Archbishop Rowan Williams spoke last week about the need for a moral state that is not theocratic or confessional.

Portions of the talk appear as a column in the Sunday Times.

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In his lecture this evening in Hull, birthplace of William Wilberforce, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will urge politicians to rediscover the moral energy and vision which inspired Wilberforce; defend the right of the citizen to call the state to account for its actions; and ask whether we still believe in the notion of "a moral
state."

If we do, he says, we cannot leave the state to decide for itself what is moral: "The modern state needs a robust independent tradition of moral perception with which to engage. Left to itself it cannot generate the self-critical energy that brings about change...for the sake of some positive human ideal."

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, will spend much of his summer sabbatical at Georgetown University sources in England and Washington confirmed today.

Williams, has stayed at the Jesuit university twice previously during seminars of interfaith scholars, and is friendly with the university's president John J. DeGioia.

In March 2004, in partnership with President DeGioia, Williams convened the third Building Bridges seminar at Georgetown. The fifth Building Bridges seminar in March 2006 was also hosted by Georgetown. Williams initiated the annual Building Bridges seminars to promote dialog between Christian and Muslim scholars.

Williams has not visited Episcopal churches during his previous visits, although he has held breakfast meetings with prominent local church leaders. He has refused numerous requests to participate in Episcopal Church events.

The news that Williams would be spending his sabbatical in the United States became public before Williams announced whether he would accede to a request to meet with the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church in an effort to defuse the crisis over homosexuality that threatens the future of the Anglican Communion.

That meeting is now set for late September in New Orleans.

- Jim Naughton

In its April 17 issue, The Globe and Mail incorrectly quoted the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, as saying a draft covenant presented to the primates of the world Anglican Communion at their February meeting in Tanzania was "unacceptable." In fact, Dr. Williams was referring to a draft covenant first published as part of the communion's Windsor Report in 2004. The proposals in the February covenant, he said, were "much more promising."

Read it all HERE

During his summer sabbatical at Georgetown the Archbishop of Canterbury will be studying Dostoevsky.

The sabbatical topic was revealed in the Spy column of today's Telegraph under the heading "Glutton for Punishment." An excerpt:

During his two-month sabbatical in June and July, I learn that Dr Rowan Williams will be writing a book on Dostoevsky. The archbishop is known to be a devotee of the dark Russian soul, and tells Prospect magazine's website of his fascination with the Crime and Punishment author. "Dostoevsky would say ethics is not about good and evil, it's about truth and falsehood, reality and illusion," he says.

The Prospect interview is here. For selected quotes click read more.

Read more »

From Anglican Journal:

Rowan Williams said on his recent visit to Canada that his job as Archbishop of Canterbury—the spiritual leader of the world’s 77 million Anglicans—is to get people around the table and keep them there as long as possible.

Of course, in ecclesiastical terms, Archbishop Williams’ words carry two meanings: he is attempting to keep all parties around the meeting table, continuing to talk about the challenges surrounding human sexuality and the authority of Scripture that threaten to divide them forever. He is also faced with the task of trying to keep all members around the eucharistic table. In some respects, he can record some success and some failure on both counts.

The recent meeting of primates in Tanzania is one marker of his progress. While there in February, seven leaders of the Anglican Communion’s 38 provinces boycotted a communion service to symbolize the “brokenness” of the communion. Granted, the number of absentee bishops was about half that which declined to share communion two years earlier at the same meeting in Northern Ireland. But it nevertheless shocked some observers, who could not fathom why church leaders would refuse to partake in the greatest gift to believers: the body and blood of Christ, simply in order to make a point.

Read it all here.

It is a "sad day for the Anglican Communion and a new low for the beleaguered Archbishop of Canterbury. The once proud-of-its-diversity Anglican Communion has allowed itself to be blackmailed into bigotry by those unwilling to accept into their midst a duly elected brother bishop solely because of his sexual orientation." The Rev. Susan Russell, President of Integrity, USA, writes in On Faith, religious conversations in the Washington Post.

"The Archbishop had an explanation for his decision not to include Bishop Robinson: “I have to reserve the right to withhold or withdraw invitations from bishops whose appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the Communion.”

What he doesn’t have is an explanation for the stunning hypocrisy of excluding the Bishop of New Hampshire because he is gay while including the Archbishop of Nigeria who supports legislation criminalizing gay and lesbian people so draconian that it has been condemned by the international Human Rights Watch."

Read it all HERE

Thinking Anglicans provides this snip from a letter Lord Carey has written to the Church of England Newspaper:

Sir, Kenneth Kearon suggests (CEN May 25) that the decision not to invite AMiA bishops, or the recently consecrated CANA Bishop, to the Lambeth Conference relates to a precedent I set in 2000…

…This, of course, was before 2003 when the Episcopal Church clearly signalled its abandonment of Communion norms, in spite of warnings from the Primates that the consecration of a practising homosexual bishop would ‘tear the fabric of the Communion’. It is not too much to say that everything has changed in the Anglican Communion as a result of the consecration of Gene Robinson.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s prerogative to invite bishops to the Conference is a lonely, personal and important task. Before each Conference a number of careful decisions have to be taken, with the focus being on the well-being of the Communion. The circumstances facing each Archbishop of Canterbury will vary according to the needs of the hour. For these reasons, I believe, that Dr Rowan Williams should not regard the advice he has evidently received that this matter is ‘fixed’ as necessarily binding on him in the very different circumstances of 2007.

Is it unprecedented for a former Archbishop of Canterbury to publicly chastise his successor?

UPDATE: Here's an argument for not inviting CANA and AMiA bishops. It was written by Carey in 2000. Thanks to Thinking Anglicans for the pointer.

Scott Gunn at Inclusive Church blog has done his history homework on former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey. Comparing "then" with "now" he finds "there is a bit of conservative revisionism going on with respect to Anglican polity. Witness Carey's two letters. In one, he unequivocally supports unity, and in the next, he implies that those conservative bishops who would imperil unity should be invited to Lambeth."

In Lord Carey's letter of 2000 he says:

"To talk of the Primates disciplining the Episcopal Church of the USA or any other Province for that matter, goes far beyond the brief of the Primates' Meeting." After noting that Lambeth resolution 1.10 "reflects the traditional teaching of the church," and "Nevertheless, in many parts of the Communion, faithful Christians, some of whom are homosexual themselves, are seeking to engage the Church in a challenging reassessment of its teaching on human sexuality, because they have felt excluded from the Church for many years. I believe that it is wholly in the spirit of the resolution, and that is why the Presiding Bishop of ECUSA and I set up an international conversation between bishops of different views, an experiment which was so successful that it will meet again later this year. I have also sought to encourage such conversations more locally as well."
Carey reminded the Communion that "we must guard against the risk of allowing one issue to divert all our attention from the primary task of mission to which we are called."

"It is not too much to say that everything has changed in the Anglican Communion as a result of the consecration of Gene Robinson." and he now writes that ECUSA "clearly signalled its abandonment of Communion norms, in spite of warnings from the Primates that the consecration of a practising homosexual bishop would 'tear the fabric of the Communion'."

Read it all Here

"The invitation list for the 2008 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops is not complete, according to Canon James Rosenthal, communications director for the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), who said it is possible more invitations will be extended in the coming months," writes George Conger in The Living Church

Invitations were sent May 22. The initial invitation list was compiled based on past precedent and the recommendations of the Windsor Report, according to Canon Rosenthal and other aides to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams who spoke with The Living Church.

Bishops who have not received invitations included those whose consecrations are valid but whose jurisdictions are anomalous, bishops not engaged in stipendiary episcopal ministry, and a handful of bishops whose manner of life or public actions are cause for concern. Invitation also were not extended to retired but semi-active bishops known as “assisting bishops” in The Episcopal Church or “honorary assistant bishops” in the Church of England.

Some previous Lambeth Conferences included bishops holding administrative positions within their national churches, but no such invitations have yet been extended for 2008. Episcopal bishops in this group include the Rt. Rev. C. Christopher Epting, the Presiding Bishop’s deputy for ecumenical and interfaith relations; the Rt. Rev. F. Clayton Matthews, director of the Office of Pastoral Development at The Episcopal Church Center; and the Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. All three are actively engaged in stipendiary church ministry and are active members of the House of Bishops, but are not directly engaged in “episcopal ministry,” the ACC said.

Read it all HERE

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, in an interview to be published on Friday, in Time says he is not optimistic about the future of the Anglican Church but adds that a schism over gay issues is not inevitable, reports Michael Conlon, Religion Writer for Reuters.

The state of the 77-million-member global church "feels very vulnerable. I can't, of course, deny that. It feels very vulnerable and very fragile, perhaps more so than it's been for a very long time," Williams told Time Magazine.
"I don't think schism is inevitable. The task I've got is to try and maintain as long as possible the space in which people can have constructive disagreements, learn from each other, and try and hold that within an agreed framework of discipline and practice." Asked if was optimistic, Williams said "I'm hopeful. Not optimistic," agreeing that "hopeful" was a "safer" word.

Later in the interview Archbishop Williams explains his thinking on which bishops to invite to the Lambeth Conference and why he left Bishop Robinson and Bishop Minns off the list,

"In the Time interview Williams said he did that to avoid the two bishops becoming the focus of the 2008 meeting. "The mode of their appointment in the face of substantial protest simply means their bishoping is going to be under question in large parts of the Anglican world," he said "Regarding Robinson, one thing I've tried to make clear is that my worry about his election was that the Episcopal Church hadn't made a general principled decision about the blessing of same-sex unions or the ordination of people in public same-sex partnerships," he said. "I would think it better had the church actually taken a view on that before moving to the individual case. As it is, someone living in a relationship not theologically officially approved by the church is elected to a bishop. I find that bizarre and puzzling," Williams said.

Read it all HERE

UPDATE: Time podcast of interview HERE

Time article HERE

Interview printed HERE

TIME magazine's David Van Biema and Catharine Mayer have written a cover story on the Archbishop of Canterbury. It appears in this week's European and South Pacific editions. The article will likely become the one piece that readers new to the turmoil in the Angican Communion will want to read for a quick, but fairly comprehensive grasp on the situation. It is followed by an in-depth interview (that will probably be of more interest to Communion watchers) in which Williams spells out his reasons for inviting neither Bishops Gene Robinson nor Martyn Minns to the Lambeth Conference.

A few excerpts and quotes worth perusing before you click "Read more" to see the whole thing:

On Peter Akinola:

The Archbishop is weary of being pushed around. The pusher-in-chief, of course, especially since the founding of CANA, has been Akinola. ‘I’ve said to him privately and publicly I don’t think that [CANA] was an appropriate response,’ says Williams. He is also bothered by the unwavering support by Akinola’s church of a proposed Nigerian law, now lapsed, that would have assigned a five-year jail term not only to open homosexuals, but to those who supported them. Williams says he is ‘very unhappy’ about the situation, ‘and I’ve written to the Archbishop about it."

On Gene Robinson:

"Regarding Robinson, one thing I’ve tried to make clear is that my worry about his election was that the Episcopal Church hadn’t made a general principled decision about the blessing of same-sex unions or the ordination of people in public same-sex partnerships. I would think it better had the church actually taken a view on that before moving to the individual case. As it is, someone living in a relationship not theologically officially approved by the church is elected to a bishop — I find that bizarre and puzzling."

On the Episcopal Church's response to the Primates' communique from Dar es Salaam:

TIME: The Anglican primates met in Dar es Salaam in February and made three key recommendations to the American bishops: that they stop ordaining gay bishops and blessing gay unions and that they create a special bishop to serve the needs of conservatives. What happens if they refuse?

Williams: An absolute blanket no to all of this would pose a real problem. We’ve had indications of a cautious yes to part of it.

Read more »

Get Religion is a Web site devoted to analyzing the media's coverage of religion. It is bankrolled by Howard Ahmanson, who also bankrolls the Institute on Religion and Democracy, the American Anglican Council, and a variety of other outfits whose aims include having creationism taught in schools, obscuring the link between human activity and global warming and undermining mainline Protestants' ability to govern their denominations.

All that said, GR is now, once again, home to the astute and fair minded Doug LeBlanc. His analysis of the recent TIME magazine story on Rowan Williams, and of Williams' cagey deployment of invitations to the Lambeth Conference are well worth reading.

Chuck Blanchard points us to Ruth Gledhill's report that it looks like Bishop Gene Robinson may well get an invite to Lambeth after all, albeit as a nonvoting member. She also asserts that Bishop Martyn Minns will not.

Gledhill was sent, apparently by a third party, a letter said to have been written by Canon Flora Winfield to those inquiring about Robinson's status. It reads:

'The Archbishop of Canterbury has asked me to thank you for your letter of 22 May 2007 regarding his invitation to bishops of the Anglican Communion to next year’s Lambeth Conference. The Archbishop is taking a period of study leave this summer and he has therefore asked me to respond to your letter on his behalf.

Prior to his departure, Archbishop Rowan noted carefully the level of disappointment expressed by correspondents, following his decision not to extend an invitation to Bishop Gene Robinson to attend the Lambeth Conference along with the other bishops. He stressed in his letter to the bishops that he did not take this decision lightly, but that he regarded it as appropriate in the light of the recommendations set out in the Windsor Report.

The Windsor Report counselled that in the future proper regard should be taken to the bounds of affection and interdependence between member Churches when considering the acceptability of a candidate for Episcopal appointment. While is it recognised that Bishop Robinson was duly elected and consecrated according to the canons of The Episcopal Church in view of the widespread objections to Bishop Robinson’s ministry in other Provinces of the Communion, the Windsor Report further recommend that the Archbishop ‘ exercise very considerable caution in inviting him to the councils of the Communion.

From the time of the election of Bishop Gene Robinson to See of New Hampshire, both the representatives of many Anglican Provinces and the Instruments of Communion made it clear that full recognition by the Communion could not be given to a bishop whose chosen lifestyle would, in most Provinces of the Communion, give rise to canonical impediment to his consecration as a bishop. The Archbishop has to be loyal to that widespread concern as well as bearing in mind the position of Bishop Robinson within The Episcopal Church. The Archbishop is therefore exploring inviting Bishop Robinson to the conference in another status.

Thank you once again for writing.'

Chuck excerpts the parts about Robinson and provides his own brief commentary here. You can also read the entire Gledhill column here.

UPDATE: Commenter Ginny Gibbs writes "Actually, the text appears identical to that of a letter I saw just last night at a parish meeting. It was written in response to a form letter a friend who's a member of Integrity had sent."

UPDATE, 29 June: The Times publishes a brief column by Gledhill making the assertion "Bishop Gene will be able to attend meetings as an official guest but will not have the right to vote on motions at the conference."

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has received an award from UK parliamentarians for his work in helping to promote ecologically friendly causes - including a Church of England carbon-cutting campaign.

As reported by Ekklesia,

"The award, presented by the Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group, recognises the work of the Archbishop and the Church of England in promoting sustainable energy issues to the public and to policy makers."

Affirming the impact of the Archbishop's leadership, "a Lambeth Palace spokesperson added that the award recognised the importance of the issue for faith communities. "The Church of England has made climate change and environmental sustainability central issues in recent years, at home and overseas. This award for the Archbishop of Canterbury from PRESAG members is a timely recognition of the central role people of faith have in providing for the responsible stewardship of our planet."

"The ethical aspect of the challenge of climate change is increasingly recognised, and in choosing to confer this award on the Archbishop, PRESAG [the Associate Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group] acknowledges just how important moral and spiritual leadership on environmental matters continues to be."

The Church of England is currently engaged in a national campaign known as Shrinking the Footprint.

Read it all here.

Church Times Leader about the Lambeth invitations and possible boycott by some bishops:

"THE ROOMS are booked, but are the guests coming? The uncertainty surrounding attendance at next year’s Lambeth Conference continues, as various conservative groupings realise the political capital that can be made from hesitation. The bishops in Sydney, advised by their standing committee to come but to whinge (News, 29 June), look as if they will hold out until after the US House of Bishops meets next month to debate formally the demands of the Primates, made in Dar es Salaam, that they turn aside from the path that led to the election of Bishop Gene Robinson, a non-celibate gay man. Several African bishops have indicated already that they do not intend to come; yet more are still to be heard from.

There is talk this week of a deadline ignored and an Archbishop undermined. Yet when Dr Williams wrote to the Primates in July, he said no more than: ‘It would be a great help if these replies were received by 31 July 2007.’ As we have said (Leader comment, 25 May), the US bishops have been invited in the full knowledge that their decision in September might well be to defy the Primates’ strictures. Nobody seriously believes that Dr Williams will withdraw their invitation, though that will not stop some from pressing him to do so."

From here: Lambeth bookings

Everyone has a blog these days - even Lambeth 2008.

A sample entry:

We're having lots of fun with all the Lambeth Conference registrations - keep them coming in! (Via the online system if possible!)

Otherwise, Sue is away on her holidays at the moment, as are many others in the Anglican Communion Office, where the Lambeth Conference office is based. But things are still fairly busy for an August in England.

Keep checking here

It is part of The Official Lambeth site

Click here (The Archbishop of Canterbury Official site Welcome page) and hover your mouse pointer over the TIME cover of the Archbishop. What do you see?

Is there a message here?

Bishop John Shelby Spong has written an open letter to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury that rehashes old complaints that have been extensively aired elsewhere and seems calculated to give offense. It is perhaps best seen as an act of unconscious self-marginalization (not to mention bad manners.) Spong, like N. T. Wright, has become one of those figures whose public utternances frequently do more to bolster the cause of his adversaries than his allies.

If one were attempting to poison the atmosphere when the archbishop and the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops gather in New Orleans on September 20-21, this is the letter one would write. Its publication places a burden on Episcopal bishops who favor the full inclusion of the baptized in all ministries of the Church, and continued membership in the Anglican Communion. They now must make it clear that Archbishop Rowan will receive a warmer welcome than this letter suggests.

Read more »

Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, will consider the events and consequences of two events in history sharing the date of September 11th. He will give a lecture to the Christian Muslim Forum Conference in Cambridge UK. The Anglican Communion News Service reports:

Dr Williams compares "the act of nightmare violence" of September 11th 2001 and the chain of retaliation, fear and misery" it unleashed with the public meeting in Johannesburg on September 11th in 1906 (attended by people of Muslim, Hindu and Christian faiths) at which Gandhi's non-violent protest movement - the Satyagraha movement - was born.

It was a movement which put principles into action but which rejected violence; a sort of "'soul force' whose central principle was that our behaviour must witness to truth whatever the cost - and that this witness to truth can never, of its very nature, involve violence or a response to oppression that simply mirrors what has been done by the
oppressor."

The Archbishops says in his lecture:

The Church is, in this perspective, the trustee of a vision that is radical and universal, the vision of a social order that is without fear, oppression , the violence of exclusion and the search for scapegoats because it is one where each recognizes their dependence on all and each is seen as having an irreplaceable gift for all. The Church cannot begin to claim that it consistently lives by this; its failure is all too visible, century by century. But its credibility does not hang on its unbroken success; only on its continued willingness to be judged by what it announces and points to, the non-competitive, non-violent order of God's realm, centred upon Jesus and accessible through commitment to him. Within the volatile and plural context of a
society that has no single frame of moral or religious reference, it makes two fundamental contributions to the common imagination and moral climate. The first is that it declares that, in virtue of everyone's primordial relation to God (made in God's image), the dignity of every person is non-negotiable: each has a unique gift to give, each is owed respect and patience and the freedom to contribute what is given them.

This remains true whether we are speaking of a gravely disabled person - when we might be tempted to think they would be better off removed from human society, or of a suspected terrorist - when we might be tempted to think that torture could be justified in extracting information, or of numberless poor throughout the world - when we should be more comfortable if we were allowed to regard them as no more than collateral damage in the steady advance of prosperity for our 'developed'
economies.

...my chief point is that the convergence that occurred on this day in Johannesburg in 1906 was not an illusory or opportunistic affair. Both our faiths bring to civil society a conviction that what they embody and affirm is not a marginal affair; both claim that their legitimacy rests not on the license of society but on God's gift. Yet for those very reasons, they carry in them the seeds of a non-violent and non-possessive witness. They cannot be committed to violent struggle to prevail at all costs, because that would suggest a lack of faith in the God who has called them; they cannot be committed to a policy of coercion and oppression because that would again seek to put the power of the human believer or the religious institution in the sovereign
place that only God's reality can occupy. Because both our traditions have a history scarred by terrible betrayals of this, we have to approach our civil society and its institutions with humility and repentance. But I hope that this does not mean we shall surrender what is most important - that we have a gift to offer immeasurably greater than our own words or records, the gift of a divine calling and a renewal of all that is possible form human beings.

Read it all here.

Other news and reflections on 9/11

Spire of Hope dedicated in Belfast here

Remembering 9/11 on epiScope

And Heads Bow in Memory of 9/11 in The New York Times

As his sabbatical came to a close, the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke with the National Catholic Reporter, an American publication. He is the NCR's cover story for its September 14th issue:

On Sept. 3 Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams came back from study leave to face the music. The primate of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion does not want to go down in history as the archbishop who presided over the disintegration of that communion.
...
As he looks forward, the archbishop hopes against hope. He pauses for thought before he replies to questions, his eyes reflective under the bushy eyebrows. Then out comes his response, perfectly phrased, highly nuanced, each sentence proceeding coherently to a full stop. “The requests that have been put to the Episcopal church are of slightly different kinds. The answers are not simple black and white.” So even after the American Anglicans of the Episcopal church have declared themselves, “there will still be some discerning and sifting to do by the standing committees of our international bodies.”
...
Ask the archbishop whether, given the present difficulties, he does not sometimes wish in his heart of hearts for a touch of papal power and he will always say no. Then what does he think that Christian leadership consists in?

One has to look at the Gospel, he replies, to tease out the context of a concept like that. In that light, he sees his task as taking appropriate responsibility “for making things happen in the direction of God’s kingdom.” Instant results are not always to be expected. In the Anglican Communion, decisions “depend very heavily on mutual consent.” Otherwise they will not stick. He does what he can, he says, to “make a difference that shifts things slightly.”
...
As to the covenant, he would indeed like to see “a much greater convergence of our canon law” toward “some kind of worldwide screening process” that would make it possible to resolve any “really bad procedural blunder that caused scandal and damage to a church in a province.” But every Anglican province at present “has what is in principle a self-sufficient system of canon law.” To introduce any element into these provincial systems that gave jurisdiction elsewhere “would be a huge innovation.”
...
As a theologian in the 1980s Williams himself was one of those questioning the Christian tradition on homosexuality.

“I still think the points I raised were worth raising. But put them in the context of a wider discussion of the doctrine of the church and how the church makes up its mind, and it looks a little less simple.” In that context it becomes clear that “there are no arguments that are winning the majority of Christendom over to a new position” that would amend or reverse the consistently negative Christian tradition on homosexual practice. He distinguishes sharply between questions a theologian may ask and actions or decisions a church or a bishop may take.

Rowan Williams tells the Telegraph that he believes our society is "broken," in an interview that has nothing to do with the Anglican Communion.

"Is our society broken? I think it is," he says. "We are in a phase of our culture where the fragmentation of society is far more obvious. It's not just families, it is different ethnic communities and economic groups. We talk about access and equality the whole time, but in practice we all seem to live very segregated lives."

He goes on: "Outside my front door in Lambeth I see a society so dramatically different from across the river or in Canterbury. There is a level of desolation and loneliness and dysfunctionality which many people have very little concept of. If you sense that the world you live in is absolutely closed, that for all sorts of reasons you are unable to move outside, if nothing gives you aspirations, there is an imprisonment in that, there is a kind of resentment that comes with that and a frustration that can boil over in violence and street crime."

Inequality is, in his view, just a symptom of a wider moral vacuum. "I don't think that the huge wealth of some is the cause (of the problems), it is more that society just wants to reward business success and celebrity. If you're a teenager in Peckham neither of those are easily accessible."

Indeed, he is horrified by the triviality of modern society. "We are too celebrity obsessed, we have got into a dangerous cycle where fame is an objective in itself."

His children are 11 and 19. "I sometimes sit with them and watch The X Factor and it is heartbreaking to see people who plead with judges to get through because they just want to be famous so intensely," he says.

Our old friend the Salty Vicar, who gave up blogging to have a life, has written a perceptive response to Bishop JohnShelby Spong's recent open letter to Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury.

He writes:

The issues of the U.S. Episcopal Church, I suspect, are not the issues of the Anglican Communion. My concerns include things like how am I going to pay for my secretary or the air conditioning or my after school program, and why isn’t anyone coming to my cool ultra-progressive church? It isn’t that people don’t approve of me or my parish; in my area everyone knows where we stand and they love what we’re doing. They’re just in a time and money crunch, as so many of us are today.

Gay rights is just one of many issues that needs work in a hypercapitalist country. And in fact, I believe we’re ahead of the game in that department. Good leaders in the Episcopal Church do not worry about sexuality—we’ve already decided that gay people are a full part of the church. Now how about turning our attention to some other challenges, like the growing blight of mega-churches and the budget shortfalls that make it tougher and tougher to pay for the basic upkeep of church buildings?

Spong is wrong to assume that this fight is Rowan’s. The fight in the Episcopal Church is ours. It’s great that the Archbishop is coming, the Archbishop is coming. To be honest, that’s all he needed to do. But the work that has to be done is here. And we don’t need him to do it for us, or to give us the thumbs up.

The voice of the faithful is the most powerful when it gives up human assumptions of power, victory and control. But the Church has become so politicized, and our language and behavior--both within our groups and towards society--are so focused on winners and losers, that we frequently lose sight of the fact that Jesus' power comes from his willing powerlessness. So says the Archbishop of Canterbury in a speech he gave last week, on September 10th, at King's College, Cambridge called "Faith Communities in a Civil Society--Christian Perspectives."

He says that only "...When religion ceases to appear as yet another human group hungry for security, privilege and the liberty to enforce its convictions" will it have the power to change human institutions and have an impact on human suffering in a significant way. He goes on, "To have faith, Gandhi might say, is to hold something in trust for humanity – a vision of who and what humanity is in relation to a truth that does not depend on worldly victory."

In a paradox that never ceases to challenge and puzzle both believers and unbelievers, it is when we are free from the passion to be taken seriously, to be protected or indeed to be obeyed that we are most likely to be heard. The convincing witness to faith is one for whom safety and success are immaterial, and one for whom therefore the exercise of violent force against another of different conviction is ruled out. And the nature of an authentically religious community is made visible in its admission of dependence on God – which means both that it does not fight for position and power and that it will not see itself as existing just by the license of human society. It proclaims both its right to exist on the basis of the call of God and its refusal to enforce that right by the routine methods of human conflict.

For the Christian, of course, this paradox arises from the ministry of Jesus and the Gospel narratives themselves. When confronted with the both the possibility of state execution and the accusation that he is a king, Jesus tells Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world but it's power and authority comes from God. Christians believe that Jesus is a different kind of king and that the Kingdom of God is a different kind of realm. To participate in the reign of God is to at once claim participation in it; and, at the very same time, to give up all claim to earthly power.

In a paradox that never ceases to challenge and puzzle both believers and unbelievers, it is when we are free from the passion to be taken seriously, to be protected or indeed to be obeyed that we are most likely to be heard. The convincing witness to faith is one for whom safety and success are immaterial, and one for whom therefore the exercise of violent force against another of different conviction is ruled out. And the nature of an authentically religious community is made visible in its admission of dependence on God – which means both that it does not fight for position and power and that it will not see itself as existing just by the license of human society. It proclaims both its right to exist on the basis of the call of God and its refusal to enforce that right by the routine methods of human conflict.

He says that the Church is, "in this perspective, the trustee of a vision that is radical and universal, the vision of a social order that is without fear, oppression , the violence of exclusion and the search for scapegoats because it is one where each recognizes their dependence on all and each is seen as having an irreplaceable gift for all."

There are two essential "non-negotiables" that the Church brings to the table whenever there is a tear at the fabric of civil society: First, that all people are created in the image of God and have an inherent dignity regardless of their situation or station in life.

...each has a unique gift to give, each is owed respect and patience and the freedom to contribute what is given them. This remains true whether we are speaking of a gravely disabled person - when we might be tempted to think they would be better off removed from human society, or of a suspected terrorist - when we might be tempted to think that torture could be justified in extracting information, or of numberless poor throughout the world – when we should be more comfortable if we were allowed to regard them as no more than collateral damage in the steady advance of prosperity for our ‘developed’ economies.

The second thing that the Church brings to the table in civil society is the "non-negotiable" that every person is "involved in either creating or frustrating a common good that relates to the whole human race."

In plainer terms, we cannot as Christians settle down with the conclusion that what is lastingly and truly good for any one individual or group is completely different from what is lastingly and truly good for any other. Justice is not local in an exclusive sense or limited by circumstances; there are no classes or subgroups of humanity who are entitled to less of God’s love; and so there are no classes entitled to lower levels of human respect or compassion or service. And since an important aspect of civil society is the assumption that human welfare is not achieved by utilitarian generalities imposed from above but requires active and particularized labour, the fact of the Christian community’ presence once again puts the question of how human society holds together the need for action appropriate to specific and local conditions with the lively awareness of what is due to all people everywhere.

There is, Williams says, an "absolute difference of the power and action of God as against human power (embodied in the fact of Jesus’ crucifixion as the climax of God’s incarnate work), and the universal promise offered in the Resurrection (embodied in the mission of the Church as mediating Christ’s living presence)."

The Church, he says, cannot claim that it consistently lives by by this notion of God's power operating above and beyond human assumptions of power. "Its failure is all too visible, century by century" Williams says. "But its credibility does not hang on its unbroken success; only on its continued willingness to be judged by what it announces and points to, the non-competitive, non-violent order of God’s realm, centred upon Jesus and accessible through commitment to him."

Read the whole speech here.

Archbishop Rowan Williams has been invited to attend a meeting of The Consultation and celebrate communion. The Consultation is a group of gay and lesbian clergy in the Church of England who meet regularly for support and pastoral care. Although Ruth Gledhill of The Times has reported it as a secret meeting called by the Archbishop, The Rev. Colin Coward of Changing Attitude and member of the Consultation reports that Archbishop is attending because he was invited. Lambeth has issued a statement that the Archbishop often meets with various groups in the church for pastoral reasons.

From The Rev. Colin Coward:

The Consultation is not a secret or secretive group, it is a group which has chosen to protect its weakest members by ensuring confidentiality and safety for members in order that people feel safe to attend. The weakness of the group is that of the weakest members, those who feel least safe in emerging from their closets.

++Rowan or his staff asked to meet us confidentially, but that is normal for any invitation from the Consultation in order to protect our safety. There is a Eucharist as an integral part of every Consultation meeting and ++Rowan is simply joining us and participating as our Archbishop in our normal programme.

We are inviting him, not he us, the Communion isn't secret, the meeting is confidential, and many more members of the Consultation will come to this meeting than the normal number. Those who won't be there are the misogynistic male gay clergy, who withdrew years ago when lesbian priests were welcomed.

Please feel free to copy and circulate the above.
......

Colin

Reverend Colin Coward
Director of Changing Attitude
6 Norney Bridge
Mill Road
Marston

The Archbishop's Office has made this statement:

"It should come as no surprise that the Archbishop is meeting pastorally with clergy and others affected by the current debates in the church; such encounters extend across the church and right across the range of opinions found within the church. Few of these encounters ever reach the public domain; that is exactly as it should be."

More on the meeting here.

More from Ekklesia here

News. News News. Reports from everywhere. Have a look at what the mainstream media is saying about the House of Bishops meeting that began this morning in New Orleans.

Rachel Zoll has written a strum and drang free story for the Associated Press.

Cathy Lee Grossman of USA Today has also overcome the temptation to suggest that the sky is not only falling, but will in fact land before the end of the month.

Rebecca Trounson of The Los Angeles Times features these two quote:

And in a recent telephone interview, Jefferts Schori said that despite the approaching deadline, the Episcopal Church would "continue to be the church on Oct. 1 and in November and beyond." She said she did not expect major changes in the church's relationships within the communion as a result of the meeting.

And:

The Episcopal bishop of Los Angeles, the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, said Wednesday that he did not expect those decisions to be overturned at the bishops' meeting. "I don't believe we have the power to go beyond that before the General Convention," he said. "And if the primates think some magic change will occur in the House of Bishops and the national church in which we say we rescind everything, that's not going to happen."

The Chicago Tribune and Raleigh News and Observer have local angles.

The Telegraph is overhyping the situation, although this paragraph is insightful:

But he is aware that even if he does achieve a form of words that placates moderates, conservative hardliners may still reject the deal and to force damaging new splits by boycotting the ten-yearly Conference of Anglican bishops in Canterbury.

And Andrew Brown ends his commentary on the Guardian Web site with this pearl:

The Anglican Communion contains a majority of primates who take a Grand Inquisitor's view of politics; and some who would be happy to hand over heretics or at least homosexuals to the secular arm for punishment; some who encourage the belief that they can perform miracles, more or less, when their people need it; and plenty who use or threaten to use the power of money and modern science to expand their client base.

Rowan Williams, like Christ, renounces these powers; but when an Archbishop renounces powers he does not abolish them, he hands them to his enemies. Like Christ in the parable, Rowan's response to the Grand Inquisitors of the world is to kiss them on their bloodless lips and then slip out into darkness and obscurity through the door they have held open for him. When Christ kisses him, the inquisitor is touched in his heart but his beliefs and his actions do not change. Fresh heretics will burn when morning comes.

Updated: Interestingly, the Thursday night AP story quotes from the item below.

Not a lot to report from our friends who were in the room. At House of Bishops meetings, the bishops all sit at assigned tables with colleagues whom they have sat with at previous meetings. At tables this morning they were asked what were their greatest hopes and greatest fears for the meeting. Each table answered these questions and reported back to the meeting.

I am a little shaky on the time sequence here, but at some point during the course of the day, Archbishop Williams suggested that the Episcopal Church needed to exercise greater concern for its catholicity. Bishop Michael Curry at some later point replied that catholicity, by definition, cannot be built upon the exclusion of one class of people.

The archbishop made it clear that he believed the Episcopal Church had acted preemptively in consecrating Bishop Robinson.

In the afternoon Archbishop Williams asked the bishops how far they were willing to go to assure the rest of the Anglican Communion that the Church will refrain from a) consecrating another openly gay bishop and b) authorizing rites of blessing for same-sex unions. He also asked whether the bishops are willing to share episcopal responsibilities with other bishops when necessary.

The answer to those questions must ultimately be embodied in resolutions. For perusing other blogs, I sense that not much news was committed at the news conference.

From Episcopal Life Online news from the press conference.

The Times Picayune reports that the Archbishop of Canterbury visited the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans following his meeting today with the Episcopal Church House of Bishops.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams spent seven and a half hours behind closed doors today talking with 150 Episcopal bishops and delegates from overseas Anglican churches about rising tensions over homosexuality that threaten to rupture the Anglican Communion.

He emerged from the Hotel InterContinental to be driven to the Lower Ninth Ward to see Episcopal hurricane relief efforts there, including a new church that will occupy a now-ruined drugstore a few steps from the home of New Orleans musician Fats Domino.

Williams blessed the grafitti-covered building and posed for pictures with curious bystanders. Diana Meyers, a worker with St. Anna's medical mission, gave Williams a rough, foot-tall wooden cross she said was made of the debris of wrecked shrimp and oyster boats.

Read it all here.

From Episcopal News Service

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams suggested September 20 during an ecumenical service at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center that New Orleans's recovery could remake the city into God's image of the holy city.

Noting the service's reading from Zechariah 8:3-13, Williams said that the image of the holy city is not based on strength of a city's arts community, business sector, educational offerings, or social-welfare programs.

"What makes a great, godly city is that it is a safe place for older people to sit and children to play in the streets," he said, adding that few people live in that kind of city anywhere in the world today.

Earlier in the day, Williams visited the site of a former Walgreens drugstore in the lower Ninth Ward to bless what will become the new home of the Church of All Souls, founded in New Orleans' lower Ninth after Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing flood devastated the neighborhood. The Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana helped to plant the church at the invitation of the neighborhood.

Williams said that, like the rainbow was a promise of God's everlasting presence after the Flood, the All Souls effort is a sign that "God hasn't gone away and God's people haven't gone away."

Read it all.

Updated, revised, corrected

A very partial account of the second day of the House of Bishops meeting based on conversations with three persons present in the meetings:

Today the House of Bishops heard from members of the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council.

Th