- Can we agree to interchangeability of those in holy orders?
- Will we work actively together at the local level?
- Will we consult with one another as we seek to plant congregations?
- Can we agree to mutual review of candidates for bishop before consecrations?
- Will we share ministry initiatives or needlessly duplicate efforts?
- Can we agree about appropriate ratios of bishops to congregations, attendance and membership?
- Would each one of us be willing to give up episcopal function for the good of the whole, were that in the best interests of all?
- Could each one of us become a missionary bishop over a growing Church?
(1) Where is the media covering this meeting? There has been a bit in the Pittsburgh papers, a snippet here and there, but not the media gang. Maybe that's a sign. No news if you don't open the doors sometimes, and no news unless you make news.
(ii) What's the future of the Common Cause Partnership? The Common Cause Partnership (CCP) is a product of the ever inventive minds over at the Anglican Communion Network. It's long range goal is to work for a unified "orthodox" Anglican presence in North America.
They are disparate enough and fractured enough to be desperate, and if desperate perhaps willing to do what is required to pull together. But union born of desperation is not a good start, and at the moment their common cause is mostly their disdain and distance from The Episcopal Church and increasingly the Archbishop of Canterbury and the CofE. If the conversation turns, as it might, to mission efforts that do not require being part of the Anglican Communion but part of a new improved Anglicanism with its headquarters somewhere (perhaps in Egypt) and its ordering more strongly puritanical and imbued with the fervor of East African revivalism and English evangelicalism, perhaps the Common Cause Partnership, or some parts of it, will take off.
It is my sense that the CCP will grow to be the North American entity related to a new improved Orthodox Evangelical Anglican Communion (NIOEAC) and when it all shakes out they will be another world wide body claiming to be the REAL church.
Meanwhile the Anglican Communion will continue to be a fellowship of churches making no claim save that of enduring partnerships and common mission.
Conclave?? He wishes!
ReplyDeleteThe unhappy bishops meeting in Pittsburgh should look to Bishop Steenson as an example of a class act in being respectful of TEC and the way he is leaving. I have to applaud him having the courage of his convictions and wanting to leave with his dignity in tact and not wanting to do harm on his way out.
ReplyDeleteWould each one of us be willing to give up episcopal function for the good of the whole, were that in the best interests of all?
ReplyDeleteThis one made me laugh out loud--as if any of these preening, strutting peacocks would willingly surrender his pointy hat!
Mark, I'm really sorry you said of the Common Cause Partnership "It's long range goal is to work for a unified orthodox Anglican presence in North America" without putting the word orthodox within quotations marks. I am sick and tired of these people contrasting their "orthodoxy" with other people's "revisionism." It's even worse when someone not of their ilk (like you) allows them their bogus claim. I assent every Sunday to the Nicene Creed. I am orthodox. So, I presume, are you.
ReplyDeletetrueanglican...thanks. done.
ReplyDeleteI have, sadly, come to prefer "bullydox" for those so busy discovering their African and South American heritage.
ReplyDeleteFWIW
jimB
Richard, if they were to do what Steenson has done they would have to give up their "pointy hats' and even their clerical attire.
ReplyDeleteThey would also have to toe the Vatican line, which may be hard for Calvinists to do (at least it was hard for Calvin himself to do along with his soulmates, Zwingli and Knox).
Where is the media?
ReplyDeleteThey aren't invited, of course.
While major portions of the House of Bishops were open to the public, to the media, to "orthodox" / "conservative" bloggers like Baby Blue and Matt Campbell, this meeting of schismatics is being held in camera (which does seem an odd way of saying "with no cameras").
The secret scheming of this meeting in only one of the disturbing features.
Another is the fact that the only thing uniting these assorted schismatics (Reformed Episcopalians, Continuing Anglicans, Pseudo-Nigerians and cetera) is their disdain for the Epicopal Church. It is foolish to think that a united ecclesiastical community can be formed based almost entirely on common contempt for a common enemy.
othodox means you're also against adultery, homosexuality, and a number of other things that are immoral. affirming a creed isn't enough
ReplyDeleteMight I suggest that this lates "Anonymous" invest in a dictionary.
ReplyDeleteThe Archbishop of Sydney is "against adultery, homosexuality, and a number of other things that are immoral" according to the self-appointed popes of the so-called Global South. Yet he is almost certainly a heretic.