Posted on 09/16/2006 7:45:00 PM PDT by sionnsar
When push comes to shove, Rowan Williams is still as Anglican as all get out:
In our uncertainties and explorations in the Communion, my prayers are not only for those who, like ourselves, have the responsibility of leadership in our Provinces, but most especially for all those ordinary people of God, in the Episcopal Church and elsewhere, who are puzzled, wearied, or disoriented by our present controversies. So many say they simply do not want to take up an extreme or divisive position and want to be faithful to Scripture and the common life. They want to preserve an Anglican identity that they treasure and love passionately but face continuing uncertainty about its future.
Scripture reminds us, in the Book of Jonah as well as in the gospels, that God is supremely patient and loving to those who are in this sort of confusion and uncertainty. All our churches are, in one way or another, partly sound and partly not; and none of our churches would, on the basis of their virtue and their strength alone, merit God’s approval. All of us look to the merciful Lord who has acted ‘for us and independently of us’ (as Luther said) in the Cross. We need to remember this as we consider our current difficulties and challenges.
It is clear that the Communion as a whole remains committed to the teaching on human sexuality expressed in Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, and also that the recommendations of the Windsor Report have been widely accepted as a basis for any progress in resolving the tensions that trouble us. As a Communion, we need to move forward on the basis of this twofold recognition.
It is also clear that the Episcopal Church has taken very seriously the recommendations of the Windsor Report[no it hasn't - Ed]; but the resolutions of General Convention still represent what can only be called a mixed response to the Dromantine requests. The advisory group has spent much time in examining these resolutions in great detail, and its sense is that although some aspects of these requests have been fully dealt with, there remain some that have not. This obviously poses some very challenging questions for our February meeting and its discernment of the best way forward.
I have also received – as you will have done also - the appeals of seven dioceses of the Episcopal Church for ‘alternative primatial oversight’. As we move to reflecting on these requests, we have to acknowledge that we are entering uncharted waters for the Communion, with a number of large issues about provincial identity and autonomy raised for all of us. I write having just heard the outcome of the meeting in New York which was requested in order to see what might emerge from a carefully structured discussion between American Bishops of diverging views. So far, no structure has been agreed, but there is a clear sense that the process has been worthwhile and that it is not yet over. I am sure that there will be more need in the months ahead for such face-to-face discussion, and I continue to hope that colleagues will not take it for granted that there is a rapid short-term solution that will remove our problems or simplify our relationships for good and all without the essential element of personal, probing conversation.
Greg Griffith will have none of it.
Please, Your Grace, I implore you: No more conversation. We’ve been conversing intensely, one could argue, for over a decade about this; certainly for the last 6 years. We saw two days ago where "deeply personal" conversation leads: To an impasse.
I am begging you, Dr. Williams… either recommend that ECUSA leave, or tell the Network there’s no hope of it happening. Throw in with one side or another, but don’t string us "ordinary churchgoers" along any more. There comes a time when there is no honor, only folly, in continuing to seek reconciliation in the irreconcilible, and I submit to you that we are long past that time.
You are in my prayers, Archbishop, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll be in your church.
You and me both, Double G.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.
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