Anglican Communion News

It's been quite some time since I last posted anything about whats going on in the AC, and a number of things have been making waves. Looking back the last time I posted anything substantial seems to be last October.

One of the news bits I've heard no real response to came to my attention via the Episcopal News Service (ENS) (See the diocesan digest from March 2nd of this year). Apparently, the Church of the Advent in Westlake, Ohio has entered into a DEPO agreement with their bishop, Mark Hollingsworth. They will be receiving care from Bishop Edward S. Little II of Northern Indiana. This makes them the first conservative parish I have heard of to actually enter into a DEPO agreement. Hopefully everything will go well for them. If it does, it would be a blow to the argument the AAC has made that DEPO is no where near enough. (see this old AAC press release for example).

In other news, the Church of Nigeria (CoN) has spoken in favor of legislation making any and all gay organizations illegal in Nigeria as well as prohibiting gay marriage. The second part of this is not really much of a surprise, but the news has been greeted with outrage by a bunch of more liberal people in the US. (see Preludium for example). More recent info can be found in a Thinking Anglicans post (here) from yesterday. The ABC may have commented that the situation in Nigeria is complicated, but I have not found any citation of him saying that about this particular law. Personally I am inclined to view the position taken by the CoN as being unhelpful to the broader church's situation and, insofar as the law eliminates freedom of assembly for gay people, it is an endorsement of a very unethical stance. It is unhelpful for the broader church for very nearly the same reason the confirmation of Bishop Robinson has been said to be problematic; it makes having the conversation almost impossibly difficult when one party disrespects the rest of the people in the conversation to the point where only the one's opinion is an accepted outcome.

One of the other things that has been making a splash recently is that the Diocese of California (in TEC) has two candidates for bishop who happen to be homosexual. Mostly this is running on the fear on the part of conservatives that another parterned gay bishop might be elected and confirmed and that this would then result in the AC falling apart. This is mostly a fight over nothing at this point. There are five candidates in the running at this time and nominations from "the floor" have not been closed yet, although they will be closed before the electing convention gathers. This is not to say that things wouldn't get interesting if one of those two candidates are elected, but it is silly to stress out over what one cannot control.

One final thing that has been roiling the blogosphere is the realization by some that some of the Network leaders are definitely not intending to leave TEC (almost) no matter what General Convention does. One place you can see this unfolding is over at All2Common. You have to scroll down a bit to find his posts on the topic. His primary response has been to call for Anglo-Catholics to swim the Tiber.

The final bit of news to come in has been the ABC's vision for the next Lambeth Conference. The AAC is trumpeting part of it as a sign that TEC must renounce its current path or be removed from the AC. You can find the AAC release here, and the ABC's actual statement is appended to the Anglican Communion News Service release here. Reading over the statement, I suspect the AAC has overstated their case. It is certainly true that the ABC says that he does not plan to revisit Lambeth 98.1.10 at this conference. It is also true, however, that in the very next sentences the ABC points out that the ACC has finally put together a process to bring together reflections on the topic from provinces around the Communion and that the results up to 2008 will need to be heard by the gathered bishops. This is not a victory for the opponents of gay priests and bishops or same-sex blessings. Nor is it a final victory for those in favor of those things. I could be mistaken, but it appears to me that the ABC is essentially saying that the Communion is still in the middle of the debate, rather than saying the debate is closed.

I think that's all there is to really say at this point about the events and opinions roiling the AC at this time.

Jon