Archive for January, 2009
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
Defenders of the Presiding Bishop are scrambling to re-interpret her extraordinary action of depriving a bishop of the Church of England of the gifts and authority conferred in his ordination and removing him from the ordained ministry of The Episcopal Church. For example, the group supporting the Presiding Bishop in Pittsburgh stated that “[t]his is a routine way of permitting Bishop Scriven to continue his ministry.” In the strange world of TEC, renunciation of orders has become a routine way of continuing one’s ministry.
But it is not routine. Indeed, it has not been used for those transferring from TEC to another province in the Anglican Communion until the Presiding Bishop began what resembles a scorched-earth approach to her opponents within TEC. Not surprisingly, in the past such matters have been handled by letter. One can see the evolution of the Presiding Bishop’s “routine” policy in the treatment of Bishop David Bena, who was transferred by letter by his diocesan bishop to the Church of Nigeria in February 2007. A month later, the Presiding Bishop wrote Bishop Bena and informed him that “by this action you are no longer a member of the House of Bishops” and that she had informed the Secretary of the House to remove him from the list of members. That was all that needed to be done. A year later, however, as her current strategy emerged, she suddenly declared in January 2008 that she had accepted Bishop Bena’s renunciation of orders using the canon she now uses against Bishop Scriven. In other words, if this is now sadly routine, it has only become routine in the past year.
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January 29 2009 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
In recent months ACI has asked with increasing urgency whether the Presiding Bishop is willing and able to comply with the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. Her most recent canonical misadventure is purporting to remove from the ordained ministry a bishop in the Church of England canonically resident and working in England and subject to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Oxford and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Her canonical overreaching has now extended into the heart of the Church of England, placing in serious question the extent to which the Presiding Bishop continues to perceive herself as in communion with that church and its primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
On January 15, 2008, the Presiding Bishop purported to accept the “renunciation” of ordained ministry by Bishop Henry Scriven. It is now sadly evident that an actual renunciation is no longer a prerequisite for the Presiding Bishop’s “acceptance” of such an extraordinary action by a bishop of the church. In her zeal to remove from office those with whom she disagrees what started only two years ago as the canonically appropriate, if misguided, procedure of using presentments under the disciplinary canons of Title IV quickly evolved into abuse of the “abandonment of communion” canon in order to avoid the procedural protections afforded to those charged with presentment. But even the summary procedures of the abandonment canon require some process, including a vote in the House of Bishops by a majority of the bishops in TEC entitled to vote. The fact that she has been repeatedly unable to assemble such a majority has not stopped the Presiding Bishop from using this canon, most recently in the case of Bishop Duncan, who at the time he was purportedly deposed for “abandonment of communion” was still actively performing his duties as the Diocesan Bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. After her widely criticized handling of Bishop Duncan, however, the Presiding Bishop dispensed with canonical process altogether and since then has simply adopted the tactic of “accepting” renunciations that were never given. Bishops of the church are removed with nothing more than the stroke of a pen.
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January 27 2009 | Articles
Written by: Communion Partners
Monday, January 19th, 2009
On behalf of the Advisory Committee of the Communion Partner Rectors, and on behalf of our Bishops and Primatial colleagues, we wish to acknowledge the remarks recently published from Bishop Iker and Bishop Duncan at the Charleston conference hosted by ‘Mere Anglicanism.’ They speak of wanting the Communion Partners and Common Cause to support one another.
For our part we will continue to pray for solid progress at the level of Covenant Design Committee work and for the Instruments of Communion, especially the Primates Meeting shortly to commence. We cannot know how the efforts associated with Common Cause will turn out, including the idea of building a ‘new province,’ but we note with interest that recent news indicates the Archbishop of Canterbury has suggested ways for this endeavor to move forward in relationship to the Instruments of Communion. Together with ACI, we have been concerned that failure to attend to the integrity of Dioceses which see women’s ordination a matter still in reception, is creating unnecessary stress and strain. We ask that the wider Anglican Communion offer guidance here, as a variegated polity elsewhere appears to be both possible and charitably negotiated.
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January 19 2009 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner
Sunday, January 11th, 2009
To the Members of the Covenant Design Group and the Windsor Continuation Group:
I write to you as a concerned member of the Covenant Design Group, as a committed member of the Episcopal Church (USA), and as one whose professional and spiritual life has been and continues to be devoted to the strengthening of our common witness as Anglican Christians. This is a simple plea for us to do our work better in the midst of continuing ecclesial disintegration.
What motivates this plea at this time? On the one hand, no more than the general evidence of ongoing divisions within North America and the Communion at large. The recent Lambeth Conference has done nothing to mitigate these, as far as I can see. On the other hand, particular evidences arise every day that demonstrate not only a lack of mitigation, but further retrenchment of polarization and division.
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January 11 2009 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner
Monday, January 5th, 2009
Work in formulating and adopting an Anglican Covenant is proceeding, and with renewed focus. I judge this to be the case despite some vocal claims that the project is both pointless and perverse. Most of these limited and negative claims have come from Western Anglicans intent on maintaining their local autonomy in terms of non-accountability to other Anglican churches and the Communion at large; and among these voices, not surprisingly, is a preponderance of Americans. But there have also been conservative voices, associated with the primarily non-Western group known as GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference), that have labeled the Covenant process as “futile” and “irrelevant” because of its purported lack of theological and disciplinary substance.
I was deeply disappointed that almost 200 Anglican bishops associated with GAFCON did not come to the 2008 Lambeth Conference, and so failed to engage a discussion on the Covenant with their colleagues. One might be left with the impression, in fact, that they share the negative views of both liberals and GAFCON spokespeople, something that, although not fatal to the Covenant itself, at least presents major challenges. However, the recent publication of the provisional Constitution for the proposed province of the Anglican Church of North America, warmly supported by and supporting GAFCON, seems to provide a very different perspective. For this Constitution in fact embodies many of the very things the current Covenant draft articulates, and in some measures provides even more latitude to members. Whether consciously or not, the Constitution reflects important aspects, in its own proposed intra-provincial relations, that we have long argued are necessary, possible, and realistic elements of communion-oriented commitments. To this degree, the Constitution demonstrates, perhaps despite itself, a convergence of vision with the current Covenant direction.
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January 05 2009 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Thursday, January 1st, 2009
I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance
(Rev. 2:2a)
When referring to the response given to the tumult within The Episcopal Church (TEC) by those with more traditional theological and moral commitments, it is at present a matter of common parlance to speak of an “inside” and an “outside” strategy. At first glance, reference to an “inside strategy” and an “outside strategy” suggests two groups that have similar goals but employ different tactics to reach those goals. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that this way of describing the two groups serves to distort rather than clarify the differences between them. It is of signal importance that these differences be clarified and openly debated. They in fact reveal fault lines in understanding the nature of the Christian witness itself that threaten to divide the entire Anglican Communion.
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January 01 2009 | Articles