Religion Link Bonanza

On yesterday's CT Weblog.

Including a link to a story in which a Birmingham Episcopal priests describes documents regarding the updoming confab of Anglican leaders he was accidentally handed at another meeting

Zahl, who has a doctorate in theology from the University of Tubingen in Germany, said he read the documents and was stunned at how measures were being taken to prevent archbishops from Third World countries from controlling the meeting.

Zahl said the documents were prepared by church bureaucrats who organize meetings for the archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the world's 70 million Anglican Christians.

"It included a blow by blow, down to the 15-minute schedule of the meeting of the primates," Zahl said. "It was set up so there would not be any decision made or time for deliberation."

Comments

[Zach Frey]

This is the kind of thing that makes me sick to my stomach as a (soon-to-be-ex-)Episcopalian.

Especially when the mantra that is chanted whenever one brings up the idea that men having sex with men might in some way be prohibited by Scripture and tradition is "homophobia is just like racism." And especially when every Peace and Justice committee under the ECUSA has added "sexual orientation" to its list of Issues.

Besides, we all need to "remain in dialogue" and "listen to the voice of the other."

Except when those Africans and Asians fail to remember their place.

God have mercy.

peace,

Zach

[Jimmy Mac]

We all know that there is no skullduggery, duplicity and otherwise nasty behavior in our beloved Holy Mother Church. It's only those OTHER folks who are bad.

[Larry]

Every church has sinners in it , nobody would try to denie that , but when a church tries to promote sinful acts and try to make certain sins morally acceptable that's a real big problem . Because children being raised in the Anglican church could be taught there is nothing wrong with homosexuality and in fact they should be proud of it .Because there bishop is openly practising with his boyfriend

[Neil Dhingra]

My initial reaction is the same as Zach's, but there are a couple things to keep in mind. First, despite the memo, Father Zahl does say, "I feel that Archbishop Rowan Williams has the best interests of the whole Anglican communion at heart and I impute to him the highest motives." Second, this sort of arbitrary silencing of the opinions of conservatives (whose opinion is here consonant with the position of the majority of Anglican bishops and the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches) is absolutely opposed to the things that Archbishop Williams has recently been saying. For instance, right before the General Convention vote, Archbishop Williams wrote about the issue of homosexuality in a conservative magazine:

"At times, paradoxically, both sides lose sight of the supernatural nature of the Church. The `revisionist' may assume that the Church here and now determines its policies and limits and what it decides as a matter of current policy settles the question, so that a dissident from the new consensus becomes, ipso facto, not worth listening to. But the `traditionalist' can do just the same, assuming that the calling of Christ into his Body is simply annulled for some because of their adoption of flawed or heretical perspectives... There can be an untheological pluralism as there can be an untheological unity. The task is to keep in focus the conviction that what makes a church a church, even through the struggles of major disruption and disagreement, is a shared divine calling, so that we are never simply in a position to say once and for all, `The Church's territory stops here' - so long as the fundamental acknowledgement of accountability is visibly in place in the practice of the sacraments and the use of Scripture and Creeds."

The intolerant memo of which Father Zahl speaks is exactly the 'revisionist' position that Archbishop Williams sees as woefully inadequate, lacking any sort of accountability at all.

In any case, we must pray for all involved.

Best,
Neil

[michigancatholic]

The problems in the Episcopalian Church are warning parable for Catholics. We need to take note of this, as well as pray for all the poor Anglicans/Episcopalians in genuine pain over this.