Global South Anglican

May I bring you greetings most especially from the Archbishop of Canterbury who specifically asked me to bring you this message and assure you of his own prayers for you this week and in the run up to General Convention.

The Bishop of Exeter has called on the U.S. Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops to follow the recommendations of the Windsor Report. The full test of his speech can be found here.

This article also include remarks by Bishop Tom Wright.

Also more here of Bishop Tom Wright’s comments at Church Times

‘It would immediately become impossible to claim that there was one body that spoke for the Communion as a whole, and several existing relations would be irrevocably altered. All the signals seem clear that for example there would be no further round of Arcic and that the dialogue process with Al-Azhar [with Muslims] would end.’

“He’s a man who will speak very directly and immediately into crises. I think he meant to issue a warning, which certainly has been taken as a threat, an act of provocation. Others in the Nigerian Church have, I think, found other ways of saying that which have been more measured.”

Some further comments from Canon Tunde Popoola, quoted at Living Church and Bishop Robert Duncan at ACN

‘Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.’ Romans 12:15

Some insights on the Recife situation in Ruth Gledhill’s blog:
Now you ‘Recife’ him, now you don’t - Anglican crisis deepens

Worth a read and much prayer needed for Bishop Calvanti, his Diocese and reconciliation between the parties affected. 

Some Mission Initiatives reported at Anglican Mission in America:

Epiphany in Cambodia
Hope Crusade in Rwanda

Archbishop Rowan William’s sermon at the service to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the Martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer

What happened to Cranmer on 21 March 1956

Cranmer’s legacy

“He (Archbishop Gregory Venables) made it very clear,” the Rev. Donald Perschall, Jr., said, “that the view of the primates is if the Episcopal Church continues to walk apart from the Communion, that will be its choice.” However, the rest of the Communion “will not walk with us.”

It was the election of an openly gay man, Gene Robinson, as Bishop of New Hampshire in the episcopal church of the United States that plunged the churches into what Vatican cardinals talk of as an “ecumenical winter”. Frank Griswold, the presiding bishop of the US church, resigned as co-chairman of the second round of Arcic talks, and soon afterwards the second Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission was wound up.

Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and the Very Rev. George Werner, president of the House of Deputies, have appointed a 18-member special committee to handle General Convention resolutions concerning the Episcopal Church’s relationship with the Anglican Communion.

A response from The American Anglican Council.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has written a pastoral letter to the 38 Primates of the Anglican Communion and Moderators of the United Churches, setting out some thinking on the Lambeth Conference in 2008 and asking them to use Lent as a period of reflection about their own journeys and the challenges facing the worldwide Anglican Communion.

At the northern tip of southern Sudan, on the border between the Arab Islamic North and the black, Christian and Traditionalist South, more than 4,000 people gathered in the town of Renk for the dedication and consecration of the Cathedral of St. Matthew of the Diocese of Renk…

Noll noted that we both plead ‘the central authority of the Holy Scripture’ in ecclesial life.  I would hasten to add that the Communion world-wide, including the younger churches...are equally in danger of ‘replacing key teachings’ of the historic faith by various forms of ideology.  I shall attempt the following response in the spirit of friendly conversation across the continents…

"I hope this article and any responses will contribute to genuine dialogue for those who are seeking God’s will for our Communion." - from Stephen Noll, in a note to the editorial