News & Events in ECUSA & Around the Anglican Globe

This week, the meeting of the Primates in Tanzania begins on Wednesday, February 14, with a special meeting involving ECUSA bishops Duncan, McPherson, Epting, and Jefferts-Schori. A number of "pre-meetings" are occurring today and tomorrow, particularly among Global South Primates.

StandFirm's coverage of the meeting has already begun with a special designated online section; StandFirm has also sponsored Kevin Kallsen, of Anglican TV, to provide video reports on-site in Tanzania; these reports will be uploaded to the StandFirm site at least daily.

As a preview, bloggers everywhere did "Tanzania" analysis and predictions, so I'm providing links to some StandFirm blogger predictions below -- see if you can guess who wrote what before you click: ; > )

One Prediction: "6) Communications from ENS and the chief ECUSA leaders concerning the primates meeting will be generally upbeat and cheery, although with an undercurrrent of "victim" language. It will be a hard decision for those at 815 -- do we maintain the official denial of anything particularly troubling happening and downplay "how badly we are being treated"? Or do we strike the victim's pose and freely acknowledge just how bad things were at the meeting and how much on a knife's edge our status is within the Anglican Communion? I think they will strike the former tone, only with a slightly grieved, closed-lipped smile, similar to that of the expression of a harrassed mother in a grocery store, surrounded by bad children.

Some reasserters will be taken in by this "see, everything is just fine, we are loved and admired by any Province with any sense in the Anglican Communion, many fruitful, quiet conversations were had with those many dozens of primates who secretly support us, though they are too scared to say anything aloud or publicly" language of ENS and refuse to see anything positive that comes from the meeting.

7) Communications from the various "non-insider" second tier level of ECUSA revisionist activists will be bitter, denunciatory, and outraged. Victim language will abound, only with a sort of "whiplash" effect between announcements that "our brave female Primate was terribly marginalized and abused by the patriarchal Africans " and pronouncements of "just how little we care anyway" about the Anglican Communion."

One Prediction: "In recent days there has been a noticeable attempt to lower expectations for the meeting in Tanzania. Some have urged us not to expect anything dramatic from the meeting and have suggested that “blogs” are actively reflecting heightened and unrealistic hopes for entirely speculative outcomes.

It is (or perhaps was) in fact, entirely reasonable for people to hope for: 1. the discipline of the Episcopal Church and 2. the initial steps toward the establishment/recognition/legitimization of a “separate structure” for orthodox Anglicans in North America.

First, the primates, all of them, identified the 75th General Convention as the venue for The Episcopal Church to make her official response to the requests articulated in the Windsor Report as accepted by the primates at Dromantine. Here is the specific section of the Dromantine Communique wherein this time-frame is established:

Within the ambit of the issues discussed in the Windsor Report and in order to recognise the integrity of all parties, we request that the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada voluntarily withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference. During that same period we request that both churches respond through their relevant constitutional bodies to the questions specifically addressed to them in the Windsor Report as they consider their place within the Anglican Communion. (DC para 14)

Second, the Windsor Report clearly statesthat a legislative or official decision not to accede to the three Windsor requests: 1. An expression of regret 2. a moratorium on the election, consent to the consecration and consecration of bishops living in non-celibate homosexual unions and 3. a moratorium on the authorization and development of public rites for same sex blessings (WR 133 & 144), would represent a decision to “walk apart.”

One Prediction: "In addition, expect the Anglican covenant to be on the table far sooner than TEC would like - certainly at Lambeth '08, and perhaps before that. This is not to TEC's favor no matter how you slice it. Word is that a draft version is nearing completion, and the key here is that without a covenant, there is no mechanism that can be employed to effect the ejection of the Episcopal Church. And remember that Rowan Williams will never actively excommunicate a province, least of all TEC, even if he had the mechanism to do so. But he will allow and encourage a communion-wide solution in the form of a covenant to be constructed, by which TEC chooses to walk apart by not agreeing to its terms. And the chances of it agreeing are zero.

That leads to the second phase of the international crisis: The fallout after the Episcopal Church chooses officially to walk apart from the Anglican communion. This will likely not happen before General Convention 2009. Afterwards, things will either get really ugly, as we see Virginias and Floridas and Connecticuts in 50 or 60 of TEC's dioceses... or the ugliness will fade quickly, as 815 and various dioceses realize the futility and expense of fighting so many battles all at once.

So we must prepare ourselves mentally - and more important, spiritually - for what's to come in the next two and half years. Tanzania will not - repeat, NOT - produce a clean, or quick result. There will be plenty of frustration for those with unrealistically high expectations.

Our Worthy Opponents will intensify their words and actions in an attempt to spin the news, influence public opinion, and put "facts on the ground," all with the goal of de-sensitizing Episcopal laity as well as foreign leaders to their innovations. As more people in the middle wake up and take sides, the left and the right will grow, the middle will shrink, and polarization will become more acute. Vestry elections all over the country will take on a new importance (and all the increased tension that brings), diocesan councils will become more contentious, and General Convention will be a bloodbath. Lawsuits and inhibitions will fly faster and harder.

We will struggle as a few who have been with us up to now decide to stay with 815. And there will be challenges as a few of those against whom we've struggled so far realize what's at stake, and ask to stand alongside us. Our graciousness in both directions will be tested.

In the months following Tanzania, it will be gut check time for orthodox Episcopalians. Many of you will be tempted to call it quits. If you must go, then know that you will go with my blessings. Know, however, that for those of us who stay and fight, the fight will be made more difficult by your absence. Know also that if those of us who remain actually win, the result may well be a renewed and reformed Anglicanism in North America. And if you return, you will in effect be returning from the rear echelon, and things will be different between us. Not worse, necessarily. Just different. They cannot be the same."

MONEY PASSAGES: "In light of this scholarly consensus, in my own opinion, we need not take the seventh commandment against "adultery" or the levical injunctions against male promiscuity as universal injunctions but rather enjoy, experience, and live into them as cultural expressions of ethnic identity and inter-cultural dialogue. They say, in effect, "this is who we are."

But what of Jesus' famous words during his sermon on the mount. "He who looks at a woman lustfully has already commited adultery with her in his heart." Well, aside from the well documented fact that Jesus most likely never said these words (see "The Five Gospels"), it is obvious that Jesus was speaking from within a more limited worldview that did not acknowledge natural or inborn promiscuity as a genetic necessity. Jesus, as a first century Jew, most likely held to the prevailing primitive cultural ethic of his day; what he might have called, as fundamentalists do even today, the "Created Order;" the idea that human beings were given by God a natural desire for members of the opposite sex but that these desires were intended to be fulfilled in life-long marital-covenant unions between one man and one woman.

We know that his injunctions against heterosexual "promiscuity" cannot be applied accurately to heterosexual men because heterosexual men are born with or, dare I say, "created" with the expansive desire to include as many women as possible in their physical expression of love. However, Jesus' proscriptive words regarding expanive heterosexual behavior may be more correctly applied to homosexual men who, acting against their own created orientation, might be tempted to act out unnaturally, in a heterosexual rather than homosexual way. . . .

But, some may object, what of tradition? Need we even ask? The Church has ordained "promiscuous" heterosexual men from the very beginning. Doing so now, and openly, would both serve to acknowlede what has been a suppressed reality and affirm those who for centuries have been an oppressed minority. Such a move would allow heterosexual men to live and expansively love with honesty and with integrity.

Given all of this I plead with your Grace to encourage the various provinces of the Anglican Communion to stop the lie. It is time for heterosexual men to come out of the shadows and embrace the truth of who they are. And, more importantly, it is time for "promiscuous" heterosexual men to be embraced. I call on the Church develop and authorize rites for blessing expansive heterosexual unions; portable rites that may be applied prior to and/or after the loving union takes place. I also call on the Church to acknowledge the centuries of faithful service given by heterosexual men who live secret lives of expansive heterosexual love.

Main Entry: pri'mate
Etymology: Middle English primat, from Old French, from Medieval Latin primat-, primas archbishop, from Latin, leader, from primus
Date: 13th century
1 often capitalized : a bishop who has precedence in a province, group of provinces, or a nation
2 archaic : one first in authority or rank : LEADER
3 [New Latin Primates, from Latin, plural of primat-, primas] : any of an order (Primates) of mammals comprising humans, apes, monkeys, and related forms (as lemurs and tarsiers)
-pri'mate-ship \-*ship\ noun
--pri-ma'tial \pr*-*m*-sh*l\ adjective

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