Three Questions

I’ve been “off line” vis a vis the HoB/D list since the third of June. Prior to that I started making little errors in attribution, small asides that were unnecessary, and generally was too spiritually tense. So partially as a matter of spiritual discipline I stopped writing.

It was refreshing, even though such intervening matters as the publication of “To Set Our Hope on Christ,” the ACC meeting, the “found” proposal for an Anglican Global Initiative, the David Virtue interview with Archbishop Malango and the AAC slam of that, the ACC affirmation of “voluntary withdrawal”, the ACC proposal to include Primates “ex-officio” as members, etc. etc. all provide a treat for real ecclesiological fast food junkies. Although quiet, I could not help salivating every once and a while.

Well, having regained a bit of balance, and perhaps even a bit of perspective I’m glad to be back “on line.”

I have three questions:

(i) Do the writers of the Windsor Report believe ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada have done what was asked? I mean, the actual writers, and or Archbishop Eames.

(ii) The “found” proposal for an Anglican Global Initiative speaks of forming a new Anglican Communion body with headquarters in Lagos and Nassau, the Virtue interview with Archbishop Malango speaks of a headquarters in Alexandra. Both the found proposal for an Anglican Global Initiative and the Virtue interview have been disavowed by some elements wishing realignment. There has been an attempt to discredit both. There has been the effort discredit Pittsburgh’s Via Media group and David Virtue, both reporting on what they found. My question here is: Has Alexandria been mentioned as a location for a new Anglican entity before? By who? I believe I have heard this before, but can’t find a citation.

(iii) The heated exchange between Canon Anderson of the AAC and David Virtue led Virtue to denounce the AAC in the following words, “What irks Anderson and others of his kind is that they have lost the power to change anything. The power has moved to the Global South and the AAC is a succubus, drawing from the spiritual life blood of the south because he and the AAC have none in themselves. The AAC is a parasitic organization.” (in an article on Virtue Online.) My question is, are we seeing here the very changes that the Chapman Report predicted – that the AAC would give way to the Network and that both are only elements in a wider tag team match, in which a new entity, the Anglican Global Initiative (or something like it) claims to be an “orthodox” Anglican Communion and the Network folk look to that entity as the locus for their broader “Anglican” patriarchy, and in turn the basis for their claim to be the “real” Anglicans in North America.

Question 1 can be answered pretty straightforwardly by members of the Windsor Report committee.

Question 2 is a piece of detective work: Alexandria as the location of the head office.

Question 3 is the broader question of strategy, and thus the one most open to a variety of responses. I was interested to see that today David Virtue posted a more detailed opinion on VIRTUEONLINE Digest - 23 Jun 2005 to 28 Jun 2005 (#2005-32) and that Brad Drell has weighed in (see http://descant.classicalanglican.net/index.php?p=295 ).