News Analysis
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
1/29/2009
When Archbishops of the Anglican Communion gather on the balmy shores of the Mediterranean next week in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, they will meet amidst continuing tensions over pansexuality and the establishment of a new orthodox North American Anglican province that has already received endorsement by a number of GAFCON Primates.
Five of the world Anglican leaders will be asked to give an account of their stewardship, chief among them will be Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, Archbishop Fred Hiltz of Canada as well as the Primates of Uganda, Pakistan, and Southern Africa. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams has asked the primates of these five provinces to reflect on the impact that the current Anglican conflict over sexuality has had on the mission and priorities of their churches.
Mrs. Jefferts Schori will have to explain why one of her bishops, The Rt. Rev. Robert O'Neill of the Diocese of Colorado, recently ordained to the transitional diaconate a publicly known sexually active homosexual. While this is not exactly earth-shattering news any more in TEC, O'Neill did say in 2003, when he became bishop, that he would not do such ordinations. He has broken that promise.
To date Mrs. Jefferts Schori has not condemned that action either publicly or privately. O'Neill's action puts a large nail in the tire of the Covenant Design Group which is trying to come up with a Covenant that every province can sign off on - a Covenant that grows more fictional with each passing month. O'Neill's action also violates the Windsor Report.
Ironically, O'Neill did what he did drawing upon Dr. Rowan Williams' own distinction between his personal views and the received teaching of the church on homosexuality, saying he would abide by the Communion's stated church teaching and discipline for the sake of its common life.
O'Neill shrewdly drove a wedge between the two using Williams' own thinking to act as he did. Perhaps Mrs. Jefferts Schori will offer to the Primates a promise that the new Bishop of Northern Michigan will not get consents after they learn that The Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester, the only nominee for bishop - is also a Zen Buddhist, and has actually received Buddhist lay ordination. Will she assure the Primates that he will not get consents?
Will she further assure them that rites for same sex blessings will not be on the agenda for General Convention later in July and receive formal ratification at a provincial level even though such rites are being practiced in a number of dioceses already? What of her own statements that homosexuality is a done deal in TEC?
She is on record as saying that she would consecrate another homosexual bishop if duly elected by an Episcopal diocese. She is also aware that Bishop Robinson's consecration is now accepted as a matter of course, and other provinces could begin to follow suit. Welsh Archbishop Barry Morgan has said he would certainly consecrate a non-celibate homosexual.
What will Canadian Archbishop Fred Hiltz say about a number of his dioceses that are already allowing rites for same-sex blessings? It seems likely that formal provincial ratification is only a matter of time. Will he be questioned on whether the slow death of his province and its dire financial condition, while endorsing pansexuality might all be linked? Hiltz will undoubtedly blast the new Anglican Church set up by one of his former bishops Donald Harvey, but he will have a hard time explaining their constant and steady growth even as they face opposition from the established church and the culture.
The Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) now has three bishops. And what of the new North American Anglican Province (ACNA) now in play and formally to be ratified in June of this year? Common Cause Moderator Bishop Robert Duncan will not be in Egypt, but his presence will be very much there. His GAFCON primatial backers, some seven of them, will speak for him and the province, putting Williams on the spot.
This could cause a huge row.
The Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan has made that clear. At the Diocese of Virginia Annual Council recently he said that he would resist the founding of another province "with every fiber of his body." He got a standing ovation. He says it's "total nonsense." He says that if it's possible for that to happen to The Episcopal Church, it's possible for any of us, he says. He also says he's a minority among the primates. Morgan told the council that he doesn't want them to think that The Episcopal Church and Canada are pariahs - but that all are in the firing line. He feels that The Episcopal Church has behaved "graciously", unlike other members of the Communion.
GRACIOUS. Perhaps Morgan can explain the millions of dollars Mrs. Jefferts Schori is spending litigating against dioceses and parishes that no longer wish to stay in her ecclesiastical grip.
Perhaps he can explain the go it alone threats The Episcopal Church conveys any time it is pushed to the wall about homosexuality and Bishop Gene Robinson's outrageous behavior, his faux prayer at President Obama's inauguration and his ability to move homosexuality to the center of the Culture Wars. He is a hero now to many. When you throw in Episcopal priest The Rev. Ed Bacon's recent statement that he made on the Oprah Show that homosexuality is "a gift from God", you know it is all over but the shouting.
And what will Henry Luke Orombi, Archbishop of Uganda have to say? He and his fellow bishops boycotted Lambeth, which has been an ecclesiastical stain on Williams' record. He has been enormously outspoken against western pansexual attitudes and there is little evidence that he will let up in Alexandria. Archbishops Emmanuel Kolini, Benjamin Nzimbi and Peter Akinola also boycotted Lambeth. Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Province of the Southern Cone has taken a lot of heat for taking under his wing the dioceses of Pittsburgh, San Joaquin and Ft. Worth, but it should be noted that the so-called crossing of boundaries was instigated by these dioceses and not by the Argentinian Bishop.
Venables heeded a call, he did not come uninvited, something Mrs. Jefferts Schori will likely contest. Can the Primates get the communion back on track? Will they continue not to have Eucharist together as they have refused to do at the past two Primatial gatherings?
An official statement from Lambeth Palace says the Primates will focus on how well their provinces are fulfilling the Communion's official "five marks of mission": evangelization, catechization, service, social and environmental action.
True, but the elephant in the room will be GAFCON and ACNA. Mrs. Jefferts Schori will push Millennium Development Goals while Global South leaders will push for The Great Commission, holiness and amendment of life, personal evangelism and church growth. In organizing the agenda, Dr. Williams solicited the views of his fellow archbishops, presiding bishops and moderators, asking what topics they wished to discuss.
From these responses, he developed a lesson plan that will include a session on global warming, international finance, co-ordination of development work among church agencies, and the Communion's theological working group. Time has also been set aside for a discussion of the May agenda of ACC-14 in Kingston, Jamaica, the Anglican Covenant, and a presentation from the Windsor Continuation Group.
As the "first among equals" or "primus inter pares", The Archbishop of Canterbury hopes he can keep everyone talking at the table without the communion exploding and shattering. He will probably be successful.
The truth is there is probably little danger of the communion imploding. What will happen, according to one orthodox bishop, is that the communion will continue with "parallel development" movements that will in the course of time take over and become mainstream Anglicanism. With the advent of GAFCON as a parallel movement to Lambeth, so ACNA will emerge as a parallel movement to The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.
The old institutions will no longer be the sole representatives of Anglicanism in North America. The week (Feb. 1-5) will be held behind closed doors at the Helnan Palestinian Hotel. There will be some absences.
The Province of Central Africa has no archbishop since the retirement of The Most Rev. Bernard Malango. Two archbishops have said they will be unable to attend the gathering: South India and Pakistan. The Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu has been invited to attend the gathering by Dr. Williams.
Hosting the occasion will be Middle East Primate, Archbishop Mouneer Anis. The primates will open with a morning retreat led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, followed by worship at St Mark's pro-Cathedral. Business sessions will be interspersed throughout the week with worship and excursions to local sites, including the Alexandria School of Theology and the newly renovated Bibliotheca Alexandrina. There will be daily press conferences.
VOL will be there and will post stories daily to www.virtueonline.org
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