Bishop Wright’s Thoughts on the Primates Meeting and More

I wonder if Bishop N. T. Wright is actually an Anglican bishop. For he’s been so outspoken lately on a variety of topics, he’s managed to offend about everyone. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s running for not being the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

But even keeping his recent spate of extreme candor in mind, some remarks he’s made in an interview with Ruth Gledhill are . . . remarkable – and revealing methinks.

He skewers Episcolibs who cry “schism” at the orthodox:

There are many in America who are trying to have their cake and eat it, who are doing the schismatic thing and then accusing those who object of being schismatic. That is the bizarre thing.

And he has similar choice words for Kenneth Kearon as well.

He is perceptive in pointing out that part of our current mess “is that there is a myth about in some circles that historic Anglicanism has no particular doctrine and is just a matter of worshipping together and believing what you like. If you go back to the 16th and 17th centuries, [you] will find them arguing in great detail over the Articles of Religion which became the Thirty-Nine Articles. They were hugely important. The idea of doctrinal indifferentism is a very recent idea which has sprung up in some parts of America.”

He defers from making predictions about the Primates Meeting in Tanzania but is convinced that “something has got to happen soon” and hopes that the Windsor Report will be followed through. He reminds us of “the fact that the Windsor Report was being written through 2004 was what enabled us to hold together when otherwise things would have split apart. We have got to stick with it, otherwise we have wasted our time.” And he thinks “if the Windsor report is followed through then we have to say that those who have taken certain actions and who have not expressed regret in the way that Windsor requested should voluntarily absent themselves from the councils of the Communion.”

It should be noted that Bishop Wright is a good personal friend of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is very doubtful he would be saying such things so close to the Primates meeting if these thoughts did not at least approximate ++Rowan’s.