Reading some of the comments on various Anglican blogs about the recent Justin Welby controversy suggest two strange conclusions, at least to me. Amazingly, the Anglican Communion doesn’t exist and never has. And if there is a formal, legal split in what I used to think was the Anglican world, the Anglican left may very well end up being the people who walk away from Canterbury. At ENS, Jeremy Bates goes all 1776 on Welby’s narthex:
And would someone please remind the Archbishop that the Anglican Communion is NOT, as he puts it, a “global church”? He has no authority here. He has no authority in Africa. The sooner he acknowledges these facts, the better.
Indeed, because the Anglican Communion is not a global church, Episcopalians do not “need to learn to live as a global church” under Canterbury’s direction.
The idea that the Anglican Communion is a “global church” is complete nonsense.
It also smacks of self-serving English imperialism.
Some wiseass blogger responds.
So Gene Robinson was never an Anglican bishop then? Good to know.
Since Cecil Rhodes is apparently still alive, Bates ducks the question.
The whole point of being Anglican is that foreign prelates do not have jurisdiction in other provinces.
That was the principle on which Henry VIII founded the Church of England as a church independent from Rome. That is the principle on which The Episcopal Church ordained Gene Robinson and Mary Glasspool.
The attempt by two successive Archbishops of Canterbury to mis-portray a family of independent churches as one “global church” — headquartered in, where else, London — is nothing more than a transparent power grab by Englishmen pining for erstwhile imperial influence.
Lambeth should cease forthwith these foolish attempts at theo-political imperialism. Nothing could be less Anglican.
Wiseass blogger FTW!!
Really want to go there? Then explain to me why Gene Robinson and his supporters were so angry when Rowan Williams barred him from the last Lambeth Conference. According to you, “theo-political imperialism” is a really bad thing so the Episcopal Church shouldn’t have been allowed to impose Robinson on the rest of the Anglican world. Nothing could be less Anglican.
Yet TEC insisted upon it then and still does today. But you and I both know that you can’t have it both ways. You’re either part of an international Christian tradition or you’re not. If you claim that you are, then you have certain obligations to others who share that tradition but who may have committed the unpardonable sin of disagreeing with you. If you no longer wish to be “Anglican,” then the sky’s the limit.
And would someone please remind the Archbishop that the Anglican Communion is NOT, as he puts it, a “global church”? He has no authority here. He has no authority in Africa. The sooner he acknowledges these facts, the better.
Indeed, because the Anglican Communion is not a global church, Episcopalians do not “need to learn to live as a global church” under Canterbury’s direction.
The idea that the Anglican Communion is a “global church” is complete nonsense.
It also smacks of self-serving English imperialism.
Some wiseass blogger responds.
So Gene Robinson was never an Anglican bishop then? Good to know.
Since Cecil Rhodes is apparently still alive, Bates ducks the question.
The whole point of being Anglican is that foreign prelates do not have jurisdiction in other provinces.
That was the principle on which Henry VIII founded the Church of England as a church independent from Rome. That is the principle on which The Episcopal Church ordained Gene Robinson and Mary Glasspool.
The attempt by two successive Archbishops of Canterbury to mis-portray a family of independent churches as one “global church” — headquartered in, where else, London — is nothing more than a transparent power grab by Englishmen pining for erstwhile imperial influence.
Lambeth should cease forthwith these foolish attempts at theo-political imperialism. Nothing could be less Anglican.
Wiseass blogger FTW!!
Really want to go there? Then explain to me why Gene Robinson and his supporters were so angry when Rowan Williams barred him from the last Lambeth Conference. According to you, “theo-political imperialism” is a really bad thing so the Episcopal Church shouldn’t have been allowed to impose Robinson on the rest of the Anglican world. Nothing could be less Anglican.
Yet TEC insisted upon it then and still does today. But you and I both know that you can’t have it both ways. You’re either part of an international Christian tradition or you’re not. If you claim that you are, then you have certain obligations to others who share that tradition but who may have committed the unpardonable sin of disagreeing with you. If you no longer wish to be “Anglican,” then the sky’s the limit.
