I can understand that there are several reasons why Sarah Hey might not want to keep track of the Primates. First, Stand Firm has no reporter over there. David Virtue is there, but we know the animus that Sarah Hey and Greg Griffith have toward Virtue and VirtueOnline. Second, when your stated intention is to stay in pecusa until your conscience moves you to leave Anglicanism altogether, what interest can there really be in the work of the Primates? Hey is right that Rowan Williams holds most of the high cards, but not all of them as GAFCON has demonstrated. However, for the ACI and those in similar positions, GAFCON is not a good way forward. Despite what has been reported by George Conger for The Living Church, the ACI crowd still holds out hope for an Anglican Covenant that will right the Communion ship. So, the head in the sand crowd can profess no interest, or express hopes despite the clear handwriting on the wall. Meanwhile, the new Anglican Province of North America continues to grow, thanks be to God! I am sorry that Hey is so pessimistic. There is a positive way forward for orthodox Anglican faith in North American - it is the GAFCON movement and a new province. ed.
Non-Updates on the Primates Meeting
from Stand Firm by Sarah Hey
I haven't kept track of my fellow bloggers' posts on the Alexandrian Primates' Meeting. Have we posted anything on it? Maybe so and I haven't seen it.
But that's because I'm not interested.
I have no hopes for the meeting. No expectations. And no interest.
And I simply haven't been able to rouse myself from my lethargy regarding that meeting to actually post any "reports" -- a few of which have idly floated by my computer screen and none of which, as far as I can see, contain "news" that interests me, although I am sure that is no fault of the few reporters who are there and trying to find the news. There is an amusing article by one reporter, Ms. Riazat Butt, but I don't have the link handy to post for you -- it is somewhere in the Guardian. I thought that was pleasant to read.
So I suppose I'll analyze my non-interest and make that into my feature.
It is essentially a useless meeting. Someone or other somewhere pointed out some days ago that the Primates Meetings have proved useless -- they can purport to "decide" all sorts of things but nobody ever does anything about it. The ACC was always talking into the wind anyway, and that hasn't changed. The Lambeth Meeting became a simple publicity device designed to pretend that everybody was "together" and "unified" even while 1/3 of the bishops of the Anglican Communion didn't bother to attend.
So . . . Rowan Williams wins.
Not the Archbishop of Canterbury, mind you. But simply, Rowan.
He alone has any power thanks to his non-exercise of the office when it came to enforcement of any of the other instruments' decisions and his exercise of the office when it came to enforcement of any of his decisions.
Back in the article I wrote at the close of Lambeth, one of my principles for Episcopalians staying in TEC was this one -- which certainly applies more today than six months ago:
The third principle that I am working with is that there will be little further change on the international front and little prospect for pulling back together the various shards of the Communion while Rowan Williams still occupies the see of Canterbury. Please note carefully that I'm not blaming him for this conference or for other failures of the Communion as a whole -- I don't really believe that the blame lies on merely one person.
Nor do I necessarily know that a new occupant of the see of Canterbury would be able to pull the shards back together again.
Nor do I believe that the see of Canterbury is "irrelevant" or "unimportant."
I merely say, as a statement of belief, that while Rowan Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Communion will essentially be in a "holding pattern" of increasing fragmentation and distancing among various groups. The trust that has been lost and continues to be lost prevents renewed closeness and connection as a whole within the Anglican Communion. It is sad, and I don't like it. But it is what it is, and we need to understand and accept that as reality and work within that reality, or move on and join another denomination. That applies, actually, to those Primates and bishops of the Anglican Communion as well who are associated with GAFCON.
The fact is that no action has occurred that will cause the Anglican Communion to step back from the brink of fragmentation. There have been words -- but no action as of yet -- and I see nothing that causes me to believe that this time Rowan Williams will do the hard things necessary to call the Anglican Communion back.
The thing to do is to make the best of how things are now and work within how things are now, doing the small things well within our parishes and dioceses, while waiting for a turn of the tide and winds on the international front, if that turn is to come. If that turn never comes, then the Anglican Communion will continue to whirl apart -- the center not only did not hold but it will continue not to hold. And thus, the Anglican Communion will continue to further fragment until all but the bare bones of the structure remain.
Of course, if that is to happen, we certainly will not have been hindered or damaged by doing the small things with great love and attentiveness. It will simply be done while in the midst of living out the consequences of the lack of discipline within the Anglican Communion.
Kendall Harmon uses the metaphor of judgement to talk about a very similar theme. No matter what, he has stated, Anglicans who are Anglicans will either go to Babylon or stay in Jerusalem -- and neither place is all that pleasant, and comfortable. But in both places, Anglicans must do their duty -- they must do seemingly mundane things like build their families, bless the place they are in, and plant olive trees, even in the midst of judgement.
Of the Old Testament books I have preferred the book of Nehemiah. One enters the rubble of the landscape, surrounded by enemies and angry fellow citizens and very loud naysayers, and one sets about to rebuilding walls of the pulverized city with a sword in one hand and a trowel in another.
But I need to put the word "wins" concerning Rowan Williams into quote marks. I mean -- I suppose it's a "win" -- in that so many people have learned not to try or care anymore, and most everybody -- except those who are payed or responsible to state otherwise -- acknowledges the hopelessness of it all.
What it really means when an organization fails to establish its identity and boundaries or enforce discipline, though -- and it doesn't matter if it's the local Hunting Club, the Tennis Club, a church, a hospital administration, a family, the Republican Party, or whatever -- is that eventually, people learn that it does not matter any more.
Several months ago, during the pondering after Lambeth, I opined that some of the Gafcon Primates wouldn't attend the Primates meeting. I was wrong.
I also said this:
It is clear that Rowan Williams' standard of success for the Anglican Communion's instruments of unity -- as I predicted earlier -- is "many of the bishops came to Lambeth and talked with each other."
With that as his standard of success, and with the corresponding failure of action and discipline by the Communion, thus far and over the past five years, I think it is probably clear to most Anglicans on whatever side that, whether it is three years, or five years, or 10 years from now, certain provinces, perhaps 5-6, will send the Archbishop of Canterbury a "Dear John" letter, and found a new Anglican global entity. At that point we will have two competing global Anglican entities, with different Primates and Provinces pledging allegiances to one or the other. I think that will be a wretched loss for both Anglican entities, but that is the trajectory that we are on.
In the near term, then, various parties in the Communion will be urging various Primates either to not attend or to attend the January 09 Primates meeting.
I personally am indifferent to whether Primates attend the meeting or not and believe that, as with Lambeth attendance, it is not a moral duty to either attend or not attend. I am indifferent to whether Primates attend because it will not matter one way or the other, as the only Instrument of Unity with any power, the Archbishop of Canterbury, will merely "sum up" for whatever he wishes to do anyway, much like he did with the Lambeth Meeting itself by articulating "the agenda" of the incoherent and non-authoritative "Reflections Document" in his closing plenary and his final press conference. If two Primates show, or 15, or 28, it does not really matter as far as whatever eventually happens in the Anglican Communion.
It's not that I don't think there will be consequences of this Primates Meeting. I most certainly do think so.
I commented over on T19 several days ago:
I personally believe that the end result of this meeting will be very substantive.
But not in the way that people might have thought.
The only thing that the ABC needs to accomplish, after all, for this meeting to be a “success” is that the Primates showed up and had “conversation.”
As long as “conversation” takes place with everyone at the table, then all is well, the communion has not divided, and his plan is working great! After all—what he has done over the past five years has been to keep everyone engaged and conversing.
I believe that the results of this meeting will be as follows:
1) Nothing substantive in the way of any resolution whatsoever.
2) After the close of the meeting, over the coming three to six months, 3-5 more Primates become supporters of the ACNA.
3) To great sturm und drang from some communion conservatives, 3-5 Primates will not attend the next Primates meeting a year from now.
The next Primates Meeting will be the Primates meeting, of course, where finally . . . at last . . . something Really Really Important was going to happen at which those Primates Really Really Needed to be there.
As with Lambeth.
But it won’t matter.
Every six months, another meeting occurs. And further division and distancing results.
I don’t think it will be any different this time around.
Even were the Primates Meeting to erupt and a vote to be forced on something or other, and a blistering Communique sent out . . . it wouldn't really matter. For after all -- that happened over a year ago.
Again, I'm not speaking for my fellow bloggers.
They may, for all I know, be riveted by the meeting, or have a secret trove of news that they are viewing that I know nothing of that is sharing all sorts of exciting hopes, fears, or gnashings from one party or another.
But I just can't be bothered to find that out either.
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