Archive for the 'Articles' Category
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Sunday, August 22nd, 2010
As we have noted several times in recent months, the final text of the Anglican Covenant assigns important tasks defined in Section 4 to a committee designated the “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion.” There is currently no committee in the Anglican Communion bearing that title or capable of performing those tasks. The ACC standing committee was briefly referred to by the Section 4 title, but that name was not given it by the ACC. In any case in July 2010 the standing committee of the new company intended to replace the former ACC, noting objections to the title, agreed that it would be known simply as the standing committee.
Moreover, the ACC committee cannot fulfill the role defined by the Covenant, which makes the Section 4 committee “responsible to” both the Primates’ Meeting and the ACC, in the case of the latter as it was defined by its former constitution. Under the ACC’s new corporate arrangement, the members of its standing committee now comprise the entire membership and management of the ACC for legal purposes. Nor is there any meaningful way in which that committee could be said to be responsible to the Primates’ Meeting as contemplated by the Covenant.
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August 22 2010 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Friday, August 20th, 2010
Although we have written before of our concerns over the substance of the new Articles of Association of the Anglican Consultative Council, until now we have said little about our concerns over the procedures followed by the Anglican Communion Office in managing the development of these Articles. Others voiced complaints and we remained hopeful that the ACO would respond to these complaints with transparency and by providing satisfactory answers. This has not happened.
We are dismayed that the Communion Office is either unable or unwilling to provide even the most basic information to those who have raised serious concerns: what information was provided to the provinces; when was it provided; and what was their response. An amendment of the constitution is a significant action by an organization, especially one subject to legal duties. Maintaining this information is the most basic level of diligence required of an organization’s secretariat. The lack of transparency and public accountability throughout this process is one of the most regrettable episodes of Communion life in recent years.
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August 20 2010 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Thursday, August 12th, 2010
Yesterday the Anglican Communion News Service published an interview with Canon John Rees, legal advisor to the Anglican Consultative Council, that responded in part to questions we previously raised in our paper, “Contrasting Futures for the Anglican Communion: A Transformed ACC and the Anglican Covenant.” We are grateful to the Anglican Communion Office, Canon Rees and the ACNS for responding directly on this matter of wide interest and for their renewed commitment to transparency in the process of structural reform now underway in the Communion. We continue to believe that these changes raise significant questions, that many of these questions remain unanswered, and that these questions should be considered throughout the Anglican Communion. We emphasize that the questions we raise below are not posed to Canon Rees alone, but are addressed more broadly to all those interested in the future of the Communion.
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August 12 2010 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
The meeting of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council (hereafter the Standing Committee) has just finished its deliberations. It was reported in The Standing Committee Daily Bulletin that Dato’ Stanley Isaacs had proposed, “The Episcopal Church (hereafter TEC) be separated from the Communion.” This proposal was rejected because it was believed, “Separation would inhibit dialogue on this and other issues among Communion Provinces.”
This brief notice is yet another signal that the Anglican Communion stands in unparalleled danger. The way in which TEC does business poses a serious threat to the evangelical and catholic identity of our Communion. I write to point out the nature of that threat and to call upon those responsible for its future health to take vigorous steps to halt an increasingly obvious attempt by TEC to remake the Anglican Communion over in its own image.
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August 03 2010 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
The crises in the Anglican Communion in recent years have revealed two distinct problems confronting the Communion, one theological and one structural. The two halves of faith and order. The theological problem is whether the Communion has theological coherence on major questions of faith and practice. Slowly over the last decade and a half an affirmative answer to this question has been evolving. In particular, on the presenting crisis of human sexuality the Communion does have a common mind that has been expressed repeatedly by all four Instruments. The extent to which this has happened is reflected in the report of the Joint Standing Committee in late 2007 after the meeting of TEC’s House of Bishops in New Orleans:
The Communion seems to be converging around a position which says that while it is inappropriate to proceed to public Rites of Blessing of same-sex unions and to the consecration of bishops who are living in sexual relationships outside of Christian marriage, we need to take seriously our ministry to gay and lesbian people inside the Church and the ending of discrimination, persecution and violence against them. Here, The Episcopal Church and the Instruments of Communion speak with one voice.
TEC’s Presiding Bishop concurred in that report, but she has since served as the chief consecrator of Mary Glasspool and TEC’s General Convention has authorized the development of liturgies for public rites of blessing.
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July 28 2010 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Sunday, July 4th, 2010
The Reverend Canon Professor Christopher Seitz The Reverend Dr. Philip Turner The Reverend Dr. Ephraim Radner Mark McCall, Esq. We have written often about the Anglican Consultative Council and its Standing Committee over the last year. After the chaotic session in Jamaica in May 2009 we noted that the ACC had not followed its own [...]
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July 04 2010 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
Over the past few weeks, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church (TEC), Katharine Jefferts Schori, has responded pointedly to the removal of TEC’s members from Anglican Communion commissions dealing with ecumenical relations and matters of the Communion’s “faith and order”. The removal itself was announced at the end of May in a letter to the Communion by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. It was later explicated by the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, Canon Kenneth Kearon, during visits to the Canadian church’s General Synod, and TEC’s Executive Council. At issue, of course, is TEC’s decision earlier this year, to go forward with the consecration of a partnered lesbian, Mary Glasspool, as a bishop in the Diocese of Los Angeles. And this decision, according to Achbishop Williams and Canon Kearon, is one that goes counter to a consistently articulated position by Communion councils. These councils have, over and over, insisted that church affirmations of same-sex partnerships are, on the basis of Scriptural teaching, contrary to the “mind of the Communion”, and therefore that e.g. the consecration of partnered homosexual bishops and church-administered same-sex blessings should cease among member churches.
Presiding Bishop Schori’s response has criticized Archbishop Williams’ decision on several grounds. Here, let me address just three of her objections: first, that the Archbishop’s actions represent a move towards “centralization” within the Communion, viewed especially in terms of the application of “sanctions” against member churches; second, that in removing TEC members from the Communion commissions in question, the Archbishop has somehow acted as if the proposed Anglican Covenant now before the Communion’s churches were already in effect when it is not; third, that a proper understanding of the Communion’s life would entail the maintenance of diversity among Anglican churches, rather than the (punitive) pursuit of “uniformity”.
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June 29 2010 | Articles
Written by: Mr. Mark McCall
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
It has become commonplace for The Episcopal Church to proclaim itself an international church of sixteen countries. For example, the minutes of the October 2009 Executive Council record that:
The Presiding Bishop gave Opening Remarks. She asked for a moratorium on use of “National Church” and enumerated the countries in which The Episcopal Church [hereafter, TEC] works.
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June 22 2010 | Articles
Written by: The Anglican Communion Institute, Inc.
Friday, June 18th, 2010
The Episcopal New Service has announced that Bishop Ian Douglas of Connecticut was elected by the Executive Council on June 18 to succeed Bishop Catherine Roskam as the episcopal representative from TEC on the Anglican Consultative Council. In addition, a presbyter, the Rev. Gay Jennings, was elected to the clerical seat on the ACC formerly held but since vacated by Bishop Douglas.
We note that until recently Bishop Douglas also held a presbyter seat on the Executive Council as well but he formally resigned that position in February in light of his anticipated consecration to the episcopate. He noted in his resignation letter that:
The reason for my resignation is my “translation” to a new order as a result of being elected to the episcopate in the Diocese of Connecticut. I thus can no longer serve as a presbyter elected by the General Convention to the Executive Council.
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June 18 2010 | Articles
Written by: Rev. Dr. Philip Turner
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
In the brief time since first it appeared, the recent pastoral letter to the Episcopal Church by its Presiding Bishop has brought forth a voluminous and heated response. If, however, this letter is to be assessed adequately, it is not enough to celebrate its boldness or decry its inaccuracies and half-truths. Before assessing the moral and spiritual worth of the letter or picking apart its various claims, it is necessary to ask just what purpose this letter is meant to serve. Once an examination of this sort is complete, it will become clear that the argument put forward by the Presiding Bishop is a stark example of the tail wagging the dog.
Clearly the Presiding Bishop’s Pastoral was written in response to the Pentecost letter of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In that letter the Archbishop made it clear that the recent actions of TEC raise questions about the suitability of members of our church to represent the Anglican Communion in conversations with the Communion’s ecumenical partners. He also indicated that he, as Archbishop of Canterbury, has authority to determine the status of the Presiding Bishop in respect to the meeting of the Primates. He said as well that he intends to consult with the Primates about the most prudent course for the exercise this authority.
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June 10 2010 | Articles
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