic conviction of Catholic theology and in a sense treating the provincial structure of The Episcopal Church as if it were the most important thing….I should feel a great deal happier, I must say, if those who are most eloquent for a traditionalist view in the United States showed a fuller understanding of the need to regard the Bishop and the Diocese as the primary locus of ecclesial identity rather than the abstract reality of the ‘national church’.

If we take Rowan Williams at his word based on the Advent Letter trumpeted by Wright, we would expect Rowan Williams to do the following:

1) Continue to recognize Bp. Schofield as the legimate Anglican Communion bishop of the Diocese of San Joaquin;
2) Maintain his invitation to Lambeth; and
3) Call for a truce and step up the facilitated negotiations between Schofield and Duncan on the one hand, and TEC on the other to resolve the situation.

But what do we get from Rowan Williams when it comes to actually acting on the Advent Letter and his past statements?

Regarding the attendance of San Joaquin Bishop John-David Schofield, inhibited by the Presiding Bishop earlier this month, the archbishop said he is “waiting on what comes out of the American House of Bishops’ discussion of that. It’s not something I’ve got a position on yet. At the moment he still has an invitation.”

Yet while Rowan Williams makes this statement, at complete odds with his statement to Bp. Howe, the ACO removes Bp. Schofield’s name from the list of Anglican Communion bishops (see here.

Before I trust Rowan Williams for a minute, I would like to see ONE<> example of where his <b>ACTIONS to discipline TEC followed his words.

Townsend, there is one issue regarding Lambeth that folks aren’t really taking into account.

The problem is not that people don’t think that they can go “take a stand” and “win one for the gipper” at Lambeth. 

The problem is that participation in the instruments of unity, whether the ACC, or the Primates Meeting, over the past four years, has led to no resolution.  People no longer believe that participation in those instruments—no matter how “victorious” or “overwhelming” the vote—will effect any change or make a difference.

Again—the question is not “if we all showed up would we achieve overwhelming votes”.  The question is “if we all showed up and achieved overwhelming votes, would anything get resolved or would anything change”?  Some people have really decided “no.”

I don’t blame them.  The past four years of full participation and hard work have merely meant that Rowan and the ACO had to work a little harder to effect no change and skirt around, manipulate, and muddle any efforts.

One thing which would make Lambeth worthwhile, Sarah, would be for the overwhelming vote of the bishops to be to a motion which expressed a complete lack of confidence in the present incumbent of the See of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion Office to render the leadership needed to shepherd the Anglican Communion intact through its current crisis and a call for the present incumbent of the See of Canterbury and the leadership of the ACO to resign as soon practicable.

This would be a public declaration from the Communion’s bishops that the Communion leadership is not doing its job.  What would be even better would be if a majority of the Communion’s primates would also sign such a statement and release it at the same time.

Two of the four Instruments of Communion making such a statement would be very important and could, perhaps, force a resignation on Williams on a point of honor.

Thanks Sarah.  I’m not sure how the Westminster Confession and Reformed Theology entered the picture, but I’m with you - they’re not my favorite either.  I think that perhaps the second question I asked (in #78, 86, 89) might help in our discussion of my first, so I’ll wait for your later treatment.  Related to it, though, in partial response to your most recent post (#102), will obviously be how you understand the church/Church as (or in relation to) an “organization,” and secondly, what exactly binds/forms the conscience of which you speak? With what tools does one determine the sinful from the mundane and how are these tools of discernment acquired?
I know all these questions may seem incredibly abstract and unrelated to the point of the inciting post but I am convinced they are of the utmost importance.  The relationship of identity to freedom, polis to Church, self to the other, underwrite every single difficulty we’ve faced (and yet face) in recent years.  And were these relationships to be thoroughly examined, to tip my hand only a little, I think that most people would be shocked to discover just how much “reasserters” and “revisionists” are engaged in the exact same practice(s).   But, of course, I also think we have to work through the above questions properly before something like that can be made apparent.  I appreciate your patient indulgence in the meantime.  For me, at least, this is proving a productive conversation.
eaten_by_chipmunks

jamesw: I don’t recall that being on the agenda. Perhaps you could suggest it for consideration by the 2018 Lambeth Design Committee.

Two things.  I want to thank AndrewA for his explanation of Anglo-Catholic theology in post 60.  Anglo-Catholic fedcons don’t see themselves as leaving the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church but rather leaving TEC (or the Anglican Communion) which is no longer a part of that church due to its embrace of rank heresy.

Secondly, I want to try and answer ebc’s questions which seem fair if a little opaque. 

a) the notion of freedom (as it pertains to being able to make a choice with regards to leaving/staying)

I am not sure what is being asked here, I am a firm believer in free will, subject to the taint of our sinful nature (that is neither a Calvinist nor a Pelegian) but think that only one option at the present time is fully biblical and correct.  People are generally free to make good or bad choices but the time is soon coming (and in many cases is already here)  when the not choosing is also a bad choice.  Thus while I don’t want to criticize people for there personal choices, both because of StandFirm’s comment policy and my own difficult position, I don’t feel that in the long run there are two different faithful paths, just one path which may take slightly different outward forms given local and personal circumstances.

b) how Christ’s body, the Church, is related to political structures such as the Communion (or TEC, CANA, etc.).

The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is defined by the historic episcopate coupled with theological orthodoxy (broadly defined).  This is Anglo-Catholic position defined by Andrew above.  Thus CANA is a part of the Church but TEC on the whole is not.  Though a few Christian bishops remain to pastor their flocks, the leadership and majority of the episcopate have fully embraced heretical and apostate teachings cutting themselves off from the Body of the Church.  Sexual ethics are important but the real reason I have never had any interest in joining ECUSA (though bizarrely I have never been, even now, a member of a non-TEC Anglican church) is the denial or fundamental misunderstanding of core doctrines like the Incarnation or the Atonement long preached in TEC churches without sanction and now clearly espoused by the corporate leadership.  I am a convert from Methodism and have no emotional attachment to TEC or the Canterbury centered communion.  Rome and Constantinople are focal points for the Christian church for (ancient) political rather than spiritual reasons.  How much better for a new branch of Christendom to be centered on faithful bishops from Abuja or Buenos Aires than to be ordained by the worldly leaders of Washington or London. 

Bishops of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church are theoretically autonomous and though they are grouped into structures of various levels these structures are not the Church. 
The church is the bishops and their flocks.  The fall of the Anglican Communion is a disaster, but it is the schism among Christian not between Christians and apostates that is a scandal.  Thus I fervently pray for the success of Common Cause and its goal of unity for Anglican Christians in North America.  And I am more troubled by the lack of connection with the OCA and Roman Catholics, who are largely Christian and share in the historic episcopate, than I am with the cutting of ties to TEC which is largely apostate, though not without a faithful remnant.

Pax Christi vobiscum,
Eluchil

What everyone here seems to be ignoring is that none of the Instruments of Communion—-not the Archbishop, not the Anglican Consultative Council, not the Lambeth Conference, and not even the Primates—-currently has any power whatsoever to direct the Anglican Communion except by moral suasion. The legal authority and political power in every one of the 38 provinces (and 6 extra-provincial jurisdictions) is in the hands of the local self-governing church. We might wish it otherwise, but it is not. The only way to change that is to convince all these local authorities to voluntarily give up their power and submit to the oversight of the Communion as a whole.

I have not heard a single one of you suggest any way to do that other than the Covenant process. Obviously, that does not apply to a revolution which overthrows the existing Communion and all its loyal members in order to replace them with a completely different regime. Bp. Wright’s fear (and he is not alone) is that some of the rhetoric from a few of the key GAFCON organizers suggests that a revolution is exactly what they have in mind. As I often remarked to a dorm-mate who joined Weatherman in the 1960s, it is easier and more romantic to plan a revolution than to come up with a better world to replace The System. Without a Covenant, we haven’t a clue what the post-revolutionary Communion might look like. I don’t think many people are going to get on that train without knowing where it is headed. They are going to demand a route map, like the Windsor Report, for example.

Until the Revolution, Abp. Williams and/or the Global South can issue “Trumpet Calls” until their lips bleed, but they obviously cannot either make TEC stop blessing gay couples or Rwanda stop crossing provincial boundaries. Without a Covenant, both those provinces are completely within their legal (not moral or theological, but legal) rights to do whatever they please. If the Archbishop or Primates were to issue a decree expelling TEC from the Communion, it will still be up to each individual province whether to break its bilateral ties. Virtually all of the provinces currently have intercommunion agreements with churches outside the Communion, so expelling TEC will not necessarily mean a breach with all (or, indeed, any) of the provinces that choose to maintain relations. The Diocese of Sydney has close connections with a denomination in South Africa that has been in schism with the official Anglican province for over 130 years.

There is no way to impose a change on the system of provincial autonomy from the top down. The provinces themselves have to adopt it through their internal processes, which can take a lot of time. In Australia, for example, significant General Synod actions have to be ratified by a majority of the dioceses, including all five of the major metropolitan sees (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth). Constitutional changes in other provinces require action by two successive sessions of bodies that only meet once every three or four years. Most Anglican provinces are not dictatorships where the Primate can single-handedly bargain away local control and hand it over the central authorities of the Communion. The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) has recently amended its Constitution to make itself more independent of the Communion, not less so.

The fact that the Covenant route was going to take time is not news—-any reasonably literate person with access to the Internet could have figured all this out several years ago. It is still the only game in town for those who are interested in preserving Anglicanism in some recognizable form. It is perhaps a step towards honesty that so many are starting to step out of the shadows and admit that destroying the existing Anglican Communion is a part of their plan. It constitutes an obstacle to their program of “realigning” Christianity according to their own reading of Bible principles. That being the case, it is not surprising that they oppose letting the Covenant process work itself out.

However, most of the provinces are not run by True Believers, but by mainstream Anglicans. Sugar is more likely to catch those particular bees than is vinegar. We can still hope that sanity will prevail.

I am so in favor of jamesw #108’s idea! In my minds eye it is brilliant!

#104 Applause indeed! Fr. Gross’ post should be copied and given the widest distribution possible throughout the Anglican world. Fr. Gross not only hit a home run-he hit a grand slam, with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth!

Dale Rye,

I’ll bite about your point in #112 that a covenant is necessary to impose order on the provinces.

I agree that a covenant is needed, because the “gentlemen’s agreement” by which the Communion used to restrain themselves has collapsed, never to return. But what you must realize is that a covenant is not possible under the discredited leadership of Rowan Williams and his entourage. This is the point Jamesw made in #108, I think. Until the ABC and related leaders of the Communion are trusted, a covenant, no matter how excellent, will be a hollow document ignored in practise. The Soviet constitution looked good on paper, but of course was never followed.

friends, thanks for all your comments. Two small things at this stage. Someone (way) above claimed.

The communion has not yet hit the iceberg.

And there is the great disagreement that we have. Many of us here think that the iceberg has hit and that many of the deckhands are ripping away the keel.

As for the question of Wright’s orthodoxy, I raised the issue because Wright castigates those who would claim to be, in his eyes, the saviours of evanglicalism. He says:

To them I would say: Are they Evangelicals? So am I. Are they orthodox? So am I. Do they believe in the authority of scripture? So do I (including the bits they regularly downplay).

Fair enough, except that Wright has abandoned evangelical positions as defined in the Articles and Homilies and (most importantly) Scripture itself. His writing on justification is legend and (as noted above) his position on inerrancy is also worrying. What I mean to say is that if Wright wants to hoist his flag on the evangelical centreground then he should stop for a moment and see how far on the edge he actually is.

Ultimately, I raised the issue because Wright raised the issue. I wanted to challenge his notion that we are the ones redefining evangelicalism. When I read my history books I stand with Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Ryle et al on these issues - Wright does not and so I think his claims on the Anglican Evangelical position are overstated.

Two brief comments: First, I’m disappointed, but hardly surprised, that +Tom Wright has been so critical of GAFCon.  After all, he was one of the key architects of the Windsor Report.  But Sarah Hey and others are quite right above when they note that the Windsor Process has led to nothing substantive.

Will the Covenant be any different??  Only IF, and it’s a huge IF, it is immeasurably strengthened and EXPLICITLY condemns homosexual behavior as “contrary to the will of God,” as well as being incompatible with Holy Scripture (since our adversaries no longer see the connection between the two).

Second, despite what I’ve said previously, these kind of weak, wishy-washy, troubling statements by the ABoC, show that the only reason to attend Lambeth is to stage a full-blown COUP and totally reform Anglicanism in such a way as to kick out the apostate liberals.

Can that actually be done??

Well, stranger things have happened in church history.

Bottom line:  I think +Tom Wright is partially right.  I continue to argue that the orthodox should go to Lambeth.  But they should NOT trust in the Windsor and Covenant Process.  There is no hope in that futile line of thinking.  But they CAN, if they choose and dare, FORCE the liberals out of the Communion.

But that is the only reason to go…

David Handy+
Ever the optimist
The need for a New Reformation grows clearer every day

dale,

This is rich:

“What everyone here seems to be ignoring is that none of the Instruments of Communion—-not the Archbishop, not the Anglican Consultative Council, not the Lambeth Conference, and not even the Primates—-currently has any power whatsoever to direct the Anglican Communion except by moral suasion. The legal authority and political power in every one of the 38 provinces (and 6 extra-provincial jurisdictions) is in the hands of the local self-governing church. We might wish it otherwise, but it is not.”

In fact, this is not true. The power that the ABC weilds, and it is the most important power in the communion, is the power of invitation.

He can give or revoke his recognition of any bishop through his invitation or disinvitation.

Some have argued that he has decided not to use this power apart from the finalization of the covenant. But the ABC himself belies this excuse in his letter to the Canadian primate when he makes it clear that he has indeed weilded his invitations as an enforcement mechanism.

The idea that he is powerless is entirely fictional and, what is more, I think you know that.

RE: “What everyone here seems to be ignoring is that none of the Instruments of Communion—-not the Archbishop, not the Anglican Consultative Council, not the Lambeth Conference, and not even the Primates—-currently has any power whatsoever to direct the Anglican Communion except by moral suasion.”

What you seem to be ignoring—determinedly—is the one power that the ABC had, and which was pointed to repeatedly by Windsor and Dar.  Since you already know what that power is, as it is well referenced in the above comments to your comment, I won’t repeat it.  And yes, that power is certainly well able to “direct the Anglican Communion” but the person who holds that power has no wish to do it.

RE: “Bp. Wright’s fear (and he is not alone) is that some of the rhetoric from a few of the key GAFCON organizers suggests that a revolution is exactly what they have in mind.  . . . I don’t think many people are going to get on that train without knowing where it is headed.”

Well, then, Dale, there is no need to worry.  If not many people will be a part of the revolution, then all is well.  That’s certainly what the ACO and Rowan are telling us with regards to the invitations.  So I don’t understand what the big fuss is about.  Be of good cheer, those who may eventually decide to leave the AC . . . will be gone!  So, no real need to worry about a “revolution” because their departure will make that unlikely.

RE: “Until the Revolution, Abp. Williams and/or the Global South can issue “Trumpet Calls” until their lips bleed, but they obviously cannot either make TEC stop blessing gay couples or Rwanda stop crossing provincial boundaries.”

Right—hence it appears that certain aspects of the Global South have decided to move on and enact their Trumpet Calls.  You know . . . the meeting that you folks are gnashing over so vigorously.

RE: “If the Archbishop or Primates were to issue a decree expelling TEC from the Communion, it will still be up to each individual province whether to break its bilateral ties.”

Sure—and I wouldn’t really care that much; TEC would be formally out of the Communion and its bishops not invited to Lambeth.  That’s a good thing.

RE: “Virtually all of the provinces currently have intercommunion agreements with churches outside the Communion, so expelling TEC will not necessarily mean a breach with all (or, indeed, any) of the provinces that choose to maintain relations.”

Right—and I don’t think any of us care.  So . .. a red herring statement. 

RE: “It is perhaps a step towards honesty that so many are starting to step out of the shadows and admit that destroying the existing Anglican Communion is a part of their plan. It constitutes an obstacle to their program of “realigning” Christianity according to their own reading of Bible principles. That being the case, it is not surprising that they oppose letting the Covenant process work itself out.”

More paranoid hyperbole, seemingly flashing out in spurts, even as it poured out in your first comment, Dale.  You might just as fairly accuse the ABC of a secret plan for “destroying the existing Anglican Communion” as he has not done what he alone has the authority and power to do.  People on my side have been very very clear that a disciplined, ordered Communion was the need.  It does not appear likely that that will happen, in large part due to the determined manipulation of the ABC along with the ACO.

RE: “Without a Covenant, we haven’t a clue what the post-revolutionary Communion might look like.”

Dale, I think you seriously underestimate the consequences of Rowan Williams’s actions—his “cashing in of all of his influence chips”—over the past four years.  The result is that, no matter the Covenant—whether it is instituted or not—some Anglicans believe that Rowan and the ACO will do all in their power to prevent any enforcement, just as they did the same thing with the Windsor report and Dar. 

There’s no reason to show up for meetings and vote for things, Dale, if the head cheese is determined to dilute all of the decisions.

#103, I absolutely agree.

Two things are problematic for me. First, that +++Rowan has made no commitment to the Troubles being resolved at Lambeth. I found the Advent Letter hopeful but not meaty. Second, that GAFCON seems to have been thrust upon the Church in the Middle East and with precious little consultation with the primates there. To me, that doesn’t bode well for the things to come in the “new order.” Related to that, it’s too close to Lambeth for primates who would want to attend both conferences to reasonable manage it.

We don’t have much in the way of instruments of unity and order. Lambeth is a biggy. Those primates who complain about the ABC not exerting authority have an opportunity to force this issue by attending Lambeth and redirecting namby-pamby discussion. +++Rowan has previously stated that it’s the primates who hold the power to discipline and remove—if this is so, they need to focus on Lambeth and DO something. A failure to do so is an assurance that the Troubles will persist for years to come.

David Ould said:

Fair enough, except that Wright has abandoned evangelical positions as defined in the Articles and Homilies and (most importantly) Scripture itself.

I’d like to see you give a detailed justification for this statement, perhaps on another thread.  From my reading of Wright’s books (highly recommended, btw) I see nothing like what you’re alleging.

His writing on justification is legend…

I don’t understand this comment.  Can you clarify?

Hi Neil, I can’t speak for David, but I believe that Matt wrote an article on NT Wright’s New Perspective which, for the record, I also disagree with.

<blockquote>  His writing on justification is legend…

I don’t understand this comment.  Can you clarify? </blockquote>
Of course. Wright’s writing on justification (following on from Sanders and Dunn) is massively important. It represents a comprehensive re-understanding of Paul’s work on justification. Perhaps the best current book dealing with it is Piper’s “The Future of Justification” where he systematically demonstrates that a number of Wright’s assertions are simply incorrect.

I can thoroughly recommend it.

THat’s not to say that Wright only turns out terrible stuff. His work on the historical Jesus is first rate, it’s just that he’s been wrongly convinced that Sanders and Dunn were right on 2nd temple judaism.

#117,  You cannot have a COUP unless there is a solid structure to overthrow.  There are only committees and commissions and conferences, no Congress nor anything with solid voting power to effect a COUP against.

Not associating or participating in the AC committees, commissions and conferences is the only way to ‘vote’ in the AC.  All the rest of the communal activities require decisions to be made by vote or compromise.
Hacking out a covenant with revisionists would be more of the same and the salt of the Gospel would be polluted and the orthodox saddled with rebellious liars.
There is no compulsion in Scripture to hang and consort with them.  OT warns not to make your camp near theirs…not to intermarry with them.  The Acts and the Letters all warn shepherds to put them out away from the Body.

Even if there were a strong governing power, TEC has attended the meetings, signed the agreements and then gone on to act right away against the agreements. 

TEC does not recognize any authority but their own GC and canons, and EVEN THEN, they are selective which they will enforce.  Each Bishop and diocese acts as goes whatever way they please and the canons are meaningless until they find one to serve their own purposes and pet agendas. 

The lawless and duplicitous are not constrained by God or by Law - locks and covenants are for honest folks.

The dishonesty of RW was not so blaringly apparent until this past week, when he actually threatened sanctions against priest poaching in Canada!  Prior to that, he was silent or claimed helplessness against TEC.  We see his backbone and power potential are reserved for his own political agenda allies.  Shame and disgrace be upon him.

here is some info on NPP, still looking for the article

http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/2784

Dale:  As Matt correctly points out, Rowan Williams does have a certain degree of power which he could wield, and he seems to have no problem with wielding it to revoke Bp. Schofield’s Lambeth invitation despite the fact that there has been NO COMMUNION DECISION on the constitutionality of the Diocese of San Joaquin’s decision to disaffiliate with TEC.  One of the constant refrains we have heard is that Rowan is powerless to do anything excepting an overwhelming Communion consensus, and yet, that is apparently not true. 

My point was that if Rowan would show that he himself took his own Advent Letter seriously, his own letter to Bp. Howe seriously, the Dar Es Salaam Communique seriously, the Windsor Report seriously, by ACTING ON THOSE THINGS HE WAS SUPPOSED TO ACT ON, then maybe we might believe that he would act on yet one more document.

Of course, Dale, Rowan Williams is powerless to prevent TEC from acting in direct contradiction to Windsor and from refusing to do what was asked by the Primates.  Rowan is powerless to forbid TEC from conducting same-sex marriages and consecrating practicing homosexual bishops.  No argument there.  But what Rowan CAN do is to not invite those bishops to Lambeth.  Just like he is preparing to do to Bp. Schofield.

But the FACTS are demonstrating, Dale, that Rowan will only use his power to act against the reasserters, while he continually looks the other way and/or rationalizes the actions of the reappraisers.

Now, I am not 100% behind GAFCON or its leaders.  But I will say this.  It’s not the organizers of GAFCON who are undermining the Communion disciplinary process, it is Rowan Williams.

Yes, the Archbishop has the theoretical power to withhold invitations to Lambeth. However, he has made it clear since the very day his appointment was announced that he will not exercise any of the powers of his office except in accordance with the expressed will of the Communion (or, in the case of his primatial responsibilities, the Church of England).

He made that promise because reasserters demanded it (in the face of his alleged liberality) and he has kept his word to them. It is rather ungracious of them to blame +Rowan for doing exactly what they demanded that he do. His lack of individual discretionary authority is precisely what was required as a precondition for his appointment. As C.S. Lewis remarked in a similar context, criticizing him for being powerless is “to make geldings and bid them be fruitful.”

The Archbishop has exercised authority when given it. The Communion has plainly stated that sexually active unmarried individuals should not be consecrated as bishops, so he has authority to not invite Bp. Robinson. It has equally clearly stated that no province should initiate or encourage jurisdictional violations, so he has authority to not invite the AMiA, CANA, etc., bishops (as well as the bishops of Recife and Harare).

The Windsor Report, as endorsed by the Primates, stated that the Robinson consecrators should not carry out representative responsibilities in the Communion until the apologized. As someone noted above, they did so and the Primates accepted the apology. You or I or Abp. Williams may all individually regard the apology as insufficient, but he promised not to substitute his own judgment for that of the other Instruments of Communion, remember.

There is no other specific authority to exclude the consecrators, particularly since there is no consensus among the Primates or the ACC as to whether TEC is currently in compliance with the letter of what it has been asked. You and I and the Archbishop may all regard TEC as flouting the spirit, of course, but he promised not to substitute his own judgment beyond what he has been authorized to do. He has not been specifically authorized to bar the Americans and Canadians for their failure to effectively stop blessings and provide alternative oversight, so he is not going to break his promise and do it on his own initiative.

Instead, he is going to do what he has been told to do, which is to work towards the development of a Covenant that will provide effective authority structures for defining what, exactly, will get a bishop booted from Lambeth. Right now, those structures do not exist. The Archbishop cannot create them without assuming precisely the authority that reasserters have denied to him.

Feast of the Conversion of Paul

jamesw:

Well, it is a day to celebrate miraculous conversions.  

I’d love to see a litany of resolutions like your’s above be created.  Create a full blown alternate agenda.  Just like Dar.  Arm the orthodox bishops with every arrow that can fit in their quiver.

I, somewhat like Dale, take the Advent letter to be far more serious than the average SF commenter.  But, I do appreciate Dr. Noll’s comment above.  It’s not like the Global South didn’t warn the Communion.

Again though, it’s a day for pondering the miracle on the Damascus road.

Peace,

Dale,
As the Archbishop himself has said, Lambeth 1.10 IS the expressed will of the Communion, and the Communion’s standard teaching on human sexuality.  He has not enforced it. 
The Pastoral Council is the expressed will of the Communion, through the primates.  He called for nominations to the council and received them.  He did not appoint the council.
The call to stop lawsuits is the will of the Communion.  New ones have been initiated since +Rowan himself called for them to cease.  The bishops who have initiated them retain their invitations, those sued will have no representation.
In what way has he kept his word?

Dale:

1. The Diocese of San Joaquin realigning is not a “boundary violation.”  There is no Anglican rule governing territorial jurisdiction.  There is a valid TEC constitutional/canonical interpretation that a TEC diocese has the authority to depart the unity of General Convention.  It then is an independent Anglican diocese until it chooses to align with an existing Province.  You say

he has made it clear since the very day his appointment was announced that he will not exercise any of the powers of his office except in accordance with the expressed will of the Communion

And yet, Williams is apparently prepared to do just that with regard to Schofield’s invitation.  There is NO competent TEC or Anglican Communion authority that can say that the DSJ was not permitted to do what it did.  Williams, however, is willing to carry out the will of ONE PROVINCE (TEC) to govern his invitation decision.

Second, as tjmcmahon has pointed out above, the DES Communique specifically called for Rowan Williams to appoint a Pastoral Council and the appointment of such council did not depend on anything TEC did or did not do.  Yet Rowan did not appoint any such Council.  This is a second instance of Rowan UNILATERALLY REFUSING TO TAKE THE NECESSARY ACTION TO IMPLEMENT COMMUNION DECISIONS.

Dale:  Further to my points above, had Rowan Williams done what he had been asked to do by the Primates meeting, a Pastoral Council would now be in existence, drawn from the Communion.  Such a Pastoral Council would have been a legitimate Communion voice to issue an opinion on the status of the Diocese of San Joaquin, and to try to work towards a resolution.

But Rowan Williams - acting unilaterally and in defiance of the unanimous request of the last Primates’ Meeting - did not appoint a Pastoral Council.

I have wondered: How could someone as smart as bishop Wright; someone so involved in the events of the last four years, write something so obviously false?  How can he write, in what appeared to be a completely sincere voice, “Dr Williams has made it clear that Windsor and the Covenant are the tools with which to forge our future,” when we all can see that Dr. Williams has, over the last four years, either bent the ‘tool’ of Windsor or refused to use it altogether.

A friend of mine has compared these events to the ripple effect of a divorce.  Friends of the divorced couple often find themselves torn between the following elements: the competing stories of ‘what happened,’ their own perception of the truth, and their desire to continue the friendship with one, or both sides.  Sometimes the desire to continue the friendship, leads them to ‘buy’ a false version of events even when this version doesn’t square with what they know actually happened.  In short, the friend believes the version that they need to be true in order to continue the friendship, despite the fact that this version doesn’t square with the circumstances surrounding the divorce that they know to be true.  Friends of the divorcees are not usually boldly subverting the truth they know.  They just allow themselves to buy a few small lies, and the rest of the false picture fills itself in.  How is this a relevant analogy?

It seems to me that Wright (and others) are torn by their loyalties to their friends, their desire for the continuance of the Anglican Communion in its present configuration, and the truth of what has transpired over the last four years.  At some point the need to pick a side, and the desire to see the Anglican Communion continue without schism, has led them to fudge the hard truth about what has actually happened over the last four years. 

Deep down inside I think Wright must know that Dr. Williams can’t be trusted, that Windsor is dead, and the Covenant is a shell game that is unlikely to save the Communion, but Wright loves the Communion so much that these are the sorts of thing that he wants to be true.  To justify his own reservations and continued friendship with Williams, he needs them to be true, and so he conciously or unconciously overlooks the Sub-group Report, the lack of a Primatial Vicar, the Lambeth Invitations, and most recently the unsubstantial Lambeth Agenda, and instead blames the other spouse who is planning GAFCON.

Some ComCons like Sarah, remain hopeful, or at least committed to an inside strategy that will confront the current crisis, and are simlutaneously able to remain crystal clear about the true dynamics behind what has transpired (the ABC’s running interference for TEC, Kearon’s involvement in NO, etc.)  They are not optimistic about the future, but they believe this is the strategy God is calling them to follow, but they also will not castigate those called to the lifeboats.  For all of this I respect them, though I am called in a different direction.

By contrast ComCons such as Wright have shown that they will fudge the hard truth about just how bad things are, in the hopes of making a ComCon strategy look more probable, or more ‘faithful.’ 

It is sad to see someone as smart as Wright say things so clearly untrue, but too me it is a lesson: Swallowing a lie, even a small one, can lead an otherwise brilliant intellect into embracing the most obvious nonsense.

Dear Bishop Wright,

You are a better advocate for Jesus Christ than I will ever be.  As is the Archbishop of Canterbury.  At any time I find myself disagreeing with either of you, I carefully examine myself, on the grounds that I must be wrong.  Usually I am.  Perhaps this time, I am.  But there is one nagging doubt that your argument does not overcome.  And this is that while you tell us that +Rowan intends to bridge the current impasse at the upcoming Lambeth conference, dealing with these issues has been left off the agenda.  The agenda has been under development for years.  In his words earlier this week announcing the conference, he made clear that there will be no resolution, there will be no final draft of the covenant, there will be no discipline for the Episcopal church, and there will be no effort to maintain the few orthodox left in the US church.  To hear this from the same man who wrote the Advent letter to which you refer, and the widely quoted letter to Bishop Howe, has utterly destroyed my confidence, and I daresay that of many of my brethren in this country, that we will be able to remain within the Communion. 

Here is a link to the official response to the primates’ Dar Communique from the diocese I live in: http://www.upepiscopal.org/daressalaam.html .  It includes the following:
“Because each and every one of us is an only begotten child of God; because we, as the church, are invited by God to see all of creation as having life only insofar as it is in God; because everything, without exception, is the living presence, or incarnation, of God; as the Diocese of Northern Michigan,

We affirm Christ present in every human being and reject any attempt to restructure The Episcopal Church’s polity in a manner contrary to the principles of the baptismal covenant;

We affirm the full dignity and autonomy and interdependence of every Church in the Anglican Communion and reject any attempt of the Primates to assume an authority they do not have nor have ever possessed;

We affirm the sacramental gift of all persons, their Christ-ness, especially those who are gay and lesbian, and reject any moratorium on the blessing of same-sex unions and consents of gay bishops, as it would compromise their basic dignity.”

According to the diocese, this is mainstream Anglicanism.  This is what I am expected to accept as an Episcopalian in this diocese.  My alternative is to leave the Anglican Communion, if there is no alternate US Anglican body.  This diocese is not alone.  Many share its theology and philosophy.  Are we, as Anglicans to pray for these things?  Is this our heritage? Is it our mission to bring others to believe these things? I am NOT an “only begotten child of God.”  I know Who is. I cannot believe that either you or Dr. Williams accept these things, but by refusing any alternative, we are left with the choice of joining in this self worshipping pantheism, or leaving the Episcopal Church and with it, the Anglican Communion.

I am not a supporter of GAFCON (as an alternative to Lambeth) either.  I have written primates asking them to go to Lambeth.  But I have also said to them that I pray for them regardless of their decision.  And that I understand their position.  If the agenda does not provide that the first order of business be to address the substantive issues before the Communion, then there is little point in impoverished African churches spending millions of dollars to send hundreds of bishops to listen to prepared speeches and attend workshops.

TJ
If any of you have Bishop Wright’s email, I would be very appreciative if you were to forward this along.

Head on over to Virtueonline for an excellent interview with JI Packer on GAFCON <a href=“http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=7564”> here.

I think Sarah summed up the main problem with Bishop Wright’s analysis in her first post:

RE: “I for one want the orthodox Anglican bishops who believe in the Faith and Practice of the early and undivided Church to go to Lambeth and speak with a clear voice,—- Yes, for the true Faith of the Saints of God.”

They did that—at the 1998 Lambeth.

Didn’t matter.  I mean, it was nice and all, but TEC won’t agree with Lambeth, and as we have an ABC who is unwilling to use his authority to discipline, Lambeth 2008 won’t matter either.

He seems to be arguing that GAFCON shouldn’t happen because if everyone comes to Lambeth and agrees then all will be roses. But everyone did come to the last Lambeth—- and they agreed—- and what’s more the Primates backed that agreement subsequently—but despite all of that the TEC has jumped off the cliff, and everyone within the organisation who disagrees with the current “new thing” is being victimized without anyone standing up for them or assisting them.

While I have a great deal of respect for Bishop Wright (and in fact some of the comments above are quite out of line in my view) I think he has not grasped the fact that the decision was made BUT IT HAS BEEN RENDERED MEANINGLESS BECAUSE IT HAS NEVER BEEN ENFORCED despite the best attempts to do so via the Windsor report etc.

(Sorry to use caps but I have no idea how to do anything more elegant).

It does seem that NT Wright and those of his persuasion are tacitly admitting that conservatives in the US must be sacrificed to save the communion.  The covenant process will be too slow.  A few years from now, the conservative diaspora will be complete.  There will be no conservative leadership remaining in TEC.  It will have been excised.  The orthodox laity will be long gone.  So what good will this hypothetical covenant do them after they have been driven out?  If they have no place to go within the Communion other than TEC, how can they partake of it? 

These constant references to the maddeningly slow process of covenant provide little shelter to those who will be (or have been) driven into the cold.

carl

Sorry, was in a rush to leave work and messed up the html coding in my post above.  There is a very interesting interview on VirtueOnline with J.I. Packer, in which Packer voices some concerns he has with GAFCON and some of the actions of the GAFCON promoters.  These are valid concerns and well worth reading.

TJ #133

Excellent proposed email.  Bp. Wright’s email address can be found on tnis diocesan webpage:

http://www.durham.anglican.org/diocese/places/office_locations.htm

We now see that the correct name for the Windsor Report is really the <a >Slough Report</a>.

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
  The earth exhales.

This letter could be written today and everyday for the next 10 years.

Bishop Iker comments on New York summit
September 14th, 2006 Posted in Uncategorized |

It is my sense that the time for endless conversations is coming to a close and that the time for action is upon us. I am not interested in having more meetings to plan to have more meetings.

Our appeal for Alternative Primatial Oversight is still before the church, and provision must be made for the pastoral need we have expressed. The initial appeal from this diocese was made to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primates and the Panel of Reference. (We soon withdrew our request for consideration by the Panel of Reference due to its apparent inability to act on any of the petitions that have been placed before it over the past year or so.)

After prayerful consideration and consultation, the Archbishop called for the New York summit, which took place on September 11-13, 2006, in hopes of finding an American church solution to an American church problem, but to no avail. We could not come to a consensus as to how to recognize and respond to the needs expressed in the appeal. So back to Canterbury it goes, as the principal Instrument of Unity in the Anglican Communion, but this time with a renewed emphasis on appealing also to the Primates of the Communion as a whole and not to Canterbury alone. The Primates Meeting is a second, very important Instrument of Unity in the life of worldwide Anglicanism. We ask for their intervention and assistance when they meet in February.

The Archbishop’s most recent communication to Hilz is a case in point. He suggests that he has done all in his power to issue invitations in keeping with the Windsor report and as a result he has neither invited +VGR nor the CANA/AMIA bishops.

And yet, Bruno, Andrus, Chane, +New Westminster, etc all openly defiant of Windsor have all recieved invitations.

The suggestion that Minns et al alone are to blame for our current state betrays a stunning level of blindness.

Well said Fr. Matt… but the word is not blindness it is betrayal.
Intercessor

GAFCON is not necessarily an alternate Lambeth, and needs no permission from the bishop of Jerusalem, any more than any other pilgrimage needs his permission.  GAFCON is billed as more of a retreat, a chance to discuss with one another in the land most closely linked to Jesus.  I think “The Road to Lambeth” clearly states that unless issues are dealt with beforehand, it will be a waste of precious time and resources for many third worlders to attend.  GAFCON should be less expensive, and rich in inspiration.  I think the best thing that could happen would be for the global south to not attend Lambeth, but not split either.  Not attending Lambeth does not equal a split, because these things are all voluntary.  But it will drive home to +RW that the global south’s words should be taken at face value.  They mean what they say.  After Lambeth he, or another +Cantuar, will have the opportunity to mend fences, or continue to let the communion drift apart.  But he will see that he can’t bluff it.

Don’t liberal Priests and Bishops have meetings to discuss their concerns?  It seems to me that revisionists must have had meetings that produced the strategies that have formed official Episcopal Church alliances with groups like the RCRC (Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice), Integrity, (a GLBT organization) and apparently revisionist organizations in England.
Don’t the Primates also have the right, and perhaps the duty, to meet and discuss their concerns about the problems in the Anglican Communion?

Fr. Gross (#132)

A friend of mine has compared these events to the ripple effect of a divorce.

..I like how your friend thinks !!

You know, Fr Gross, the thought occurs to me that +Wright owes the clergy and laity of your parish, a profuse apology. 

For starters.

To Sarah in #122, can you state, for the record, what that disagreement is that you have with +Tom Wright’s theology of justification? What have you read besides Fr. Matt’s article? Just for the record.

Matt+ at 74 You point out the invitations to heretical TEC bishops must be recinded and compliance with Windsor.  But there are three real questions here.  First, for the GS demanding invitations be revoked,...are they talking about the 18 bishops still around who were there present when the +VGR deed was done or all TEC bishops who consented?  Second, if Windsor compliance is to be a benchmark, what will you do with +Venables, +Lyons, +Akinola, +Orombi, +Nzimbi (sorry about spelling)  You can play the Nottingham/Dromantine card about “emergency” and “being invited” but, the passing of these resolutions, their interpretation by the primates involved, the voting absence of the Canadians and Americans and the lobying efforts of Sugden +Anderson +Duncan down the street, are enough for even the least gifted to raise an eyebrow.

Third,  +ABC has formed a group to, am I correct in understanding, look at the names case by case? 

Being even handed here is a complex act.  Are bishops who have accepted the TEC moratorium “compliant” even if, in GS (or your terms) heretics?  And what do you plan to do with our chilly neighbors to the north who seem hot to incorporate SSB into the ACC?  How does your Kenyan primate feel about this? Lambeth, GAFCON, neither one, both, one the—-other And finally, what of thevquestion of a national church having the right to determine who is or isn’t a bishop of jurisdiction in their territory….+Cavalcanti +Schofield, (and one other I’m watching very carefully)  +Cavalcanti did not receive an invitation.  +Schofield and the other one did.  +Schofield is a celebrity.  The other one, has been “defrocked” and the see of his diocese, as listed by the ACC, is “vacant”—like San Joaquin.  But he’s flying way under the radar.

Fr Jeffrey,

I will be happy to answer for the record, with the caveat that I won’t be discussing the issue on this thread, since I think it comparatively boring and off-topic.

I did not read Matt’s article.  I hang out with PCA friends and this issue was very high on their radar screen closing in on 15 years ago now, so the articles that have been thrust at me over the past 15 years have come fast, thick, and too numerous to list, and furthermore I haven’t kept track of them, nor do I wish to go back and tot them all up and list them.

For starters, I’ll say that I think many people opposed to the NP do not understand that the NP goes off in wildly different directions due to the fact that its proponents also hold wildly different views about sacraments, santification, the Church, covenant theology, and the order of salvation.  So I don’t think it is fair to proclaim Wright an NP theologian, along the same lines of a parallel PCA theologian.  They are literally in two different theological frameworks, and even when they use the same words to describe their vision of NP, they are defining those words differently.

—I do not believe that justification is a community-based affair, but an individual affair.  So that pretty much ruins the whole thing that Sanders, Wright, and others are working up to anyway regarding being a part of a covenant community.  ; > )

—I do not accept Sanders’s argument about Judaism being not law and work-based as a means of justification, and think that a straightforward reading of Paul is pretty clear that it is and was.

—I do not merge justification and sanctification together in one broad category in the ordo-salutis.

And finally, something that not many people comment on, I think that part of the idea that attempts to “explain” Judaism’s emphasis on works is psychologically irrational.  Sanders wants to claim that Judaism wasn’t legalistic because really the Jews were doing all those good works as their sign of their being in the covenant community.  But I happen to know from, er, personal experience that when you are doing good works “as a sign” of your being “in the covenant community” or a “sign” of anything much, you’ve promptly descended back into the heaviness of being legalistic.  It simply comes about from a reverse direction.  Rather than frankly setting out to “earn my salvation through good works” they are “proving my salvation through good works.”  Pyschologically speaking there is almost no difference.  Instantly, the whole system devolves back into legalism, whether its proponents want that or not.

Once you’re doing something “as a sign” rather than impelled and driven by passion and love, you’re sunk into the mire of works salvation whether you know it or not.  Indeed, people may claim that they even believe in “justification by faith” and be stuck in that mire of “proving something” to others.

There is, of course, an historic comparison of an actual community that fell apart over this exact issue of “providing evidence”—a comparison that I suspect that folks like Wright would not appreciate very much since it comes from the Reformed community . . . and that is the second generation of the American Puritans.  Indeed, voting and office laws were changed in America in large part because the second-generation, in large swaths, and almost en masse never received assurance of their salvation, in large part because the emphasis was on “providing evidence” of their election. And the internal evidence for a person of that community was a lack of sin—hence the popular use of sin diaries at the time.  I think that we cannot understand the destructive effects of this idea of “proving my election by my works” had on the American Puritan community, so much so that the entire religious system died by the third generation.  In fact, essentially, there was no third generation.

Many, after pondering their sin diaries, realized that they couldn’t possibly be a member of the elect community, despite being given a head start by being born into a covenant family, because they were not providing evidence enough of their election, and killed themselves in despair of being un-elect.

Holistically speaking, I’ve been there, I’m alive to tell it, and I ain’t a goin’ back.

I think that most members of this blog are probably not aware of just how radically I hold to justification having being accomplished through grace, by faith.  The consequences of that theology, also, are much more radical than I suspect that we are sometimes willing to admit.

Many years ago, when I was first coming to an inkling of this idea, I asked a friend of mine whether he ever got tired of working so hard to be a better person.  “No,” he said airily.  “I’m not good, and I don’t work at being better at all.  I’m a bad person who does lots of bad things, and I don’t give a thought about how to be good.  Jesus saved me, and will make me good if He wants to.  It’s up to Him, and it will be by Him.”  I was shocked, and thought that such seemingly-dismissive freedom was probably due to his being an Episcopalian.  ; > )

But he was right.

And now, I will ask you a question. 

Why was your question to me so condescending, insulting, and patriarchal about whether I had read, thought through, or was able to articulate ideas about the NP, short of, of course, reading Matt’s article?

Just for the record, please.

Hey Moot, I do get pretty touchy when Anglican & Episcopal leaders talk about Windsor as if it were still relevant.  Wright’s at fault for keeping up the charade, but it’s the ABC who is truly problamatic. 

If the ABC was looking for ways to help TEC smoke out the last vestiges of orthodoxy, he couldn’t have picked a better plan. 

Having come out of cover, and put our necks on the line, the ABC then invited non-Windsor compliant bishops to Lambeth, declared the deadline wasn’t a deadline, and didn’t set up the Primatial Vicar plan.  Without a Primatial Vicar, those of us who had stepped out to fight for his Windsor Report were left with nothing but a bullseye on our chests, in a diocese with a brand new ‘canon’ (pun intended). 

So after being persecuted by our non-Windsor compliant bishop, and having to leave our buildings, endowment funds, pension, and everything…we start over and gratefully accept the spiritual oversight of Uganda.  And what does the ABC and Wright do?  Do they apologize for their waffling?  Do the seek to make amends to the congregations they hung out to dry?  No, they refuse to discipline TEC (Williams), refuse to invite our new bishop to Lambeth (Williams), and blame Uganda, Nigeria, etc. for crossing jurisdictional boundaries to take care of those of us who took a bullet for their Windsor Report (Wright & Williams). 

One gets the sense that they are just men in England playing with paper, totally oblivious to the fact that those pieces of paper had repercussions on many of us.

Goodness Sarah! Nothing like taking a simple question so personally. I give you the benefit of the doubt that you are having a bad day or something but your defensiveness makes it difficult to have any sort of a reasonable discussion. Why you place my question in a category of being patriarchal, condescending and insulting baffles the mind. What if it would have been a bloke that I asked? You’re much too sensative to be in such a public blog where multiple ideas are expressed and debated.

As far as a response to you, I find it hard to believe that you find the doctrine which you see as the heart of the gospel to be boring in one sentence and then go on as you did. And, as far as your receiving these views from PCA people, I am not at all surprised at your response. That being said, I was simply interested in what in particular you have read from +Wright that brought you to your conclusions. For some reason, you didn’t name a book by +Wright or particularly his commentary on Romans. Maybe a better understanding and interaction with his philosophical approach with his Realist hermeneutic and his worldview material in his work NT and the People of God, might help you not dismiss him with the wave of a hand because some of your friends with whom you hang out have been theologically constipated for 15 years over a precious ordo salutis. Nominalism has definitely influenced the Western Reformed hermeneutic.

All of that being said, I am more than happy for anyone to disagree with +Wright or any other theologian/academic provided we offer an honest critique of their particlar position recognisable by the author of whom you disagree. Too much mud slinging around here and pot shots that give the impression of an authoritative response. Like the saying goes, ‘I believe you, but thousands wouldn’t.’

Oh, and Sarah, I am happy for you to take this private rather than take up blog space here. For the record, thanks a lot for the response; seriously!

Hear! Hear! Fr. Gross! Bravo! I believe that your post should be sent directly to AB Williams! He might ignore it, but at least he would have it!

#148 and 151-
Father Andrew,
I think you are too charitable to the diocese and the bishop. 

Casual readers of his comment above might think he exaggerates.  Those who witnessed the events surrounding his parish’s departure from TEC know he is understating the case.

Ann, #142 “I think the best thing that could happen would be for the global south to not attend Lambeth, but not split either.  Not attending Lambeth does not equal a split, because these things are all voluntary.  But it will drive home to +RW that the global south’s words should be taken at face value.  They mean what they say.  After Lambeth he, or another +Cantuar, will have the opportunity to mend fences, or continue to let the communion drift apart.  But he will see that he can’t bluff it.”

I think you have really stated the truth here.  Even if the orthodox went to Lambeth, took control of the agenda and came out with a resolution, it would never be enforced so in the end isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.  The only pressure that can be applied is that of a fractured relationship.  Windsor was an attempt to pressure ECUSA using the warning of a reduced status of association.  It did not work because +Rowan has not followed through with this by withdrawing Lambeth invitations.  But let’s be clear, the Windsor formula was very valid, it just was not implemented.  Since that instrument of unity has failed, the only option left is for orthodox bishops to unite and reduce their association from those heterodox bishops by not attending Lambeth.  Let us also be clear that this collective rejection of attending Lambeth is not a rejection of the Anglican Communion, but a rejection to sit any longer in dialogue with heretical bishops (as has been made clear in the Road To Lambeth).  It is this and only this pressure that may ultimately force the Anglican Communion to choose which path it will take.  What the future holds we do not know.  It is certainly possible that GAFCON bishops may one day evolve into a separate communion, but it is also just as likely that their firm stance will stop the revisionist tide and begin a shift in the Anglican Communion back towards orthodoxy.  In my mind, this firm stance is the only thing that stands a chance of stemming the tide.  Once thing the last four years has proved, is that no statement coming out of any meeting is worth the paper it’s written on if actions do not coincide with those words.  So there is no hope at all in going to Lambeth, the only hope is in taking a firm stand by refusing to sit with heretics any longer and then praying that this will ultimately stem the tide.  Four years have proved that mere words have failed us.  Actions speak louder than words. 

I am praying for a massive boycott of Lambeth so that this action may be heard resoundingly in the hallowed halls of Canterbury.

Fr. Gross,

One gets the sense that they are just men in England playing with paper, totally oblivious to the fact that those pieces of paper had repercussions on many of us.

My thoughts exactly. 

I heard +Wright spoke at our alma mater a few years ago.  Maybe he’ll come again.  And maybe you and I will show up, at Q/A-Time.

I’ve posted a response to my friend David’s piece, here.

Don’t misunderstand me, though.  I am playing devil’s advocate for the sake of clarification.  I’ve always had difficulty with this part of abandoning ship.  That said, as an Evangelical Anglo-Catholic, I am already in the lifeboat waving goodbye.

Mike,

Bp Wright’s present piece was not at all consistent with what you call his theological via media. Rather he played the ecclesial fundamentalist and, thankfully, David called him on it.

EmilyH - Please quote the specific language from either (1) TEC’s canons or constitution; or (2) an authoritative Anglican Communion document that makes the whole territory of the United States the “turf” of TEC regardless of what one of its dioceses may legitimately do.

To save you the trouble, let me tell you - there is no such language.  The debate with the DSJ is simply this - does a diocese of TEC have the right to disaffiliate with the General Convention or not?  There is no canon or constitutional provision forbidding this.

Legally then (i.e. if this were decided upon by a court using neutral principles of law), it would be found that there is nothing that prevents the DSJ from doing what it did.  There is no prohibition of DSJ then reaffiliating with another Anglican Province.  There is nothing which prevents the Province of the Southern Cone from accepting a diocese in the geographical USA.  There IS an Anglican principle that the diocese is the basic ecclesiastical unit.  Ergo, there are no grounds at all for Rowan Williams to regard JDS as a non-Anglican bishop unless there is a Communion decision stating this (which is why it is claimed Rowan can’t withhold invitations to the non-Windsor compliant TEC bishops).  If he does so, then Rowan has stepped outside of being the neutral broker some claim him to be, and is doing the very thing that his defenders say he ought not to do.

Rowan can’t have it both ways.

Matty:

I didn’t call it his theological via media.  I said that what he wrote resembles what I believe the via media looks like in pragmatic terms.

I deliberately didn’t touch on his ecclesiology (simpliciter) as I (personally, anyway) find it a rather difficult pill to swallow at times.

Miss you guys lots.
M

jamesw….you are spot on! and…

does a diocese of TEC have the right to disaffiliate with the General Convention or not? There is no canon or constitutional provision forbidding this.

I think there will be a canon or constitutional provision come CG09 so any TEC church tht may try and reaffilate with an Anglican Province after that time may find that it will be impossible!

#157

That is an absolutely compelling argument.

TJ (152) I am so glad you responded to Fr. Andrew’s posts (148 and 151)-

I think you are too charitable to the diocese and the bishop. 

Casual readers of his comment above might think he exaggerates.  Those who witnessed the events surrounding his parish’s departure from TEC know he is understating the case.

I certainly admire your ability to offer restrained comment. We reasserters are blessed to have one who loves the Truth and traditional Anglicanism, is willing to stand against ridiculous compromise and be pro-active. Thank you for being willing to write to Dr. Wright. May I join in with a signature?

I concur with Fr. Andrew’s post #148- where have Dr. Wright, the ABC, ACI and their position papers deterred in any way the duplicitous manipulation apparent in most TEC dioceses? We tried to stand here in DioWM against that duplicity and manipulation ...not to mention the abandonment of our traditional/orthodox faith to gnostic, universalist, pantheistic and New Age “faith” by a huge majority of the clergy but with little more than promise of more dialogue - as on the national level.

Seems the writing is on the wall. I don’t want to be complicit in underhanded ploys such as I have witnessed and am therefore very actively involved in a group in the diocese who are praying, listening and discerning God’s will respective to becoming an Anglican presence here separate from TEC. God is blessing our efforts to seek His will for our small area.

Well, prior to the Advent letter when Bishop Tom was asked a direct question, his advice was that we should pray for Archbishop Rowan.

Make of that what you will, but it is probably pretty good advice.

RE: “As far as a response to you, I find it hard to believe that you find the doctrine which you see as the heart of the gospel to be boring in one sentence and then go on as you did.”

You are mistaken.  I referred to particular debate over the New Perspective as boring.  And you asked me “for the record,” FrJeffrey, and so I answered.  It seems that you were dissatisfied with my response. ; > )

RE: “And, as far as your receiving these views from PCA people . . . “

You are mistaken.  I first heard about the NP from the PCA discussion 15 years ago but that has not precluded hearing from multitudinous non-PCAers as well.

RE: “For some reason, you didn’t name a book by +Wright . . .

I named no books are articles at all by anyone.

RE: “Too much mud slinging around here and pot shots that give the impression of an authoritative response.”

No mud from me and no pot shots.  You asked, I responded clearly, and as expected you did not like the response.

RE: “Nothing like taking a simple question so personally. I give you the benefit of the doubt that you are having a bad day or something but your defensiveness makes it difficult to have any sort of a reasonable discussion . . . “

I assume that you mean that my pointing out that your thinking that I had come to my views about the NP by merely reading Matt’s article was condescending, patriarchal, and insulting.  ; > ) 

RE: “Maybe a better understanding and interaction with his philosophical approach . . . “

LOL. Nice to see that I was correct in my observation about your tone. 

RE:  “. . . with his Realist hermeneutic and his worldview material in his work NT and the People of God, might help you not dismiss him with the wave of a hand because some of your friends with whom you hang out have been theologically constipated for 15 years over a precious ordo salutis.”

All churches have an ordo salutis, whether “precious” I cannot say.
You will be unsurprised to learn that I am indifferent to your opinions about my friends.  But you are correct—I am dismissive about the NP.  Another 15 years, and it will be long-forgotten, except as a faddish relic.

RE: “You’re much too sensative to be in such a public blog where multiple ideas are expressed and debated.”

Now now, that implies that I actually was hurt or offended by the insulting, condescending, patriarchal tone that you took.  ; > )  Pointing it out and asking for an explanation—for the record—is something entirely different from feeling any particular emotion about it.

RE: “I am happy for you to take this private rather than take up blog space here.”

Thank you, no.

RE: “For the record, thanks a lot for the response . . . “

No problem, and you are very welcome.

I would like to be able to say the same about my question to you for the record, but alas, I am unable, since I received no answer.

Nevertheless, I’ve enjoyed the exchange!

We’ve got to stop thinking in terms of “inside” and “outside.”  It’s a war, and we’re all in it. 

Prior to the Nazi occupation of Holland during WWII, Queen Wilhemina fled to England with her court.  This was initially criticized by the Dutch who were caught in the occupation.  As it turned out, she had put herself in a position where she could lend support to her subjects;  and she did.  She was a genious. 

A few things:
- We need to grow leaders on the inside, but grow them on the outside. 
- We need a mechanism for the inside orthodox to be able to identify one another, and support one another (I’d suggest small group ministries).
- As I suggested to one of the good archbishops, a collaboration between faithful Catholics and Protestants and faithful struggling Anglicans, might be in order. 
- All of us need to be aware of what Kendall calls, “the BLOB,” that tends to oppress those on the inside, to shut up or even collaborate. 
- If I had to place bets between the CCP and the ACI, I quite frankly wouldn’t know where to lay odds.  I do know that God will take care of us.  I just don’t know what it will look like. 

Fr. Gross, I like how you think.  The only drawback that I can see, is what if the parish had a heretical rector?  They’d be stuck listening to a heretic for at least ~3 years.  Yuck. 

I would suggest having the small groups put together before the parish invasion, practice selective listening during the homily, then have the folks meet later on the Lord’s Day, for worship, prayer, and real preaching (there are lots of great sermons on the web nowadays).

GAFCON must pose a big threat to Lambeth establishment if Tom Wright would go to this extent to slam GAFCON and its organizers. Is this in defence of the media event at Lambeth 2008? It is difficult to see how such a handled venue can be called a council of the Church.

That being so, there is need of a true council of Primates and that is the purpose of the Global Anglican Future Conference to be held in Jerusalem. Bishop Ijaz Inayat of Karachi has this advice for the Anglican Primates: “GAFCON will be the second biggest event in church history after the Council of Nicea and deserves to be called GAF Council of Jerusalem 2008.  The time is at hand to clearly define once again what the Church ought to believe and what not. What is Biblical and canonical is the debate of the time all over the world like never before. This debate has engaged believer and otherwise at different blogs and websites like never before and I would request all brothers and sisters to put all their efforts into these discussions… The Lord said, ‘You cannot serve two masters’. It is time that we declare that we will serve the Lord of life like Joshua…Come over to GAFCON and your spirits will be refreshed and conscious satisfied. The Lord will take care of the rest.”

Bishop Inayat will not be granted a visa to attend GAFCON in Jerusalem.  Yet he pledges his prayers on behalf of that historic pilgrimage to ground zero of our Faith.  This is one reason that I am more hopeful for Anglicans now than ever before.  Power politics doesn’t play out in the Church the same way it does in secular society because the Church is full of people who pray and don’t want to be in the news.  That’s real power and it can’t be channeled or silenced by Lambeth handlers.