UPDATE: In a statement issued to the press from the Anglican Consultative Council, the donor writes that there are NO strings attached to funding. The donor will NOT be involved in any aspect of the Indaba Listening Project. She trusts the Archbishop of Canterbury and Anglican Communion to use the funds as needed to carry out the process. Read it all here in pdf.
Ruth Gledhill, writing in The Times relates a story currently making the rounds of right wing blogs about the major donor to the Indaba Listening Process of the Anglican Communion Office, and the organization that will monitor the process. The story has some major holes, and attempts some tenuous linkages, but it raises troubling questions, as well.
Progressives in the Episcopal Church have been unhappy for some time with the Listening Process, which has been subverted from its original intent. Conceived to facilitate conversation with gays and lesbians, it now just as frequently promotes conversation about gays and lesbians. It has been widely ignored by the provinces in which anti-gay prejudice is most violent and most deep-seated. Episcopalians who want to move forward on issues like the blessing of gay relationship and the consecration of GLBT candidates to the episcopacy see it primarily as one of the many delaying tactics embraced by those who wish to make certain that we do not disturb the status quo any time soon.
An interesting investigation into the Indaba process has just appeared on the conservative-led American Anglican Council website. I am awaiting comment from the Anglican Communion Office but in the meantime, here are some of the highlights, which appear under the headline: ‘Money, sex, indaba: corrupting the Anglican Communion Listening Process.
Read more here.