Global South Anglican

This was delivered to the Anglican leaders of the Global South in November.

“We are hoping that after the primates’ meeting in Tanzania next month, we will have a clearer vision of what we have. If the Lambeth Conference is worth attending, we must put this problem behind us,” he said.

The Rt. Rev. C. Christopher Epting, Presiding Bishop’s deputy for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations and retired Bishop of Iowa, will join the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh and moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, and the Rt. Rev. D. Bruce McPherson, Bishop of Western Louisiana and president of the Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice. They will speak to the state of The Episcopal Church, according to sources in London who spoke with a reporter for The Living Church.

In trying times, St. Paul instructs us not only to be steadfast and immovable, but also to “abound in the work of the Lord, knowing that in Him [our] labor is not in vain.” All of us need to stay focused on the mission: locally, regionally, nationally and globally. 

One of the largest Anglican Churches in the USA has affiliated with the Anglican Mission in the Americas

By the time the church got to the Reformation it had learned to retain its New Testament moorings through a threefold appeal to Scripture, antiquity, and general councils. “Those are the ways in which the universal dimension survived. But the question is, what now? “We need to learn again how to be a worldwide church.” He opined that the Anglican churches will need more than just the relatively recent “instruments of unity” espoused by upper echelons of the Mother Church in England. (Mere Anglicanism Conference)

The Rt. Rev. D. Bruce MacPherson, Bishop of Western Louisiana and president of the Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice, has accepted an invitation to attend the primates’ meeting in Tanzania on Feb. 14. He joins the Rt. Rev. Robert W. Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh and moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, as the other voices from The Episcopal Church that Archbishop of Canterbury proposed including in an Advent letter to the primates.

In an open letter dated November 17, 2006 the president of the diocesan Standing Committee promised that congregations which decided to disaffiliate from the diocese, would be able to part ways ““within a context of mutual understanding and compassion.” There is still time to fulfill that promise.

In North County, Lyons oversees St. Anne’s in Oceanside, Holy Family in Vista, Church of the Resurrection in San Marcos, Sts. Timothy and Titus in Poway and Good Shepherd in Encinitas. Creating a new American province would mean those churches would no longer have to turn to a foreign diocese for oversight, and Lyons would tend only to his five churches in Bolivia. Lyons oversees 35 congregations in the United States, including the five North County churches and Holy Faith in Bonita.

Photos of all 38 Anglican Primates with a collection of Church of England collects to guide us in our prayers at this crucial time in the Anglican Communion.

The last in a monthly Fulcrum series of seven sermons for the web by Prof Oliver O’Donovan.

Read it all here

Outrageous, shameful and unbelievably unChristian. - Ed

Thus it is that the Archbishop of Nigeria is regularly demonised in the western press, including the Christian press, for daring to articulate his understanding of the biblical teaching on homosexuality. The leadership of the African primates is criticised as not being representative of their provinces, when as elected leaders they are probably more representative than any English Bishop or Archbishop. The orthodox position of the Anglican Churches in Africa on the matter is explained away as emanating from a different cultural background which has no universal implications, or from a less tutored theological position, or from the legacy of a conservative missionary past.

The Government of Burundi has declared the situation in the country a national disaster and called for national and international assistance to deal with the crisis.

Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt welcomed this week a group of senior clergy from The Episcopal Church in America who visited Egypt to understand better this part of the Anglican Communion. They had a series of meetings in Cairo with Bishop Mouneer Anis, Dr. Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar (the world’s hub for Sunni Muslims), the Grand Mufti, and a number of other senior Muslim theologians. 

Update: The Rev. John Yates (rector of The Falls Church, Falls Church, Virginia) writes to his parish. 

Anglican District of Virginia leaders urge Episcopal Bishop and Diocese to return to negotiating table.

From the CANA website:

On January 12, Bishop Martyn Minns of CANA received the following letter from the leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia (the Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee). Bishop Minns’s response is also pasted below. CANA regrets that given the Episcopal Church’s more recent public polemical statements, that we are forced to make these two private letters part of the public record.  In the past, the headquarters of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia has endorsed the principles of civility and grace (e.g., “The Grace and Power of Civility” by David Abshire). But their recent unilateral actions of (1) denying their own Protocol’s access to amicable separation, of (2) breaking off the negotiation process, of (3) driving a wedge into CANA congregations, of (4) denying senior priests access to COBRA health care extensions — all of these seem to prove that the Episcopal Church is more interested in posturing than people.  CANA continues to pray for a peaceful resolution and that the Episcopal Church leaders will not initiate litigation.

January 10, 2007 - Letter from the Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee to the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns (PDF)

January 16, 2007 - Letter from the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns to the Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee (PDF)

The Diocese of Virginia issued this: Diocesan Leadership Declares Church Property ‘Abandoned’ & A Letter to The Diocese of Virginia from the Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee, Bishop

Episcopal News Service Virginia leadership declares church property ‘abandoned’

Living Church Diocese Declares Departing Virginia Church Properties Abandoned

Richmond Times-Dispatch Diocese moves to recover breakaway churches’ land

Associated Press via Washington Post Episcopalians Readying Legal Challenge

Washington Times Church dispute headed to court

Episcopal News Service Presiding Bishop affirms Church’s ‘fiduciary and moral duty’ to preserve property

It was a decision an autonomous Anglican province made to reflect a lifestyle widely discussed and acknowledged in its own area of influence. But four years after the United States’ Episcopal Church appointed an openly gay man, Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, that decision and related controversial moves by the Episcopal Church, has become the impetus for deep introspection on how Anglicans the world over should relate with each other.

Far from being a prelude to division, it (Covenant of the Church of England) is a serious attempt to preserve unity in unprecedentedly troubled situations and to seek an English solution to tensions in this country, while maintaining the priority of mission.

The archbishop said the Covenant Design Group (CDG) will examine ways in which the member churches in the Anglican Communion could meet as member churches of the worldwide communion and agree to be committed and accountable to one other.

The future of a 21st Century catechism should be based in the three traditional thematic of Anglican identity, that is oft termed the “three-legged stool”. These are: Scripture, Reason and Tradition. As the Anglican foundations have not changed; how they may be lived out in a dynamic way does and will. The Global South catechism is an invitation to shape that dynamism of lives in such a way that can offer people direction and meaning and serves as an excellent complement to the liturgical Rites of the church and will assist in the reclamation of an Anglican Christian mythic consciousness as had occurred during the great catechetical periods in the Church.

“It was a truly historic event and one for which I am very grateful to God,” said Archbishop Akinola, who along with Archbishop Maxwell Akinwenwa, Dean of the Province, presided over this remarkable night. Ninety-three Anglican bishops most wearing traditional purple cassocks gathered in the chapel of the Ibru Ecumenical Retreat Center at Agbarha Otor. The Retreat Center is a sprawling complex of modern air-conditioned buildings surrounded by palm trees in the middle of the farmland of the Delta State in the Niger Delta region approximately 6 hours drive from Lagos. The theme for this annual retreat was “Empowered Leadership” a title that seemed most appropriate in light of the events that were about to unfold. 

The Bishops deliberated extensively on the theme, EMPOWERED LEADERSHIP and came up with the conviction that leadership is a trust from God which must be exercised in a responsible manner for the good of the people and the glory of God, bearing in mind that all who hold leadership positions will one day give an account of their stewardship to God. 

What we are saying in Church of Nigeria and in many other provinces in Africa is that for us to gather all over the world as many as 800 Bishops, and to build that consensus and to agree on certain things, and for some to say “well it doesn’t matter; we can continue things in our own way”. Then think of the financial implication, think of the risks involved. For 120 Bishops from Nigeria to travel to England, consider the financial implication…

A Covenant for the Church of England (CCE) has put the proper Episcopal care of churches faithful to the biblical and Anglican tradition of the Church of England as a major issue to be addressed before the February Primates Meeting. 

Diocesan bishops will again be discussing the relationship of The Episcopal Church to the Archbishop of Canterbury and other primates within the Anglican Communion at a consultation that begins today at Camp Allen in Texas. The consultation is scheduled to be held through Jan. 5 and was organized by the Rt. Rev. Don Wimberly, Bishop of Texas. Bishop Wimberly organized a similar consultation in September.

ENS also carries a more detailed report of the meeting. 

A blog by Father David Roseberry (Christ Church, Plano, Texas, USA) which I think is worth reading, even if it is just his personal perspectives. - Ed

THE Church of England is facing a new rift over homosexual clergy with the disclosure that more than 50 gay or lesbian priests have “married” in civil partnership ceremonies.