AMiA has BHAG... but it will pass.

Bishop Chuck Murphy, Bishop in and Chairman of the Anglican Mission in the Americas, is quoted in a Virtueonline article as saying the following “Bishop Bob Duncan is the St. James of Jerusalem.” He then went on to say, “He has a different kind of work - important but different. Our operating paradigm is that we are breaking into new territory. We are planting new churches. We are "unchanged". We are more Celtic than Roman. We are people on mission. We have BHAG - Big, Holy, Audacious Goals.”

Perhaps they have BHAG - Big Heavy Audacious Gas - but it will pass.

I have no notion what the Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network thinks of this, nor do I care very much. But I think it is a crock.

I suppose that Bishop Murphy is trying to say that he considers himself the leader of the “get out and find the gentiles” sort of Anglicans and Bishop Duncan is here to hold the territory already Anglican. That doesn’t fit very much with what the Anglican Communion Network claims, what with their claim about new church plants and missionary action, but never mind.

Bishop Murphy has smelled the latest passing of gas coming from the evangelical salesmanship school of ecclesiology and is giddy with big, holy, audacious imagery. AMiA is neither Celtic or Roman. AMiA is schismatic and about as un-Anglican as possible.

As an independent evangelical denomination in the making AMiA can do what it wants. And given the unchurched in the Americas, new efforts to evangelize are on the face of it worthy enterprises. So on that level, more power to them.

But of course that isn’t the end of the story. AMiA claims to be part of the Anglican realignment process in the US and Canada and along with Common Cause Partners is related to the Network. So there is the rub. It is into growth, but also into being part of the great Anglican realignment takeover bid.

AMiA claims a focus on the unchurched, but it is also seems to be loosing its focus regarding the inclusion of women priests, a position that gave it a leg up with some disaffected Episcopalians. In one more mix and match effort to patch together a united front against the awful Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada – aka “North Americans,” AMiA is now the Anglican Mission in the Americas and incorporates some smaller agencies that hold to the ordination of women. Not only that, but Rwanda, its parent oversight body, now ordains women. So AMiA seems watered down a bit. This is distressing to some AMiA proponents.

The same rot of unresolved opinions regarding the ordination of women that sits in the Common Cause circle is now in AMiA itself. The Episcopal Church is getting clearer and clearer: we ordain women and that is the stance of the church. That clarity eludes the Network, AMiA and the patch work thing called the Common Cause Partners.

On another matter, according to this interview, Bishop Murphy seems to think that he is going to Lambeth as a member of the house of bishops of Rwanda. I suppose Bishop Minns believes he will be going as a member of the house of bishops of Nigeria. Maybe they are. If so, the Archbishop of Canterbury would do well to acknowledge this as an anomaly for both these bishops exercise jurisdiction within the territories of other Provinces, without their permission and contrary to ancient canon and modern admonishment. And there damn well better be no question at all about Bishop Robinson’s inclusion at Lambeth, since he indeed exercises jurisdiction with a legitimacy that neither of these two gentlemen can bring.

Remember, The Windsor Report, now a document of such ancient vintage as to be spoiled by time, suggested in paragraph 133, “We also urge the Archbishop, unless and until the Council of Advice (or, if the Council should not come into being, the Primates’ Meeting) indicate to the contrary, to exercise very considerable caution in inviting or admitting him to the councils of the Communion.” On the basis of this, and in the spirit (if there is any left) of Windsor, let us indeed urge the ABC to exercise that caution and then, having done so, to invite Bishop Robinson to Lambeth knowing full well the potential for struggle it entails. Give caution its proper place, but don’t make it an excuse for injustice.