The Network of Anglican Diocese and Parishes (The Network), lead by Bishop Duncan of Pittsburg, is holding its annual council meeting. During a speech by Duncan in Trinity Cathedral, it seems to me that he has issued an ultimatum to Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.
Either you agree to our request for ‘alternative primatial oversight,’ or you seal the fate of the demise of the Anglican Communion as we have known it. Frankly, it sounds like blackmail. Do it our way, or the fault will be yours for the destruction of Anglicanism. Yes, well, there you go.
Fr. Cullen and I had a long talk last night over dinner about this problem within Anglicanism and its sister problems within our national political landscape and in world affairs. When one side or the other of any issue is determined to destroy the opponent and refuses to engage in honest dialogue to reach common understanding and compromise, democracy or any type of self-rule is impossible. All we are left with is fascism or some form of dictatorship. We are truly in sad days, even perhaps strange days, and possibly even dangerous days.
From the Episcopal News Service:

Duncan’s full address can be found here.

It was inevitable!
The game of Anglican Risk.
“The classic battle game of global domination now with a spiritual dimension.”
Thanks to Wendy Proter, former fellow seminarian, for this notice!

Lay Episcopalians for the Anglican Communion (LEAC), a strident group reacting against the Episcopal Church leadership (they wore black arm bands during the General Convention in Columbus), states here that they were moving forward with their plans to bring presentments against the “40” bishops who “laid hands on” New Hampshire’s bishop Gene Robinson at his consecration, and against him. They have refocused their efforts, however, because of what they believe happened at General Convention in Columbus and over the past few weeks. Their new goal is targeting the “middle 80% in parish pews across the nation” who they believe are being dooped by apostate clergy and led into non-Christian beliefs.
I am amazed that this group really believes that 80% of Episcopalians are too stupid to comprehend the Christian faith on their own. Of course people can be deceived, but this is one of the most well educated churches in the country. Now, they will target those 80% and attempt to convince them that they are in fact that stupid and that they have in fact let themselves be deceived by nefarious forces and that they should rise up against their priests and bishops and join LEAC in coming back to the true faith. I don’t think they will have much luck, and it isn’t because 80% of Episcopalians are heretics, but because very few Episcopalians are fundamentalists!
Here is a snippet of the whole article:

“We go now full-bore into the most challenging and crucial mission since LEAC’s founding. Our attention must now be directed to assisting what we call ‘the middle 80%’ in parish pews across the nation, many unwittingly led down a blasphemous path. They have quietly if not secretively been taken away from their Christian vows and historic faith, although still mouthed in their creeds every Sunday.
“If we don’t succeed, most will go innocently away from Christianity, perhaps forever, blindly favoring comfortable ‘unity’ while losing their historic Christian home. We want to keep a robust national church, not a remnant. We want to save souls in unity with Christ, not unity in Unitarianism.”

Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, sermon in York Minster during the Church of England’s General Synod.
‘Take nothing for the journey‘ (Mk 6.8)

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Here is the link to the just released statement of ++Rowan Williams to the Church of England’s General Synod. Rowan seems a bit annoyed. He comments on the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, his Reflection statement and how some have interpreted (or misinterpreted) his statements, and with regard to the troubles the Communion is now facing. Hat tip to Titusonenine.
One poignant paragraph on the professed Catholic nature of Anglicanism:

The real agenda – and it bears on other matters we have to discuss at this Synod – is what our doctrine of the Church really is in relation to the whole deposit of our faith. Christian history gives us examples of theologies of the Church based upon local congregational integrity, with little or no superstructure – Baptist and Congregationalist theologies; and of theologies of the national Church, working in symbiosis with culture and government – as in some Lutheran settings. We have often come near the second in theory and the first in practice. But that is not where we have seen our true centre and character. We have claimed to be Catholic, to have a ministry that is capable of being universally recognised (even where in practice it does not have that recognition) because of its theological and institutional continuity; to hold a faith that is not locally determined but shared through time and space with the fellowship of the baptised; to celebrate sacraments that express the reality of a community which is more than the people present at any one moment with any one set of concerns. So at the very least we must recognise that Anglicanism as we have experienced it has never been just a loose grouping of people who care to describe themselves as Anglicans but enjoy unconfined local liberties. Argue for this if you will, but recognise that it represents something other than the tradition we have received and been nourished by in God’s providence. And only if we can articulate some coherent core for this tradition in present practice can we continue to engage plausibly in any kind of ecumenical endeavour, local or international.

Here are a couple statements coming out of the latest Synod of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. Akinola continues on a path of separation from the Anglican communion of churches in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. The only option for a group of churches, leaders, or people who will not work to formulate compromise is authoritarianism. While we are a church of bishops, we are not one like Rome. There is a democratic essence within our structures and understanding of things that do not enable us to be a church under a Pope or a Curia, no matter what some may want or how they want to change Anglicanism to be more like Rome.

2. THE ANGLICAN COVENANT
Synod is satisfied with the move by the Global South to continue with its veritable project of defending the faith committed to us against present onslaught from ECUSA, Canada, England and their allies. The need therefore, to redefine and/or re-determine those who are truly Anglicans becomes urgent, imperative and compelling. Synod therefore empowers the leadership of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) to give assent to the Anglican Covenant.
3. THE LAMBETH CONFERENCE
The Lambeth Conference which is one of the accepted organs of unity in the Anglican Communion is due for another meeting in 2008. the Synod, after reviewing some recent major events in the Communion, especially the effects of the ‘revisionists’ theology’, which is now making wave in America, Canada and England, observed with dismay the inability of the Church in the afore­mentioned areas to see reason for repentance from the harm and stress they have caused this communion since 1988 culminating in the consecration of Gene Robinson, a practicing homosexual in 2003 as a bishop in ECUSA. Synod also regrets the inability of the See of Canterbury to prevent further impairment of the unity of the Church. It therefore, believes strongly that the moral justification for the proposed Lambeth Conference of 2008 is questionable in view of the fact that by promoting teachings and practices that are alien and inimical to the historic formularies of the Church, the Bishops of ECUSA, Canada and parts of Britain have abandoned the Biblical faith of our fathers.
4. GLOBAL SOUTH CONFERENCE
Synod underlines the need for maintaining the age-long tradition of a ten-yearly Conference of Bishops in the Anglican Communion for discussing issues affecting the Church. It therefore calls on the leadership of the Global South and Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA) to do everything necessary to put in place a Conference of all Anglican Bishops to hold in 2008 should all efforts to get the apostles of ‘revisionist agenda’ to repent and retrace their steps fail.

Here is the link to the entire communique.

Now that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s request for reflection has been issued, suddenly all hell has broken loose. Does this surprise anyone, really? The plan has been laid out now for years.
Arbp. Peter Akinola of Nigeria has announced that a former Episcopal priest, Marty Minns, former rector in Truro, Va., will be the new bishop of the “Convocation of Anglican Churches in North America,” which was when announced called the “Convocation of Nigerians in American.”
This is the continuance of their plan to literally take control of the Episcopal Church spelled out in the leaked “Chapman Memo” of a couple years ago.
Now, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, San Joaquin, Fort Worth, and South Carolina had appealed to the ABC for alternative Primital oversight.
See the following for additional information:

Fr. Jake Stops the World (good overview)
The Living Church

Thinking Anglicans

Preludium::Mark Harris

Titusonenine::Kendall Harmon
Announcement of Mim’s consecratio can be found on the Church of Nigeria’s website

The following are some links to various responses to ++Rowan’s Reflection statement offered to the Communion only yesterday:
Thinking Anglicans
– good comprehensive list

The Anglican Communion Institute – I must say, I do agree that the need is to move away from political wrangling and back to the mission of the Gospel!
Preludium: Mark Harris+
Anglican Communion Network: Bishop Duncan
MadPriest (of course I could be wrong) – for an English perspective
– I really like this statement from the MadPriest commenting on the Bishop of Rochester,Michael Nazir-Ali: “In other words, we should be very suspicious of anybody calling for division who might benefit from division.”
A consideration: When the Archbishop calls us to reflect upon local parishes or diocese or provinces or even individual members needing to make sacrifices for the unity of the entire Communion, upon whom does that burden most fall? Does the burden of sacrifice fall evenly on all provinces, diocese, parishes, or individuals?
I agree with the Archbishop. However, my impression is that the burden of sacrifice is expected of those who favor the full inclusion of people oriented towards the same gender and not the other side. Will some sort of burden of sacrifice be expected of Archbishop Akinola and the Province of Nigeria, along with many others who oppose homosexuality? What might that sacrifice look like? Then again, Akinola will not compromise and doesn’t need to sacrifice because he and his compatriots of course are right and don’t have to, right?

Archbishop Rowan Williams has issued a Reflection concerning the Episcopal Church’s recent response to the Windsor Report. The entire press release and reflection are available on his website. Here it is:
The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today: A Reflection for the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion
The Anglican Communion: a Church in Crisis?
What is the current tension in the Anglican Communion actually about? Plenty of people are confident that they know the answer. It’s about gay bishops, or possibly women bishops. The American Church is in favour and others are against – and the Church of England is not sure (as usual).
It’s true that the election of a practising gay person as a bishop in the US in 2003 was the trigger for much of the present conflict. It is doubtless also true that a lot of extra heat is generated in the conflict by ingrained and ignorant prejudice in some quarters; and that for many others, in and out of the Church, the issue seems to be a clear one about human rights and dignity. But the debate in the Anglican Communion is not essentially a debate about the human rights of homosexual people. It is possible – indeed, it is imperative – to give the strongest support to the defence of homosexual people against violence, bigotry and legal disadvantage, to appreciate the role played in the life of the church by people of homosexual orientation, and still to believe that this doesn’t settle the question of whether the Christian Church has the freedom, on the basis of the Bible, and its historic teachings, to bless homosexual partnerships as a clear expression of God’s will. That is disputed among Christians, and, as a bare matter of fact, only a small minority would answer yes to the question.

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With all the acrimony that runs through this Church these days, and considering the knee-jerk reactions from various sides coming out of the General Convention, we must begin to revive the traditional Anglican way of seeking a common or middle way that carries the Church though rough times and the strong pull of the polarizing extremes. Heck, we need a revival of Hooker’s ideals of what the Church of England and now Anglicanism can truly be. We could call ourselves “revivers” or “rekindlers” or “reawakeners” after the “conservative’s” term for themselves as “reasserters” or the “liberal’s” term for themselves as “reappraisers.”
Now is the day to begin rebuilding Anglicanism in the United States.
The polarization resulting from the American Culture Wars (from both the conservative and liberals sides) has infiltrated The Episcopal Church. The two extremes in this Church have polarized the membership, perhaps intentionally, in order to achieve their goals that result in the imposition of particular perspectives and practices over and above the middle or opposite-extreme positions. There are good and faithful Episcopalians from all sides that do wish to remain together and to forge an honest way forward so that the balance and richness that results from different sides staying in conversation, debate, and inquiry can be maintained. The result is a solidly balanced way to understand our faith in the 21st century and God’s call to us to influence the world.
Dean Alan Jones from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in his new book entitled, Common Prayer on Common Ground: A Vision of Anglican Orthodoxy, attempts to articulate an Anglicanism based squarely on Via Media – the middle way which encompasses the vast majority of the common folk in the Episcopal Church. He writes about the “Conservative and Liberal Perspectives” in one small section of the book. I want to quote from it because I think he does a similar thing that The Very Rev. George Back did with his essay written in 1991 detailing the positive aspects of conservatism and liberalism in the Church and our need for both. I read Back’s essay for the first time in The Anglican Digest July, 2003.
Jones writes:
“This highlights the weakness of liberalism. It is an effort – sometimes noble and heroic – to dispense with tradition and ancient ways of believing. [Houston] Smith writes, ‘Liberals are at their worst in not recognizing how much an absolute can contribute to life, and in assuming that absolutes can be held only dogmatically, which is not the case. Absolutism and dogmatism lie on different axes. The first relates to belief, whereas the second is a charter disorder. The opposite of absolutism is not open-mindedness but relativism, and the opposite of dogmatism is not relativism but open-mindedness. There can be, and are dogmatic relativists and open-minded absolutists.’
“But he goes on, ‘liberals [are] better than conservatives at recognizing the dangers of fanaticism and the virtues of tolerance, and conservatives [are] better as perceiving the dangers of nihilism and the virtues of a sense of certainty… Both the strengths and dangers of liberalism pertain to life’s horizontal dimension, which encompass[es] human relationships – whereas those of conservatives pertains to the vertical, asymmetrical God-person relationships.’ [Houston Smith, The Soul of Christianity, HarperSanFrancisco: 2005, p.211]
“Liberals need to learn that the vertical relation is more important. It seems to me that the conservative diagnosis is often right but its remedy (charging back into an idealized and imagined past) is both unworkable and disastrous. The liberal is often a poor diagnostician but, at least, has an inkling of freedom in God…
“…Of course, as an Anglican, I’d say that both statements are true! It’s a matter of emphasis. Polarization is a form of indulgence and is both unnecessary and harmful. The world is in both a state of sin and a state of grace. Human beings are both fallen and free.”
Alan Jones, Common Prayer on Common Ground, Morehouse Publishing, 2006, pp31-32.