tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post6598813462294469433..comments2024-03-30T00:33:32.285+13:00Comments on Anglican Down Under: Lambeth Conference 2022: the outstanding, unanswered questions maybe not what you thinkPeter Carrellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-86748527550585631742022-08-14T16:43:25.793+12:002022-08-14T16:43:25.793+12:00Postscript
In principle (my 8:06), I would cheerf...Postscript<br /><br />In principle (my 8:06), I would cheerfully collaborate *on missions* with an ecumenical partner-- say the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Mennonite General Conference, the Assemblies of God, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, the Metropolitan Community Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod or the Anglican Church in North America. Any of these could bring something valuable to a joint effort.<br /><br />All differ from my church in something. To work effectively in the Lord, it would make sense for us to discuss the effect of those differences on the joint work.<br /><br />But it would not be healthy for either side to speculate much on the internal dynamics of the other. Without belonging, being there, and participating, one cannot know anything about that for sure. <br /><br />In is in; out is out.<br /><br />BW<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-17316176382816364052022-08-14T15:55:29.958+12:002022-08-14T15:55:29.958+12:00Father Ron, if "all you need is love," t...Father Ron, if "all you need is love," then you surely don't need Anglican Ink.<br /><br />BW<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-64077325333748850032022-08-14T09:22:32.861+12:002022-08-14T09:22:32.861+12:00Dear David. You are so right. I am against Capital...Dear David. You are so right. I am against Capital Punishment- but OPEN to change! AGAPE!Father Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17062632692873621258noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-35813899519832840742022-08-14T09:12:33.674+12:002022-08-14T09:12:33.674+12:00How blessed is old age, when we can resonate with ...How blessed is old age, when we can resonate with this wisdom:<br /><br />SUNDAY, AUGUST 14, 2022<br /><br />“An old age that is consumed in the dejection of missed opportunities brings despondency to oneself and to others. Instead, old age lived with gentleness, lived with respect for real life, definitively dissolves the misconception of a Church that adapts to the worldly condition, thinking that by so doing it can definitively govern its perfection and fulfilment. When we free ourselves from this presumption, the time of aging that God grants us is already in itself one of those “greater” works Jesus speaks of… Our life is not made to be wrapped up in itself, in an imaginary earthly perfection: it is destined to go beyond, through the passage of death – because death is a passage. Indeed, our stable place, our destination is not here, it is beside the Lord, where he dwells forever.”<br />Pope FrancisFather Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17062632692873621258noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-44030988330383275272022-08-14T04:15:25.617+12:002022-08-14T04:15:25.617+12:00Well, we do hang together even when we can't q...Well, we do hang together even when we can't quite change together.<br /><br />BWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-33503951212230501032022-08-13T22:15:27.461+12:002022-08-13T22:15:27.461+12:00I hope Father Ron meant through all the changing s...I hope Father Ron meant through all the changing scenes of life.<br /><br />As opposed to Through all the hanging scenes of life.Davidnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-65712639656937855092022-08-12T19:59:32.248+12:002022-08-12T19:59:32.248+12:00Dear Recent Commenters,
Thank you for comments.
An...Dear Recent Commenters,<br />Thank you for comments.<br />Anonymous: please give your name next time.<br />BW makes important points re letters/signing.<br />I am not happy with letters I am not part of composing, am asked to sign, and then when I don’t sign am asked to explain myself!Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-27102945786056487002022-08-12T11:47:05.685+12:002022-08-12T11:47:05.685+12:00Dear Bishop Peter, I've just been looking in o...Dear Bishop Peter, I've just been looking in on the web-site 'Anglican Unscripted' in the U.S.A. - the favourite Gossip site for ACNA and GAFCON enthusiasts. After watching an interview with the Chair of GAFCON (Foley Beach, who is also the Archbishop of ACNA -that's how close the two entities are working) by Kevin Carlson; I also looked in on the gossip between Carlson and his buddy, George Conger, speaking of an evil spirit taking over the Anglican Communion, which can only be defeated by a re-organisation via GAFCON presumably.<br /><br />if people have the stomach to look in on the linked video, they can judge for themselves how authentic this accusation might be. Frankly, I was appalled!<br /><br />https://youtu.be/wLyJ3iCXUhkFather Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17062632692873621258noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-79350454103948459852022-08-12T10:18:45.795+12:002022-08-12T10:18:45.795+12:00Dear Bishop Peter, and your esteemed readership; m...Dear Bishop Peter, and your esteemed readership; may I again offer w word or two of comfort from a friend of mine - who like myself, is facing a limited time in this world - and is taking note of the wisdom of Ecclesiasticus on how we spend the rest of our days:<br /><br /> FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 2022<br /><br />“Here, on earth, the process of our “novitiate” begins: we are apprentices of life, who – amid a thousand difficulties – learn to appreciate God’s gift, honouring the responsibility of sharing it and making it bear fruit for everyone. The time of life on earth is the grace of this passage. The conceit of stopping time – of wanting eternal youth, unlimited wellbeing, absolute power – is not only impossible, it is delusional.”<br />Pope Francis<br /><br />"Through ALL the hanging scenes of life - in trouble and in joy - <br />The glories of my God I'll sing in tones of Holy Joy!"Father Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17062632692873621258noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-63369807058425712262022-08-12T09:32:17.372+12:002022-08-12T09:32:17.372+12:00Yes, yes yes to this latest comment Bowman especia...Yes, yes yes to this latest comment Bowman especially 5. Mission is the calling of all who love the Lord.<br />Moya Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-9977455963846377212022-08-12T09:31:51.743+12:002022-08-12T09:31:51.743+12:00"Why is it that only 3 bishops from our churc..."Why is it that only 3 bishops from our church signed the LGBT affirmation..."<br /><br />I claim no inside knowledge. I was here, the Conference was there, and they are all wherever. <br /><br />But my guess is that all responded to Badi's stunt after their fashion. Three countered it by signing on to a counter-stunt. The others ignored both stunts as distractions and indeed subversions of the deliberative process that they had traveled half a world to attend. <br /><br />If one frames the Conference as a battlefield in an everlasting battle for and against LGBT folk, then the signers made the obvious choice. But if one instead frames the alternative as one between peace in the process and war in the two stunts, then + Peter and all the rest wisely and faithfully stayed above the fray.<br /><br />Aren't bishops there to represent their churches? No. They do much more than voting. When they do vote, it is as individuals, not as churches.<br /><br />Because the Son unifies all things, those who truly believe in him make peace at all times, but especially when a church is manifesting its unity in him. But because his Body is a *corpus mixtus*, not everyone in a church is a believer. There have always been bishops at Lambeth Conferences who were too faithless or maybe too confused to live in his unity. <br /><br />But in a world more wired than it was, stunts like those can do real harm. One guesses that some future Conference will either have its disrupters deported from the United Kingdom, or risk losing some of its capability and influence to another, more impervious instrument.<br /><br />In is in-- a place of responsibility-- out is out.<br /><br />BW<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-42724044986949988172022-08-12T08:06:39.799+12:002022-08-12T08:06:39.799+12:00Takeaways
(1) About TEC-- and all Anglican church...Takeaways<br /><br />(1) About TEC-- and all Anglican churches-- the blogosphere knows more than is true and less than is helpful. The truth is stranger than the polemical fictions of happy warriors. In the kingdom, cycles of prayer for unheard of places matter more than we think.<br /><br />(2) In a global Body, ecclesiology is the overlap of missions and the ecumene. If one truly cares about either of the latter, then one must eventually care about the other too, and some vision of the godspell spilling out across space will emerge. Or one was never serious about any of it.<br /><br />(3) In other news, classes and so their class wars, have become global. Those who do not believe that the Son is the unity of all will see everything through that lens. This is a soul-eating malady exploiting a primordial vulnerability of human nature. Until they believe, the direct and humane response to them is: repent and believe the gospel that your soul may be saved from your hate.<br /><br />(4) Missions per se are not colonies. But because what became the Communion often spread with British colonisation and empire, the two are often conflated. Since for those of a liberal temper, spirituality is often a reaction against their cultural matrix, missions to spread that matrix can seem depressingly anti-spiritual. Conversely, when those of a conservative temper do not distinguish lucidly between the matrix of Now and the kingdom that is Not Yet, they may not notice that missionary work is precisely leaving that matrix behind on a spiritual quest to rely only on God. <br /><br />So the journals of actual missionaries are largely about prayer and their adaptations to strange people, and the lore of say the Church Missionary Society is as much about spirituality as logistics. Much as one cannot go far in ecumenism without doing missions too, so one cannot go far in spirituality without putting it to some test of sole reliance on God. Missions result.<br /><br />(We usually associate that reliance with eremitic vocations but then forget that, until the still-suspect recent past, monasticism has been the perennial backbone of missions and that monastics definitionally seek frontiers, wilderness, and otherness. In those settings, is one a monk or an evangelist? Is one carrying something one has brought to the margins, or was one taught precisely why and how to wait for God there? Whether we're talking about Jonathan Edwards in the Berkshires or Henri le Saux [Abhishiktananda] in South India, it's both or it's neither.)<br /><br />(5) So when we hear the risen Lord command the apostles to go to all nations, we should hear this, not simply as the historical backstory of why they then did that, but as a sound picture of what one does when one finally grasps what the Resurrection is and so indeed what baptism is. <br /><br />BWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-75364182175357767052022-08-12T08:06:12.117+12:002022-08-12T08:06:12.117+12:00Hi Mark
"Taipei and Tblisi - really?"
...Hi Mark<br /><br />"Taipei and Tblisi - really?"<br /><br />More precisely, Taipei is the see city of the Diocese of Taiwan, and Tbilisi is a mission of the Convocation. In the moment, I liked the alliteration. Taipei, Tulsa, and Tbilisi would have been perfect.<br /><br />"Dioceses in Taipei and Tblisi - really?"<br /><br />There are bishops over territories with churches in them. Technically, yes, dioceses. <br /><br />The Diocese of Taiwan is a legacy of TEC's energetic missionary work in the C19-20. <br /><br />TEC's Convocation-- as distinct from the CoE's Diocese of Gibraltar-- is very sparse. Tbilisi's bishop is in Paris.<br /><br />The Convocation used to be seen as a string of chaplaincies for Americans congregated in Europe. But some have truly gone native (Paris) and others have been missions from the start (Tbilisi). <br /><br />For perspective, past waves of missionary work have also given TEC a dense presence in Haiti and the Caribbean, and a more diffuse one in down the Pacific Coast of Latin America. This is how Francis met Anglicans in Argentina. <br /><br />For a bit more perspective, consider the longest undefended border in the world, the US-Canadian one across the continent. Away from major waterways, the land on both sides is sparsely populated with people in agriculture, mining, or drilling. (A few weeks ago, William missed that Episcopalians in Northern Michigan are the descendants of miners from Cornwall, but correctly noted that there are not many of them. Scarcely anyone can make a living up there.) Anchorage rather depends on Vancouver, and even with the language difference, Montreal and Boston are not strangers. Missionally, is it helpful to anyone that TEC and ACC are distinct churches?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-19571944878027113712022-08-11T22:06:48.487+12:002022-08-11T22:06:48.487+12:00Why is it that only 3 bishops from our church sign...Why is it that only 3 bishops from our church signed the LGBT affirmation when our general synod voted to approve same sex blessings. Why was your name not on it Bishop Carrell?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-35735693745304574432022-08-11T13:57:31.788+12:002022-08-11T13:57:31.788+12:00Postscript
The above game of Go is helpfully conc...Postscript<br /><br />The above game of Go is helpfully concrete, if you like parisian pastry, but abstraction can be clearer.<br /><br />The C20 ecumenical movement was formed on the back of an earlier missions movement. Anxious not to compete, missionaries met to establish frameworks for collaboration. Eventually such frameworks required deeper reflection at the level of faith and order and an ecumenical movement to do that was born. <br /><br />One could imagine a church like ACANZP having internal and external missionary objectives and alliances with other collaborating churches. To keep those objectives and alliances clear it might have agreements. Those missionary agreements embody shared theological understandings necessary to the task. Just so, they are also ecumenical agreements.<br /><br /><br />BW Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-67807954572678073272022-08-11T13:19:40.561+12:002022-08-11T13:19:40.561+12:00More precisely, Mark, Taipei is the see of the Dio...<br />More precisely, Mark, Taipei is the see of the Diocese of Taiwan, and Tbilisi is a mission in a diocese of the Convocation. But I like alliteration. <br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastical_provinces_and_dioceses_of_the_Episcopal_Church<br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convocation_of_Episcopal_Churches_in_Europe<br /><br />Yes, this list is insane. We have churches in Rome. Rome, I tell you! (waving hands) Do you now understand why I occasionally think about ecclesiology? No, not like you will.<br /><br />At the height of TEC-hate several years ago, some not far from the presiding bishop pondered the godly wisdom of merging with the Union of Utrecht and then joining the Porvoo Communion. One, two. Lickety-split.<br /><br />https://www.utrechter-union.org/page/157/home<br /><br />https://porvoocommunion.org/<br /><br />At the time, *Global Realignment^ seemed inevitable to happy warriors. But if the Global South did not want communion with TEC, Old Catholics in Europe had signaled that they wanted more than that. Merged with them, TEC would be an even more Continental church than it is. As such, TEC could join the Porvoo Communion which includes the Anglican churches of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Spain. (Yes, Spain.) That was the dream.<br /><br />https://porvoocommunion.org/porvoo_communion/members/ <br /><br />Advantages--<br /><br />(1) Even more meetings in Europe to attend. It's nice having a cathedral in Paris, but there are good pastry chefs in other cities too.<br /><br />(2) Old Catholics. To a large and often bruised ex-RCC constituency in TEC, this would mean that the Catholic Church at its most traditional and yet most progressive had joined them. And this would roughly double the size and density of the Convocation.<br /><br />(3) Lutherans. Porvoo's other members are national churches of Scandinavia and territorial churches in Germany. TEC was already closer to the ELCA in the US than to most of the Communion. In a host of ways, Anglican software runs much better on the Lutheran OS than on the Reformed one. It would feel great to be in a communion with just enough theological clarity.<br /><br />(4) Canadians. Many expect a TEC-ACC merger someday anyway. Maintaining separate churches for the United States and Canada is an expense few denominations can afford. In Alaska and some borderlands, it's missionally silly. <br /><br />But what about Canadian *national* identity? That's a slippery fish, eh? <br /><br />The thought was that because Canadians could more readily form a multinational church than join a US church, the Utrecht-Porvoo move would draw the maritime provinces of Canada in and the rest of the ACC along after them. <br /><br />(5) Africa. If the hypothesis is that TEC is no longer in, or is heavily sanctioned by, a hostile Anglican Communion, then why not send missionaries to ordain women and gays in oh... where?... who needs them most?... Nigeria! And what are they going to do about it, start a diocese in the US? <br /><br />More charitably but still soberly, in is in and out is out. We should be doing our part for churches in Africa that are not ashamed to kneel at the foot of the cross with us. Those churches might not be in the Anglican Communion. <br /><br />Now all this was just a fever dream of liberal New Yorkers long ago in the unhappy past. Global Realignment is not a thing anymore, so there is no chance that TEC will be out of the Communion. No need to pull this file out of whatever forgotten cabinet it is lost in.<br /><br />Or is it the way we jump start both missions and ecumenism around the North Atlantic? <br /><br />What's happening in the South Pacific these days?<br /><br /><br />BW<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-82546538600179572882022-08-11T06:00:19.577+12:002022-08-11T06:00:19.577+12:00Dioceses in Taipei and Tblisi - really? Dioceses in Taipei and Tblisi - really? Mark Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499278196265491516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-59085436207801053552022-08-10T21:26:49.292+12:002022-08-10T21:26:49.292+12:00No, Mark, my 6:24 recalls that the Episcopalians w...No, Mark, my 6:24 recalls that the Episcopalians who first permitted SSM in US churches neither needed nor adopted a theological opinion about what it means. Those who like to debate these things did debate them, but what moved the votes of accountants, physicians, professors, bankers, executives, etc was a strong disinclination to inhibit any diocese from conforming to the law of its state. <br /><br />Rowan Williams memorably attended a General Convention back then. In the course of it, he explained the global uproar that had followed the election and ratification of Gene Robinson. Delegates were sorry to hear about murderous Muslims in Africa, but pushed back hard against his implication that TEC should rein in its sovereign dioceses to keep the rest of the world peaceful. If Robinson had the right churchmanship and CV, the standing committees of the dioceses had no basis for denying the good people of New Hampshire their chosen bishop. <br /><br />As a theologian, Rowan knew that TEC was slightly liberal. But as ABC, he was startled to discover that a church with dioceses from Taipei to Texas to Tbilisi was also too decentralised for say the Presiding Bishop to demand accommodations from her 111 dioceses. Having neither the sweet reasonableness of a Welsh village, nor the proper accountability of an English province, TEC had nobody with whom he could deal. He appears to have tempered his ecclesiology a bit thereafter.<br /><br />BW Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-49203914965646244312022-08-10T16:59:02.396+12:002022-08-10T16:59:02.396+12:00Hey Bowman
Yes, I am thinking you are more focus...Hey Bowman <br /><br />Yes, I am thinking you are more focussed on polity and eccelesiology in your comments...but my point is these discourses became symbolic for other questions which is also what explains the *force* of debates on That Topic. <br /><br />Rowan Williams wrote some beautiful, 'via positiva' articles on the body and sexuality, but disappointed many by adopting an ecclesiology as Archbishop that seemed quite distant from his personalist writings. I don't know what that has to do with anything but it is crossing my head. <br /><br />Mark Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499278196265491516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-9001448427664608992022-08-10T14:04:38.214+12:002022-08-10T14:04:38.214+12:00The *via negativa* (aka apophatic way) describes G...The *via negativa* (aka apophatic way) describes God through statements that specify what God is not <br /><br />Example: The Cloud of Unknowing.<br /><br /><br />The *via positiva* (aka kataphatic way) describes God through positive statements. <br /><br />Example: Article I of the Thirty-Nine Articles. <br /><br /><br />BW<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-43121715667120856172022-08-10T11:29:53.203+12:002022-08-10T11:29:53.203+12:00Mark, at 7:22 you have not understood my position....Mark, at 7:22 you have not understood my position. <br /><br />Nor can I confidently construe your words at 7:22 in a Christian sense. <br /><br />Given the overlap of our interests, the impasse may be more interesting and consequential than either argument. But I do not see a way to pursue that today.<br /><br /><br />BWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-62910580556547628792022-08-10T10:54:48.507+12:002022-08-10T10:54:48.507+12:00I find this too dualistic, Ron. We end up projecti...I find this too dualistic, Ron. We end up projecting our shadow onto the other and not really seeing them.<br /><br />Plus: there is so much wisdom in the inward, via negativa!Mark Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499278196265491516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-83548054722401661732022-08-10T09:31:19.008+12:002022-08-10T09:31:19.008+12:00Here are wise words from a Pope, rich in years and...Here are wise words from a Pope, rich in years and wisdom, that could well have been usefully preached to the assembled Bishosp at Lambeth: <br /><br />"WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2022<br /><br />“There are two possible views we can have towards the world in which we live: I would call one “the negative view”, and the other “the discerning view”. The first, the negative view, is often born of a faith that feels under attack and thinks of it as a kind of “armour”, defending us against the world. This view bitterly complains that “the world is evil; sin reigns”, and thus risks clothing itself in a “crusading spirit”… We are called, instead, to have a view similar to that of God, who discerns what is good and persistently seeks it, sees it and nurtures it. This is no naïve view, but a view that discerns reality.”<br />Pope Francis"<br /><br />Perhaps our beloved 'ANGLICAN COMMUNION' of Churches need to come to terms with the reality of 2 very different ways of looking at the Mission of Christ to the World:<br /><br />1. 'orthodox' - Via Negativa, (Inward - Backward-focussed - Become Holy like US - or perish) - and:<br /> <br />2. 'missional' - Via Positiva.(Outward- Forward-oriented - A Family of self-acknowledged Poor Sinners showing other Poor Sinners where to find Bread)<br /><br />(I know which one I was born - and re-born into by Baptism - and am striving to please God) <br /><br /> Father Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17062632692873621258noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-25111634455912921832022-08-09T19:22:51.997+12:002022-08-09T19:22:51.997+12:00I favour Christians having much more to say public...I favour Christians having much more to say publically, communally, about sexuality, sex, and erotic desire than you perhaps support, Bowman. I do think these issues are deeply (symbolically) connected with the debate around marriage, and perhaps give it such force. It's not just that people like to lecture other people on sex. <br /><br />Private spaces and self-determination are important, absolutely. Being a busybody is odious.<br /><br />But a sort of Anglican minimalism around sex - the church shouldn't make windows into other people's bedrooms - while useful in some politico-legal contexts, is personally inadequate for fathers, mothers, gay and straight young people, etc., who need and want to talk about this powerful, life shaking human energy without splitting it off from their consciousness of God. I don't want the church to be neutral on this, which is perhaps the common ground of both the Global South and Progressive camps. <br /><br />Sex is deeply bound up with spirituality, not least because intimate relationship, physical ecstasy, and sexual 'union' is often where the Spirit gushes up, having abandoned the relative sterility of churchly life. <br /> Mark Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499278196265491516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-10122567646521817252022-08-09T19:09:22.441+12:002022-08-09T19:09:22.441+12:00There, Bowman, in one comment is the desideratum o...There, Bowman, in one comment is the desideratum on this matter for the Communion, which, if achieved, could see peace break out …Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.com