ALL-IN?

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

The Anglican Communion Primates Meeting begins in Dublin, Ireland tomorrow. Secretary General Kenneth Kearon reports that seven or eight primates will be absent because of the presence of Mrs. Schori and Mr. Hiltz.

Fred, by the way, got a little snippy when he said that skipping primates meetings over Christian principles, “does nothing to model for the church what it means to try and live with difference. To simply say ‘I refuse to come’ is anything but exemplary of the office and ministry to which we are called.”

Yeah, well, neither is plowing under 2,000 years of Christian teaching merely to make homosexuals feel good about themselves, Hiltz, you pretentious baboon.

As with all Important Anglican Events^TM that have taken place over the last eight years or so, nothing will happen. There will be the usual pious pronouncements on various issues of the day.

The Current Unpleasantness will be dealt with in the usual way with all the usual cliches about “dialogue” and “respecting our differences on this issue” and all the rest of it. The meeting’s communiqué has probably already been written.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Two primates think that it’s long past time for the Communion to actually get serious. David Virtue reports that Mouneer Anis, Primate of the Middle East, has revived a proposal first made by Rwanda’s Emmanuel Kolini almost a year ago:

The Archbishop of the Middle East, the Most Rev. Dr. Mouneer Anis called for Global South Primates and orthodox bishops in the North and West to hold a Church Council with binding resolutions to break the ecclesiastical logjam in the Anglican Communion.

Speaking to several hundred orthodox Episcopalians and Anglicans at the 6th Annual Mere Anglican Conference honoring Bishop C. FitzSimons Allison, SC (ret.) at St. Phillip’s Church, Anis said there is now “no trust left at all” in the communion with “provinces taking actions and moving from the norm of Anglican tradition.” Anis called for a Conciliar meeting of orthodox Anglicans to resolve the fundamental theological differences that now pervade the communion.

“The Anglican Covenant has not worked. We have a Conciliar model to express the mind of the communion on controversial resolutions. Lambeth Conference resolutions are not binding. They do not have the authority over Church councils,” noted Anis. “It is time to give a lead.

“The Global South and other orthodox Anglicans have so far been reactive. They need to form a Conciliar body, it is going to happen”.

Michael Nazir-Ali agrees.

The former Bishop of Rochester, the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali told participants at Mere Anglican, a conference dedicated to a reformed, renewed orthodox Anglicanism within North America, that a church council of orthodox Anglican primates should be called to resolve the deep theological and ecclesiological tensions in the Communion.

Whatever is concluded should be binding on the Anglican Church, said the Pakistani-born convert from Islam, who is increasingly outspoken on a wide range of issues ranging from Islam, the decline of Christianity in England to the Culture Wars.

“In resolution of some of these matters, Anglicans need to bring to bear the Word of God on the issues and to be the guardian and interpreter for the church. We should have a healthy perspective on a proper conciliarity that Anglicans have evaded for 150 years. The Reformers would have resolved similar difficulties with a church council. What is wanted now, today, is a conciliar gathering.

For two reasons, I have a three-word response to the idea of calling an Anglican church council. Dead on arrival.

In a perfect world, this would be exactly what the Anglicans should do. Put everything on the table; what do Anglicans actually believe? But ask yourself this question; would Rowan Williams ever call such a council? Merely to ask that question is to answer it.

Leave aside the fact that in 2008 Dr. Williams managed to game the closest thing the Anglican Communion has to a church council in order to be sure that the major problem facing the Communion wasn’t dealt with. Would Dr. Williams call a council of the type envisioned by Anis and Nazir-Ali?

Of course not.

Dr. Williams would claim that he didn’t have to power to convene an Anglican council. Besides, an Anglican council would be unprecedented thing which had never been seen before. So the full implications would need to be studied.

To facilitate this, my gracious lord of Canterbury would, of course, appoint a special commission to travel around the Anglican world and gather all this information. After a year or so, this commission would issue a report.

Provinces would be told to study the commission report themselves before deciding whether or not to formally agree to its recommendations. So if the idea was formally proposed tomorrow, the Episcopal Organization couldn’t officially agree to attend an Anglican council for another four years.

Rowan Williams is a genius at this.

The other reason an Anglican council will never go anywhere is that there is no desire for one. Since traditionalist primates have taken a split from Canterbury off the table, all urgency is gone. Dr. Williams has no need to call a council because every Anglican in the world who’s been paying attention knows that nothing bad will happen if he doesn’t.

When a sizable number of primates tell my gracious lord of Canterbury that he either calls an Anglican church council sooner rather than later or they’ll officially and permanently terminate their province’s association with the Anglican Communion, then an Anglican council might have a chance of setting things right in the Anglican world. But as things stand now, the idea has no chance at all.