Global South Anglican

“If the Other does something abhorrent, it’s overlooked, downplayed, or else excused as having been prompted by the Western-Christian-capitalist-male world in the first place.”

Read carefully. It is not the usual ‘homophobia’ article but observes and analyses a worrying trend which some of us, living in strongly multi-faith societies, have been noticing as well. However, it’s hardly surprising. - Ed

“What kind of understanding of the Holy Spirit could possibly be held that would lead Christians to present the choice in these terms: Windsor language or the Holy Spirit?”

A related talk by Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali (Rochester, UK) on the subject of the Holy Spirit’s role in the Church can be found here

So friends, we are following a crucified savior. And you’ve got to ask, in terms of Anglicanism, truth and unity are non-separable. They are part of the same reality.

Bishop N. T. Wright, who was a part of the Lambeth Commission behind Windsor Report, makes it clear the resolutions do not go far enough.

“It is not as though ECUSA has been asked to stand on stage and make a speech of its own choosing about some issues of general concern. It is, rather, that the rest of the Communion . . . has asked ECUSA to make certain statements which are the least that can be done that will restore the unity that has already been lost.”

You can read a lot more on the ECUSA Convention and related issues at Titusonenine

I am sure many of our readers are trying to following the plethora of material on ECUSA’s General Convention which is currently going on. Cutting through all that, I have found the article by Bishop N.T Wright (Durham, UK) most helpful.

Of course, there is a lot more you can catch up on at Titusonenine, which should lead you to important links elsewhere.

- Terry

The full text of Bp. Duncan’s statement to the Special Committee hearing last night has been posted on the Anglican Communion Network website and reproduced here.

Ruth Gledhill’s 10 June 2006 article on Archbishop John Chew is unfortunate.  It reveals how ordinary British, even with the best intent, misunderstand the present crisis that faces the Anglican Communion. 

Rowan Williams said marriage had “suffered a long process of erosion” and warned that plans to give legal rights to cohabiting couples risked worsening the situation. He added that the decline of marriage had led to colossal social problems.

Times correspondent, Ruth Gledhill, asks the Archbishop of South Asia how a communion facing crisis can survive.

“In recent years, marriage has weakened, with serious negative consequences for society as a whole. Four developments are especially troubling: divorce, illegitimacy, cohabitation, and same-sex marriage....”

More than 50 distinguished scholars issue landmark principles on the importance of marriage and the public good.

“It’s a terrible commentary on institutional Christianity of any kind” that after 2,000 years of tradition, the rules have to be set, said the Rev. Paul Zahl, dean of the conservative Trinity Episcopal for Ministry in Ambridge, Pa. “It’s disturbing ... sort of theological shellshock.”

A religion which requires no definite doctrinal confession and which is agnostic about the existence of ultimate truth and which makes of bishops theological innovators rather than protectors of what has been once handed on to the saints is a completely contemporary invention. It is an example of an attempt to make the Christian religion work in terms of axioms that are fundamentally hostile to it. This religion is an attempt to synthesize the faith of the catholic church and the faith of the reformers with the dogma of uncertainty that is a foundation to post-modernism. It is bound in the end to fail. Trying to find the bona fides of such a religion in the history of the English Reformation or the Elizabethan Settlement is an extreme example of historical revisionism. The historical facts and documents simply will not bear the thesis out. 

What do we hope and pray for? Last Sunday at the Rector’s Forum I tried to summarize our hopes in three words…

Cardinal Walter Kasper, the head of the Council for Christian Unity, has urged the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and his fellow bishops not to proceed towards women becoming bishops without support from the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.

His full speech can be found here.

More links at Thinking Anglicans

Has not the Primates agreed to Lambeth 2008 as the target date?...Canterbury needs to discern the Communion agenda with the Primates. This is his duty and task in this changed time.

The petition makes four requests of the House of Bishops…

Ruth Gledhill reports Archbishop takes stand in revoked licence row.

And more at Thinking Anglicans and a response from Fulcrum .

During his first talk, which focused on the Network and the Episcopal Church, Bishop Duncan told the clergy that, if they were looking for a single event or moment of schism, “it has happened.” ...In his own experience, Bishop Duncan said, he now feels he has more in common with the Roman Catholic bishop and Orthodox Metropolitan of Pittsburgh than he does with fellow members of the House of Bishops.

At the heart of economic empowerment (for Global South) is a transformed mind – from hopelessness to possibilities, receiving to giving, plunder to investment, a low self-image to confidence, corruption to responsible wealth-creation, governed by a desire to live a life to the glory of God.

Again, I can only offer a personal response. I am sure that the delegates will be aware that its previous decision damaged the Communion grievously. That fact should govern its response to the Windsor Report as it wonders whether it should ratify its previous actions. Is Gen. Convention so sure of the rightness of its previous decision that it will reject the conclusions of Windsor?

The Archbishop of Canterbury has allowed an appeal by the Revd Richard Coekin against the summary revocation of his Licence by the Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Revd Tom Butler. The decision reinstates Mr Coekin to his role as a minister in the diocese of Southwark, in collaboration with its Bishop and in partnership with its clergy.

Full Report
Archbishop’s Determination

For background to his story there are helpful links at Ruth Gledhil and a background summary atChurch Times. The judgment was warmly welcomed at Anglican Mainstream. 

Compromise proposals aimed at averting an exodus of traditionalists when women are consecrated as bishops could be watered down at a crucial meeting of the House of Bishops this week.

The Church of Uganda traces its roots to the young men at the court of the king who refused the sexual advances of their king due to their newfound Christian faith. Over half a million people are expected to celebrate this day in Uganda

In recent years, as the growing doctrinal and ethical crisis has made painful inroads into Christendom (and the Anglican Communion in particular), a public debate has emerged over which is “better” or “worse”: heresy or schism? 

Read Bishop Gladwin’s press statement here

Ruth Gledhill further comments here

Fulcrum Statement on the issue here

More at Anglican Mainstream and Thinking Anglican

When we were in Kenya, I was conscious that we were living in 2 worlds: the world of African reality, as day by day we encountered the extraordinary and rich life of the Anglican Church in Kenya; and the world of public debate and the press, which seemed 1000 miles our from day to day experience of worship and the lives of the people of Kenya.

I seriously believe that we have before us a struggle for the soul of the Anglican church. It is not about homosexuality, though that is the presenting issue: it is about the clarity and authority of scripture and about the preaching of the gospel in a post-modern world. We cannot afford to stand aside and think that because the struggle is elsewhere it does not concern me. - Jensen

Ed: A very good long read. 

"The sad truth, furthermore, is that where the church allows the culture to dominate its message, it falters in its missionary task. It is hard enough to be Christian and to maintain the churches in a culture which sees things so differently. But if experience and the pattern of the New Testament is anything to go by, the church goes forward not by acceding to those parts of the culture which are at odds with the Bible, but by resisting them, by being counter-cultural precisely at this point. - Jensen."