The Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes, also known as the Anglican Communion Network, advertises itself still as a network of ten dioceses: they are listed as Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy, Rio Grande, San Joaquin, South Carolina and Springfield.
Rio Grande never got totally on board, and now Central Florida has withdrawn its episcopal endorsement. That means eight are left. San Joaquin however one judges the matter is in no long ACN material, but Common Cause Partnership material by way of the Southern Cone. That makes seven.
Well, remember, it doesn't make much difference. The real ride into the sunset is now the Common Cause Partnership. The Living Church, which ran the story on Bishop Howe's withdrawal from ACN and connection with the Anglican Communion Institute, reported, "Bishop Howe was critical of Bishop Duncan’s leadership as Network moderator, saying that Bishop Duncan is clearly committed to forming “a new ecclesiastical structure” in North America, hoping to draw together the so-called Anglican diaspora. This group includes, among others, the Anglican Mission in the Americas (Rwanda), the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (Nigeria), the Reformed Episcopal Church, which broke away from The Episcopal Church over ecumenism and ritual in the 1870s, as well as various other groups associated with African or South American jurisdictions." This new ecclesiastical structure is the Province of North America which GAFCON / Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is recommending be formed.
Bishop Howe has every reason to distance himself from this effort. ACN has effectively been melded into the CCP which is will gather together three different sorts of Anglican groups - Dioceses of the Episcopal Church, independent agencies (the American Anglican Council) and a range of independent and simi-independent church bodies (CANA, AMiA, REC). ACN is now defunct in fact.
Bishop Howe has seen clearly where the ACN and CCP is going and has stepped away. Good for him.
7/14/2008
14 comments:
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If ONLY Bishop Howe didn't always have a "hook"...more will be revealed and less concealed as he plays his game of Chess close to his chest.
ReplyDeleteMuch ado about what + Howe rejected, but have many bothered to note what he promotes? It's not a "big tent" anything. It's a contending for the essential faith delivered to TEC before the past two generations turned their backs on it.
ReplyDeleteAlbany's Bishop William Love has announced in public that his diocese is not part of CCP. However, Albany's Convention just voted down a resolution to sever from the Network. So we Albanians are ACN but not CCP, though membership in the former gets you the latter's code ring and secret grip. Go figure!
ReplyDeleteBeing a resident of the Central Florida Diocese, I can tell you Bishop Howe is shifty. I couldn't even begin to guess what's on his mind.
ReplyDeleteBishop Howe is under the delusion that he and his diocese can single handedly turn TEC from its agenda.
ReplyDeleteSo he will continue to tilt at windmills while those on the other side can point to him as a useful idiot.
Whether he is staying to protect his power, position or pension, I won't judge, but it is clear that no one will move the American Episcopal Church from its plunge into heterodoxy.
Jim of Michigan
Allen, what both you and Bp. Duncan refuse to understand is that we bad, evil, conspiratorial progressive folk want the opposition. If it were not so, we could simply go Roman and expel dissenters. Consider that Bp. Schofield had to announce he was out to get deposed, and that will all the evidence he has effectively left this community on the table, Bp. Duncan is still for a little while, within the fold.
ReplyDeleteThe response to the Windsor report is instructive. TEC said 'let's talk, debate, disagree, agree' while the wrong wing said, 'obey.'
Oh sure we noticed Bp. Howe intends to fight. Good! It might amaze you to know he might even win a few No one on the progressive side of the street thinks we are always you-should-pardon the word right.
One might hope he could manage to be a bit more polite to us lesser critters. But rude or not, arrogant or not, opposition is ok.
I don't want to speak for our host, but why do you think you have postings on both of his blogs and may if you wish have them on any number of others, including my little place? "Bring it dude!" as the vernacular would have it.
I consider the issue of ordering lesbian / gay clergy a done deal. OK, feel free to prove me wrong. Argue, dissent, organize, run for offices, win some! All of that is OK. Just allow me the same activities. May the more Spirit led views win.
FWIW
jimB
Mark,
ReplyDeleteNot to put too fine a point on this the Episcopal Diocese of Sa nJoaquin belongs neither to ACN or CCP. Since there is no other diocese but the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin that makes seven.
Jim,
ReplyDelete+ Howe (and other conservative loyalists) will be thrown under the bus by progressives at the 2009 General Convention. He'll get the point very vividly that there is no TEC Big Tent except if that diversity includes something that revisionists agree is acceptable to their other mainstay agendas.
Once Howe and others pick themselves up after next General Convention it's on for sure and this Church is headed for a faster rift than now imagined.
Pull out your notepads now and jot down the praises for Howe...only to be followed by the condemnation of Howe and others in two years. It'san old tune. Anybody remember how great the eleven Virginia churches were before they asked question, balked, and left the plantation? They were the jewels of the crown...now they are Spam tins in the eyes of TEC's brightest and best. Just dig out the dusty headlines and put it together. It will happen again.
Allen. When people fantasize in this exaggerated, wishful manner about sex, it is called "pornography".
ReplyDeleteAllen,
ReplyDeleteAmong my many faults, I am an expert Texas Hold'em amateur. I ran a $2000 starting stake (play money) to $365000 recently. I tell you this because you seem to think that one who has what you deem to be the right views is entitled to win. Nope, you are only entitled to see the cards. And even that requires some commitment.
Poker is a metaphor for life. You cannot play unless you put chips on the table. I am not talking money here, rather commitment.
I doubt Bp. Howe will convince TEC to stop ordering qualified lesbian / gay persons. It may be that he and others, including some liberals who might surprise you, will succeed in setting up some sort of secondary jurisdiction or flying bishop schema.
I do not know. But to return to my poker metaphor, until all 5 cards are face up in the center and the betting is over, we don't know who wins. The cards fall as they fall, and the Spirit blows where the Spirit will.
FWIW
jimB
Sigh.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of those threads, Mark, wherein I miss Fr. Jake (i.e., "extremist propaganda" would be shown the door)
Allen, and Jim of L-town (so nearby to me, and yet so far, from St. James, Albion): can't you go enjoy your fundamentalism somewhere ELSE, and leave us Episcopalians (i.e., USA Anglicans) alone?
JCF,
ReplyDeleteYou can't mean that you want alternative voices "gone". But alas, I've received a lot of heat from progressives who claim that there's nothing worth criticizing the revisionist agenda for, and that to do so is to be everything bigoted and wrong, and to just leave "our" Church. In fact, some revisionists on this blog claim that the lack of response to the New Thing (as Bishop Schori calls it) in many dioceses is just the overall American malaise to religion.
Let your eyes drift to Lambeth momentarily and think again. Susan Russell is there and recording her views and efforts via her blog. Of note is a new entry:
"Here are the snaps of me meeting Sir Ian in the lobby after the event [photo credit goes to the Reverend Dr. Cynthia Black]":
By all indications "Sir Ian" is a clearly self-professed atheist. Of course, who better to comment on Christianity than an atheist. Since Sir Ian is gay and sides with revisionists, he has something of worth to add to Anglicanism's deliberations, right?
Cynthia Black (photographer) was the dean of the former cathedral in Kalamazoo that the Diocese of Western Michigan had to sell. The parish now rents a lecture hall at a private college for Sunday services.
Cynthia Black's travels are also well known as her LGBT efforts frequently took her away from her hobbling cathedral and parish.
One wonders what that cathedral - and congregation - would have become if a lot more local pastoral work was done in its community rather than the activism for the revisionist cause.
Call it fundamentalism, but didn't Jesus say a lot more about teaching all nations to observe all that He commanded and to "make" disciples (pretty emphatic verb there)? We hear a lot of causes, rights, inclusion, and justice....but aren't many of our crippling issues due to the fact that we stopped working to convert the world and have instead been converted by it?
I'm sorry, but the dean of a failed cathedral and failed parish should be in mourning and back home working door to door..."making" disciples. But then she wouldn't have met Sir Ian, would she?
Allen,
ReplyDeleteShame on you. Most Cathedrals are existing parish churches with resident congregations when they are elevated to cathedral status.
The Cathedral Church of Christ the King in Kalamazoo, Michigan was organized and built by the Diocese under a former Bishop and a congregation was established in the new DIOCESAN building. That congregation was indeed active and healthy.
The Diocesan Convention voted to divest itself of the burden of supporting the Cathedral building and because the existing congregation was unable to assume the support of the building it was sold and the congregation had to move. None of this had anything to do with the abilities or leadership of the Dean of the Cathedral.
"The Diocesan Convention voted to divest itself of the burden of supporting the Cathedral building..."
ReplyDelete"None of this had anything to do with the abilities or leadership of the Dean of the Cathedral".
Sorry. It DOES reflect on the Dean. I've known two deans and among their primary roles was fundraising support. Deans are supposed to stay near home and put monumental efforts into their institution. One cannot do that by being a part-time advocate for other causes. It's not as glamorous as being a public advocate and personality, but it is what a dean is supposed to do.
I stand by the assessment that this particular dean could have been/should have been more at home doing the work for which she was designated. Others do it and succeed daily.