I'm wondering how the ABC's letter will play into Canada's General Synod which convenes this weekend. The Anglican Journal. in what will come as a surprise to Canadian Anglicans, is reporting that issues of human sexuality are on the "back burner". It will be a clever trick if they can pull it off.

http://www.anglicanjournal.com/nc/news-items/article/archbishop-calls-for-more-courageous-engagement-9129.html

I've been wondering if we should just quietly and humbly accept the Archbishop's request knowing that others (i.e. the border crossers) won't, thereby "heaping coals of fire on their heads! After all, Dr.King was willing to jail for his prophetic actions. What are we willing to do?

With all due respect to Bishop Epting, if we are forced to go, that's one thing; voluntarily going is another.

I think the analogy there would be not eating at a lunch counter because told we couldn't. We need to sit down at the lunch counter until they try to force us to leave and then respond with humility and love, without ever condoning the actions of those who would push us away from our place at the table.

'Fraid I don't agree, Bill. There really is no mechanism to "force" us to leave. And the point is, we are at the lunch counter now. I used to attend those meetings before I retired. We are being asked to withdraw and nonviolent resistence always responds with humility and love. And make it clear why we are doing so.

I think it makes little difference one way or the other, but acceding to our marginalization at Nottingham in 2005 had serious consequences, so I think we need to be careful about doing that again.

I am torn by my sympathy with the comments of both Bishop Epting and Fr. Carroll. But I am most sympathetic with Jim's headline about the "self-trivializing" AC. I am just finding it difficult to care very much about AC politics any more. I think we should vigorously join in mission and ministry with any and all churches who will share with us, and I think that will include the majority of Anglicans (even many who disagree with us about some issues), as well as Lutherans, Methodists, Moravians, et al. It is not clear to me that the mission and ministry of Anglican churches in the world has been enhanced in the past half-century by the invention of ecclesiastical structures that appear to be more concerned with power than with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let's just get on with what we believe we are called by God to do.

Poor +Rowan. He not only threw Jeffrey John under the bus in 2003, he threw himself under as well, and it has been downhill ever since.

I think the best way we can be like MLK is to simply be who we are and act on those beliefs, letting the chips fall where they may. For me, that means showing up and letting others make the decision on what they want do about our presence.

I am also very clear in my own mind that any decision taken without our presence, voice, and vote is irrelevant to our province.

Sadly, I think that our theological differences are so strong that there is no structural way they can be reconciled, and I'm not willing to surrender and say that means we're the ones who should go. If we do, we are ultimately saying that the others have the better understanding of historic Anglicanism (theologically and structurally) and I don't think that's true.

Amen,Jim! I weary of all this . . . a kind of frou-frou compared to the work that lies ahead in every congregaton and province. I don't know what ABC thought he was assuming when he was appointed but it may be that he took his ENTHRONEMENT to much to heart as though he is sovreign over all. He continually fails to accept what he surely already knows about constituional provinces. At this point he is worthy of being ignored. Canon KF King - ECUSA/WY

I agree with Bill Carroll and Bill Morehead. Acquiescing to the preferences of the anti-GLBT faction has signaled weakness on our part and gained nothing in the interest of justice and peace. Furthermore, after reading Jim Naughton's "Complicity Is Too Mild a Word," it is obvious to me that some of the opponents of TEC's position are not amenable to any change of mind or heart on the matter, and any further discussion is a waste of time. Putting the feelings of this faction toward us ahead of treating GLBT persons as full and equal members of the Body of Christ is just plain wrong.

After reading again Jim Naughton's "Complicity Is Too Mild a Word," it seems unlikely that "the Anglican Communion’s most virulently bigoted prelates" are interested in "bonds of affection" with pro-GLBT members of the Communion. I question what true common ground the two sides have. I know all about the "Instruments of Communion," but 1 John 4:20,21 keeps coming to mind. "Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21 The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

I think Fr Jake offered the best course: Ignore it.

This drama has run its course and Rowan Williams playing school marm has become a farce instead.

The prophetic action started long ago when lgbt people began coming out and insisting on being treated with dignity. TEC is only naming what the Word was up to in the life of the world some time ago.

In the mean time, continue working on our relationships with member Churches.

Thanks for the conversation on this. Whichever way we choose to go (step aside, refuse to resign but don't show up, show up and let the chips fall),I agree with Bill Moorhead above -- it's all about mission and there are many who will welcome us as fellow travelers on that road!

Jim,

Thank you for this, putting it all back into perspective. The fact that The Archbishop of Canterbury has very limited authority to act is not a problem, but a blessing. The Communion, after all, is not the domain of prelates, as some would have it, but a fellowship of churches made up of millions of people in real, embodied relationships around common mission. And that common mission is not fundamentally about who's ordaining whom, but about who's fed, healed, and nurtured in the grace of God. This is what we have to offer a world in need, and what our leadership is called to nurture.

The rest is largely window dressing.

I would be much more interested in a conversation about the exact nature of the Anglican Communion in the 21st century, post-colonial, post-empire world. It seems like things shifted sharply when the Lambeth Conference stopped being a bunch of Western white guys running things and the developing world's indigenous bishops found their voice and power. I don't know that we've ever fully dealt with that shift.

Obviously +Rowan (and others) see the Anglican Communion as the Anglican Church, else why require uniformity of belief for representative bodies? This has come up before, especially in relation to dioceses affirming the Anglican Covenant. It makes no sense to me to start with the "presenting issue" of GLBT ordination and then, in a sense, work backwards to discern the shape of the Anglican Communion. This is especially true in an era where networks and non-hierarchical systems are increasingly replacing institutional ways of being. How about we figure out what sort of Anglican Communion we want and then figure out how to deal with this issue in that context? That would be a conversation worth having.

Beautifully put, Jim.

Laura Toepfer

Non-violent resistance is not to just disappear, but to show up with a smile and a hug. If we are not wanted there, then absence isn't resistance, it is acquiescence. Make them physically pick us up and throw us out, if the presence of our people is so officious; otherwise, they can sit there and be present with us.

If I were the decision maker on this deal, I would say to Cantuar very simply: If you say you 'believe in Jesus' and trust him, but don't care to follow his instruction, then you forfeit your authority. If you cannot love, then you cannot reign, and we cannot take your advice and counsel in good faith. We will gladly give you every opportunity to right this ship. We are ready to reconcile, are you? We have brought reconciliation to even GLBT people, and have sacrificed much to make them whole in our communities; what have you done for these, the least of our brethren in the eyes of much of the world?
We'll see you there, and love you still the same. Yet you will not reign again until we know by your actions that you love in return.

AMEN, Jim Naughton. AMEN! I couldn't muster any enough righteous indignation to give the nice BBC reporter the "Communion In Schism!" story he'd clearly already written in his head. Was it +John Hines who famously said he'd rather blow up the church than have it die from boredom? (Someone smarter than me will remember that quote.) Methinks the same applies to the Communion ... and if +Rowan keeps this it won't be long before there's not even a pulse left!

Jim Naughton is absolutely right to remind us of the consequences of the 2005 "voluntary withdrawal" of TEC and the Church of Canada from the Dromantine primates' meeting. "Humbly accept[ing] the Archbishop's request knowing that others (i.e. the border crossers) won't", will just hand them one more well-honed knife for our throats. Given what has transpired to date, I can't see that heaping metaphorical coals on their heads is going to shame the heretofore unshameable.

I would be much more interested in a conversation about the exact nature of the Anglican Communion in the 21st century, post-colonial, post-empire world. It seems like things shifted sharply when the Lambeth Conference stopped being a bunch of Western white guys running things and the developing world's indigenous bishops found their voice and power. I don't know that we've ever fully dealt with that shift.

I do not think that is the thing with which we are dealing Tom. Very few of the indigenous bishops have found their own voice, with a few notable exceptions; the current occupant to the See of Cape Town and his most immediate predecessors, +El Salvador and perhaps even +Guatemala. The big-mouthed marionettes (avoiding the imagery with socks here!) of Mid-Africa sold their birth-right to mostly US & UK schismatic long ago. They speak with no legitimacy or credibility. It will be some years before their Sees fall to heirs without someone from The Isles or North America tickling their strings.

Here is my suggestion:
Go to these meetings as if nothing had been said or sent. If someone brings it up, say "Yes we read it. But we belong here. What's next on the agenda?" If push comes to shove (metaphorically speaking, of course,) let them walk out. While they are denouncing us at microphones, let our bishops go forth to local soup kitchens, job centers, jails, hospitals, and home building sites, roll up their purple sleeves, and show the world that spreading the Gospel of Jesus is not arguing about the Filoque clause in the Nicene Creed, but about perfecting the love of Christ through his Church to his people. I wonder which of these two pictures--denouncing fellow Christians or feeding the hungry--would play on the six-o'clock news.

Doug Curlin

There is a limit to tolerance. An unlimited tolerance simply allows those who have no such values to dominate, and, ultimately, destroy their opponents. In our context it's all sweetness and light to say we should humbly give up. But - as with the Jews in pre-WWII Europoe, or the blacks in Apartheid South Africa - the witness of voices outside of the context of oppression and violence that we will not give up the places where we can witness to and for them, that we will who have some say not acquiesce, is vital.

Who, after all, will end up making the real sacrifices? Us wealthy whities in North America, or gays and lesbians in Africa? Don't think for a minute that just because the two men sentenced to 14 years in Malawi were pardoned the fight is over.

Our silencing - even symbolically, if not actually - is not a humble, Christian response but a failure to profess the faith that is in us.

What the archbishop has done now, he can do. That is, it is his commission and presumably he can therefor decide the terms of its membership. The appropriate response is not to humbly accept his injustice but to walk away. That is, our folks should simply decline to be second class members.

The commission will fail anyway, no chance the Orthodox are going to accept our women bishops and England is about to have some too. It does not matter. What matters is crying "Justice" to power. The action is unjust, it is the same action as the ghetto, as apartheid and TEC should say 'no.'

FWIW
jimB

Jim Beyer

Seems to me the folks at the counter were arrested, they didn't just walk out when asked to leave....