The Primates of the Anglican Communion will be meeting, as per their typical once every two year schedule, in Alexandria Egypt beginning this Sunday and continuing through Thursday of next week. According to reports a portion of their time will be spent discussing how the debate on Human Sexuality is impacting the Anglican Communion and their respective Provinces.
From a report by the Church Times:
“It will be the first time that the Archbishops who were at Lambeth will be together with those who boycotted the event, although some acceptances had still not been received this week. On Wednesday, the secretary of the Primates’ Meeting, Canon Kenneth Kearon, put that down to “personal disorganization” on the part of some.
The draft agenda is largely an extension of the Lambeth agenda. It has been put together by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Canon Kearon, but is deliberately undetailed, and has a “degree of elasticity”. Worship, Bible study, and group discussions will have a high priority. The same question as the bishops discussed at Lambeth will be asked here: what impact has the sexuality debate in the Anglican Communion had on the mission of the individual provinces?
Five Primates have been invited to lead the debate on this. They are from the United States, Canada, Uganda, South Africa, and Pakis tan. The Primate of Canada, the Most Revd Fred Hiltz, told the Canadian Anglican Journal that his presentation would show: “We’re a Church that’s renewing its commitment to God’s mission in the world; and that there’s more to the Canadian Church than discussions about sexuality; that mission is front and centre.”
Religious Intelligence has an article that thinks the plans for the agenda of the meeting may be changed once the meeting starts:
[I]t is unlikely the agenda for the five-day gathering will survive unscathed. At their meeting in 2005 in Northern Ireland and in 2007 in Tanzania the primates rebelled, forcing the meeting to address the issues that had split the Anglican Communion.
On the other hand, maybe not… According an Religious News Service post, the issue of the parallel North American Province created in response to disagreements over the Human Sexuality debate might not even be talked about:
“Conservative Anglicans say they do not expect their new North American church to receive official approval from Anglican archbishops who will convene next week (Feb. 1-5) in Alexandria, Egypt.
“We do expect that our situation will be discussed,” said the Rev. Peter Frank, a spokesman for the newly established Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). “At the same time, it would be very surprising if there was some kind of quick, game-changing action.”
Thinking Anglicans has an excellent round-up of articles reporting on the upcoming meeting.