BIGGER FISH TO FRY

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

After the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles elected lesbian Mary Glasspool as Bishop Suffragan, Rowan Williams had this to say:

"The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop elect raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole.

"The process of selection however is only part complete. The election has to be confirmed, or could be rejected, by diocesan bishops and diocesan standing committees. That decision will have very important implications.

"The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold."

By His Grace’s own admission, the Rubicon has now been crossed. So why hasn’t Dr. Williams reacted to Glasspool’s consecration yet? According to Tom Wright, my gracious lord of Canterbury might just have something a bit more important in mind.

"And that, too, is why recent events in America are placing an ever greater strain on the Anglican Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury is, I believe, in the process of writing a pastoral letter to all the churches, and I don’t want to pre-empt what he will say."

If my gracious lord of Durham is to be believed, we have a Very Important Anglican StatementTM from the Archbishop of Canterbury to look forward to. Any chance that this could be the one that finally breaks the logjam?

Are you high or something?

One would like to think that Dr. Williams has been in contact with the primates and bishops of the Global South and that these primates and bishops spelled things out for him. Namely, that the Americans and Canadians aren’t going to back down. Ever. Glasspool’s election and consecration should have driven that point home.

So what say we bottom-line it for you? You can have us and still retain your international Christian street cred or you can have North American liberal money and be little more than a British civil servant.

But you can no longer have both. Your call.

Would recognition of the Anglican Church in North America help keep the Global South onside? It might, provided that it was actual recognition and not the potential for possible recognition down the road at some as-yet-undetermined point, maybe.

How might such recognition be achieved? Easy. Prior to the invention of the Anglican Communion in 1868, how were Anglicans identified? How did whoever was Archbishop of Canterbury at the time know who to invite to the first Lambeth Conference?

Basically, in the pre-Lambeth period, you were an Anglican if the Archbishop of Canterbury decided that you were.

Which means that if Dr. Williams wants to recognize ACNA, all he has to do is to declare that Bob Duncan is going to be invited to the next Primates Meeting. The Americans and Canadians would bitch loudly, of course, but such an action would instantly call a new North American province into being, proper Anglican channels be damned.

But I think you see the major impediment here. Rowan Williams, the current occupant of the See of Canterbury.

Such an action would require boldness, a willingness to offend and the ability to think outside the box, qualities Rowan Williams does not have or at least has not publicly displayed in the last seven years or so.

So what will this “pastoral letter” of Dr. Willliams consist of? Nothing much. It will long, dense, circumlocutory and discursive, covering a variety of topics when it should focus on only one.

And it will be ambiguous enough so that just about everyone will be able to tease whatever they want from it. Expect lots of “What I think Dr. Williams means here is…” to appear all over the Internet.

In other words, same old same old.