Yes- a great way to have conversation - let's all gather in separate rooms and talk about each other. One can hardly call this "communion" -- but who knows maybe they need to be sent to their rooms - that is what we did with our kids when they were fighting.

I know that we have a distinctive history in the US, but can the phrase "separate but equal" really have no resonances at all in the UK?

It seems he is furthering the already polarized Primates meeting he has had a large hand in creating....

"Dr. Williams also called for a reform of the structure of the meetings, suggesting that an elected standing committee be created and the powers and responsibility of the meeting of the communion’s 38 archbishops, presiding bishops and moderators be delineated."

Well --there we are... I thought they gathered to be the outward and visible sign --to eat together... if they aren't going to eat together, perhaps they shouldn't gather.... Why make a gathering of Communion administrative and acknowledge a function of 'power...'

Sounds like a back door attempt to make the so-called Covenant real and enacted before its time....

Meg Matters

Neel Smith, you took the words out of my mouth. It's difficult to get past the phrase "separate but equal". And we learned the hard way over many years that separate is never equal.

So what IS the story here? It is a puzzlement, as it so often is with the words and actions of the ABC.

June Butler

Are there not needs aplenty far more deserving of the Communion's attention?

How much of the expense of this meeting is met by TEC's separate but unequal assessment by the ACC?

What an immature pack of bullies!

Louie Crew

Just the opposite of what our wise PB Ed Browning did when our House of Bishops was so fragmented after Phoenix. We started meeting in the Spring at Kanuga, indeed using small groups, but not of "like-minded" but diverse groups of bishops so that we could talk with one another face-to-face around tables and not in a legislative mode. This format has served us well over the years and we are more united today than we were in those days -- certainly more than the Primates!

June and Neal. I concur that this approach seems ridiculous, AND understand the use of the word "puzzlement" to describe ++Rowan's actions.

However, I have wrestled in my own mind with what exactly is the better approach than this sort of obtuse dance he has been doing. I think he genuinely wants to keep some "semblance" of unity in the global communion, or at least leave enough of a framework in place as to let the differences evolve to a point where they are not so provocative, time sometimes being a salve in conflict.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting the archbishop's obfuscations are going to work, I just think he is sincere in thinking perhaps time will bring some...oh...what is the word? Familiarity? Comfort? Resignation? on the part of those most upset with the differences between the west and the global south. And maybe at that point conversations of meaning can resume.

Unlikely I know, but does anybody doubt the guy is flat-out romantic dreamer?

And I know he may very well end up being "sincerely wrong." But in light of the threat of a full schism, the reconstitution of a second Anglican Communion in a separate location (Alexandria?), etc., I think he thinks this patient dance is the best approach, a long arc, if you will. Not saying he's correct, just hopeful time will help us grow back together.

Being the head of communion with a tradition of a diffused authority structure is a difficult task. How you "make people do things" when you have no actual power is interpersonal alchemy.

Katharine Jefferts Schori has said of course she's attending the primates meeting. Other primates have said they won't if she's there. Why does the ABC encourage boycotts by rewarding them?

It reminds me of the many times he met, on the eve of a primates meeting, with Duncan et al. prior to their withdrawal from The Episcopal Church. How much clearly did he have to say I'm perfectly glad to undercut the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church if it will placate other primates?

Please note, again, the ACNA has boldy inserted itself as cooperating, by gleefully endorsing Dr. Williams, and his pro-Anglican Covenant Campaign. This seems ODD to me and flies in the face of their ACNA partners/backers and the CAPA/GAFCON anti-covenant position.

Most everyone now knows the ABC smiles upon nodding heads in agreement and acts-out/speaks-out snidely (as does Bishop Cameron of Wales) to Bishops/others who don´t agree with his Anglican sensibilities regarding the *awkward* realities of LGBTI Anglicans who participate at Church.

Robert Duncan and the ACNA happily agreeing/endorsing the Dr. Williams/Drexel Gomez less-than-straight-forward Anglican Covenant proposal seems suspicious to me...I lack trust in their integrity.

A sign of what´s to come?

This endorsement reveals a ultimate intention for the ACNA to be ¨good¨ Anglicans vs. ¨bad¨ Episcopalians/others who favor the inclusion of all of Gods family at ALL levels of Anglican Communion life.

As we have seen before, I believe this ACNA endorsement to be another DISPLAY of zealous faux willingness by ¨agreeing¨ to the Covenant and therefore appearing to be more ¨Anglicanlike¨ Anglicans.

Is this yet another ACNA less-than-honorable tactic instigated by some of the Global South/Gafcon gang of power seeking Primates?

Maybe so.

Soon we will know. Will these same Primates step in and endorse the covenant after complaining/insisting, demanding PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT and EXCLUDING other Anglican Primates at another one of the ¨Instruments of Communion¨ Meetings?

Will these hostile men, and they are men, suddenly become cooperative and willing-to-listen and loving good sports?

This same group of Primates have never listened very well except to the sound of their own thunderous voices. Have they threatened Dr. Williams and the rest of us again?

Let´s see what happens as we continue to ¨disagree¨.

Will Robert Duncan and Archbishops Ernest, Orombi, Chew, Okho and others from Kenya, Rwanda/beyond demonstrate, for all to see, heroic signs of more willingness or are they continuing to deceive?

Will section 4 of The Anglican Communion Covenant gain the teethy support and ¨numbers¨ it needs to do a hatchet job on TEC/AC of C?

Will there be another, all new, unauthorized and very selective/exclusive, Primates Standing Committee soon?

Leonardo Ricardo

Once again it is time to remind everyone that the Primates as a group only have fictional power. Their purpose in existing as a group is tea parties. Oh, but wait, that has a whole new connotation doesn't it!?

This sort of nonsense is another good reason to say no to the covenant. At the same time it would be nice if TEC's web pages removed all references to Four Instruments of Anything since they have not ever been enfranchised to serve as communion wide structures of authority.

For years we have been pushing the urgency to be in conversation and now we are talking about sitting at tables of like minded people. Seems like that will be a short and rather boring conversation and move no one anywhere. But perhaps some are so deeply rooted in the ground where they have planted their feet that there is nowhere to move anyway. Silence for awhile would be so nice. How about no Primate meetings for two years, and use the money to feed the hungry, provide relief to Pakistan, Haiti. This would be money well spent. Maureen Doherty

If some Primates are threating to boycott if other Primates show up, then, Dr. Williams, we don't have a Communion. Case closed, end of story. Get over it. Moveon.org. Ready...go. Forget about it. Leave it be. Let it die. Put that dog down. Send that horse to the glue factory. That's all she wrote. We are so through. Get to steppin'. Kick it to the curb. Start the bus. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

A boycott is a symptom, not the disease. The disease, as always, is the desire of some to dominate others and insist their own way is the only way for all.

@ Tobias

Very true. We have learned so little in the last 2000 years. At least there are no more murders at the actual meetings of the Bishops. I suppose that's some small improvement.

Is Rowan incapable of learning anything? He is so invested in “unity” that he will compromise and compromise and compromise in the vain hope of achieving something he can call by that name, however improbably. He should call a meeting and, if some people don’t show up, simply move along. Perhaps if the “orthodox” absent themselves, something productive might happen, an outcome that has never occurred as long as I’ve been watching these meetings.

@Jeffrey, thanks. The absence of actual mayhem is to be applauded.

@Lionel, the art of laissez-faire seems not to be among Rowan's accomplishments. He's an inveterate "fixer" -- but with minimal parochial experience in handling conflict, and the wisdom of saying, "I'm sorry you feel that you can't stay in St Swithin's, but I hope and pray you will find a spiritual home that better suits your needs..."

I do think, however, that affinity groups meeting in the same building, at least, might provide for conversations in the halls, at meals, etc.? And who knows, perhaps the placecards could be shuffled on the last day by mistake, and people actually end up talking with their "enemies."

Not forgetting that Ernest was among those who consecrated two schismatic North American bishops (Atwood & Murdoch) three years ago.

I said (over at TA) that henceforth "the Anglican Communion should only be referred to in the past tense."

But perhaps, it's only "the Anglican Primates Meeting" which is now defunct?

JC Fisher

Bye-bye Ubuntu and forward to separate, but equal.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes Ubuntu as:

"It is the essence of being human. It speaks of the fact that my humanity is caught up and is inextricably bound up in yours. I am human because I belong. It speaks about wholeness, it speaks about compassion. A person with Ubuntu is welcoming, hospitable, warm and generous, willing to share. Such people are open and available to others, willing to be vulnerable, affirming of others, do not feel threatened that others are able and good, for they have a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that they belong in a greater whole. They know that they are diminished when others are humiliated, diminished when others are oppressed, diminished when others are treated as if they were less than who they are. The quality of Ubuntu gives people resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanize them."

June Butler

Not surprisingly, Kearon has reacted:
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/anglican_communion/kearon_adamant_primates_meetin.html

Maybe the Primates should adopt the Continuing Indaba paradigm to resolve their divisions

Clearly the primates are an instrument of disunity, not an instrument of unity in the Anglican Communion. For the historic bonds of affection which have held the Anglican Diaspora together, many of the primates have attempted to substitute bonds of law.

The primates have postured quite beyond any authority given to them explicitly by the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion. They have prodigally wasted precious and limited resources by flying across the world time and time again to address not the world's major needs, but their own private and personal meanness. They continue to snarl at each other over territory and power.

Rather than pray for their enemies or do good to them, most of the primates have attempted an unrelenting scourge of all who do not conform to them.

The primates have been meeting for only 32 years and would do the world a favor if they disbanded. Their collective gathering has obviously fallen apart in spitefulness and mutual distrust.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Louie, L1 (2009) Newark