From the American Anglican Council

Message from Bishop David Anderson Bishop Anderson Beloved in Christ, Two weeks ago I mentioned that last week I would be having surgery. Happily, the surgery went very well, and within four days I was off all of the surgery-related medications and able to move about quite well. Full recovery will take a few more weeks, but I want to thank all of my readers and intercessors who lifted me and the surgery up in prayer. I do believe that your prayers made a real and significant difference. This week there is news from the UK that the Archbishop of Canterbury might step down as early as next year and return to academia. I'm not sure how I feel about that. From a competency point of view, he has been in over his head as both Primate of All England and as "Primus inter pares" of the Anglican Communion. These jobs require a package of organizational and people skills that Dr. Williams doesn't have, and quite frankly most people don't have. It is my belief that such skills are best found in rectors of larger congregations who have already demonstrated their ability, and choosing bishops from these ranks at least ensures that competent leadership and organizational skills will be present among the bishops. Both liberal and conservative church members have hoped that Dr. Williams would step up to the plate and act, though each group has a different desired outcome in mind. It has been clear for some time, actually most of his Arch Primacy, that he wasn't the man for the job, and it has been painful for everyone as he has misused the instruments of the Communion and refused to address the issue of the American Episcopal Church's deliberate defiance of the Communion's theology, norms and process. His writings seemed to indicate a personal theology and sexual agenda for the church not that much different from TEC Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori's. What was different, and seemed to anger him was that TEC Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, then after him, Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori were so brazen and defiant about how these changes were pushed forward, in contrast to his model of the British Empire/Commonwealth, where things were accomplished more slowly and in a decidedly more "British" manner. Even now, while he dithers about whether to go public and put his name on an announcement of early retirement, TEC under the command of Jefferts Schori is actively engaging dioceses and provinces of the Communion in ways that build TEC ties at the expense of ties to Canterbury.

As I mentioned once previously, at the Anglican Consultative Council held some years ago in Nottingham, England (which the American Anglican Council attended in an unofficial capacity to gather information and do advocacy work), Dr. Williams sent a representative to speak with me privately and he asked me what our view of Dr. Williams was. In those days, there was still a glimmer of hope that he might do the right thing for the right reason, and so I gave him the benefit of the doubt, saying that in England's darkest season, when facing the threat of war on the continent, Neville Chamberlain was the Prime Minister, and he failed to be the leader that the nation needed at that time. He was a Peace Chief in a time of war. Then Winston Churchill became Prime Minister and served the nation with excellence and helped to win the war; he was the man the nation needed for that day. I told Rowan's representative that the Church of England and all of the Communion needed an Archbishop of Canterbury who could be a Winston Churchill, not a Neville Chamberlain, and it was up to Dr. Williams to decide which he wanted to be, and to act accordingly. Strangely, I never heard back from either of them about this. The problem with Dr. Williams stepping down and returning to academia is twofold. First, who will replace him, another Neville Chamberlain, or a new Winston Churchill? The Anglican Communion is far weaker today because of Dr. Williams' leadership. Care needs to be taken that a competent and theologically orthodox Archbishop is chosen. Tied to this is the arcane manner of the selection. Tony Blair picked Rowan Williams, the monarch appointed, and in due time Mr. Blair helped to further torpedo orthodox Christians' life in the UK and then became a Roman Catholic. As Nelson Jones wrote in the New Statesman blog, "Nowhere else in the field of archiepiscopal appointments is so much power surrendered by so many to so few." Shouldn't there be some semblance of the church picking its own bishops, archbishops, etc. rather than either a political appointment or a meeting of faceless people in a dark room deciding what is best for the church? In the reality of a worldwide communion, shouldn't the Primates of the Communion elect one of their own to sit as Chair and "Primus inter pares?" The second problem with Dr. Williams returning to academia is what he will teach and write. His mindset on some issues such as sexuality is far to the left of orthodox teaching. Perhaps the saving grace is that he writes in such a complex and obscure manner that, for many of us, any error in his teaching will be muted by the difficulty in unpacking what he actually meant. Charles Raven, writing for Anglican SPREAD, has commented on a Williams paper delivered at the 1998 Lambeth Conference entitled 'On Making Moral Decisions' and his words are quite telling: "The strategy behind Williams' address was not to promote his views on homosexuality directly, but to reflect on the process by which moral decisions in general should be made - not so much to play the game, so to speak, as the more ambitious task of actually trying to define what the playing field should look like. And this is the enduring significance of his address thirteen years later as he continues to promote 'indaba' and the 'listening process' strategies which focus on the process of decision making, while all the time kicking the can down the road in the hope that the institutionally messy consequences of closure can be avoided." Focusing everyone on listening and talking about the process rather than the actual moral issues themselves is a way to divert attention and buy time for the activists to quietly change things politically and flank the church on moral consequences. This is a classic device, and yet it continues to work time after time, with the fly continuing to sit at the spider's table. Rowan would give up his Archbishop's table in favor of having more students and time to 'indaba' us all to death. O Lord, we need a godly and wise and competent leader for the Communion who would teach and restore both orthodox doctrine and practice throughout your Anglican Communion. Amen The Rt. Rev. David C. Anderson, Sr. President and CEO, American Anglican Council