The Primates meeting is over. Here is the link to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s final statement at the closing news conference.

Another article from the Telegraph (British) concerning several conservative Primates meeting together before the conference, contrary to normal protocol.
Here is the Link.

A very good article in the Guardian newspaper in Britain on the eve of the Primates meeting in London.
Here is the link.

Here is an interesting report from the BBC. Two archbishops are interview – one from the Southern Cone and one from South Africa (Cape Town).
Here is the link.

I contributed a post to the House of Bishops/House of Delegates listserv this morning. Here it is:

To liberals, to conservatives, heck, to anyone like myself who is somewhere in between, the words of St. Paul to the Ephesians:
"I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all." (Eph. 4:1-6; from the readings For the Unity of the Church)
This should be so basic and should be commonly acknowledged, but despite what any of us might think or want, God is the one who determines the make up of the one body, the Church. The determination of who is in and who is out sits squarely with God, and no one else. Our church structures, our organizations, our councils, and our conventions are meaningless in the grand scheme of things - none will bend God's arm to include or exclude any one or any group. Thank God I am not God!
I came to Anglicanism because I believe in the ethos of the Anglican Way. I will remain Anglican in that sense even if there is not place for me in the structures of this denomination, whether as a gay man or as one who has strong evangelical/conservative sympathies. Regardless of whether the Anglican Communion dissolves into history, God determines whether any of us are individually members of the one Body of Christ. In humility and integrity, all I can do is love God with all my being and pray that God enables me to love my neighbor as myself. As much as my heart aches for this Church and the loss I sense coming, I know that I know that I know that nothing can separate any of us who bind unto ourselves the strong name of the Trinity from the love and grace of Christ. This isn't naivety, but hope and faith in the one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
Bob Griffith
Kibitzer, Student, General Theological Seminary

Here is an announcent from the Episcopal Women’s Caucus and Integrity:

Statement of the Episcopal Women's Caucus, Integrity and concerned observers of the AAC's Convention
During these three days in Dallas, the American Anglican Council has made it clear that it is bent on destroying the Episcopal Church unless is can remake it in its own image. This comes as little surprise. The foundations and individuals who fund the AAC, and who subsidized this conference, have no interest in the health or integrity of churches. Their track record makes clear that their aim is to discredit or destroy those who oppose them in America's political and cultural debates.
Many faithful Episcopalians oppose in good conscience the action taken on majority votes by the democratically elected members of our General Convention. But we would not find ourselves in this highly polarized situation were it not for the millions of dollars poured into the AAC and similar organizations by the likes of the Scaife, Bradley, Olin and Coors foundations, which have underwritten so much of the agenda of the radical right. That Howard Ahmanson, heir to a savings and loan fortune, a proponent of teaching creationism in our schools, and formerly an advocate of replacing the American legal system with "biblical law" is the AAC's most generous financial supporter should give even the most conservative Episcopalians reason for pause.
While the AAC's willingness to destroy the church if they could not take it over was predictable, the extent of its recklessness was not. In a speech on Tuesday Bishop Robert Duncan made clear that if Rowan Williams the archbishop of Canterbury does not bend to his will, Duncan and his allies will attempt a "realignment" of the Anglican Communion which would inflict tremendous pain on just about everyone except Robert Duncan and his allies. In this new alignment, the AAC claims, a handful of American dioceses and a number of Anglican provinces from Africa, Asia and South America, would break away from the existing church and constitute themselves as the new embodiment of Anglicanism in the world.
This plan would set off years of legal and ideological battling in the many provinces that would remain within the existing church. But more to the point, it would utterly devastate those provinces that chose to join forces with Duncan and the AAC.
Eight provinces almost certain to remain within the existing Communion
provide more than 80 percent of its budget. Much of that money advances the church's mission in the developing world. Individual western churches provide more support to churches in Africa and elsewhere than any of the dioceses currently aligned with the AAC. The American church has made it clear that its support of the gospel in the global south is not restricted to dioceses that agree with it on issues of homosexuality and women's ordination. But expecting it to remain in partnerships with bishops who are promoting schism in the United States may be expecting too much.
Conservative Episcopalians in this country, and conservative bishops abroad need to make a prayerful decision about whether they want to be aligned with the radical right. Whatever their convictions about Gene Robinson or the blessing of same sex unions, they need to examine whether this radical course of action, advanced on behalf of ideologically-driven secular foundations with no interest in the well being of the church, is wise, whether it is compassionate and whether it is Christian.
Anglicanism was born in the conflict of the Reformation. There always has been room for differing views and vigorous debate as we strive to discern the leading of the Spirit. We will not sacrifice our tradition to please a well-financed few.

I signed up for the House of Bishops/House of Delegates listserv that served the two before and during General Convention last August. The list is still active, and a couple of fellow seminarians are members. The debate and reports covering this past convention and the Plano/Dallas AAC conference this past week have been very active and at times degrading and rancorous.
This is a post to the list by a man in L.A. I’m including a portion of his post and withholding his name because I have not asked his permission to include this, which may not be a good thing, but there you go. Anyway, here is what he posted responding to another post which is part of the thread dealing with “natural-law” and natural-theology. The previous post commented on the fact that even if something is normal or natural, that does not mean God considers it good.
Here is part of his response deal with many posted arguments against homosexuality appearing on the list:

We've seen a variety of attempted arguments on this list in the past, and it's a good moment to rehearse them and exactly what's wrong with each of them. For each of these, we have heard anti-gay people say "yes, you're right, that's a bad argument, but what about XXX?" It's a game of constant bait-and-switch, in which the anti-gay crowd trot out argument after argument, each of which is refuted, only to be replaced by another, which had already been refuted the month before.
We have:
* Scriptural morality requires monogamous heterosexuality.
[Refutation: Scripture never requires monogamy for anyone but
clerics, and holds up as laudable many polygamists, and commands
polygamy in some cases.]
* Only in a relationship with someone of the opposite gender can a
person be fully human.
[Refutation: Jesus and other celibates are fully human.]
* Tradition has always taught that homosexuality is wrong.
[Refutation: If this is your only argument, then it is no argument
at all, because tradition can err.]
* God's will for creation is that people be in heterosexual marriages.
[Refutation: Jesus and other celibates are not in heterosexual
marriages.]
* Heterosexual marriage is a better symbol of such-and-such than
homosexual marriage.
[Refutation: Acts are not to be judged moral or not because of what
they might or might not symbolize; and, there are other good things
which homosexual marriage better symbolizes that heterosexual
marriage.]
* Gay sex is inherently dangerous.
[Refutation: All sex is inherently dangerous; sex between men is
less dangerous than pregnancy; sex between women is exceedingly low
risk. Moreover, nobody is criticizing straight men for impregnating
their wives and putting them at risk. And finally, this requires a
particular reductionistic view of what gay sex *is*--some forms of
which are of essentially no risk whatsoever.]
* Gay people are more likely to be pedophiles.
[Refutation: there simply isn't any evidence here at all, indeed,
there is the opposite--heterosexuals are more likely to be
pedophiles.]
* Gay people are mentally ill.
[Refutation: the experts disagree, and there has been no
presentation of evidence to the contrary, except if one takes
homosexuality *itself* as a mental illness, which begs the
question. Note as well that mental illness and sin are mutually
exclusive categories.]
* If we weaken morality here, next we'll be allowing bestiality and
rape.
[Refutation: nobody is arguing for "weakening" morality.]
* Having positive gay role models makes teenagers more likely to be
gay.
[Refutation: total lack of evidence. If role models and social
messages of acceptability affected people's sexuality in this
manner, there would be no gay people. Moreover, this begs the
question and assumes that being gay is bad, and thus to be avoided
for teenagers.]
Which leaves what I believe are the two most common reasons:
* Thinking about gay sex grosses me out.
[Which is irrelevant, of course, and offensive as well. People said
the same thing about interracial marriages. If it grosses you out
that much, it's your problem, not mine.]
And the most important:
* If I admitted that gay people were my equals, then I would have to confront that I had made a horribly serious mistake, and been engaged in ruining the lives of an awful lot of people, and blasphemously using the name of God to persecute innocent people.