Questions raised about funding, monitoring of Listening Process

UPDATE: In a statement issued to the press from the Anglican Consultative Council, the donor writes that there are NO strings attached to funding. The donor will NOT be involved in any aspect of the Indaba Listening Project. She trusts the Archbishop of Canterbury and Anglican Communion to use the funds as needed to carry out the process. Read it all here in pdf.

Ruth Gledhill, writing in The Times relates a story currently making the rounds of right wing blogs about the major donor to the Indaba Listening Process of the Anglican Communion Office, and the organization that will monitor the process. The story has some major holes, and attempts some tenuous linkages, but it raises troubling questions, as well.

Progressives in the Episcopal Church have been unhappy for some time with the Listening Process, which has been subverted from its original intent. Conceived to facilitate conversation with gays and lesbians, it now just as frequently promotes conversation about gays and lesbians. It has been widely ignored by the provinces in which anti-gay prejudice is most violent and most deep-seated. Episcopalians who want to move forward on issues like the blessing of gay relationship and the consecration of GLBT candidates to the episcopacy see it primarily as one of the many delaying tactics embraced by those who wish to make certain that we do not disturb the status quo any time soon.

An interesting investigation into the Indaba process has just appeared on the conservative-led American Anglican Council website. I am awaiting comment from the Anglican Communion Office but in the meantime, here are some of the highlights, which appear under the headline: 'Money, sex, indaba: corrupting the Anglican Communion Listening Process.
Read more here.
Posted by Ann Fontaine on June 16, 2009 9:16 AM | |
Comments (3)

I would so love to see the "listening process" include providing a safe place for those displaced by their church's exclusion, or those afraid to live transparently due to fear of rejection of their church, to tell their stories. This would remove the the "luxury" of the assumption that to exclude will prevent what is already in the midst of the "exlcusionists".

Having grown up in a faith setting where it was believed I did not, nor could not, exist (i.e., the gay believer), I believe that such revelations must occur for most minds and hearts to consider conversion from prejudice.

signed: Kevin Johnson
[signature added by ed.]

Posted by KJ [TypeKey Profile Page] | June 16, 2009 12:00 PM

Thanks editor. I forget to add my name. No anonymity here!

Kevin Johnson

Posted by KJ [TypeKey Profile Page] | June 16, 2009 4:48 PM

Forgive my cynicism, but...what listening process?
It's been years since that phrase was added to the Anglican lexicon, yet we have not been heard by those who need to listen.

Pat Klemme

Posted by Pat Klemme [TypeKey Profile Page] | June 16, 2009 9:39 PM

Add your comments

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

Reminder: At Episcopal Café, we hope to establish an ethic of transparency by requiring all contributors and commentators to make submissions under their real names. For more details see our Feedback Policy.

Advertising Space