This looks like the early stages of a plan for a form of reduced status for committed revisionist provinces. Here is my edited/amended/enhanced response to the article I initially posted on T19. Of course, I'll have more to say about this later in the day (it's 4:30am) but this will have to suffice for now:
We need to be careful as we read this article.
My guess is “fast track” and “slow track” seem to be the author's characterizations of the plan, not the ABC’s actual words.
This plan could simply be the reporters way of suggesting that some form of discipline is at hand.
If indeed this section is true and accurate:
But they could also allow conservatives from Africa and Asia to form an influential inner core that would edge out the liberals from positions of power and reduce them to a second-class status.
then "reduced status" may be precisely what we are looking at in this plan.
If so, this is not more "fuzzy thinking" from the ABC. This is possibly the beginning of the end for revisionists in the Communion. Read the article again and filter out the reporter’s own characterizations and I think you find the orthodox wing remaining primary and fully tied to Canterbury and the revisionist wing standing in some form of a reduced status.
Brad Drell asks, "What does this mean for us?"
Good Question. Here is a brief and purely speculative answer: For North American Anglicans it means parallel provinces.
But, if these revelations are accurate (and the "if" cannot be emphasized enough) one province (the orthodox one) would retain full Communion status and one (the revisionist province) would be reduced.
And yet, another crucial question to ask is whether or not this plan envisions ECUSA's compliance with Windsor or her non-compliance? There is no reason to assume that this future blueprint even includes a recalcitrant, non-compliant ECUSA.
The specific question of ECUSA's Windsor compliance is not addressed.
My speculative answer assumes that ECUSA complies and is eligible for inclusion in any future Communion plan.
Well that's my initial take this morning. The short version follows:
Rapid Response: If this news is not just some trial balloon, then it is both big news and good news for the orthodox. It means reduced Communion status for revisionist provinces and primary status for the orthodox. It means the beginning of the end of the fifty year revisionist challenge to Anglican orthodoxy.
Update: The Living Church has posted an article that clarifies the matter quite a bit. The "two track" covenant process is a long-term plan quite distinct from the question of "Windsor" compliance. The "crucial" question I posed above has been answered. The covenant plan has nothing to do with whether or not ECUSA is disciplined. And yet, I still think that if ECUSA somehow makes it through the next few years as an Anglican body, any requirement to sign onto a "covenant" will require the establishment of two distinct Anglican provinces in North America: a province that signs the covenant and a province that does not. I imagine the same split will take place in other provinces as well. We are still looking at the beginning of the marginalization of the reappraising party. Thanks be to God.
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Comments:
I’m with you on this, Matt. After reading it again and putting a filter on what the author said about two tracks, I believe you have hit the nail on the head!
If this is true, all praise be to God!