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Friday, May 18, 2007
"For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come
knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, he
is a shield to those whose walk is blameless..." (Prov. 2:6-7)
- Communiqué Compliance Report No. 2 Available
- Fort Worth Issues Statement Affirming Pursuit of APO
- The Archbishop of Canterbury Speaks on Lambeth
Conference, Communion in Interview
- The Church is Flat: A New Anglicanism (Essay by Martyn
Minns)
Communiqué Compliance Report No. 2
Available
The second report of the American Anglican Council's (AAC)
Communiqué Compliance Office (CCO) has been posted online and is available
in PDF format at the following link on the AAC Web site:
Download CCO Report No. 2
In addition, for background information on the CCO and its
purpose, view
this May 18 press release .
Fort Worth Issues Statement
Affirming Pursuit of APO
*Read
the statement by the Diocese of Fort Worth
"Fort Worth: Options Include Oversight Outside
Episcopal Church"
Source: The
Living Church
May 16, 2007
The executive council of the Diocese of Fort Worth on May
16 adopted a statement of the diocesan standing committee, which met two
days earlier, calling for the diocese to move forward with its appeal for
alternative primatial oversight (APO).
“While we remain open to the possibility of negotiation
and some form of acceptable settlement with [The Episcopal Church], it
appears that our only option is to seek APO elsewhere,” the statement said.
The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth, and the
standing committee of the diocese appealed for APO in June 2006. The appeal
was endorsed by the diocesan executive council in September and by the
diocesan convention in November. The APO requests from Ft. Worth and other
appellant dioceses were presented to the primates’ meeting in February.
The diocesan statement noted that the communiqué issued at
the conclusion of the primates’ meeting “proposed the establishment of a
Pastoral Council, which would oversee the ministry of a primatial vicar, to
be selected by the Windsor Bishops coalition and be accountable to the
Council.” The proposal was rejected by the House of Bishops at its meeting
in March, and “nothing further has been heard about this from the Archbishop
of Canterbury.”
The executive council statement said APO “may entail a
cooperative effort with other appellant dioceses in consultation with
primates of the Anglican Communion, to form a new Anglican province of the
Communion in North America. A second possibility would be for the diocese to
transfer to another existing province of the Anglican Communion. A third
possibility would be to seek the status of an extra-provincial diocese,
under the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as presently recognized
in several other cases.
“We believe that we must now explore these possibilities,”
the statement concluded.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Speaks
on Lambeth Conference, Communion in Interview
Source: Anglican
Communion News Service
May 17, 2007
Excerpt from: Interview with Lucilla Teoh from the
Diocese of Singapore’s Diocesan Digest
Q (Lucilla Teoh) - The next big question
is on the current crisis in the Communion. I think rather than looking at it
as something that splits the Communion, how can we go beyond that and see
how the church here can help towards a resolution, if any?
A (Rowan Williams) - Let me make respond
with two comments on that. First of all, I think it’s important for the
church here to continue talking to people in other parts of the world, to
know what the feelings, convictions, and concerns are of the people here.
And that can only happen if we go on meeting. It doesn’t mean we agree, it
doesn’t mean this is where we want to be, but people have somehow to be able
to grow to understand. So, I hope the church will continue to exchange and
talk about these convictions.
Secondly, I think the church here certainly shows the
Communion that the real focus on mission is the life blood of the church. I
was able, nearly 10 years ago, to work at the last Lambeth Conference very
closely with the former Archbishop Yong Ping Chung, and we together led the
section on mission and evangelism. And I think I can say it was the most
productive of all the sections in terms of energy and positive commitment. I
think the whole Communion needs to rethink its life in terms of priority of
mission and the issues that are currently dividing us. There are issues that
are taking us away from the mission concern, that sometimes undermines
mission. I think the church here helpfully reminds the rest of us of that
priority. So I hope they will hold that up for us.
Q - So how do you see then things
developing pre-Lambeth 2008 and post-Lambeth? If you can make a wish, what
will that be?
A - I’m hoping and praying that we shall
have no more actions that polarize the Communion between now and Lambeth
2008. This is the point I have already brought to the Canadian House of
Bishops which we are trying to get across to the American House of Bishops.
But also trying to say to some other provinces: Don’t step up the level of
intervention in this crisis because all of that is just pulling us further
and further apart. So I hope we can have a bit of moratorium on this, and in
a way, a reflection on what kind of a church we want to be. Now, some parts
of the Communion would be happy if we could be just a federation of loosely
connected local bodies. I’m not happy with that. We could be more than that.
We should be more than that. We should be living out of each other’s life
and resources and vision and be more closely connected. Because I think that
is what the New Testament assumes the local church should do and not live in
isolation. They lived with each other, from each other’s life. So, that’s my
vision.
I see the next Lambeth Conference ideally as the place
where Bishops can really be re-equipped for their central task of enabling
mission and in every sense educating the people of God and equipping them
for their outreach. That’s how I can see it.
Q - This actually gets you to my next
question. Do you think therefore a sort of centrally driven or some sort of
concerted organized effort through the Primates or Province representatives?
[sic]
A - I think at the moment we are in a
very confused state with the structure of the Anglican Communion. People
turn to the Primates because there doesn’t seem to be anything else that
works, a forum for people’s interest, that meets regularly, that can
assemble at short notice, which can work together. At the same time, I don’t
think the Primates’ Meeting ought to be isolated from other bodies. And I
have some hope for the integration of the Primates in the Anglican
Consultative Council. Perhaps that will give us a better tool. I think we do
need in our shared counsel the voices of priests and lay people as well as
Primates and bishops. And the challenge is how to find a structure that will
help us cohere in that way. We have some good examples. In fact the meeting
of the Theological Education group that has been going on in Singapore this
weekend brings together bishops, priests, lay people for a common task
around the Communion which is not driven I think by a London-based or a New
York-based agenda. It’s owned by everybody. It’s quite a good model. I think
we need that sense of the whole Communion setting the agenda and getting
away from the suspicion, right or wrong, that the agenda’s been fixed from
somewhere else.
*Read the full text of the interview here.
The Church
is Flat: A New Anglicanism
By the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns
Source:
Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA)
May 3, 2007
In his book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman explains
how our world has shrunk. Thanks to instant information and rapid
transportation, hierarchical structures have been flattened.
One global organization that should be ideally positioned
for this transformation is the Christian Church. The genius of its founder
was that it was designed to be "flat;" small groups with a common vision, a
common language of faith, and international networks that crossed national
boundaries. As often happens, initial flexibility was soon lost and replaced
by more predictable and controllable structures and the early vision
forgotten while waiting for another fresh wave of inspiration and
creativity.
We are witnessing such a new wave. A prime example is the
Anglican Communion - an international community of more than 75 million in
164 countries, ordered into 38 separate provinces.
In the good old days mandates, money and missionaries
flowed from the traditional power base of London and, more recently, New
York to their grateful recipients in the developing world. But that is all
changing now and we have, as noted Penn State religion and history professor
Philip Jenkins describes it, 'A New Christendom' where much of the energy,
leadership and vision now come from the Global South. The old ways of doing
church are being shaken and we are rediscovering what it means to be part of
a truly global community.
One example is the birth of the Convocation of Anglicans
in North America, or CANA. It was first conceived as a way to provide a safe
harbor for Nigerian Anglicans who no longer felt welcome in The Episcopal
Church because of its deliberate distancing from traditional mainstream
Christianity but now includes a growing number of other Anglican
congregations from across America.
This realignment isn't simply about issues of human
sexuality but on the other much more basic questions such as the role and
authority of the Scriptures and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. It is part
of an emerging movement of formerly Episcopal churches and new
congregations, which are breaking out of their hierarchical straightjackets
and connecting directly with other parts of the Anglican Communion. What
unites them is a vision for global Christianity; a commitment to a common
language of faith and abiding friendships that connect across challenging
cultural divides.
This movement is variously derided by the hierarchical
power brokers as being either a small group of American malcontents or an
example of reverse colonialism. They are missing the point - the Church got
flat and they didn't notice.
There are serious questions, however, that must be
addressed. How do we make sense of our common commitment to individual human
rights in such dramatically different civil and religious settings? How do
we preach that every person is made in the image of God, is loved by God and
is of inestimable worth when one part of the family is dieting from eating
too much and others are dying of starvation? How do we demonstrate the love
of God to people whose life experience is so very different from ours? In
this global network how do we find a common language so that we can talk
with one another about differences without demonizing those with whom we
differ?
We have a long way to go and CANA is only a small part of
the solution. We have no delusions of grandeur. We are merely an association
of churches who love being in the mainstream of the Anglican Communion.
We are determined to reclaim a vision for the church that
holds true to its founder's intentions. We take God at His Word and are
trying to live out a gospel of radical inclusion and profound
transformation. Jesus of Nazareth didn't give his life for a structure but
rather for a vision of a world where every person can know that they are
loved by God and given new hope for tomorrow - whether they live in Kaduna
or Kansas City, in Bethlehem or Boston, in Darfur or Dallas.
The Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns is Bishop of the Convocation
of Anglicans in North America.
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