No more money to England! Zero. No more diocesan appropriations for Lambeth.

Surely the Episcopal Church doesn't send any money to the UK, right? Josh Thomas' comments are ironic, right? Forgive my ignorance.

Obviously, the Standing Committee assumed powers that it does not have. I'd hope that we would not continue to fund these sinister exercises. Once the committee has its 8 primates and however many bishops, there will no longer be even the facade of a democratic entity.

June Butler

Does Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury actually believe his not-so-subtle power grab is going to leave him with Anglican Provinces who admire the quality of his spiritual Roman Catholiclike leadership?

I find it quite telling that the members of the committee discussed filthy lucre.

How can the faithful of low estate in the church get the word out that we don't want Episcopal Church funds supporting these meetings?

June Butler

Subjectively speaking, I'll take the Standing Committee over the Primates' Meeting any day, Mimi.

Are we surprised that the power grabs continue? It is more than clear that the Primates want to be the folk in charge, expanding to control two of the so called Instruments of Unity/Communion.
We should be marginally pleased, I suppose, that the effort today failed at the Standing Committee level. And we should remember that the proposed change would presumably have to be sent to the Provinces for ratification.
But then again.... they are all making it up as they go along and the sole goal is to hurt The Episcopal Church.
I agree that it is time to cut all funding and let them see that actions have consequences.

Formerly the Primates tried to have themselves accepted en masse as de facto members of the ACC. Now that that idea was rejected by the ACC they are trying this backdoor approach to power.

I know that this comment won't be popular, but I'm going to make it anyway: Why exactly do we so quickly advocate cutting off funds to the Anglican Communion offices when we wouldn't tolerate dioceses withholding funds from TEC, parishes withholding funds from dioceses, and people withholding funds from parishes as an expression of protest? Do we really want to set an example that if you are upset with what your parish/diocese/TEC is doing you can simply withhold funds? Isn't that what the now-ACNA parishes were doing? I'm just thinking that we need to think this through before we establish the precedent that we vote with our wallets in the church.

If we do end up somehow separated from the Anglican Communion, then it makes sense that we don't financially support an organization of which we are no longer a part, but as long as we are still in the Communion, we need to do our part, IMHO.

I find this report quite encouraging, actually. A lone voice spoke toward expelling TEC and he was unanimously shot down. That's about as good as it gets.

In terms of the actual power of the SC unless we have the original texts of Isaac's motion, I don't think we can tell whether or not the motion was out of order. The original motion may have been to urge the ACC to expel TEC. While I still have problems with that, I believe the ACC does have the authority to add or delete members from it's make-up. As Mark Harris points out, that's how the SC is supposed to operate under The Covenant, so the motion may well have been "covenant compliant, even if the Covenant isn't in effect.

Also, was the meeting really a closed-door one? Or in Executive Session? We should certainly press our representatives for clarification on the motion and it's legitimacy.

Regarding membership make-up, I wouldn't be surprised if the ACC says "Thanks but no thanks." Given concerns for gender parity, if there are 8 primates, the other 8 members pretty much need to be women unless other provinces get off their duffs and welcome women to the episcopate and primacy. That could be fun to watch!

Overall, I'm in agreement with Tom - unless we are no longer a member of the Communion, we continue to fully participate.