As a Joint Standing Committee, we do not see how certain primates can in good conscience call upon The Episcopal Church to meet the recommendations of the Windsor Report while they find reasons to exempt themselves from paying regard to them. … We believe that the time is right for a determined effort to bring interventions to an end.
Updating our story on the protests by the Buddhist monks in Burma (also known as Myanmar). Several Anglican commentators have contrasted the bold Buddhist monks
A poster on the blog wrote that “Rowan Williams was willing to sacrifice biblical truth for the sake of maintaining unity.” A few comments later someone replied that Rowan was willing to compromise because he understands maintaining unity as biblical truth”.
Since all kinds of uninformed reporters in the secular media have been adding their opinions to the mix, I thought I’d throw mine in there, which may be worth all the money you’ve just paid to get to see it, and may be just as objective as your hometown newspaper. Here’s a short, slanted, and totally oversimplified summary of what the House of Bishops’ response to the Primates’ Communique says (which, for the record, is nothing new at all).
“The Anglican Church’s highest court has cleared the way for women bishops – but the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, will carry on the fight against them. The Appellate Tribunal, by a 4-3 majority, found there is no constitutional barrier to women becoming bishops in the Australian church. The decision could lead one day to a woman leading the Australian church.”
The meeting in Pittsburgh of a group of bishops which follows hard on the heels of the House of Bishops’ meeting in New Orleans has issued a statement and a report of some of the principles they have adopted.
The Bishops declared: We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave or free. This is a ringing declaration of justice, but what does it actually mean in our dioceses or parishes? But what good news does this statement proclaim to faithful glbt persons in the pews or at the altars of our churches every Sunday, in parishes here, in Britain, in Malawi, in Pakistan, and elsewhere in the Anglican Communion?
As the bishops are returning to their dioceses after meeting in New Orleans, many of them are writing letters about what transpired during the meeting and what the next steps might be. We’ve collected a number here and will be updating this post as more of their letters become available throughout the day. In addition, we have a statement by the Archbishop of Australia.
Additional bishops’ reactions to the HoB response; the press starts to move out to a wider view of the situation; the Nigerians and their allies move the goal posts, and the Anglican Scotist argues against self-righteous rhetoric.
Sometimes in trying to figure out what one thinks, one comes across someone who has already thought it.