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Friday, February 06, 2009

Primates Meeting Ends *Yawn*

Well, the Primates meeting has concluded with a communiqué, of course. Some conservative primates seem positive about it all. But my response is more in line with what Sarah Hey posted earlier this week:

It is essentially a useless meeting. Someone or other somewhere pointed out some days ago that the Primates Meetings have proved useless -- they can purport to "decide" all sorts of things but nobody ever does anything about it. The ACC was always talking into the wind anyway, and that hasn't changed. The Lambeth Meeting became a simple publicity device designed to pretend that everybody was "together" and "unified" even while 1/3 of the bishops of the Anglican Communion didn't bother to attend.

So . . . Rowan Williams wins.

Not the Archbishop of Canterbury, mind you. But simply, Rowan.

He alone has any power thanks to his non-exercise of the office when it came to enforcement of any of the other instruments' decisions and his exercise of the office when it came to enforcement of any of his decisions.


In other words, Rowan is going to play his passive-aggressive game of doing whatever he wants to do to back the apostates and undercut the orthodox no matter what happens at the Primates Meeting.

In short, *yawn*.

I could comment on what a sorry document the Windsor Continuation Report is, with its thinly veiled blaming of GAFCON –

Anxieties have been expressed about the purpose, timing and outcomes of the Gafcon; there is some perplexity about the establishment of the Gafcon Primates Council and of the Fellowship of Confessing Christians (FOCA) which, with withdrawal from participation at the Lambeth Conference, has further damaged trust.

and its bold calls for more “dialogue” and “listening.”

At least the report acknowledges the obvious in places –

Much has been undertaken in the Communion through and in response to the Windsor Process, but as a Communion, we appear to remain at an impasse. There is inconsistency between what has been agreed, and what has, in the end, actually been done.

But if I were the Bishop of West Texas (who hosted and was part of the Windsor Continuation Group), I would be embarrassed to be associated with this. The Windsor Continuation Group is well named though, I have to admit. For it just continues the same old same old in the Anglican Communion.

Beyond saying that, I really can’t be bothered. I got more important things to . . . do . . .

:gazes out window:

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous3:42 PM

    Given what Venables and Orombi said after the meeting about how a North American province was suddenly "premature," I don't think GAFCON has exactly covered itself in glory at Alexandria. In fact, I think their first test was a complete failure.

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