A question for the GAFCon primates and the CCP

I'm confused.


I mean, I get it that you want to have an alternate North American jurisdiction and all that. And I get it that you don't intend to break communion with the Anglican Communion as such. ("Our fellowship is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion").


But in the Declaration of Jerusalem you say:

We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed.

And you count PEcUSA among these churches, for you speak of:

the manifest failure of the Communion Instruments to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy. The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada, in proclaiming this false gospel, have consistently defied the 1998 Lambeth statement of biblical moral principle (Resolution 1.10).

Which is why you say:

We recognise the desirability of territorial jurisdiction for provinces and dioceses of the Anglican Communion, except in those areas where churches and leaders are denying the orthodox faith or are preventing its spread.

... and why you want the CCP to form the basis of a new jurisdiction. Okay so far.


But now we read that the CCP has requested that +Duncan be made a primate of the new jurisdiction:

The intention of the CCP Executive Committee is to petition the Primates Council for recognition of the CCP as the North American Province of GAFCON on the basis of the Common Cause Partnership Articles, Theological Statement, and Covenant Declaration, and to ask that the CCP Moderator be seated in the Primates Council.

Which has been explained thusly:

What Common Cause is doing is asking the GAFCON primates council to recognize us as having similar status to the other provinces (Uganda, Nigeria, etc) that participate within the movement. This is clearly very meaningful as we relate to that portion of the Anglican Communion that is part of GAFCON. We recognize, however, that it does not necessarily change our relationships with that part of the Communion that is not part of the GAFCON movement.

Hang on a sec.

At the moment, +Duncan is part of PEcUSA, a heterodox and apostate body you no longer recognize, and whose divisive actions (along with the Communion's failures of discipline) have created the crisis in the first place. And, by his formal membership in the H.O.B., he is canonically and institutionally in communion with, and in the same jurisdiction as, the rest of PEcUSA's bishops. It is in that capacity that he's currently at Lambeth. He may disagree with them theologically. He may not like them personally. He may not worship together with them. Everyone may be expect that, by the end of the year, he'll have disaffiliated or been thrown out. But, as things currently stand, HE'S STILL IN PEcUSA!

Which means that you're nominating as primate a bishop who is a member of a body the jurisdiction and authority of whose bishops you reject. And you're also claiming that this proposal isn't changing your relationship with non-GAFCON parts of the Communion. (Do you include PEcUSA in those parts -- it is, after all, still officially part of the Anglican Communion you're also committed to continue being part of.)

In other words, you're undermining your own fundamental statement of principles and order... starting to create precisely the same disjunction between "agreement" and "implementation" (even if in a smaller way) as we see with the Windsor report.


Wouldn't it, at the very least, make sense to ensure that your candidate for primate is first qualified to represent the principles of GAFCon and the CCP (i.e. by ceasing to be a member of an apostate and condemned heterodox ecclesial body) before you nominate him to lead the alternative?!!!

Lambeth 4 - The Archbishop's New Covenant (part 1)

In the previous section I noted that ++Williams, who thinks Lambeth is so critical, outlined in his presidential address two key ways in which he thinks the crisis must be addressed. The first, discussed in that last part, was indaba groups -- which give us a hint about what Williams is actually working towards. (But more on that in a subsequent installment). The second key element he mentioned was the creating of an Anglican Covenant. In this section, I will examine why Williams thinks a Covenant is so important and what he hope it will achieve... in the next I'll examine some elements of the current draft Covenant itself.

This notion of an Anglican Covenant seems crucial to Williams -- he spent most of the second half of his address talking about it (after having spent the first half trying to explain why indaba groups wouldn't be a waste of time).

It's my conviction that the option to which we are being led is one whose keywords are of council and covenant. It is the vision of an Anglicanism whose diversity is limited not by centralised control but by consent... And I want to say very clearly that the case for an Anglican Covenant is essentially about what we need in order to give this vision some clearer definition.

Nor is Williams the only one pinning his hopes on a Covenant as the way forward. The folks at the ACI (who recently brought you the CPP proposal as a fancy way of doing nothing new at all with a great deal of fanfare) have been working hard on the Covenant idea. They say:

there are no alternatives but a covenant if the Communion is not to divide, or perhaps one should say, remain divided and broken.... At present the status quo is not an Anglican Communion, but a broken Anglican family. The covenant could be the means for restoring order and allowing an Anglican Communion to be extended, and set on a footing that is more secure than the one which allowed the present breakdown such wide scope for emergence.

And:

The current structures of relationship and decision-making within the Communion have failed to maintain the unity of witness that Anglicans have generally enjoyed until the more recent emergence of a fully global Communion... the structures themselves are proving incapable of carrying the trust and force of the Communion’s united purpose. No other means of addressing this incapacity have been suggested, short of allowing the Anglican Communion itself to dissolve.

Now, in principle, a statement of mutually recognized norms to which all are held accountable is a good thing. Heck, that's what the Ecumenical Councils are -- or, in Anglican circles, were. Statements of basic and indisputable elements of Faith and Order that defined the essentials of Christian belief and practice. And, in recent decades, we've seen Anglican statements of basic beliefs (recapitulations and affirmations, not novelties) which also attempt a "covenant"-like definition of norms to which all are accountable. The two most noteworthy being the Affirmation of St. Loius, and it's younger (and substantially weaker) sister, the Declaration of Jerusalem.

Yet apparently, these are not the kinds of "covenant" we're looking for. Williams condemns GAFCon's approach, saying:

A ‘Primates’ Council’ which consists only of a self-selected group from among the Primates of the Communion will not pass the test of legitimacy for all in the Communion. And any claim to be free to operate across provincial boundaries is fraught with difficulties... It is not enough to dismiss the existing structures of the Communion. If they are not working effectively, the challenge is to renew them rather than to improvise solutions that may seem to be effective for some in the short term but will continue to create more problems than they solve. This challenge is one of the most significant focuses for the forthcoming Lambeth Conference. One of its major stated aims is to restore and deepen confidence in our Anglican identity.

Now, this seems strange to me -- as I mentioned before, Williams has shown no hesitation in undermining the council of primates and the whole Windsor process which was the attempt through the "existing structures of the Communion" to address the crisis. I can't help but think that it isn't so much the undermining of existing structures that bothers him as the fact that someone else is doing it!

Over at the ACI, some are even more openly critical of GAFCon and its "form" of Covenant -- going so far as to condemn their behavior and beliefs as just as faithless and un-Christian as PEcUSA's! (No, I'm not making that up).

These conclusions point fairly inexorably to the sad conclusion that the GAFCON movement, although it may talk about its commitment to the Communion and its reform and may appear to have given support to the established Windsor and covenant processes, seems determined to pursue its own agenda on its own terms and to weaken and undermine the wider Communion if it believes that it will not get from it exactly what it wants. It thereby reveals that, in relation to our common life together as Anglicans, it is suffering from the same spiritual sickness as the North American churches have revealed in relation to Communion teaching on sexuality.

What's so wrong with these existing models of "Covenants" -- the Affirmation of St. Loius or the Declaration of Jerusalem? Why are they denigrated or ignored? I mean, there must be something essentially wrong about these other approaches from Williams' perspective, right? Let's look again at his presidential address. Williams outlines 3 possible ways forward which believes are bad ones, ones not following the Covenant process:

Some in our Communion would be content to see us become a loose federation... Some would like to see the Communion as simply a family of regional or national churches strictly demarcated from each other... Others again want to see a firmer and more consistent control of diversity, a more effective set of bodies to govern the local communities making up the Communion.

Obviously, in this list, the more "confessional" approach of the Continuing Churches or GAFCon is the third one -- "a firmer and more consistent control of diversity." Apparently this is a BAD THING.

Why?

Because apparently, for Williams, to attempt to exercise control over diversity would be un-Anglican. He actually suggests that to follow the path of laying down such norms would mean to cease to be Anglican. In a recent interview, asked about these issues, he said:

Anglicanism, by its essence, is certainly plural and certainly diffuse. We have always talked about diffused authority as part of our model. If we did have a tight central model, we would cease to be the kind of Church we have always set out to be. So the issue — as I have been saying ad nauseam — is not about establishing a central commissariat, but about establishing mutual covenants of responsible, mutual protocols.

There's that word again -- covenant. As opposed to any sort of central authority or loss of plurality. It seems, for Williams, that the problems with these other approaches is that they (like, on a greater scale, the Ecumenical Councils did) exclude people. Putting down norms of belief rather than of relationship.

By contrast, "a Covenant should not be thought of as a means for excluding the difficult or rebellious." It should, instead, involve a

deeper seriousness about how we consult each other -- consult in a way that allows others to feel they have been heard and taken seriously, and so in a way that can live with restraint and patience. And that is a hard lesson to learn, and one that still leaves open what is to happen if such consultation doesn't result in agreement about processes.

(Note, it's not even agreement on substance at issue here... Williams seems to think the Covenant process is a process for trying to reach consensus on a process!) And this is why he keeps saying things like

I am looking for consent not coercion but unless we have something we will be flying apart. We cannot just coexist there have to be protocols and convention by which we understand each other and cooperate. Can we find a consensual way to deal with this because no one has the authority to impose The AC is not a Church. That is a moot point We are not a federation nor are we the RC -- We are between that where we belong.

The most fundamental fear here seems to be that there would be some sort of papal "central authority", be it theological, ecclesiological, or ethical. That a Covenant would threaten to make Anglicanism "becomes a confessional church in a way it never has been before." Even one of the few Lambeth panels on the Covenant (guess they had to make a little room for it amid all the "homosexual listening", environmentalism, financial management, &c... all of which outnumber discussions about the Covenant) foregrounds this concern

Does the covenant actually mean a creeping centralisation and new ecclesiology for Anglicanism? The session will focus on Section Three of the St Andrew’s Draft ‘Our Unity and Common Life’.

And this concern seems to be shared by the bishops at Lambeth -- remember, those who represent a whopping one-third of the Anglican world -- in their first discussion on the Covenant. (As expected, each speaker got a whole three minutes to present their own views and address the issues, and even that left many people out, so little time was allocated for the discussion.)

One of the predominant themes from many (both TEC and others) was that we do not want a Covenant that can be used "juridically" to expel, discipline, or exclude.

Clearly, it's essential to Williams, the ACI and others that the Covenant cannot have standards that exclude, norms that it can enforce, or authority to vet it members. It seems that they want a membership that is completely voluntary, that is non-binding, and that has no mandatory norms of faith or order.

Thus, despite what you may imagine a Covenant would say -- er, well not "say" of course, since the Covenant can't say anything explicit... express politely... um, suggest?... not that there aren't other voices... which are just as important and correct... well, we don't believe in 'correct', that's exclusive... um, equally valid? affirmed? -- the American take on a Covenant (hardly surprising) is that a it must not exclude the homosexualist heresy and that the really terrible thing it needs to address -- what they think has actually torn the fabric of the Communion -- is the ministry of other Anglican groups in their bailiwick.

The tone was set by the first speaker, a Bishop from TEC, who used his time to assert the need for the FULL acceptance of LGBTs by the Church... There was great anger expressed by a number of our Bishops over the incursions into their Dioceses by international jurisdictions. And there was a claim by one of them that, "Less than 7/10 of one percent of The Episcopal Church has defected" over "the issues".

Wow, sounds like these fun-filled indaba groups discussing the Covenant are merely a collection of sound-bytes of people stating their well-known and oft-repeated positions. (I expect this is where the trained aardvark comes in to the picture.)


In this vein, the archbishop doesn't merely keep insisting that the Covenant won't establish a papal, binding, or exclusive affiliation... but also that he doesn't intend to force even this process-oriented non-exclusive non-binding Covenant on anyone:

There will undoubtedly, in our time together, be some tough questions about how far we really want to go in promising mutual listening and restraint for the sake of each other. That's why a Covenant should not be thought of as a means for excluding the difficult or rebellious but as an intensification -- for those who so choose -- of relations that already exist. And those who in conscience could not make those intensified commitments are not thereby shut off from all fellowship; it is just that they have chosen not to seek that kind of unity, for reasons that may be utterly serious and prayerful.

In other words, the Covenant is the only way to keep Anglicans together... but if some Anglicans don't want a Covenant (or at least don't want Williams' Covenant) that's okay too, because not only will the Covenant not actually require anything of its members other than engaging in the process, it also won't be required of all members of the Communion.

Provided, of course, they don't want the GAFCon one or (horror!) even discover the Continuum's Affirmation! I guess Williams means that the acceptable choices for membership in the Communion are his Covenant or no Covenant... but not anyone else's? After all, the ones he is most critical of are those who do not appreciate the deep bonds of unity and affection we already have in the Anglican communion. He insists that "all our existing bonds of friendship and fellowship are valuable and channels of grace" -- and are perfectly able to deal with the present crisis, "even if some want to give such bonds a more formal and demanding shape"... we don't need something new, we just need to "deepen" what we already have!


So, let's see what we've got then.

Anglicanism is facing a serious crisis, even Williams will admit that. And there are several options out there which threaten its future -- both increasing isolationism and greater centralization, "irreparable schism or forced assimilation" -- both equally bad. And a Covenant is urgently needed because

the rival bids to give Anglicanism a new shape are too strong, and we need to have a vision that is at least as compelling and as theologically deep as any other in the discussion. Without this, trying to carry on as 'normal' will unquestionably drift towards one or other of the options I've outlined, without... a sense of the cost of each of them to what we value most in our heritage.

And that heritage that will be lost is that which is really Anglican -- the Anglicanism which a greater centralization would abandon. So the Covenant is supposed to

rall[y] people to this vision of a Catholic, reformed, and not centralised Church, which gives us the incentive, the impetus to get back on course with it all.

And yet, this Covenant isn't to be forced on any one, and those who chose not to go along with it should still be included in the ongoing Anglican conversations and family in some way. Because, even if some (like those at GAFCon) don't sign up with the Covenant, the

Anglican Communion will still continue in some form, albeit weakened. “The kind of fellowship we will have may be different, less immediate. That is hard. That is a loss, and there will always be a sense of loss and not feeling all right. But the reality is: we are where we are. We may be less obviously at one for a few years, but that doesn’t let us off the obligation to keep listening to each other."

Or, as the ACI puts it in a more formal suggestion:

It would not mean... that such a non-covenanting province could no longer be in a close relationship with other covenanting Communion provinces; but it would mean that such a relationship would now be a province-to-province decision.

So to pull it all together:

the Covenant is absolutely essential to prevent Anglicanism from ceasing to be Anglican, but it's a completely voluntary thing and relationships and conversations will continue unabated, even if somewhat "less obviously one", with those Anglicans who aren't part of the Covenant.

It's supposed to provide a compelling and coherent vision as a viable alternative to the forces of disintegration and the even more evil forces of centralization... but that compelling and (cough cough) "coherent" vision is:

the vision of an Anglicanism whose diversity is limited not by centralised control but by consent -- consent based on a serious common assessment of the implications of local change... an Anglicanism in which prayerful consultation is routine and accepted and understood as part of what is entailed in belonging to a fellowship that is more than local.... a Church that can manage to respond generously and flexibly to diverse cultural situations while holding fast to the knowledge that we also free from what can be the suffocating pressure of local demands and priorities.

Hang on a second here. "Consent based on serious common assessment"... "prayerful consultation is routine"... "diverse cultural situations"... "transformed relationships"... "search for the common mind, in constant active involvement in the life of other parts of the family"... "consult in a way that allows others to feel they have been heard and taken seriously"...

Is any of this ringing any bells for you?

You got it...

William's ideal of a Covenant is nothing but an Communion-wide INDABA GROUP!

With all the problems and limitations and incoherence and futility of such an approach I pointed out in my previous post... plus the added complications and delays of doing it over long distances, in a piece-meal fashion, and with committees rather than individuals being the members of each indaba!


It's all about process; all about unresolved conversations; all about everyone speaking and not reaching consensus. It has no power of enforcement, no mandatory membership, no norms... all it is is whatever people decide in conversation and process they want it to be, at least until they decide to change it for something else. In short, it provides no answers or vision... simply an "intensification" and formalization of a way of asking questions and looking non-judgementally at different perspectives in endless ecclesiastical navel-gazing.

And THIS is what Williams and the ACI think is going to save Anglicanism?!!



Let me read you a bed-time story.

Many years ago, there was an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of new clothes, that he spent all his money in dress... Time passed merrily in the large town which was his capital; strangers arrived every day at the court. One day, two rogues, calling themselves weavers, made their appearance. They gave out that they knew how to weave stuffs of the most beautiful colors and elaborate patterns, the clothes manufactured from which should have the wonderful property of remaining invisible to everyone who was unfit for the office he held, or who was extraordinarily simple in character.

"These must, indeed, be splendid clothes!" thought the Emperor... And he caused large sums of money to be given to both the weavers in order that they might begin their work directly. So the two pretended weavers set up two looms, and affected to work very busily, though in reality they did nothing at all...

"I should like to know how the weavers are getting on with my cloth," said the Emperor to himself, after some little time had elapsed; he was, however, rather embarrassed, when he remembered that a simpleton, or one unfit for his office, would be unable to see the manufacture. To be sure, he thought he had nothing to risk in his own person; but yet, he would prefer sending somebody else to bring him intelligence about the weavers, and their work, before he troubled himself in the affair...

"I will send my faithful old minister to the weavers," said the Emperor at last, after some deliberation, "he will be best able to see how the cloth looks; for he is a man of sense, and no one can be more suitable for his office than he is." So the faithful old minister went into the hall, where the knaves were working with all their might, at their empty looms.

"What can be the meaning of this?" thought the old man, opening his eyes very wide. "I cannot discover the least bit of thread on the looms.... Is it possible that I am a simpleton? I have never thought so myself; and no one must know it now if I am so. Can it be, that I am unfit for my office? No, that must not be said either. I will never confess that I could not see the stuff." "Well, Sir Minister!" said one of the knaves, still pretending to work. "You do not say whether the stuff pleases you." "Oh, it is excellent!" replied the old minister, looking at the loom through his spectacles. "This pattern, and the colors, yes, I will tell the Emperor without delay, how very beautiful I think them"....

[Soon] the whole city was talking of the splendid cloth which the Emperor had ordered to be woven at his own expense. And now the Emperor himself wished to see the costly manufacture, while it was still in the loom. "Is not the work absolutely magnificent?" said the two officers of the crown... "If your Majesty will only be pleased to look at it! What a splendid design! What glorious colors!" and at the same time they pointed to the empty frames; for they imagined that everyone else could see this exquisite piece of workmanship.

"How is this?" said the Emperor to himself. "I can see nothing! This is indeed a terrible affair! Am I a simpleton, or am I unfit to be an Emperor? That would be the worst thing that could happen--Oh! the cloth is charming," said he, aloud. "It has my complete approbation." And he smiled most graciously, and looked closely at the empty looms; for on no account would he say that he could not see what two of the officers of his court had praised so much.

All his retinue now strained their eyes, hoping to discover something on the looms, but they could see no more than the others; nevertheless, they all exclaimed, "Oh, how beautiful!" and advised his majesty to have some new clothes made from this splendid material, for the approaching procession. "Magnificent! Charming! Excellent!" resounded on all sides; and everyone was uncommonly gay....

The Emperor was accordingly undressed, and the rogues pretended to array him in his new suit; the Emperor turning round, from side to side, before the looking glass. "How splendid his Majesty looks in his new clothes, and how well they fit!" everyone cried out. "What a design! What colors! These are indeed royal robes!"... So now the Emperor walked under his high canopy in the midst of the procession, through the streets of his capital; and all the people standing by, and those at the windows, cried out, "Oh! How beautiful are our Emperor's new clothes!"...

"But the Emperor has nothing at all on!" said a little child. "Listen to the voice of innocence!" exclaimed his father; and what the child had said was whispered from one to another. "But he has nothing at all on!" at last cried out all the people. The Emperor was vexed, for he knew that the people were right; but he thought the procession must go on now! And the lords of the bedchamber took greater pains than ever, to appear holding up a train, although, in reality, there was no train to hold.

The "Inside Strategy"

Apparently bishop Howe is celebrating the existence and work of the ACI's CPP (or "Communion Partners Plan") -- the approach to which he now seems to be giving allegiance, having bailed on +Duncan and the CCP (or "Common Cause Plan"). I swear, is it a rule of Anglican organization creation that you have to pick a name that generates the most confusing possible acronyms?

Anyway, Baby Blue is blogging, feeling greatly encouraged by it, that Howe reports:

It was very clearly recognized that these two approaches are complimentary, CP is an "inside" strategy, and CC an "outside" strategy to attempt to maintain and further an orthodox witness and ministry in North America.

Um... excuse me?!! And just how is this CCP...er, I mean CPP... going to be an "inside" strategy to "further an orthodox witness and ministry in North America?!


First off, the CPP is all about catering to those "within our dioceses and in congregations in other dioceses [who] seek to be assured of their connection to the Anglican Communion". In other words, it is inherently INSTITUTIONALIST. The only "way forward" that may be considered, for them, is one remaining inside PEcUSA. Not just the Anglican Communion, but PEcUSA.

Even other alternative Anglican Communion solutions, like CANA or the AMiA (which are - unless you measure it by Lambeth invitations -- still fully constituent parts of national Anglican jurisdictions), are rejected... indeed, that's precisely why Howe bailed on the CCP -- er, sorry, CPP -- to switch to the CCP. No, hang on, wait, I mean the other way around. Anyway... as their own members say:

We are also firmly committed to remain in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, respecting and honoring the proper authority of our Bishops and working in concert with them to strengthen our voice within the Church.

This, of course, assumes that it is even possible to "maintain an orthodox witness and ministry" while remaining in communion and jurisdictional union with heretics and apostates. Anyone who uses the word "orthodox" in a theologically and historically meaningful way, rather than as just a catchy buzz-word, realizes how absurd that claim is.

Indeed, I would argue that the very fact of remaining so unwaveringly in full communion and jurisdictional union within an organization which has committed itself to heresy and apostasy is, de facto, "capitulat[ion] to [an] agenda that runs contrary to the authority and traditional interpretation of Holy Scripture", despite what the ACIers would have you believe. Not to mention that it sets itself solidly against the CCP... -- er, CPP... er, the other one -- by insisting upon remaining members of the very organizations which even GAFCon has rejected as apostate and without authority (never mind the genuinely orthodox Anglicans of the Continuum).


But leaving that issue of institutionalism and orthodoxy aside for now (on which I'm sure to say more eventually in some other post), lets take a look at just how this proposed plan will help ensure "orthodox witness and ministry". First, in itself it does nothing to change the apostate direction or official teachings of PEcUSA. Rather, it's just another DEPO (Delegated Pastoral Oversight) plan. It tries to work around that "oversight" issue by arguing that there's no oversight to be replaced:

in contrast to the Episcopal Visitors notion mooted after New Orleans, the Partners idea required nothing from the ‘national church’ and did not envision requests for visitations as needing to pass through the Presiding Bishop. Indeed, it might have considered such an idea inappropriate. Similarly, ‘oversight’ was never envisaged in this plan as it is not something the Presiding Bishop has at present, and so is not something for which an ‘alternative’ could be granted. In recent times it has appeared that new understandings of the office of the Presiding Bishop are being (formally or informally) contemplated, including suggestions of metropolitan powers (archiepiscopal crosses and insignia; cathedral consecrations; dismissals of Standing Committees, and such like). This would be to introduce notions into the self-governing life of the Episcopal Church that are inappropriate and untrue to the self-understanding of this church.

But other than objecting to Shori's new aping of "primatial" powers, the CPP does nothing to address those problems. And, in fact, the objection above is merely a position paper written by one of the ACI members, not an official statement of the CPP (CPP? yeah, that's right, CPP) signatories. (Indeed, I don't think all the signatories have even bothered to object to the illegal depositions and dismissals of Schoria Law alluded to above.)


Instead, as far as I can tell, the CPP seems to be about nothing except merely inviting certain other Anglican bishops to come visit particular parishes from time to time. Presumably, this is how it intends to advance "orthodox witness and ministry"... it doesn't do anything about the heretics or apostates, it doesn't even cease to be in communion and fellowship with them, it just gives an alternative (or addition) to having the more notorious among them show up at your parish. That seems to be it: nothing but the already existing practice of inviting an extra-diocesean bishop to come make a visit.

Nor does this visiting bishop have any power or authority to protect you from your diocesan bishop. He has no jurisdictional authority, and you still have to check with your diocesan before inviting the visitor. Indeed, since the CPP expressly doesn't challenge the authority of PEcUSA bishops, the local bishop still has all the rights and powers to say what "legitimate" Anglicans may or may not minister in his diocese, and to exercise his authority over his parishes to prevent them from receiving those of whom he does not approve. Oh, and of course this is all only at the sufferance of Donnette Schorlione, whose ringing endorsement of the plan consists in not having forbidden it yet.

The Partners idea received a ‘no objection’ from the Presiding Bishop and in this sense, the appropriate limits of the office of Presiding Bishop were acknowledged.

Oh, and it's still just a proposal.

Williams has been consulted about this proposal, and apparently will endorse it, at least in principle, if Schori confirms that she's going to permit it. Or at least not expressly forbid it. Actually, I can't imagine she would forbid it -- after all, this whole CCP CPP arrangement accomplishes absolutely nothing except to make an organization with a confusing acronym devoted to implementing already existing policy. I mean, come on, how useless is that?


Should it come as any surprise, then, that not much seems to divide these CPP bishops from the rest of the Episcopal mob? Fr. Hart on the AnglicanContinuum blog reports that:

Bishop Howe voted in favor of same sex blessings in the Book of Occasional Services at the General Convention in 2000, and consented to the consecration of Gene Robinson at the 2003 General Convention. Stanton voted in favor of same sex blessings in the Book of Occasional Services in 2000, but he was very much against Robinson’s consecration in 2003. Jacobus voted in favor of same sex blessings in the Book of Occasional Services in 2000, and consented to Gene Robinson’s consecration in 2003. Little voted for both same sex blessings and Robinson’s consecration. Wolf also voted in favor of both. Adams also consented to Gene Robinson’s consecration. MacPherson also voted in favor of same sex blessings in the Book of Occasional Services, and consented to Robinson’s consecration.

In other words, even if we ignore all the other issues of theology, communion, jurisdiction, etc, and look ONLY at the cause celebre of the homosexualist heresy, the CPP bishops have STILL failed to uphold an "orthodox" witness and ministry.


What it comes down to, then, is that the ACI and the CPP propose nothing more than an empty sign which

allows Episcopalians—Bishops, Dioceses, Parishes—a means of identification, a way of foregrounding Communion membership and wider Anglican belonging.

Nothing to do with upholding standards of orthodox belief, nor of following the advice of the majority of the Anglican Communion, nor even of resisting the homosexualist heresies and other apostasies in PEcUSA. This is nothing but a gesture to "foreground Communion membership." It is, quite simply, a pat on the head for slightly-uncomfortable institutionalists so that they will remain in PEcUSA. And this is supposed to make any difference?


Rev. Levenson -- defending the policy of staying in PEcUSA come hell or... well, more hell -- writes:

what if -- what if those who have left in the last decade had stayed...continued to fight the tide of revisionism?

Rev, I can tell you EXACTLY what would have happened... they would have made just as much difference as they did for the preceding two decades in which they didn't leave (and criticized the Continuuers who did) and attempted the inside strategy... absolutely no difference whatseover. And they, at least, were offering and attempting more than your mere novel acronym for confirming existing power structures and policies.


Now, you probably thought, from this image I started with, that I was going to say that the "inside strategy" makes about as much sense as people in prison for life without parole claiming that they are staying in there as part of a pro-active campaign to assert their freedom and innocence. And that's true enough... and a good description of the "inside strategy" of the last two decades.

But in the case of the CPP, we have something even more absurd. For what we have is a claim to be standing up for "orthodox witness and ministry" while doing absolutely nothing, save to re-affirm the continuing existence of some sort of affiliation with some sort of Anglican Communion. Those who are truly imprisoned by this CPP are any laity or clergy who will be fooled into thinking that their involvement with it will protect them from PEcUSA, stop the apostasy, or do anything to advance orthodoxy.


Because, you see, the CPP is not an "inside alternative" to the same project being attempted "outside" by the CCP. These are not "moderate conservatives" (as Ruth Gledhill of the Times characterizes them). Rather, the CPP is an alternative to the radical revisionists who don't mind breaking from the Anglican Communion as they pursue their apostasies and heresies. The CPP are the "moderate revisionists". They (or at least many of them) don't object to the homosexualist or other heresies in PEcUSA...
...they just don't want to officially break with the Anglican Communion in the course of tolerating and implementing (and even advocating) those heresies.

Well, bishop Howe may think this is a wonderful and exciting and praiseworthy goal and organization. And various observers may think so as well. Me? I think its worse than nothing, for it has the potential to deceive the unobservant into wasting time, effort and resources on yet more futile and ineffective gestures.

It is, in short, just more of the same.