Latest Anglican News                                           Volume 1, Number 7, 5 September 2007
 
As the key meetings at the end of September grow closer, tempers are rising throughout the Anglican Communion (AC).  Many commentators can’t resist taking potshots at the words of anyone else who has something to say on the state of play. 

Much of the cause for this weeks flood of words arises from the ordination in Nairobi, Kenya, last Thursday of long time CHC friend and speaker, Bill Atwood, from Carrollton, and Bill Murdoch, a priest from Massachusetts, to be missionary bishops in the U.S. for the Anglican Church of Kenya.  In addition, the Anglican Province of Uganda has elected American John Guernsey a Bishop on September 2nd, also to work in the U.S. 

In Nairobi, nine Primates and emissaries from other Primates, representing a numerical majority of the AC, laid on hands.  Also traditional TEC Bishops Jack Iker (Fort Worth) and Bob Duncan (Pittsburgh), Common Cause Partners members AMiA Bishop Chuck Murphy, CANA Bishop Martyn Minns and Bishop Don Harvey from Canada participated.  StandFirm commentator Hank Steenstra reported that he could find no one who could recall when so many Archbishops had participated in an ordination.  Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, Primate of Kenya, presided and Archbishop Drexel Gomez (Primate of the Anglican Church of the West Indies) delivered the homily. 

The ordination of these three Bishops upset many progressive Anglicans as they see this move as an unlawful invasion of The Episcopal Church (TEC) territory in the U.S.  On the other hand, traditional Anglicans argue that they have no choice but to come to the rescue of all isolated and/or misled Episcopalians across America. 

Comments from various combatants, reporters and bloggers follow:
In his homily Abhp Gomez repeated the commands Jesus gave to Peter in John 21, “Feed my lambs…tend my sheep…follow me… The Global South wholeheartedly supports moral reason and the truths contained in the New Testament. We believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ prevents us from compromising the truth. It is clear that the Anglican body in the U.S. has corrupted the Gospel by supporting intimate relations between people of the same sex. The teachings of Jesus Christ are clear. We cannot accommodate those who believe the contrary. Those of us who firmly believe that homosexuality violates the order of life know very well which relationships correspond to God's order of life and which do not.  They have distorted God's created order. God created man and woman for definite roles, homosexual intercourse is an exchange of the truth of God's word for a lie."

Abhp Venables told journalists that, “Anglicans in many American churches think that the ordination of homosexual clergy is wrong and feel increasingly distant and isolated from their local church leadership. Therefore these consecrations in a sense, in part, meet that pastoral need; to actually be there to oversee those people while the situation is being worked out worldwide…The Church (the AC) is facing a major crisis because of lack of clear and official authority structures that can resolve the problem. There is a major struggle on how to solve a problem of such dimension because there are no structures and nobody to say this is wrong. It is therefore necessary that measures and processes to solve the problems are worked through."

The Anglican Communion Network (ACN) was pleased with the consecrations saying, “TEC’s intransigence has left thousands of Anglicans in North America in need of pastoral care and the oversight of bishops. We welcome the generous decisions by the Anglican Church of Kenya and the Church of the Province of Uganda to help us in our time of need.”  Some CHC parishioners will remember when we were totally independ-ent, there were times when we had considerable difficulty finding a bishop in apostolic succession to confirm our young and new members.  It was a real problem for us.

Thirty-one members of the Church of England General Synod, including the Bishop of Rochester, sent their greetings to the Bishops-elect, saying, “We recognize the calling of the global Church (AC) to exercise this ‘out of the ordinary’ ministry with the love and care for those in the United States who are suffering for the commitment to the faith once delivered to the saints, in the face of determined capitulation of TEC to the forces of contemporary North American culture.  Your pathway is into the unknown. The way is strewn with pitfalls. Only Jesus will keep you in the way. Into his hands we commit you as you lead and teach his people in the American corner of his vineyard.”  John Richardson, spokesman for the conservative English organization Anglican Mainstream, said: "There is a widespread tendency in the Church of England to act as if what is happening in the rest of the Anglican Communion is a 'little local difficulty'. It is therefore very significant when even a small number of General Synod members from England send an open letter of support over something like the Nairobi consecrations.

One unnamed blogger said, “The tragedy is that Gene Robinson was properly elected, consecrated and accepted by the…Diocese of New Hampshire, and his ministry is being attacked by people half a world away.  These new bishops are irregularly consecrated and should be encouraged to step down, reconsider their position and disappear.  They have no place in the polity of the AC and those who support them do so, only to destabilize the Communion.  It is a particular cause for concern that the Bishop of Rochester has given them his support. He should know better.”

Retired Archbishop of Canterbury, Andrew Carey, said this week, “I'm not convinced about either the need for more mitres (Bishops), or about the timing of these consecrations. I'm not greatly sympathetic; however, to the official AC response that the consecrations create 'increased confusion'. The confusion came with the consecration of Gene Robinson, and the subsequent inability of TEC's leadership to respond adequately to the clear voice of the AC, and also to find a way to accommodate parishes and clergy who could no longer identify with their own diocesan bishops...”

"The consecrations today are one more sad indication of just how far those committed to splitting the Episcopal Church are willing to go to achieve their goal of a church created in their own image," said Rev. Susan Russell, president of Integrity, an organization based in Rochester, N.Y., that advocates for gay rights in the Episcopal Church. In an e-mail, Russell called the new bishops "intercontinental ballistic weapons of schism."

Another nameless blogger said, “As we approach the month of decision of September 2007, let us continue to pray for wisdom for the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
The noise level increases…

Rudy Schenken, REC Lay Representative to Common Cause Partners