from ENS:
Anglican leaders meeting in Egypt have affirmed the recommendations of the Windsor Continuation Group and called for the development of a "pastoral council" and the appointment of "pastoral visitors" to assist in healing and reconciliation given the current "situation of tension" in the Anglican Communion.
In a communiqué released on the final day of their February 1-5 meeting in Alexandria, Egypt, the primates are also encouraging all parties in the current controversies to maintain "gracious restraint" with respect to actions that could exacerbate the tensions, such as same-gender blessings, cross-border interventions and the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the episcopate.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told ENS that she is encouraged by the tone of the communiqué, but acknowledged that "the long-term impact of 'gracious restraint' is a matter for General Convention," the Episcopal Church's main legislative body that next meets in July in Anaheim, California.
"We are going to have to have honest conversations about who we are as a church and the value we place on our relationships and mission opportunities with other parts of the communion and how we can be faithful with many spheres of relationship at the same time," she said. "That is tension-producing and will be anxiety-producing for many, but we are a people that live in hope, not in instant solutions but in faithfulness to God."
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I don't really know how to respond to this communiqué (a word which has many connotations, for some it means a letter from on high, for others, the equivalent of a pastoral letter, for others, a statement of what they were up to) in anything other than knee jerk reactions... not useful but here goes.
One of the worst things to come down the pike was the Windsor Report, based on the Virginia Report. Neither report has ever been formally adopted — received perhaps but not adopted in the same way a resolution at General Convention has been, partly because only the Junior House received these reports. Yet they continue to assume canonical status as holy writ and direct the primates.
The Windsor Continuation Group's report, issued in the waning hours of the 2008 Lambeth Conference, IMNSHO, undid the good of the indaba groups. It continues to advocate for a more juridical or contractual structure for the relationship within the Anglican Communion.
And 1998 Lambeth 1.10 continues to be sacrosanct. Would that other Lambeth resolutions on global poverty, world mission, global warming and such have as much weight as this one resolution which was railroaded through.
For right now, I do not see much good. But, then, I tend to be a pessimist.
3 comments:
For now, I don´t see much good...I do however see much bad. Where in the world do the Primates value the lives of LGBT people in Nigeria (where fresh laws will put in prison Gay people for being Gay) and Uganda where a full scale ¨witch hunt¨ aimed against all LGBT members of society who have been tained with the ¨imported¨ LGBT disease? Meanwhile, Bishop Bul has a deadly mess on his hands, prays and implores us to help him and not-so-quietly TURNS HIS TWO FACES away the marginalizing, raping and murdering of LGBT Christians and others in Sudan.
The whole Primates mess makes me carsick...the pandering to bigots must stop.
That is the lesson that I go away with after reading this ¨communique¨...these folks are living and worshipping in a false world of make believe and codependent pretend...God wants more from us...much more and even Commands more.
I am with you Caminante-- and I too, am not encouraged. Perhaps this is good, as it will give folks time, before they go to GC, to process the ramifications of our continued "gracious restraint."
I do not see why those who oppose the full participation of LGBT in the churches cannot exercise gracious restraint, and allow us to respond to the Gospel in this place as we see fit.
What Leonardo Ricardo said. I commend you for your grace in refraining from knee-jerk comments. I lack that self-restraint.
I think it is evident that the primates live in very different worlds (world-views) from one another and from most of the rest of us. This makes for an immense challenge. Tightening the screws is hardly the answer.
Andrew Sullivan commented on the stream of bad news this past week about the RC Church that the common thread in all the disparate issues was the abuse of absolute power. We should learn before it's too late.
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