Latest Anglican News             Volume 1, Number 18, 21 December 2007

The big news this week for me was to participate in the first ever Common Cause Partnership (CCP) Executive Council meeting in Orlando, Florida.  Each of ten Anglican jurisdictions were represented by three voting members.  For the REC this was Presiding Bishop Leonard Riches, Bishop Sutton and yours truly.  Altogether there were fourteen Bishops and one retired Archbishop (The Most Reverend Yong Ping Chung), who you will remember spoke to us this year at CHC during a very noisy and rainy spring thunder storm.

The most succinct report of what happened in Orlando is the official CCP press release, which follows:

The first meeting of the Common Cause Leadership Council created the structure necessary for building a new federation of orthodox Anglicans in North America. Three delegates from each of the ten Common Cause partners gathered in Orlando, Florida December 17-18. The Council unanimously elected Bishop Bob Duncan as Moderator. Delegates also elected Canon Charlie Masters of the Anglican Network in Canada as General Secretary and Mrs. Patience Oruh of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America as Treasurer. The Leadership Council recognized the ratification of a statement of theology and formed the committees called for by the Common Cause articles of confederation adopted in September 2007. A communiqué from the Common Cause Leadership Council can be found below.

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Communiqué

We, the gathered bishops, priests and lay representatives of the Anglican bodies federated in Common Cause held the first annual meeting as the newly formed Common Cause Leadership Council of the Common Cause Partnership on December 18th, 2007, in Orlando, Florida.

We created the structure called for in the Articles of Federation now adopted by nine of our partners. We elected officers of the Federation and formed an executive committee, as well as other committees and task forces. We have also begun work to harmonize and strengthen our common call to Christian education and mission. We expect these committees and task forces to begin work early in the New Year. We are beginning to explore the expanding possibilities for ecumenical contact with fellow Christians in North America and around the world.

Our actions today dramatically reversed the fragmentation and separation of the past. We stand committed to the "faith once delivered to the saints" as expressed in our now ratified theological statement. The Common Cause Partnership is united in faith with the vast majority of members of the worldwide Anglican Communion. We are especially grateful for the support and recognition given to us by the provinces of the Global South that have encouraged us to come together in common cause for the Gospel. We are particularly thankful for the presence with us of Archbishop Yong Ping Chung, the recently retired primate of the Province of Southeast Asia and one of the earliest supporters of the rebirth of orthodox Anglicanism in North America, representing the Anglican Coalition in Canada.

Each Common Cause Partner will continue to live out its unique role, maintaining its distinctive ministry and character, noting the provision of the Articles of Federation that "the autonomy of the individual Jurisdictions and Ministries, and their constituent bodies, is in no way restricted or superseded by membership." In the months and years ahead we anticipate a growing number of joint mission initiatives that will strengthen our witness as united and faithful Anglicans in North America. "So in Christ, we who are many, form one body..." (Rom. 12:5). To God be the Glory.

 At this meeting there was much spirited discussion of the issues to be dealt with, but there was also an amazing sense of unity and purpose.

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 Keeping up with the rumor mill, from the Church of England Newspaper dated 21 December, here is an excerpt from today’s edition: 

 Plans are underway to hold a global gathering of traditionalist Anglican bishops next June under the auspices of the Global South coalition of primates, sources tell The Church of England Newspaper.  (This would rival the once-a-decade Anglican Communion’s [AC] Lambeth Conference.)

Meeting in Nairobi last week, the Global South Steering Committee, under the presidency of the Primate of Nigeria Archbishop Peter Akinola, discussed plans for such a gathering…  The meeting would not be a shadow Lambeth Conference, but would include traditionalists who may boycott Lambeth. Bishops from Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda and other global south provinces are likely to sit out Lambeth 2008 due to Dr Williams’ invitation to the liberal American bishops and his rejection of the African consecrated bishops to the US.

 Dr Williams has urged all of the Communion’s bishops to attend Lambeth. In an Advent letter released after the Global South Nairobi meeting concluded, he used his strongest language so far in making the case for all those invited to come. A refusal to attend Lambeth ‘can be a refusal of the cross - and so of the resurrection,’ Dr Williams said.

 Plans for a Global South led gathering of bishops have been in the works for over a year. However they have gained momentum in recent months as the pace of the disintegration of TEC quickened, and as the perception that delay and obfuscation were all that could be expected from the central bodies of the Communion took hold among traditionalists

 Can this be true...?  Stay tuned…

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 From the liberal, side a meeting was held near Chicago in early December by a group of Anglicans from around the world with intent to develop strategies for the full inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians in the life of the Anglican Church.  Known as the Chicago Consultation, it urged leaders of TEC to permit the blessing of same-gender relationships and to remove barriers that keep gay candidates from being elected as bishops, according to a news release from the group.

It also called upon Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams (ABC) to invite New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson as a full participant to the 2008 Lambeth Conference. "We wanted to affirm Gene," said Diocese of Washington DC Bishop John Chane in the release, "but we also wanted to affirm all of the anonymous gay and lesbian Christians who have graced the church with their God-given gifts -- even when the church has been unwilling to receive them."

Participants pledged “to work against schismatic leaders who have sought to gain power in the Communion by turning marginalized groups against one another," the release said.  "Homophobia is a sin whose end time is now," said the Rev. Canon Marilyn Adams, Regius Professor of Divinity at Christ Church, Oxford University. 

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Some excerpts from Chris Sugden, a writer for the Evangelicals Now January 2008 edition writes:

“The crisis in the Anglican Communion continues. In the last month we have learnt that:

*The same Church of England bishops who said they would support The Episcopal Church (TEC) come what may are now calling for everyone to attend Lambeth.

*The Archbishop of Canterbury has indicated that he may disinvite some TEC bishops who are not Windsor compliant.

 *The result of the Archbishop of Canterbury consulting the primates one-by-one instead of holding a primates meeting to evaluate TEC’s response to the Dar-es-Salaam communiqué is predictably “some say this and some say that”.

*The Archbishop of Canterbury has reportedly presided at a Communion service for gay clergy and their partners. 

*The Archbishop of Canterbury (or his speechwriters) unjustifiably and flying in the face of history, condemned US imperialism as worse than British imperialism.

*The Archbishop of Canada has appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has not so far intervened anywhere, to intervene in his church where two retired bishops now head up a network under the jurisdiction of the Presiding Bishop of the Southern Cone.

* The so-called Windsor Bishops in the USA have not stood up or said anything. Two of them have now become Roman Catholics.

* Gene Robinson and his male partner Mark will be “married” on July 4 2008 and attend the Lambeth Conference where Gene Robinson will give a seminar. The Lambeth Conference will be a media circus focused on the honeymooners.

* “Irregular” ordinations and consecrations by bishops not regarded as “licit” by Canterbury but recognised by the leaders of over 30 million out of 52 million Anglicans ( the real number) are increasing.
The Canterbury-led global fellowship cannot continue as it is.”

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And lastly, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, adds to his different character with an interview on British Broadcasting Company radio in which he states “the fact that there were three wise men is nothing but 'legend'. Christmas cards which show the Virgin Mary cradling baby Jesus, with the shepherds on one side and the three wise men on the other, are guilty of 'conflation'.”  Being grilled on whether it is really more illogical to believe in God than Santa Claus. The Archbishop replied, “The thing is, belief in Santa or the tooth fairy does not generate a moral code, it does not generate art, it does not generate imagination. Belief in God is a bit bigger than that.”

Rudy Schenken, REC Lay Representative to Common Cause Partners