Anglican Mainstream

From ACI

A transcript of the proceedings at ACC-14 on May 8, 2009, when the Council voted in conflicting ways on key votes, raises the important question of how many of its members, including officers and proponents of key amendments, understood what they were actually voting on when they narrowly passed an amendment intended to open Section 4 of the Anglican Communion Covenant to “possible revision.”

The source of the confusion arose from multiple attempts by a minority of members generally opposed to the covenant to derail Section 4, a key section. Their first attempt was a resolution, Resolution A, that would have removed Section 4 and sent the Covenant to the provinces without that section. Resolution A had been debated and was pending before the Council when it broke for lunch. Even supporters of the efforts of The Episcopal Church to remove this section acknowledged at the lunch break that the tide was against The Episcopal Church. (The post acknowledging this has since been removed from the website where it was posted.)

Following lunch, a new tactic was unveiled. Duplicative resolutions and amendments were presented to the members, at first simultaneously and later sequentially, to defeat or delay Section 4. But Resolution A had already been introduced by the Chairman of the Resolutions Committee as the proposed vehicle for making the key decision on whether or not Section 4 should be included in the text that would go to the provinces. And when Resolution A was finally put to a vote, it was voted down overwhelmingly. Indeed, after that vote, the Chairman of the Resolutions Committee noted that despite confusion on the multiple other amendments and resolutions, Resolution A was understood:

I should thank the house for the debate on the principle of whether we want Part 4 in the Covenant or not and I think until we got confused before lunch we actually had quite a straightforward debate on that issue, and I thank the house for that.

Thus, the position of the Council on the necessity of keeping Section 4 was properly debated and decisively expressed.

As Chairman Fitchett suggested, the confusion grew worse after a lunch break when Archbishop Aspinall of Australia tried to introduce into the middle of the debate new language variously characterized as a new resolution and as an amendment to one or more pending resolutions. The resolution that was still pending when debate resumed after the lunch break was Resolution A. But without first voting on Resolution A, the members began debating the Aspinall proposal. Some members quickly objected.

First, Stanley Isaacs of Southeast Asia objected to the consideration of Archbishop Aspinall’s new proposal, referred to both as an “amendment” and “Resolution C”, while the original Resolution A was still being debated:

So I don’t see how we can, we can, we are going in circles.   We really are going in circles.   Let us not play around.   I think we are playing around with the bulk.

Archbishop Aspinall – I thank you for your attempt, I am quite sure you are sincerely trying to make an attempt to try and find a way out….Personally Bishop Chairman I would like to suggest- let us just try and get ourselves going. I would like to propose that Resolution A be now put to a vote. Let us just vote on it and if that is carried, then we will just have to look at the next resolution. Thank you very much.

The Chairman, Bishop John Paterson of New Zealand, rejected this request and characterized the Aspinall proposal as an “amendment.” Although not clearly stated, he apparently meant as an amendment to the pending Resolution A because that would have been the basis for allowing debate on the amendment to continue:

Read the rest of this entry »

From Diocese of Egypt (H/T Virtueonline)

With hope and anticipation we went to Jamaica to participate in the ACC 14 meeting. The Anglican Covenant was the most important item in our agenda. Its importance arises from fact that it is the only hope left to keep the unity of the Anglican Communion. It was very encouraging seeing the Archbishop of Canterbury, many other participants, and our ecumenical partners supporting the Covenant wholeheartedly. All that was required from the ACC was to agree to send the whole text of the Covenant to the Provinces for discussion and adoption.

In his first presidential address Archbishop Rowan Williams appealed to the ACC members by these words: "Before we say goodbye to each other we owe it to the Lord of the church to make that effort to have those conversations and take each other seriously in the gospel. My hope is that this report[1] will help us to do this." It is worth mentioning that the report of the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG) has affirmed the importance of the Covenant, recommended the continuation of the moratoria, and the establishing of the pastoral form.

Strenuous opposition:

Unfortunately, the Episcopal Church in America (TEC) and a few other churches were strongly opposing the idea of the Covenant especially section 4[2]. Their excuse was that this section is new and has not been studied enough by the Provinces as the other sections have been. They have forgotten that this particular section of the Covenant is in fact the outcome of many deliberations and responses that came from dioceses as well as bishops who attended the Lambeth Conference in 2008. In addition to this, section 4 was already present in the commentary of the St. Andrews draft of the Covenant that was sent to the provinces after the Lambeth Conference. I personal believe that we will never have a perfect Covenant that could be accepted by all, even if we spend another 10 years working in it. TEC also described section 4 as "punitive." In response to this, it was clarified that the Covenant gives guidance to the Provinces which are responsible for making their own decisions. The Covenant also does not require any changes in the constitutions of the Provinces. In addition to this, section 4 allows Provinces to make amendments to the Covenant after it is accepted. In fact, it is because that section 4 is not strong enough many conservatives described the Covenant as very weak and useless.

My own impression is that the fear behind accepting the text of the Covenant, especially section 4, originates from the desire to avoid anything binding which would affirm the interdependence of the Anglican churches. Denying the interdependence of churches is contrary to the very meaning of the word "Communion." For this reason without this section, the "Covenant" would not be a Covenant and the word "Communion" would lose its meaning.

Read the rest of this entry »

By David Virtue, Virtueonline

The Episcopal Church was given a stiff warning by the Archbishop of the West Indies and chairman of the Covenant Working Group today that if it passes any sexuality resolutions at GC2009 it will "imperil" the future of the Anglican Communion.

The Most Rev. Drexel Gomez said at a press conference that if GC2009 rescinds Resolution B033 and removes any barriers to persons involved in same-sex relationships, it will imperil the work of the Covenant (in its final draft) and will have an impact on the rest of the communion because of the responses others will need to make.

Gomez said the content of the Covenant is not new, but a restatement of what Anglicans believe. He said that the establishment of the Anglican Covenant is a mechanism, an enhancement of life in the communion

Despite the several drafts the Covenant has gone through, Gomez said the Covenant is right. "We have done the best that possibly can be done. It has a strong theological base, focuses on the inheritance of faith and digs deep wells – all Anglican wells – there is nothing new in it. There are no innovations. It has a strong emphasis on the mission of God and ends with a solid declaration of what we believe."

St. Asaph Bishop-elect Geoffrey Cameron, a former ACC official, said it is now up to the ACC to believe that the Ridley Cambridge Draft is mature enough to be offered to the provinces for discernment.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Ephraim Radner, ACI

A number of persons from around the Communion have asked me for my perspective on the recent ACC meeting’s treatment of the proposed Anglican Covenant.  There are at least two reasons, I suppose, why my opinion might be solicited.  First, I have been a member of the Covenant Design Group that, over the past two and half years has worked at the drafting of this document.  Obviously, I have a particular stake in what happens to the work we have spent over 30 full days in prayer, study, and labor producing.  But second,  I have long argued that doctrinally traditional Anglicans like myself should both be engaged in the Covenant’s promise and articulation but also willing to maintain that engagement from a posture of continued communion within and among our divided member churches.  There are many who now wonder whether the outcome to the ACC meeting undercuts that argument.

What happened

Despite formal requests from the CDG as a whole beforehand to the contrary, the ACC ended up picking the Covenant apart, and acting as broker to the document’s content and revision:

• the critical Section 4 of the Covenant, with its outline of procedures for adoption, dispute resolution, relinquishment, and amendment was detached (contrary to one resolution that was already passed) from the first 3 Sections and sent out for provincial comment;
• it will be returned to an as-yet-unnamed group for further consideration and possible revision,
• it will then be forwarded to the Joint Standing Committee of the ACC and Primates for still unclarified action with respect to sending the full Covenant out to the Provinces for adoption.

In coming to this conclusion with respect to the Covenant text, the ACC acted without any clear sense of its brief, or publicly articulated sense of its goals and processes in so doing.

Soon after this outcome was announced, the Anglican Communion Institute (ACI) issued a statement, which I signed, expressing dismay at the process that has been followed in reaching this conclusion. Having listed a number of elements in the debate and voting surrounding the Covenant — publicly broadcast and so, in themselves, not under dispute — we characterized the final process by which the decision of the ACC was reached as “embarrassing”, “confused”, and “manipulative”. I stand by this characterization, to which members of the Anglican Communion Office have publicly and privately taken issue. (I would qualify the last adjective to “inordinately open to the perception of manipulation”, which is not only cumbersome, but I doubt would satisfy those who have taken umbrage with the overall judgment.)

Read the rest of this entry »

By Ruth Gledhill, Timesonline

Anglican supporters of Israel speak out over a statement criticising the state’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip

Anglican supporters of the state of Israel have expressed their “dismay” at a statement from Anglican leaders from around the world criticising Israel for imposing a so-called apartheid system on the Palestinians.

At its meeting in Jamaica chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams, the Anglican Consultative Council, the policy body at the centre of the worldwide church, said it “laments” that current Israeli policies in relation to the West Bank “have created severe hardship for many Palestinians and have been experienced as a physical form of apartheid”.

Calling for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, the Anglican council made no request for an end to terrorism but called on Israel to end occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, freeze all settlement building, abandon its settlement policy and dismantle the separation barrier.

The lobby group Anglican Friends of Israel warned that the council’s resolution threatened to “completely sabotage” Anglo-Jewish relations.

In a statement, the group said: “Once again, Anglican representatives have singled out Israel for criticism without placing her actions in context or directly addressing the Palestinian contribution to the conflict.”

The statement continued: “Israel is falsely accused of imposing an apartheid system on Palestinians while the education of Palestinian children to hate Jews and give their lives in cause of Israel’s destruction is ignored.

“Neither Palestinian nor Israeli interests are served by resolutions such as this, which misrepresent the actions of one party whilst overlooking the agency of the other. The people of the Holy Land – and the Anglican Communion – deserve better.”

By Robert Tong, Sydney Anglicans (Hat Tip ACL Sydney)

In a naked display of political power, the American Episcopal Church leadership stopped the Rev Philip Ashey, the clergy representative of the Province of Uganda, from taking his place at the 14th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council held in Jamaica, because he has been among the strongest critics of their pro-homosexual policies.

Uganda, like the USA, the Church of England, Canada and six other provinces can send a bishop, a priest and a lay person to the Anglican Consultative Council. The ‘Joint Standing Committee’ took the decision to bar Mr Ashey, because they said he was not ‘qualified’ to represent Uganda as he is an American who was received into the Church of Uganda in 2005. No such ‘qualification’ grounds exist in the ACC constitution, which allows each member province to make their own decision about who can represent them at council meetings. Furthermore, the ‘Joint Standing Committee’, which is the Standing Committee of the Primates’ Meeting acting with the Standing Committee of the ACC, has no constitutional authority to even contemplate the question.

This unconstitutional and divisive action has been criticised as a grubby little exercise in political power and on all the evidence it is hard to see it in any other way.

Read the rest of this entry »

From ACNS

By Lilian Kwon, Christian Today

The Anglican Consultative Council expressed support on Saturday for a project that will explore the ways Anglicans worldwide read and interpret Scripture.

The Bible in the Life of the Church project is being launched to build "understanding, trust and respect" among those who differ in biblical interpretations.

Formerly, the Anglican Communion had been called on in 2004 to "re-evaluate the ways in which we have read, heard, studied and digested scripture". The request, however, was largely neglected.

"We can no longer be content to drop random texts into arguments, imagining that the point is thereby proved, or indeed to sweep away sections of the New Testament as irrelevant to today’s world, imagining that problems are thereby solved," a provision in the 2004 Windsor Report states.

"We need mature study, wise and prayerful discussion, and a joint commitment to hearing and obeying God as he speaks in scripture, to discovering more of the Jesus Christ to whom all authority is committed, and to being open to the fresh wind of the Spirit who inspired scripture in the first place.

"If our present difficulties force us to read and learn together from scripture in new ways, they will not have been without profit."

Read the rest of this entry »

From The Living Church

At the end of a hectic day of often confusing debate and parliamentary maneuvering in which Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams personally intervened four times, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) on May 8 postponed sending the third draft of the Anglican Covenant to the Communion’s provinces for adoption.

The Anglican Communion Institute has issued a statement decrying the proceedings as “an embarrassment to Anglicans everywhere, and a sad display of procedural confusion.”

The ACC had been asked to send the entire text to the provinces for adoption. However, some members considered allies to The Episcopal Church raised objections to the processes outlined in Section Four regarding dispute resolution. Their first motion to remove Section Four for review was voted down, but the main provisions of the defeated motion were then inserted into a separate resolution already under consideration. The ACC’s chairman, Bishop John Paterson of New Zealand, initially ruled this re-introduction out of order, but Archbishop Williams, who had called for a vote on the first motion, then challenged Bishop Paterson’s ruling and it was reversed. The pending resolution was amended to include the previously defeated provisions. After a break, Bishop Paterson announced that the resolution had passed.

“Evidence indicates that members did not understand what they were voting on, what the Archbishop of Canterbury was proposing, or why he was proposing it,” the ACI argued. “Amid much confusion, the chairman announced that the entire resolution had passed, even though there is no evidence it had even been voted on, the previous votes having been to amend the resolution, not pass it.”

As adopted, the resolution now asks Archbishop Williams, in consultation with the ACC’s secretary general, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, “to appoint a small working group to consider and consult with the provinces on Section Four and its possible revision, and to report to the next meeting of the Joint Standing Committee” of the Primates and the ACC in late 2009, and asks the JSC to approve a final form at that meeting.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Barbara Among, New Vision (Hat Tip: Virtueonline)

Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi has written to the Archbishop of Canterbury, over the blocking of a Church of Uganda delegate from attending a meeting in Jamaica.

Uganda is entitled to three delegates; a bishop, a priest and lay person to the Anglican Consultative Council meeting.

The Rev. Philip Ashey was rejected by the organisers who said nominating an American reverend to represent Uganda was against the constitution of the consultative council.

"If Ashey’s appointment is unacceptable, then we will be forced to bring this unbiblical, unjust and unconstitutional precedent to the attention of the rest of the communion," read the May 2 letter to Dr. Rowan Williams.

Ashey, who had earlier registered for the conference as a journalist, was also rejected because he joined the Rwenzori Diocese in 2005 after he opposed a decision by the US bishops to consecrate a self-confessed homosexual as a bishop.

Although a reverend of the Rwenzori Diocese, Ashey resides in Atlanta in the US.

"We are content for him to resume his press accreditation, if he so wishes," said the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary of the Anglican Communion.

Orombi warned that the committee was playing double standards, adding that the appointment of delegates was not subject to a review by any institution.

Orombi said the decision stifled the voice of almost 100,000 orthodox Anglicans in North America and Anglican Church of Canada who have been persecuted by the Episcopal Church in the US for their stand against gay marriages.

He added that the decision would further tear the Anglican Church that is already divided over the question of gay marriages.

By blocking Ashey, a section of the Anglican Church in Canada, North America and Africa is not represented at the meeting in which important decisions on issues affecting the Anglican Church are made.

From BabyBlueOnline

Sarah Hey muses on things she wishes the Orthodox Primates Would Do, including that they should:
 

"take the Ridley draft of the Covenant, modify it appropriately [deleting the JSC as an arbiter, for starters, and adding in real consequences, such that the Ridley draft isn't a fraud], and affirm it as a unified group."

She describes the Orthodox Primates specifically as "the 22 who have declared themselves out of communion with TEC—so that would exclude Williams as a part of that group, since he has done no such thing." Not yet, anyway.

In addition, there is this recommendation:
 

Let Rowan Williams know that they’ll be creating their own Primates Meeting, Lambeth Conference, and ACC meetings, and that they’d love for him to be a part of them – -but they won’t be attending the shams and disgraces that have been going on for the past five years of these same meetings.

There are those who say that Rowan Williams is no leader, but I am inclined to disagree. I saw his mastery at the Lambeth Conference. I don’t agree that he is no leader – but his methods confound Americans who consistently try to trick him. I still believe there is no love lost between Schori’s gang and the Lambeth gang. In fact, they are looking more and more like gangs every day and the confusion we saw on Friday could very well be gang warfare between TEC and Lambeth.

Ian Douglas took a presumptive move, it now seems, one that Rowan Williams objected to. Then – amidst much confusion – the agenda of the day, to divorce Section IV from the Covenant, was achieved, but not by TEC’s original intention, that is to strike it from the record. Instead, it’s now (safely?) back in the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The wrinkle is that blasted Joint Standing Committee.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Lillian Kwon, Christian Post

The Anglican Consultative Council expressed support on Saturday for a project that will explore the ways Anglicans worldwide read and interpret Scripture.

 
The Bible in the Life of the Church project is being launched to build "understanding, trust and respect" among those who differ in biblical interpretations.

Formerly, the Anglican Communion had been called on in 2004 to "re-evaluate the ways in which we have read, heard, studied and digested scripture." The request, however, was largely neglected.

"We can no longer be content to drop random texts into arguments, imagining that the point is thereby proved, or indeed to sweep away sections of the New Testament as irrelevant to today’s world, imagining that problems are thereby solved," a provision in the 2004 Windsor Report states. "We need mature study, wise and prayerful discussion, and a joint commitment to hearing and obeying God as he speaks in scripture, to discovering more of the Jesus Christ to whom all authority is committed, and to being open to the fresh wind of the Spirit who inspired scripture in the first place.

"If our present difficulties force us to read and learn together from scripture in new ways, they will not have been without profit."

The Windsor Report was drawn up to resolve disputes in the global church body, particularly over homosexuality.

In 2003, The Episcopal Church – the U.S. arm of Anglicanism – had heightened controversy when it consecrated the first openly gay bishop. Conservative Anglicans believe the U.S. national body has abandoned Christian orthodoxy and has called it to get back in line with Scripture and traditional Anglicanism.

Read the rest of this entry »

By George Conger, Religious Intelligence

The Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) will not endorse the Anglican Covenant, and has voted to send it back to committee for further review. The vote comes as a major defeat for the Archbishop of Canterbury who had championed the covenant as the one way to keep the Anglican Communion from splitting. However the defeat was self-inflicted, as Dr Rowan Williams’ ambiguous intervention in the closing moments of the debate led to the loss.

Delegates adopted a compromise resolution, whose provisions Dr Williams had rejected at the start of the May 8 debate but backed by its end, to appoint a committee to review and revise section 4 of the covenant and report its recommendations to the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the ACC for adoption. A process, the ACC’s secretary general Canon Kenneth Kearon said would likely take up to year to bring to fruition.

Questions of treachery and incompetence were lodged against Dr Williams by conservative members of the ACC in interviews with Religious Intelligence following the vote, but the next day softened to exasperation with the archbishop’s ambiguous way of speaking that critics said was unsuited to the political rough and tumble of a meeting where many delegates had limited English-language abilities.

Delegates from the Church of Nigeria stated they were perplexed by Dr Williams’ actions. “All of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s contributions were positive” up until the last moment of the meeting, Bishop Ikechi Nwosu of Nigeria said.

Nigerian Archdeacon Abraham Okorie said there was a “satanic” spirit of confusion in the air. He noted it was hypocritical of the ACC to make a great noise of using African ways of decision making in addressing the covenant, but then resorting to slippery parliamentary tricks to thwart the will of the meeting.

Read the rest of this entry »

By A S Haley, Anglican Curmudgeon

From The Anglican Communion Institute

Friday’s session of the Anglican Consultative Council is an embarrassment to Anglicans everywhere, and a sad display of procedural confusion. Members were given complex resolutions right before the vote without sufficient time to study them and understand their consequences. Resolutions that had been distributed earlier were replaced by resolutions drafted by a committee largely composed of members from provinces known to be opposed to the Ridley Cambridge Draft. Before a vote could even be taken on these resolutions, however, Archbishop Aspinall introduced a third resolution that not even the chairman of the resolutions committee had seen. The proponents of these resolutions, the intent of which was to remove Section IV and so significantly alter the Ridley Cambridge Draft, could not describe them to the members in a coherent way even though their first language was English, unlike many of those voting. All three resolutions were being debated at the same time. In consultation with various members present, there is agreement that this was improper.

The first motion to remove Section 4 for review and so alter the Covenant was defeated overwhelmingly by the members of the ACC. But the proponents of delay and alteration attempted yet again to insert the main provisions of the resolution just defeated into the resolution then under consideration. This attempt was rightly ruled out of order by the chair, Bishop Paterson of New Zealand, himself sympathetic to the leadership of TEC. For reasons that are unclear, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had himself called for a vote on Resolution A, personally challenged this ruling of the chair and it was reversed. (It has been suggested that delegates voted against Resolution A because they had an interest in other resolutions. But that should never have been the condition under which voting was taking place, and it requires that 15 of the votes were cast because of this in order actually to approve Resolution A – a matter we cannot ever know because it is pure conjecture. This puts a cloud over the entire logic of voting as such and would clearly suggest the need for a re-vote, not a moving ahead with new resolutions).

The amendment to the resolution then pending, adding back provisions of the prior failed resolution, was eventually passed by a very narrow margin. In putting this amendment to the members for a vote, not even the Chairman could describe it coherently:

“The question is whether or not for the introduction … for the amendment or against the amendment, with the introduction of those two clauses, and the subsequent renumbering from 15 to 16.”

Evidence indicates that members did not understand what they were voting on, what the Archbishop of Canterbury was proposing, or why he was proposing it.

After a break and amid much confusion, the Chairman then announced that the entire resolution had passed even though there is no evidence it had even been voted on, the previous votes having been to amend the resolution, not pass it. If the position is that the individual clauses were enacted separately, is there any evidence that this was understood by the members prior to the vote?

These events unfolded live on Anglican TV to people watching around the world. It is beyond question that these procedures were improper, confusing and manipulative. The credibility of the ACC, already questioned by the Communion’s own advisory groups, has suffered lasting damage.

Read the rest of this entry »

No Fourth Moratorium and No Covenant…Yet

By David Virtue, Virtueonline

Confusion reigned Friday as delegates to the Anglican Consultative Council delayed the release of the Ridley Cambridge Covenant third draft designed to hold the Anglican Communion together.

Frustrated archbishops, bishops, clergy and lay delegates, mostly from the Global South, took to microphones to express their frustration over clauses deemed hurtful to The Episcopal Church. Many of the Global South delegates believe they have been tricked by Western procedural methods designed to fudge and prevaricate on communion breaking issues. The masters of verbal sleights of hand include outgoing deputy secretary general to the ACC Bishop Geoffrey Cameron and ACC leader Kenneth Kearon.

Peru Bishop Bill Godfrey said the roots of what troubled the communion is the perceived treatment of people in North America. "We are not going to stop because ACC says so," (a reference to cross border rescue of orthodox diocese and parishes). Godfrey said he spoke with TEC Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori in an effort to facilitate a listening process that would hear the voices of those who feel justice has been denied them, particularly in North America.

The proposed covenant will not be sent to the provinces until Section 4 – a moratoria on litigation – has been reconsidered by a working party which will send its findings to the Joint Standing committee of the ACC and then back to the provinces for ratification.

Some 18 amendments to resolutions, numerous votes and a plea by President Bishop Mouneer Anis of the Middle East that what was taking place was "illegal" did nothing to slow the liberal juggernaut from passing anything that might skew the ACC’s overall desire to keep the most ultra-liberal American and Canadian Anglican Provinces at the Anglican Communion table.

Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the ACC, said that the Joint Standing Committee would not meet till the end of the year, but promised a speedy review of the two clauses in Section 4 that have been referred to a small working group appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury for further study. The working group is expected to take six to nine months to do its work. However, the working group has to talk with the provinces;, the provinces then go back to the working group; and, if they are satisfied, it goes to the Joint Standing Committee. Few believe this will happen any time soon.

The controversial Section 4 outlines mechanisms by which a province of the Anglican Communion could be excluded from the Communion. These include support of the blessing of same sex relationships, a moratoria on the ordination of people living in non-celibate homosexual relationships and cross provincial violations. The latter, liberal provinces find particularly egregious.

The Fourth Moratoria, written into the Dar es Salaam communiqué, was taken out by the Windsor Continuation Group, frustrating delegates who wanted it put back. By a vote of 33-30, a five-part resolution was voted on clause by clause, but no one knew, when the delegates broke for dinner, if in fact they had voted on anything at all.

The assumption was that the clauses would be voted on when the Council reconvened. It never happened. Attempts by The Episcopal Church to strip Section 4 from the covenant were defeated by a wide margin after Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and numerous others spoke against it.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Charles Raven, SPREAD

Last week I questioned Professor Stephen Noll’s proposal  that the GAFCON Primates should ‘move to the front of the queue’ to sign up to the latest Ridley Draft being presented to the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Jamaica, not only because in my view the Covenant still lacked teeth, but also because there were strong grounds for thinking that it could turn out to be a vehicle for co-opting the orthodox.

My anxiety about co-option now looks like being of only academic interest since the Ridley draft foundered through the objections of the American Episcopal Church, but the way  that this happened  illustrated much more vividly than I had expected the underlying concern I set out  last week – ‘ that the real problem the Anglican Communion faces is not so much the apostasy of the revisionist North American provinces, but the failure of the Instruments of Communion in the face of this challenge’ .

So while I have to concede that Professor Noll may have had a stronger point than I realised about the disciplinary potential of the draft, set out in Section 4 – because of the opposition it attracted – my sense that the existing Instruments of Unity are not safe for the orthodox was amply demonstrated. During the voting on the key resolutions, it became clear that when push comes to shove, Rowan Williams will support the revisionist interest. Until his strategic intervention, overruling the chair and reintroducing wording which the delegates had rejected, it seemed that the draft would be accepted. But now the wording of Section 4 will  be reviewed by a ‘a small working group’ appointed by Dr Williams and Anglican Communion Secretary General Kenneth Kearon, delaying the Covenant process even further and with every expectation that what emerges will be a serious dilution of what was already a minimal form of discipline.

Despite his enthusiasm for the Covenant process, Stephen Noll is now quite clear that it has run its course.  In his review  ‘The Anglican Communion Covenant: Where Do We Go from Here?’, he writes ‘So my immediate conclusion is that the Anglican Communion Covenant is dead. More precisely, it has been etherized while one of the Instruments performs vital surgery on its vital parts….Our Lord said: “For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men” (Matthew 19:12). The Covenant is to be numbered among the latter.’

Throughout the Jamaica meeting it was clear that the revisionist leaning Lambeth leadership was determined to control the outcome. For instance, Philip Ashey, a Ugandan representative resident in the United States was not allowed to take his seat despite being validly selected under existing ACC rules and precedent, causing Archbishop Henry Orombi to write in protest to the Archbishop of Canterbury, describing the decision to reject Ashey as ‘nothing short of an imperialistic and colonial decision that violates the integrity of the Church of Uganda.’

Read the rest of this entry »

By Nick Mackenzie, Religious Intelligence

The Anglican leaders meeting in Jamaica have decided against presenting the latest draft of the Anglican Covenant, saying that it needs more work.

The document, which was advocated by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams earlier this week as the only way to save the fractured Communion, has divided opinion across the Church. In addition, legal questions have been raised as to whether the Church of England itself will be allowed to adopt it.

Now, the representatives of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) decided yesterday (May 8) that the Ridley Cambridge Draft of an Anglican covenant needs more work before it can be presented to the communion’s provinces for adoption. And in a narrow vote, the ACC voted against calling for a moratorium on legal battles over property.

There are currently three moratoria in force: on same-gender blessings, cross-border interventions and the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the episcopate. These were part of the Windsor Continuation Group, measures that were agreed to stop a major split. While this week’s ACC meeting gave its backing to these, members narrowly rejected (33-32) an attempt to add a fourth moratoria that would have banned litigation over the taking of property by those who leave a diocese or province.

The ACC noted the "deep cost" of observing those moratoria and called the Anglican Communion to "pray for repentance, conversion and renewal; leading to deeper communion."

Initial Reflections by Stephen Noll

Thanks to the marvels of global communications, I was able to follow the so-called deliberations, a.k.a., manipulations, of the final session of the Anglican Consultative Council in Jamaica. As part of the flood of commentary following this “historic” session in the afternoon of 8 May 2009, I offer here a few initial reflections.

The Hope of the Ridley Cambridge Draft

As close observers of the Anglican scene may know, I have been a supporter of the idea of an Anglican Communion Covenant since it was raised as a part of the solution of the crisis in Anglicanism caused by the brazen violation by the Episcopal Church USA of biblical, traditional and ecclesiastical norms (especially Lambeth Resolution 1.10). I offered critiques of the early drafts produced by the Covenant Drafting Group, and finally an “Appreciation of the Ridley Cambridge Draft” (RCD). All of these essays can be found at http://www.stephenswitness.com/.

Here is the quick summary of my qualified appreciation (two cheers!) of RCD:

So why two cheers for the Ridley Cambridge Draft? In my previous critique I concluded:

My first cheer then is for the doctrinal substance of the Cambridge Ridley Draft. It is orthodox and consistent in the main with the “providential ordering of Anglican history and mission.” While I might wish to express the essence of Anglican Christianity somewhat differently, I do not find myself wincing at glaring deviations from the faith once for all delivered to the saints such as one finds routinely in the speeches and writings emanating from The Episcopal Church. My second “50/50” cheer is for setting forth constitutional principles that might lead to the ultimate reform of the Communion and discipline of those who have thrown it into confusion. Whether the Covenant, as currently proposed, will lead to such a reform is contingent on many twists and turns of ecclesiastical politics, including the response of the GAFCON churches and the willingness of the Instruments, especially the Archbishop of Canterbury, to allow certain churches to self-select themselves out of the Covenant and ultimately the Communion. For let it be clearly stated, there is no future for a vibrant and coherent Anglican and Christian body that includes The Episcopal Church (TEC) and Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) as they now exist.

I proceeded in this essay to argue that there were wide areas of agreement between the RCD and the Jerusalem Declaration of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. Although I had no direct line to the decision-makers in Jamaica, I did try to persuade the GAFCON leaders to support the Covenant. In particular, I was asked by the Archbishop of Uganda to convene a group of scholars from the Church of Uganda to reconsider the RCD. This group of colleagues read my Appreciation and composed an instruction to the COU delegates, with this clinching paragraph:

The above concerns notwithstanding, we strongly recommend that the Church of Uganda signs up to the Ridley Cambridge Draft Anglican Covenant. The fundamental issues of doctrine and Authority of Scripture as the word of God have been appropriately addressed. The concerns mentioned in 1-4 above can be addressed with time given that there is a provision for amending the Covenant.

So the Church of Uganda, the second largest Province of the Anglican Communion, was fully supportive of the latest Covenant Draft and indeed voted consistently for it in the crucial showdown votes (I shall comment on its reduced representation below). The other GAFCON Provinces stood as part of the Global South coalition to vote for it. Still, it failed.

The Anglican Communion Covenant is Dead

So I cannot but conclude that the Anglican Communion Covenant is dead. Those who have not followed the “process” of drafting the Covenant may ask if this is not an extreme or premature diagnosis. Perhaps, but I think not.

Read the rest of this entry »

From AAC

Beloved in Christ,

I have observed that in church life, the decisions reached by the vestry or parish council are often not, strictly speaking, democratic. A person who is influential and viewed as knowledgeable of the church’s finances will speak favorably of an idea and say, "there is money for this." Alternatively, if that same person is not favorable to the idea, h/she will say, "we are very short of money and that will have to wait until sometime later," which effectively kills the proposal. The power to say, "Yes, there is money/no, there isn’t money," is a form of aggression masked by an affectation of compassion. I want you to hold onto that thought as I discuss what is happening this week in Jamaica at the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting.

Let me lay out a few other seemingly unattached facts before you. There is a financial shortfall from the last Lambeth Conference of Bishops, smaller than once thought, but still hundreds of thousands of dollars. Point to be taken: there are nine years to go and a large deficit to cover before the next Lambeth Conference. Don’t count on the Lambeth Conference for anything.

The figures on the Primates’ Meeting have come in, and there is bad news there, too: Bishop Kearon noted that the Primates’ Meetings are seriously underfunded and it will be a real challenge to fund another one in two years. The message here is, don’t count on the Primates’ Meeting for anything.

Further financial information from Bishop Kearon shows that the costs of ACC-14 will be 380,000+ GBP and that they have reserves of only 104,000 GBP. The message here is, don’t count on the ACC for anything.

And while we are speaking of the ACC, it is interesting to see where the bulk of the support money is coming from. The largest donors for 2008 are England at $405,000 GBP, grants and donations (including Trinity Church Wall Street, NY, the largest contributor in this category) at $371,259 GBP, and The Episcopal Church (TEC) at $363,902 GBP. Compass Rose Society was fourth at $164,040 GBP. It is clear that the influence of TEC money, either directly or indirectly, steers the ship. The provinces who gave nothing in 2008 included Central Africa, Central America, Congo, Indian Ocean, Myanmar, Nigeria, Rwanda, Southern Cone, Sudan, Uganda, West Africa, Pakistan, South India and the Spanish Reformed EC. What we have is the preponderance of the entire Anglican Communion giving nothing financially to support the ACC, yet their active Sunday attendance would approximate at least 2/3 of the entire Anglican Communion. Why is this? Possibly because they have fewer financial resources, but possibly also because they have a certain distrust of "Western" meetings where pre-cooked agendas are run past them with the outcomes already formulated. The "in group" of liberal Westerners, who from colonial times immemorial are accustomed to running the world, put up the money from their larger resources and manipulate the outcome. Point to be taken: don’t count on the ACC.

Read the rest of this entry »