The Absentees

The large group of bishops who have declined the archbishop's invitation to LAMBETH 2008 are not silent. Though absent their's is a significant voice in the debate going on about the future of the Anglican Communion. I guess that many who are at Canterbury would be absent from the conference for an hour last evening and near a tv set where they could watch 'Battle of the Bishops'.


Battle of the bishops
The future of the Church of England, and its sister churches in the worldwide Anglican Communion, depends on who wins an unprecedented struggle for power.

Battle of the Bishops
Monday, 21 July, 2008
1900 BST on BBC Two

This World reveals the story of the man and the movement that seeks to challenge the Archbishop of Canterbury as the focus of the worldwide Anglican Church, in order to restore family values in a church that will have no place for openly homosexual clergy.

Reporter Ben Anderson is given unique access to Archbishop Peter Akinola - leader of the Anglican Church in Nigeria - as he and his followers prepare for an unprecedented summit in Jerusalem that aims to unite disaffected conservatives across the Anglican world.

Many of the headlines regarding the Church of England since 2002 have regarded the rights of homosexual priests. The Church of England allows for the ordination of gay priests as long as they are celibate.

Alongside issues of homosexual clergy, the wider Anglican Communion has been wrestling with whether to sanction same-sex blessings.

These issues have caused divisions within the Anglican Communion, with the provinces of the global south (Nigeria, South East Asia, South America among many others) threatening to split permanently from those sanctioning the blessing of same-sex relationships and the ordination of non-celibate gay clergy.

This World will be broadcast on Monday 21 July at 1900 BST on BBC Two.
Filmed and directed by Nick ReadExecutive producers: Lucy Hetherington, Nick Stuart and Tracey Gardiner

Response to latest draft of proposed 'Anglican Covenant'

The GAFCON grouping have forwarded to Lambeth their response to the latest draft of the proposed 'Anglican Covenant'. It is a resounding rejection of it as an inadequate instrument for unity. It concludes:

"Given the profound and fatal difficulties identified in the draft covenant, the legal framework of the appendix will likewise be open to overwhelming objection. The proposed legal framework in any event exhibits the same flaws as the parent document, notably in the way unity is abstracted from biblical faithfulness and no account is taken of the possibility that the instruments of Communion themselves might be the focus of objection.

Two other objections must be mentioned.
First, the document describes four instruments of Communion, which it proposes will provide solutions to disputes. It fails to recognise the disproportionate influence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who invites to the Lambeth Conference, chairs the ACC and calls the Primates’ Meeting. The problem of this undue influence is compounded by the lack of formal accountability on the part of the Archbishop and the prominence the document envisages for this Primate is frankly colonialist.
Secondly, the prominence given to the Joint Standing Committee of the ACC and Primates raises problems in increasing further the ability of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the ACC to exercise disproportionate influence over the Primates, thereby tending in effect to silence dissentient primatial voices.

In the light of these considerations we find that the St Andrews Draft of An Anglican Covenant does not meet our expectations or hopes for restoring the broken sacrament of Communion.