from the Telegraph.
Jonathan Petre, writing for a more conservative audience that Steven Bates (See Take 1 below) stresses the conservative initiative that may be discussed on Friday, but also notes the surprisingly positive evaluation of the sub-committee’s report on the Episcopal Church’s response to the Windsor Report:
“The creation of a ‘parallel’ Church for conservatives will be considered by Anglican primates today after a report surprisingly gave American liberals an almost entirely clean bill of health.
The conservatives told the primates’ meeting in Tanzania yesterday that they felt abandoned and even persecuted by the leadership of the Episcopal Church, the American branch of Anglicanism. But they were stunned by an official report that judged that the Church was no longer out of line with official Anglican policy on homosexuality, a verdict they will find difficult to accept.”
One thing here: I don’t know that Petre knows that conservatives, plural, told the Primates that they felt abandoned and persecuted. I am sure Bishop Robert Duncan said that. (I don’t know how a man who is still a bishop after he’s facilitated the ordination of clergy to work without invitation in other bishops’ dioceses can consider himself persecuted, but that’s another story.)
The other conservative bishop who spoke to the Primates was Bruce MacPherson of Western Louisiana. He’s a conservative, but so far, not a breakaway conservative. He’s also the recently-elected chair of the Presiding Bishop’s council of advice. So I’d say he was in a really interesting situation. And my hunch is that we won’t know what he said until someone in the meeting tells us.