Kevin Kallsen and Archbishop Venables discuss the Anglican Communion… with some very surprising answers.

by Sarah Hey, Stand Firm

While it's clear that she is a progressive/revisionist activist of the most extreme, the Sea of Faith Network is certainly a few steps beyond revisionist Anglican activism — beyond support for non-celibate gay relationships and their affirmation, beyond feminist Marxist liberation theology, beyond manipulation of political processes at ACC meetings, beyond heretical Christology. Other than the Sea of Faith's interest in the use of religion, it would be hard to find a more antithetically religious organization than one that denies the objective existence of God. And just because Janet Trisk has had some book reviews posted on the Sea of Faith Network doesn't mean she's a member of such an interesting, albeit godless, organization. But the shocking fact is that Janet Trisk is a member of the Sea of Faith Network.

Q. When did discussions about this change first take place? Who drew up the new articles and on what basis?

The issue was first raised at the time of the ACC meeting in Dundee, Scotland, in 1999, and a drafting committee was established after the Hong Kong ACC meeting in 2002. The drafting committee met with me on a number of occasions between 2002-2005, and the Committee’s draft was the subject of intensive discussion at the Nottingham ACC meeting in 2005.

Q. There’s recently been media speculation that proper procedures weren’t followed as regards getting assent to the change from the old constitution to the new.

It’s good to see that there are Anglicans out there who care that things are being done properly. Certainly no one in the Communion is above criticism. I’ve already explained that a change to the Constitution was planned and discussed at several ACC meetings. Then, as required by Article 10 of the old constitution, the draft was circulated for approval by the provinces of the Communion after the 2005 Conference. It finally achieved the requisite level of replies—two thirds of Anglican Communion provinces—and this was reported to the ACC in Jamaica in 2009, after which it was submitted for registration at Companies House and by the Charity Commission.

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[.....] indeed, why should anyone any longer care? The Anglican Communion has devolved from a State-church led union of national churches, sharing common doctrine and worship, into a cacophony of scattered voices, the loudest of which proclaim "doctrine" which would make Archbishop Cranmer despair that his own noble witness to the Anglican cause (as it then was) had been utterly in vain. As others have observed, there is today no longer a "Communion", but a "Dysunion.

Despite a proposal from orthodox Anglican leader Dato Stanley Isaacs from the Province of South East Asia that the American Episcopal Church be separated from the rest of the Anglican Communion over sexuality issues, Committee members of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council (aka the Anglican Communion Office) rejected the plea, arguing it "would inhibit dialogue and … would therefore be unhelpful."

While rejecting the proposal, Standing Committee members agreed to defer further discussion on the matter until progress on a listening project had been considered. Currently, Anglicans worldwide are participating in "The Continuing Indaba and Mutual Listening Project," which is intended to open the ears of Anglicans to the experiences of homosexual persons, according to a July 26 bulletin from the Anglican Communion Office.

The committee, which included the Archbishop of Canterbury, met in closed sessions July 23-27 at the Anglican Communion Office in London.

Once more no one is prepared to exercise godly discipline on the Episcopal Church for its blatant defiance of the Windsor Report and a Covenant in the process of being ratified by all the provinces of the Anglican Communion over sexuality issues which has seen TEC defy the communion not once, but twice by electing an avowed homosexual and lesbian to the episcopacy. The open defiance of the communion's requested Moratorium is met with muted outrage as no one is prepared to put their foot down and lay down the law, largely because the communion's Instruments of Unity are stacked with liberals and token orthodox believers who get shot down if they should so much as raise their voices. Witness what happened to Isaacs.

Groaned one English cleric, "Why, oh why, oh why is TEC permitted to retain such influence in a Communion in which it is an insignificant flea on the rump of the orthodox majority?"

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In  the Anglican Communion Office's report of the second day of proceedings at the meeting of the ACC's "Standing Committee", we find this paragraph:

A proposal from Dato' Stanley Isaacs that The Episcopal Church be separated from the Communion led to a discussion in which Committee members acknowledged the anxieties felt in parts of the Communion about sexuality issues. Nevertheless, the overwhelming opinion was that separation would inhibit dialogue on this and other issues among Communion Provinces, dioceses and individuals and would therefore be unhelpful. The proposal was not passed, and the group agreed to defer further discussion until progress on Continuing Indaba project had been considered.

Dato' Stanley Isaacs is a Malaysian attorney, and one of only two lay persons serving on the fifteen-person Committee. The next meeting of the ACC will be his last, because he has already served at the two previous meetings. The fact that his motion did not pass is a reflection of the composition of the Committee, as discussed in this earlier post. Its membership now comes largely from ECUSA and those provinces sympathetic to it.

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OBSERVANCE of the Anglican Consultative Council’s bylaws are discretionary, a spokesman for the organisation tells The Church of England Newspaper, when they are inconsistent with its political agenda.

ACC spokesman Jan Butter told CEN the future membership rules of the organisation which seek to promote gender parity take precedence over its existing rules.

However, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s press spokesman tells The Church of England Newspaper, the ACC staff’s views are not the final word on the matter, as the appointment of Bishop Ian Douglas and Canon Janet Trisk to the ACC Standing Committee are under legal review.

Weakened by charges of mismanagement following ACC-14 in Jamaica, the credibility and moral integrity of the ACC Standing Committee is now being questioned over the propriety of seating two members whom critics charge are ineligible to serve.

The Anglican Communion News Service (ACNS) reported on July 2 that two new members of the Standing Committee would attend its July 23-27 London meeting. Bishop Paul Sarker, moderator of the Church of Bangladesh and Bishop of Dhaka would attend the meeting in place of the President Bishop of the Middle East, Dr Mouneer Anis of Egypt, who resigned in protest in February.

ACNS also reported that the Rev Canon Janet Trisk, rector of the parish of St David, Prestbury, in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, had been elected at the December Standing Committee meeting to replace resigned lay member, Ms Nomfundo Walaza of South Africa.

However, the ACC’s bylaws forbid this appointment as Bylaw 7 states that a layperson must replace Ms Walaza. When vacancies occur, “the Standing Committee itself shall have power to appoint a member of the Council of the same order as the representative who filled the vacant place,” the bylaws state.

Asked how the appointment could be made in light of the prohibition contained in the constitution, Mr Butter told CEN the ACC was in the process of adopting new articles of incorporation as it moves from being an “unincorporated charity to becoming a limited company.”

“The appointment of Canon Trisk was made under the terms of the company’s articles which are currently being registered with the Charity Commission.

These articles emphasise the need to achieve balance not only between orders, but also between gender and region,” he said, adding the Standing Committee “in December came to the view that balance could best be achieved by appointing Canon Trisk.”

Asked if copies of the proposed new bylaws were available for review, the ACC responded that “discussions about the Articles are still ongoing between the legal adviser and the Charity Commission, so they are not yet available.”

Canon lawyer Mark McCall of the Anglican Communion Institute noted this “explanation does not pass muster. Whatever aspirations they may have concerning selections of new members, the Standing Committee, like the ACC itself, is required to operate within the scope of the constitution and bylaws that are in effect.”

“They cannot ignore existing rules and anticipate new provisions that may come into effect at some future point. This is in effect a concession that the appointment was ultra vires,” or unlawful, he said.

ACNS also reported that the African member of the Primates Standing Committee, Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda and his alternate, Archbishop Justice Akrofi of West Africa had resigned as well. A spokesman for the Archbishop of Uganda has confirmed to CEN he had resigned.

Last month the ACI voiced its objections to the continuation of Bishop Ian Douglas on the Standing Committee, noting that his consecration as Bishop of Connecticut required that he relinquish his clergy seat on the ACC, and his place on the Standing Committee.

An aide to a senior African primate said the general mood among the Gafcon primates was weariness with the machinations of the ACC. They are so disillusioned with the Communion structures that they have “now taken a hands-off approach and are willing to let them just hang themselves,” CEN was told.

The appointment in the name of diversity of Canon Trisk, a white South African priest and lawyer, to replace a black African lay woman was greeted with amusement by other overseas leaders queried by CEN. At ACC-14 Canon Trisk urged delay in adopting section 4 of the Anglican Covenant, and when that was defeated put forward the amendment to bottle up section four of the Covenant in committee that was successfully carried.

The ACI also noted Canon Trisk does not meet the “recommended criteria” for appointment to the Standing Committee adopted at ACC-6 in 1984. New members of the Standing Committee should be able to attend two further ACC meetings—-Canon Trisk has already attended two and is able to attend only one more under the current rules, and provinces that have never been represented on the Standing Committee should be given preference for vacancies. Canon Trisk replaces a fellow South African.

“Are we to understand that there was no lay representative and that Canon Trisk was the only clergy representative available to serve from Africa?” Mr McCall asked, adding the ACC’s “explanation does nothing to satisfy those concerned that the Standing Committee is unwilling to operate within its legal requirements.”

A spokesman for Dr Rowan Williams told CEN the archbishop was “aware of these membership issues. The Secretary General has referred them to the legal adviser who will report to the Standing Committee,” she

said.
 

A battle is looming over the composition of the Anglican Consultative Council’s (ACC) Standing Committee with conservative leaders urging the chairman of the ACC declare the seat of American delegate Dr. Ian Douglas vacant.

The fight over Dr. Douglas’ seat comes in the wake of sharp criticism of the integrity of the ACC’s staff and hostility towards the usurpation of powers by the Standing Committee voiced by Global South Anglican leaders attending last month’s Singapore encounter.

While the fight over Dr. Douglas’ seat may not have the emotional intensity as the consecration on May 15 of Mary Glasspool as Suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles, moderates within the Global South leadership tell The Church of England Newspaper the continued malleability of the rules of the Anglican game in favour of the US may well prove too much.

A professor of missiology at the Episcopal Divinity School, a clergy delegate to ACC-14, and deputy from Massachusetts to the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, Dr. Douglas has served on a number of pan-Anglican commissions including the Lambeth 2008 organizing committee. One of the rising stars of the Episcopal Church and widely acknowledged as its most articulate spokesman at ACC-14 in Kingston, the ACC delegates elected the first-time American clergy delegate to an open seat on the Standing Committee at the meeting.

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"If over 80% of Anglicans live in the global south, why is this not reflected in communion structures?" writes Indian Ocean Primate Ian Earnest in an April 12 letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury in which he protests, among other things, the illicit transfer of power from the Primates' Meeting to the Anglican Consultative Council and its Joint Standing Committee.

Why indeed?

The short answer is that the present "structures" of power and influence continue to reflect the colonial history of the Anglican Communion. More to the point, these persistent "structures" demonstrate how that history continues unabated. While cosmetic changes have been made to church governance, and while token appointments give the appearance of social transformation, the fact remains: the present structures of power and influence in the Anglican Communion continue to serve the same socio-economic interests as during the pre-conscious Age of Colonialism. The same dominant group that colonized the Global South is still in charge and serving primarily the same social interests-its own.

Here's the difference: We are at least two generations past the world-shattering consciousness-raising of the mid-twentieth century. The West has long stood convicted of its imperialism, its historic tendency to exploit the resources and even the will of indigenous populations, and even to romanticize this through mythology such as Kipling's "White Man's Burden." We know about the near determinism, the almost transcendent force, whereby "structures" of self-interest project their structured history through relations of power unto the third and fourth generation, even against the most guarded good intentions and sublime gestures of penitence.

In other words, the usurpation of the Primate's Meeting and the transfer of power to the ACC and its Standing Committee were done in the full light of day, in the full awareness of history, and in the consciousness of full intentionality. It was a deliberate usurpation of power and authority without any need for the former rationalization that "it's for their own good". It was done so that the same group could make sure that the major perks of the institution-in particular, the power to define its future-continued to fall to them.  Read here

The Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, during its Dec. 15-18 meeting in London, has issued a call for "gracious restraint in respect of actions that endanger the unity of the Anglican Communion."

According to the text of the resolution, the call for "gracious restraint" came in response to the recent election of the Rev. Mary Glasspool, a partnered lesbian woman, as a bishop in Los Angeles, as well as the decision by some dioceses in the U.S. and Canada "to proceed with formal ceremonies of same-sex blessings," and the "continuing cross-jurisdictional activity within the communion."

The committee said its call reaffirms Resolution 14.09, passed by the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) at its meeting last May, which urges "the implementation of the agreed moratoria" on such actions. The ACC is the communion's main policy-making body. The moratoria on same-gender blessings, cross-border interventions and the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the episcopate were first proposed by the 2004 Windsor Report and have been reaffirmed by successive Primates Meetings and supported by the 2008 Lambeth Conference of bishops.

The Episcopal Church's General Convention, meeting in July, passed Resolution D025 saying that God's call to ordained ministry is "a mystery which the church attempts to discern for all people through our discernment processes acting in accordance with [its] Constitution and Canons …"

Glasspool is the first openly gay priest to be elected bishop since the passage of Resolution D025 and the first since the 2003 election and consecration of New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson. Robinson's consecration as bishop prompted the Windsor Report with its call for a moratorium on such actions.

"The Episcopal Church, a member of the Anglican Communion, for more than the past 30 years has been working on gradual, full incorporation of gay and lesbian people," said Los Angeles Bishop J. Jon Bruno Dec. 18 after hearng about the Standing Committee's resolution. "We have worked to be people of gracious restraint for all these years and have now come to a place in our lives that is normal evolutionary change which compels us to move from tolerance to full inclusion."

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and the Rev. Ian Douglas, Angus Dun professor of World Christianity at Episcopal Divinity School and bishop-elect of the Diocese of Connecticut, are among those attending the Standing Committee meeting, which is being held behind closed doors at the Anglican Communion Office in London. Both left for home following the meeting and were unavailable for comment.

Another key issue being addressed by the committee is the revised text of a proposed Anglican covenant, a set of principles intended to bind the Anglican Communion in light of recent disagreements over human sexuality issues and theological interpretation. The Standing Committee released the final text of section 4 on Dec. 18. All four sections of the covenant are now being sent to the communion's provinces for consideration.

Representatives of the ACC decided last May that the Ridley Cambridge Draft of the covenant needed more work before it could be presented to the communion's provinces for adoption because the disciplinary process outlined in its fourth section had not received the same degree of consideration and comment by the communion's 38 provincial churches that sections 1-3 had.

In late May, Archbishop of Canterbury appointed a small working group to consult with the provinces about section 4 and its possible revision and to report to the Standing Committee. The ACC also requested that the Standing Committee approve a final form of section 4.

The committee, which usually meets annually but has met biannually for the past three years, is the interim body that oversees the day-to-day operations of the Anglican Communion Office and the programs and ministries of the four instruments of communion: the Lambeth Conference; the Anglican Consultative Council; the Primates Meeting; and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Standing Committee is made up of 15 members elected from among the ACC and the Primates Meeting.

The complete text of the resolution follows.

Resolved that, in the light of:

1.  The recent episcopal nomination in the Diocese of Los Angeles of a partnered lesbian candidate
2.  The decisions in a number of US and Canadian dioceses to proceed with formal ceremonies of same-sex blessings
3.  Continuing cross-jurisdictional activity within the Communion

The Standing Committee strongly reaffirm Resolution 14.09 of ACC 14 supporting the three moratoria proposed by the Windsor Report and the associated request for gracious restraint in respect of actions that endanger the unity of the Anglican Communion by going against the declared view of the Instruments of Communion.

– Matthew Davies is editor and international correspondent of Episcopal News Service.

The House of Bishops of the Church of England meets in September when they will consider the new North American Anglican province’s (ACNA’s) Constitution and Canons. Following Durham Bishop Tom Wright’s scathing critique of what transpired at GC2009 there is every likelihood they will support ACNA. A number of Evangelical and Catholic bishops are already doing so – eight have signed the Private Member’s Motion – unprecedented in General Synod history.

This puts Dr. Rowan Williams in a very difficult position. At one level he can now offer a two-tier solution to the Anglican Communion’s malaise. He can also argue that he can now recognize both TEC and ACNA. He alone decides who to invite to the Lambeth Conference, and can circumvent the Anglican Communion Office and Canon Kenneth Kearon who has sworn eternal fealty to TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada and would never recognize ACNA if his job depended on it. (He needs TEC money to keep ACC afloat).

The General Synod is not in any way beholden to the ACC and can do as it likes. It could even, if it chose, reduce its financial contribution to ACC and ACO. If the Synod debates and passes the motion next February or next July, Kearon can think or say what he likes, it will not affect anything. The determination of who is or is not in communion with the CofE is a joint decision for the two Archbishops of Canterbury and York, who would find it difficult to refuse a Synod resolution. If ACNA is in then TEC may even be shown the door.

The truth is the ACC has become irrelevant following Jamaica and the debacle over Resolution 4. The vast majority of the CofE do not know what the ACC is, let alone cares. Churchgoers do not elect their ACC "representatives" they are chosen by the national church. Therefore ACC approval is something of an irrelevance. From now on one can expect that province by province will make its own decision. If the great bulk of the Communion declares itself to be in communion with ACNA, the ACC will have to fall in line.

At a deeper level, if ACNA is approved of by the Church of England, then it is not only extreme embarrassment for The Episcopal Church, but also evidence before American courts that TEC is no longer the exclusive holder of the Anglican badge. The implications for the Dennis Canon are enormous. TEC now bills itself as a hierarchical church. It will have to live and die by that ecclesiastical sword. For those watching from the sidelines, nobody can seriously have expected the 2009 General Convention to hold back from overturning B033, the fig leaf of respectability behind which TEC has been sheltering since 2006, and in Anaheim it finally crossed the Rubicon. TEC committed itself finally and irrevocably to LGBT "rights" (to all orders of ministry and same-sex blessings) ahead of any other consideration, including the express views of the Anglican Communion at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, and more recently the Windsor Report.

A last-minute plea from Archbishop Rowan Williams at the TEC Convention fell on deaf ears. TEC is already in a state of impaired communion with 22 out of the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion. Its internal divisions over property have cost it hundreds of parishes and four dioceses, not to mention millions of dollars in legal fees.

Historically only the Archbishop of Canterbury, who invites the bishops to Lambeth Conferences, has the authority to determine who is in or out of communion, but the recent actions of TEC have forced several large provinces to take such a decision for themselves, thus diminishing the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

A large proportion of the Anglican Communion already out of communion with TEC, will soon declare an end to all relationships with it. This may well be re-echoed by The Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. We shall see.

VOL has begun to outline the growing attrition as a result of Anaheim, as remaining conservatives finally recognize the seriousness of the condition into which their church has been plunged by radical activists, who now have unassailable control of the denomination.

Even the most ardent of orthodox stayers now must ask how long they can endure TEC’s leadership which has now taken possession of General Convention and the House of Bishops especially after Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori condemned personal faith in Christ as a Western heresy.

Any lingering doubts in the minds of the Global South that TEC is an apostate and heretical institution were swept aside in Anaheim this past week. GAFCON’s Jerusalem Declaration is more prescient now than ever. When VOL inquired as to why we had heard nothing from archbishops like Akinola and Orombi the answer was simple, "look at the Jerusalem Declaration, what is there left to say?"

The newly installed ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan did opine in an open letter to the Anglican Communion saying, "For Anglican Christians, for the Instruments of Unity (Communion), for interdependent Provinces, for ordinary believers, there is a choice to be made. The choice is between two religions, two roads, two cities, two sets of conflicting values and behaviors."

Indeed.

GAFCON was set against the Lambeth Conference and Williams knew it. It was the elephant in the tent at Canterbury. He could not ignore 70% – 80% of the Communion.

But the divisions go still deeper. The onslaught against orthodox Anglicans in the USA and Canada has been of such concern to other provinces that U.S. and Canadian Anglicans have consecrated bishops to offer a place of refuge for orthodox Anglicans and to reach the U.S.’s 130 million unchurched Americans – the goal of the AMiA.

This would not have been necessary if TEC had truly allowed flying bishops with real authority.

Real estate seizures (based on the Dennis Canon), depositions of TEC’s orthodox bishops and priests, along with the morphing of the presiding bishop from chairman of the HOB into a full -blown medieval prelate, have created a church founded not on the word of God, but legal fundamentalism, determined to purge itself of all opposition.

Of course it could be argued that had the Archbishop of Canterbury exercised his personal authority as head of the Communion, even though he has no formal legal status, things might have been different. But he didn’t and wouldn’t. He demurred and deferred holding out the carrot of compromise rather than the stick of expulsion from the communion.

At the end of the day he was not willing to alienate TEC. Even as late as the 2008 Lambeth Conference the invitations to TEC bishops could have been withdrawn, sending the clearest signal that TEC must change direction.

He didn’t and wouldn’t. The inaction of Rowan Williams has been monumental. Even as the turmoil in the Communion grew he prevaricated and dodged the hard answers he should have given. He lost a golden opportunity in New Orleans and at another historical moment following Dar es Salaam when he was armed with a resolution to hold TEC accountable.

The result is that provinces have determined for themselves who is or is not in communion with them. The GAFCON primates, as they have been dubbed, and who hold the bulk of Anglicans in their bosom are the genuine holders of the Anglican keys.

It is difficult to see how the Archbishop or his office can ever recover the authority it once held. He has alienated his authority and has no one to blame but himself.

A meeting of the Anglican primates at Lambeth Palace preceded the consecration of homogenital bishop Gene Robinson in 2003. At that time Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold was a signatory of a letter urging TEC not to proceed. He nevertheless returned to the U.S. and personally presided at the service, telling everyone that it was not his decision, but that of the church and that he could do nothing about it. He made a mockery of both the statement and Williams himself.

Williams took it lying down.

A wave of protests followed in the U.S. sparking yet more litigation amid dissenters and growing concern elsewhere in the Anglican Communion for the orthodoxy of TEC and for the pastoral care of conservatives within it.

Little was said and nothing was done by Lambeth Palace.

At each subsequent Primates’ meeting when orthodox archbishops urged Williams to act, he did nothing, using the language of "I have no power." Worse, Williams continued to protect TEC by doing as little as possible to respond to the concerns of the primates. The primates’ meeting was also finally downgraded by Williams who prevented it from meeting as it had done previously.

The 2008 Lambeth Conference saw TEC bring a large contingent of bishops (even though it has only ASA 700,000 Episcopalians) accompanied by numerous activists including the uninvited Gene Robinson and a transsexual priest from the Diocese of Massachusetts.

Williams had to come up with a strategy to hold it all together. He called it "indaba" a process of candid conversation that resolved nothing. It is now being promoted around the Communion as a means of doing business. Indaba has now transmogrified into ubuntu – "I in you and you in me" but this has neither have united nor provided the healing balm the Communion needs.

Williams "Affirming Catholicism", supported by the then Scottish primus, former bishop Richard Holloway, as well as a gaggle of English sympathizers and TEC’s Frank Griswold has been the ABC’s vision for the future of the Anglican Communion. It has flat out failed. The attempt has produced nothing but despair, lamentation and alienation for orthodox Anglicans.

The growing acceptance of women priests in many provinces has further alienated Anglo-Catholics from mainstream Anglicanism. A number of evangelicals believe that making women’s ordination mandatory rather than voluntary in TEC and now the CofE has further alienated and angered broad-minded Anglicans. ACNA is demonstrating that both views can live side by side in harmony. The actions of the TEC making women’s ordination mandatory virtually guaranteed that they would walk away, and three dioceses have recently done so.

Nonetheless, homosexuality, a salvation issue, remains the lightning rod problem driving evangelical Anglicans out of TEC. A theology of morality impacting Christology and denies the authority of scripture is a bridge too far. Revisionists have liberalized and relativized clear biblical prohibitions at great cost to themselves and before a watching world.

While the scriptural evidence for excluding women from holy orders contains a number of possible ambiguities: no such ambiguity exists with respect to homosexuality, as Pittsburgh Professor Robert Gagnon has so thoroughly demonstrated.

The recent actions by TEC in Anaheim and Jefferts Schori’s statements about salvation only vindicate the formation of a new Anglican province in North America. ACNA has garnered the support of the largest Anglican provinces in the communion further alienating Williams who gave TEC his tacit support in Anaheim. Furthermore 40 million Evangelical Anglicans in the Global South found Schori’s remarks shallow and theologically offensive.

What is happening is that Williams and the Anglican Consultative Council are simply being bypassed by orthodox Anglicans. GAFCON, ACNA and FCA are simply ignoring the ABC and ACC by going around them to form their own more perfect union and grow the church. Meanwhile, Western pan-Anglicanism slowly withers and dies. Williams’ pleas for restraint in Anaheim were blown off like so much Disneyland hype.

On his return to England, for the meeting of the General Synod in York, he was in constant communication with TEC leaders, who delivered the bad news as it happened.

It was reported that on the final day of the Synod he was reduced to feebly hoping that the bishops of TEC would hold the line, despite the overwhelming vote in the House of Deputies. It never happened. On the final day of GC2009 the House of Deputies voted 2 to 1 to pass Resolution C056 allowing rites for same sex unions to be official dogma, even though the Presiding Bishop wrote (not once but twice) that the actions of GC2009 were descriptive not proscriptive. No one with half a brain believes that for a moment.

At the same time, members of the CofE General Synod were flocking to sign a private member’s motion calling for the Church of England to be in communion with ACNA; and asking hard questions about the Church of England’s relationship with the Church of Sweden, which is about to authorize same gender marriages by its clergy. The biggest bombshell, however, was the announcement by Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham that the ACNA Canons and Constitution have already been laid before the English House of Bishops to be debated in September.

Williams might have hoped for a quieter life following the retirement of conservative bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, to whom he bade a somewhat ungenerous farewell at the end of the Synod, but worse was to come: the endorsement of gay ordinations and of rites for same-gender unions by the TEC House of Bishops produced in short order a ringing denunciation in the Times newspaper by the Bishop of Durham and a matching statement by his liberal evangelical Fulcrum organization, which has hitherto sat carefully on the fence on such issues.

So far there has been silence from Lambeth Palace, presumably a stunned silence. Wright is not only the chief author of the Windsor Report, and a proponent of the ill-fated Covenant which was supposed to draw the Communion back together, but is a leading voice among liberal evangelicals in England. They are large in number and influential in the councils of the Church, and have hitherto been strongly critical of their more conservative counterparts who have supported GAFCON, FCA and ACNA. Williams now faces the prospect of the whole evangelical wing united in condemnation of the Affirming Catholic agenda which he has sought to promote for the last fifteen years."

Williams has nowhere else to look for support. Half of the Anglo-Catholic movement, to which he once belonged, left the Church of England over women priests in 1993. Affirming Catholics enjoyed a period of dominance having supplanted conservative Catholics, and for a while almost every new bishop appointed wore the badge. But once women priests were a fact of life much of the raison d’être of Affirming Catholicism was dissipated, and the movement has lost momentum, so much so that its Scottish branch recently closed for lack of support.

What is most troubling for Williams is that English ordination candidates these days are firmly Evangelical. Congregations and dioceses are asking for Evangelical bishops, and many have been appointed, with every indication that this will be the trend for the foreseeable future. There are 25 evangelical bishops in the HoB and that number seems only to be growing. Conservative Catholics, and much of the mainstream, have disappeared from the ordination process.

Williams’ friends in the HoB are steadily retiring, leaving him increasingly isolated in a church which respects his academic credentials, but is less certain of his agenda, and left wondering about his leadership in a time of such crisis.

Williams is being seen more and more as a brilliant fool. Nobody any longer believes in the strategies which have been proposed to resolve the North American crisis. The Instruments of Unity, the Panel of Reference, the Pastoral Visitors, the ACC, the ACO, the Windsor Report, the Covenant, Indaba and Ubuntu are all dead in the water. They have not even delayed, let alone arrested the momentum of TEC towards the edge of the cliff.

The time has come for Williams himself to choose. Will he heed at last the calls of the global south for an Anglicanism which is faithful to scripture? Will he act against the remaining liberal voices in the Church of England who aim to see TEC replicated in the mother church? Will he recognize ACNA as a province in communion with him? Will he work with the new Evangelical bishops in his own provinces who have already concluded that the old order is at an end and that the Anglican Communion must be a Communion of churches in doctrinal, not structural agreement with one another? Will he heed the calls to withdraw recognition of ministers ordained in TEC and instead to recognize ACNA?

His options grow fewer by the day. If he stays silent in Lambeth Palace he will be seen as acquiescing to the left. If he believes the letters put out by Jefferts Schori to himself and to the wider Anglican Communion that nothing really changed at GC2009 he is deluding himself. No one in the Global South is buying the snake oil Jefferts Schori is selling. The scandals, lawsuits and the hemorrhaging of members from TEC will not suddenly cease because of the actions of GC2009.

Will he devise yet more convoluted stratagems designed to pretend that the discussion continues, knowing in his heart of hearts that his master plan for Anglicanism is now in ruins?

It is a lonely position for Williams to occupy. For Williams, his own time came and is now gone. There is no retrieving it. His Affirming Catholicism has failed as it was bound to from the very beginning, for it failed to take into account the great majority of the Anglican Communion which remains committed to the authority, not of an archbishops, or lawyers, or General Conventions, but of something infinitely greater: Holy Scripture.

END
 

QUESTIONS have been raised by a conservative American church pressure group over the impartiality of the Anglican Consultative Council’s “Continuing Indaba Process” following disclosures that the funding for the project came from a single American Episcopal priest linked to pro-gay activist organizations.

During the May meeting of ACC-14 in Jamaica, the ACC announced that it had been given a $1.5 million grant to continue the Listening Process on human sexuality. Delegates were told the grant, the largest in the ACC’s history, was made by the Satcher Health Leadership Institute of the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.

However, when pressed by a reporter for the American Anglican Council (AAC) in Kingston, the ACC conceded the Satcher Institute was a conduit for a gift made by the Rev Marta Weeks, a retired Episcopal priest and philanthropist in Miami, Florida.

Long active in social justice issues, Mrs Weeks endorsed the Jan 200 Religious Declaration on Sexuality, Morality, Justice and Healing that called for the “full inclusion of women and sexual minorities in congregational life, including their ordination and the blessing of same sex unions” as well as “a faith-based commitment to sexual and reproductive rights, including access to voluntary contraception, abortion, and HIV/STD prevention and treatment.”

Mrs Weeks told the AAC that she had been approached by the Satcher Institute to fund the programme, and had agreed due to her long-standing relationships with the Institute’s Center for Excellence for Sexual Health.

According to public records the primary funder of the Center for Excellence for Sexual Health is the Ford Foundation, which gave Morehouse a $3m grant to start the programme. The Ford Foundation, the ACC charges, is a well-known combatant in the US’s culture wars, and has denounced traditionalist views on sexual morality.

In a 2005 paper the Ford Foundation warned that “conservative and fundamentalist forces” were using “sexuality to attack progressive sectors that work on reproductive health, women’s rights, girls’ education and other issues. Often using religion to justify their actions, these groups see sexuality and sexual rights — particularly women’s control of their own sexuality and LGBT rights — as a tremendous threat to the status quo that they want to maintain (or a former order they are seeking to restore).”

The AAC questioned the propriety of the ACC accepting funds from left-wing advocacy groups, who have a vested interest in a particular outcome. “It’s like letting [brewer] Anheuser-Busch fund an AA programme,” a spokesman told The Church of England Newspaper. “It just doesn’t pass the smell test.”

A spokesman for the Satcher Institute stated that “no strings” had been attached to the grant give to the ACC, save that it use the money for the purposes described in its grant application.
 

Ultimately, the responsibility of what to do about this falls on Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. He has the most questions to answer of anyone. He has staked the future of the communion on "keeping everyone at the table" through this "Continuing Indaba" process. And as it stands now, he has as an overseer of the organization that secured funding for it, an ordained minister who believes that Jesus approved of grown men having sex with boys.

The next stage of the Anglican Communion’s attempt to resolve its differences over theology, sexuality and the authority of scripture will involve more "listening processes," but this time those processes will be paid for by a retired Episcopal priest who advocates same-sex blessings. The money given by the Episcopal priest will be monitored by a group of sex "experts" who advocate a vision of sexual freedom and "justice" that bears little resemblance to mainstream Christian doctrine or tradition, and at least one of these "experts" believes that pornography, bestiality, and multiple sex partners are not inherently harmful or wrong. Working quietly in the background is a foundation advocating sexual and reproductive health "rights" and charting a strategy to increase the voice and influence of progressive religious groups in the public sphere.

The Listening Process, also known as the "Continuing Indaba Project," was announced last month at the Kingston, Jamaica meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council after a briefing by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Anglican Communion Office (ACO). The staff of the ACO, under the direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, announced that a $1.5 million gift was given to fund this project-a gift 2-3 times the size of any previous gift received by the Anglican Communion Office for its work, and at a time when financial reports concede diminishing giving and reserves for the troubled Communion. The delegates to the Anglican Consultative Council were told that the money was coming from a grant through the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.

After subsequent questioning at press conferences, it turns out that the Satcher Institute is not the source of the $1.5 million dollars.

So where did the money come from? The Rev. Marta Weeks, a retired Episcopal priest from the diocese of Southeast Florida, has donated $1.5 million to fund the entire project through 2011. Weeks and her late husband have supported a wide variety of causes and educational institutions. As noteworthy as her gifts are, her beliefs on the issues the Anglican Communion is dealing with are even more significant. In January of 2000, she signed the Religious Declaration on Sexuality, Morality, Justice, and Healing which calls for a "sexual ethic focused on personal relationships and social justice rather than particular sexual acts. All persons have the right and responsibility to lead sexual lives that express love, justice, mutuality, commitment, consent, and pleasure." This sexual ethic "applies to all persons, without regard to sex, gender, color, age, bodily condition, marital status, or sexual orientation." It calls for "full inclusion of women and sexual minorities in congregational life, including their ordination and the blessing of same sex unions" as well as "a faith-based commitment to sexual and reproductive rights, including access to voluntary contraception, abortion, and HIV/STD prevention and treatment." [emphasis added]

After questions arose about the source of the funding, the ACO admitted the gift came from Weeks and issued a disclaimer from her that the funds were given without any strings attached. But subsequent contradictory and confusing statements by the ACO, Weeks and the Satcher Institute raise serious questions about the influence associated with this gift and the institution administering it.

Who is in charge?

According to the ACO, the Continuing Indaba Project will be led by the Rev. Canon Philip Groves of the ACO and the Rev. Canon Flora Winfield of Lambeth Palace. Groves is the facilitator of the "Listening Process," begun in 1998 to seek a "common mind upon the issues which threaten to divide us," according to an ACC-14 publication.

But Weeks told the American Anglican Council that she was approached and asked to fund the project by the Satcher Institute, not by the ACO or its staff. Weeks said her association with staff members of the Satcher Institute’s Center of Excellence for Sexual Health (CESH) goes back to their leadership of another organization she supported, the Center for Sexuality and Religion (CSR), which merged with Satcher’s CESH in 2008.

We contacted Christian Thrasher, Satcher’s Director of the CESH and certified sexuality educator, to find out what role CESH will play in facilitating the Anglican Communion’s Continuing Indaba Project. He insisted that CESH will not be consultants or facilitators for the project. He went on to assert that the funding had no strings attached.

However, Canon Groves told this reporter that the Satcher CESH will exercise some control of the process by monitoring project spending to ensure the funds are being used "as intended." Groves added that CESH will also conduct an ecumenical study of the project to evaluate its effectiveness and suitablity for use by other faiths and denominations.               

The public attempts by leaders of the Satcher Institute to minimize their delegated role in the Anglican Communion’s Listening/Continuing Indaba process are disturbing and suggest an agenda that is neither objective nor benign.

Blueprint for Changing Society’s View of Sexuality and Abortion

The primary funder of the CESH, the Ford Foundation, is a wealthy independent grant-making organization devoted to progressive causes. The Ford Foundation’s website lists "sexuality and reproductive health rights" as one of its core funding areas. The Ford Foundation gave Morehouse School of Medicine more than $3 million to establish and operate the CESH.

The Ford Foundation does not mince words about its hostility towards traditional biblical and religious values shaping human sexuality: "Much more dialogue is needed among ‘mainstream’ and progressive religious groups on sexuality issues to counter narrow interpretations and to generate attention to alternative religious perspectives on sexuality." The Ford Foundation’s 2005 report, "Sexuality and Social Change: Making the Connection, Strategies for Action and Investment," also expressed concern about

The report presents a blueprint for directing attention and funding to issues of sexuality in order to influence public policy, public opinion, and religion to adopt a more "progressive" stance on issues of sex outside marriage, homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism, and abortion. This agenda is utterly contrary to Anglican Communion teaching on human sexuality as set forth in Lambeth Resolution 1.10, yet the very organization which will monitor expenditures on the Anglican Communion listening process, the CESH, is itself heavily indebted to the Ford Foundation’s funding for sexuality and reproductive health rights.

Center for Sexuality and Religion Advances this Agenda

The Ford Foundation also funded work of the Center for Sexuality and Religion (CSR). Although CSR billed itself as an educational, interfaith, and interdisciplinary organization "helping communities of faith promote sexual and spiritual health and justice since 1987,"  its primary focus was advocacy for "sexual justice" issues.

Along with endorsing the Religious Declaration on Sexuality, Morality, Justice, and Healing, CSR also sought to promote its "progressive" view of sexuality among clergy. A 2002 report by CSR developed guidelines to assess how seminaries trained clergy to deal with issues of sexuality. Those guidelines included appreciation for diverse spiritualities and sexualities; inclusive curriculum that addresses gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or questioning persons and their issues; and openness to sexually explicit resources (including audiovisuals) for clergy instruction.

This 2002 Ford Foundation funded report, "The Case for Comprehensive Sexuality Education within Theological Formation," also described "healthy clergy" as those who affirm their own sexual (gender) orientation and that of others; "engage in sexual expression in ways that are consistently faithful, consensual, non-exploitative, honest, mutually pleasurable, and socially responsible;" "affirm ‘family’ in its many configurations;" and a multitude of other characteristics without reference to traditional biblical and Christian values or the sacrament of marriage.

Clearly the CSR advocated a revisionist view of human sexuality that is incompatible with 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10.

How does the CSR pertain to the Continuing Indaba Project? The CSR closed down in 2008 and merged with the Satcher Institute CESH. Christian Thrasher, the CESH director, served on the CSR board from 2004 to 2008 and was appointed treasurer in 2007. Dr. William R. Stayton, an ordained American Baptist minister, psychologist and sexologist, is an assistant director at CESH. He served on the CSR board for 18 years prior to becoming its executive director in 2006. The Rev. Weeks served as a consultant to CSR. She told the AAC that she agreed to donate $1.5 million to Continuing Indaba based on her association with these former leaders of CSR.

It is stunning that the Anglican Communion listening process will be evaluated by CSR alumni who hope to replicate the indaba process so they can export it and their consensus facilitation services to other denominations and faiths. It is also concerning that these are the same people that will be in charge of monitoring the funds for the Continuing Indaba Project.

Help from Influential Episcopalians

The Episcopal Church was well-represented in the CSR’s leadership. The Rev. Canon Charles Cesaretti, who served as the CSR executive director from 1999 (or earlier) to 2002, is a retired priest in the diocese of Bethlehem. He served at Episcopal Church headquarters in the late 1980s as Deputy for Anglican Relations and later as assistant to the rector of Trinity Church, Wall Street. The Rt. Rev. David E. Richards, a long-term CSR board member and one of the Rev. Weeks’ colleagues from the diocese of Southeast Florida, served as bishop of Central America and was the former director of the office of Pastoral Ministry for the Episcopal Church. Also associated with the CSR was Neva Rae Fox, the current Episcopal Church public affairs program officer, who performed public relations work for CSR in 1999 and 2000 through her firm, the Fox Group.

Based on these associations, the American Anglican Council questions whether The Episcopal Church had any influence in facilitating the involvement of the newly merged CSR and CESH with the Continuing Indaba Project.

Pornography, sex with children, multiple partners-no limits!

An assistant director and expert in the field of human sexuality for the CESH has expressed and promoted a view of sexual freedom that knows virtually no limits.

The expert, Dr. William Stayton, an ordained American Baptist minister, served as a witness for those seeking to strike down laws against pornography on the internet. As an expert witness for the American Civil Liberties Union in ACLU v. Reno, Stayton testified in 1996 that he did not believe viewing sexually explicit videos of sexual intercourse and oral sex were harmful to children and admitted that his five year old had seen one of these videos Stayton used in his sex therapy practice.
 
Stayton addressed bestiality in the 2006 edition of "Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia." In his entry on eroticism, he noted that it is not unusual for some people to have erotic feelings towards animals:

    
Regarding sexual acts with children, in his entry on "Pederasty in Ancient and Early Christian History" in the 2006 "Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia," Stayton claims that:

His conclusion is devoid of Christian morality as well:

This reckless and unsubstantiated conclusion is far outside the mainstream of Anglican interpretation of Scripture. In fact, it is outside the mainstream of any responsible biblical scholarship. And yet this sex therapist and minister is the assistant director and sole clergy representative of the very organization that will be involved in funding conversations on theology and sexuality throughout the Anglican Communion.

Stayton is also a member of Loving More, an education and advocacy organization for polyamory (mulitiple sex partners), and is listed on their website as a "poly friendly professional" offering relational and sex therapy in Pennsylvania.

It is precisely because Stayton is a minister and represents the religious (if not Christian) perspective within the CESH that his theological and moral opinions on sexuality are especially troubling. Furthermore, he is not just a sexuality educator, researcher and therapist, he is an advocate for sexual and reproductive "freedom" and "justice" that is incompatible with the teaching of the majority of Christian churches and denominations worldwide, including Anglicanism.

The corruption of Indaba

"Indaba" is based on an African-rooted process of decision making and consensus which brings all parties together for dialogue and decision making. Indaba assumes a community of shared values and morality. No such community exists throughout the Anglican Communion in regards to human sexuality-much less the more fundamental issues of the person and nature of Jesus Christ, the meaning and authority of the Bible, and how we define ourselves as Anglicans. Within the Anglican Communion, the Continuing Indaba Project will have to start with the basics, addressing issues over the authority of Scripture, faithfulness to tradition and respect for the dignity of all people, in an effort to resolve the many differences over theology and sexuality that have effectively split the Communion.

This would in itself be a daunting task if the forum were truly objective. But is it?

The leadership of the CESH advocates a view of human sexuality that is incompatible with the stated position of Anglican bishops worldwide based on God’s creation of man and woman who become one flesh in lifelong marriage. Furthermore, the sole funder of the Continuing Indaba Project does not hold to the mainstream Christian view of marriage and sexuality. Even worse, both specifically target the Church in an attempt to gain support for their views. Given these facts, how can an honest, unbiased and responsible conversation take place?

Conclusion and Questions

The alliance between the Anglican Communion Office, the Rev. Marta Weeks, and the Satcher Institute leaves many questions unanswered:

• Who decided this alliance was worth pursuing? The Anglican Communion Office? The Episcopal Church? The Archbishop of Canterbury?

   

• Who investigated the previous work of the Center of Excellence for Sexual Health and its directors? Did they assume Anglicans would not look closely at this next phase of indaba and miss the potential entry of a Trojan horse into the listening process? How will the ACO ensure that CESH does not influence Continuing Indaba in any way when CESH effectively holds the purse strings and this is exactly the type of process they are actively seeking to be involved in?

   

• Why is the ACO continuing to misuse the indaba process to bridge opposing theologies and moralities when the process is based on developing consensus within a village or tribe with shared values and morality?
   

The Anglican Communion Office has the answers. The rest of the Communion is waiting and listening.

The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary of the Anglican Consultative Council, is on the short list of candidates being considered for the position of secretary general of the World Council of Churches.

During the primates’ meeting in Alexandria, Egypt, in February, The Living Church learned that Canon Kearon had been nominated for the post, and had the endorsement of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to succeed the Rev. Samuel Kobia of Kenya.

The WCC’s general secretary serves as the ecumenical organization’s chief executive officer, as a spokesman for its council, and is responsible for promoting the strategic vision of the Geneva-based ecumenical organization.

The general secretary will be elected at the WCC’s Central Committee meeting Aug. 26- Sept. 2. Fr. Kobia announced last year he would not seek a second term of office.

On June 3 the Catholic Information Service of Africa reported that the five other finalists for the post included the Rev. Daryl Balia of the South African Methodist Church; the Rev. Robert Anderson of the Church of Scotland; the Rev. Fernando Enns of the Brazilian Mennonite Chu rch; the Rev. Seon Won Park of the Korean Presbyterian Church; and the Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit of the Church of Norway. Official confirmation of the short list could not be made, however.

(The Rev.) George Conger