Posted on 03/23/2006 5:22:30 PM PST by sionnsar
Has Rowan Williams finally accepted the inevitable?
The Times of London has reported that Bishop [MIchael] Langrish[Exeter] is one of the Church of England leaders that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has invited to Lambeth Palace April 24 to discuss the future of the Anglican Communion in light of the potential actions of the 75th General Convention.
According to The Times, a memo written by Archbishop Williams’ chief of staff, Chris Smith, was sent to Bishop Langrish and fellow bishops N.T. Wright of Durham, Michael Nazi-Ali of Rochester, Michael Scott-Joynt of Winchester, Graham James of Norwich, Nigel McCullough of Manchester and Michael Hill of Bristol in which the Archbishop invited them to review “options and scenarios” for the “post-General Convention period” in the Anglican Communion.
Archbishop Williams also invited the Very Rev. John Moses, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Church of England’s clergy representative to the Anglican Consultative Council to the meeting along with representatives of the Church of England’s mission societies and the group Anglican Mainstream. Lambeth Palace declined to comment on The Times’s report.
Ruth Gledhill writes:
Meanwhile, work is going on to examine the ACC constitution for a way forward. The constitution is framed to allow new members to be elected into the Anglican Communion but there is no mechanism for expelling anyone or inviting them to leave.
It is to debate issues such as this that Dr Williams has convened a meeting at Lambeth Palace on 24 April to examine the ’options and scenarios’ for the ’post-General Convention period’ in the Anglican Communion. Those invited include the Bishops of Durham, Winchester, Exeter, Manchester, Norwich, Bristol and the Dean of St Paul’s as well as representatives from the Church’s mission agencies and Anglican Mainstream. They will discuss the implications for the Church of England and how the ’Instruments of Unity’ should respond to whatever happens in ECUSA this summer.
In his letter of invitation, leaked to me, Dr Williams’ head of staff Chris Smith says the roundtable discussion concerns the ’next critical months’ in the life of the Anglican Communion. ’This is too important a set of issues to allow events to overtake us,’ he says.
My source, who is not one of those invited, interprets it this way: ’The wording of the invitation makes it fairly clear that Lambeth is expecting no backtrack from ECUSA and is therefore working out how to manage the oncoming schism.’
My own sense is that ECUSA won't back down at GenCon this June but will pass some more fudge and claim that they have. So the next biq question in the Anglican world is what will the rest of the Anglican Communion do about it, which is what this upcoming meeting seems designed to try to determine.
What will they do? I have no idea. But as I've said before, Dr. Williams can read. He knows where the Anglican numbers, where Anglican churches are growing and vital and where they are withering and dying. From the standpoint of someone who obviously loves the Anglican tradition, Dr. Williams must decide which of the two Anglican churches he would rather head.
And if ECUSA is shown the door, does this vindicate the strategy of the Anglican Communion Network? But if ECUSA is run, can the Network still remain a part of it? And if the Network does break away, might this not begin the inevitable flood of lawsuits, possibly leaving the Network with an official Anglican imprimatur and not much else?
Interesting times await.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. will pass some more fudge
Is N.T. Wright considered theologically orthodox in the Anglican circles? He and John Stott have quite a bad press among evangelical Bible Church circles as some of their allegoric readings of some Bible passages border on being goofy to being absurd.
Better out than in?
Yes.
He and John Stott have quite a bad press among evangelical Bible Church circles as some of their allegoric readings of some Bible passages border on being goofy to being absurd.
I'd almost say that getting bad press among "evangelical Bible Church circles" isn't all that bad a thing, given that they themselves are often a bit absurd....
"Is N.T. Wright considered theologically orthodox in the Anglican circles?
Yes."
Then God help you all. No wonder why Hudson Taylor did not come from the Anglican church.
"I'd almost say that getting bad press among "evangelical Bible Church circles" isn't all that bad a thing, given that they themselves are often a bit absurd...."
I would rather mind more if the label of absurdity comes from God.
Ahhhh, yes. You just came here to carp and bitch and pretend you've got a solid lock on God's will. How ... absurd.
This may be a dumb question, but what was the status of the American Anglican church AFTER the US War of Independence, and BEFORE the formal formation of the Episcopal church? That was a period of like 20+ years, was it not?
I know the worldwide Anglican Communion wasn't formed yet...but there had to be an issue about how a church could be connected to the Church of England, without the King as its titular head.
L
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