Posted on 07/03/2005 5:57:55 PM PDT by sionnsar
When ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada get run from the Anglican world, I hereby nominate Canadian Primate Andrew Hutchison as first Presiding Bishop of the new western liberal Anglican church. Let's face it; Frank Griswold is played out, anybody from ECUSA is going to take a few years to grow into the job and you can't deny that Hutch has the chops:
Along with the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada met with censure after presentations to the Anglican Consultative Council regarding the two provinces’ recent innovations with respect to homosexuality. Canada’s Primate, Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, was ill and unable to deliver an informal series of speeches and discussions exploring the current crisis within the Anglican Communion which was scheduled the week after the ACC presentation.
Instead, the Ven. Paul Feheley, principal secretary to Archbishop Hutchison, delivered the speeches by proxy. He reported that the majority of the Communion “wants us to admit that we’ve made a horrible mistake, say we’ve been bad children, go to the corner, and promise never to do it again.”
Actually, they want you to repent of allowing same-sex marriages and giving pointy hats to unrepentant sinners and actually listen to the rest of the Anglican world. Your terminology's stupid but you've got the basic idea.
In contrast to narrow consensus at ACC-13, in his speeches to divinity alumni from the University of Trinity College, Toronto, Archbishop Hutchison suggested the possibility that at least some of the ACC delegates had been motivated by a global perception of North American arrogance, concluding that the issue could be more about power than scripture and doctrine.
Damned hegemonistic[is that even a word? - Ed] Canadians.
“Listening to the debate, one would have thought that there were no homosexuals in Africa or Asia, that only the United States and Canada had been struggling with this,” Archdeacon Feheley said. “But we know that isn’t true.”
Meaning what? That the Third World hasn't had this debate yet? Because, obviously, if they've had this debate, they would agree with us and we wouldn't be having this discussion, since we're right and all. Doesn't seem to have occurred to Hutch or anyone else in the First Anglican World that just maybe the Third World has had this debate and came to a different conclusion than the North Americans did. But since they're a bunch of stupid Africans...
While much of the international discussion has focused on the actions of the American and Canadian churches as breaches of communion, the conference expressed a different opinion as it explored the issue from June 27-29. Referring to the refusal of some primates, meeting in Northern Ireland last February, to attend the closing Eucharist, one attendee asked, “Who’s out of communion with whom? They wouldn’t even sit in the same chapel with us.”
Problem is, some people don't consider it particularly praiseworthy merely to nibble a little bread and sip a little wine with people who don't share the same religion that they do. They're funny that way.
Archbishop Michael Peers, a retired primate, said he “would rather be part of a church that debates whether this is doctrine or not doctrine, whether this is church dividing or not church dividing than be part of a church that says, ‘We fear this may be church dividing, and therefore you shall not talk about it.’”
The entire Anglican world has been talking about this for two years. Please stop saying things in public, Mike.
After two and a half days of speeches, worship, open discussions and small-group work, the conference recorded its conversation in a statement of consensus. The thrust of that statement, titled “A Responsible Place at the Table,” was a call to remain in communion while respecting differing points of view and accepting that conflict is part of reality.
Uh huh. Get well soon, Hutch. The new liberal Anglican church is going to need you.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. If I've gained nothing else from following your Anglican saga, I've learned that Anglicans are a hoot :-). Sort of "Monty Python meets Upstairs/Downstairs."
From being semi-inside, it does feel a bit different from that, but thanks for the laugh.
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