The Church of England is legally prohibited from signing the proposed Anglican Covenant on which Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has hung his hopes for saving the Anglican Communion. We reported on this two days ago and nothing has changed, but really, it can’t be overemphasized.
Our friend Pluralist has decided that he, like Bob Duncan, needs an Anglican province of his very own.
“It is… unlawful for the General Synod to delegate its decision making powers to the primates, and that this therefore means that it could not sign up to a Covenant which purported to give the primates of the Communion the ability to give ‘direction’ about the course of action that the Church of England should take.’ The same would be true in relation to delegation to any other body of the Anglican Communion.
Asked if he was ashamed of the church’s handling of the debate over the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson, Tutu said, “If we are going to not welcome or invite people because of sexual orientation, yes. “If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn’t worship that God.”
The Living Church asserts in an article today that the power to recognize new provinces within the Anglican Communion rests with the Primates. This statement,
Various groups that have left the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in Canada since 1873 are planning to form their own province that would cover the United States and Canada.
Bishop Trevor Mwamba of Botswana spoke of “delusions of grandeur” among some of the African primates and noted that many church members throughout the continent had not been consulted about issues of human sexuality, and were “frankly not bothered with the debate.”
Note the prominent role played by at this meeting by members of the Windsor Continuation Group, a group put together by the Archbishop of Canterbury to accomplish no one is quite sure what. The only thing that can be said with any certainty about this group is that not one of its members supports gay ordination.
At the beginning of the week a statement by the Primates and Standing Committee of CAPA (the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa) released a statement from their meeting in Nairobi back in early September. There was also an article detailing the views of some of the leadership in GAFCON with the ongoing Anglican Covenant process. Read together, the two statements indicate that there are different groups headed in different directions.
The details of the next Primates meeting are starting to be reported. The Lambeth conversations will apparently be the focus and format of the Primate’s meeting.