The most articulate discussion of the struggle for discipleship in the Anglican Communion has been going on over at Titusonenine. Here are excerpts from comments by Ephraim Radner and IRNS –
“Windsor itself is not just about practical actions, taken within some vacuum of public affirmation and meaning. There is an entire theology about the church, however broad, that upholds its recommendations, and this theology includes the character of teaching, witnessed life, and the place of Scripture as informing and even directing thisâ?¦ there is every reason to believe that â??bare actionsâ?? are and will be considered inadequate if they are not tied to clear and clearly-interpreted commitments. The matter of trust for the Communionâ??s future life is at stake in this.
No one can underestimate the destructive degree to which ECUSA has thrown a poisoned apple into the everyoneâ??s midst. There is every sign that Rowan Williams knows this, and may well realize that the poison has already been ingested by everyone. There is little cause for optimism here, and every cause for pleading with the Almighty.”
Ephraim Radner
“In my own diocese, a reappraiser and I asked the bishop the same question on the same day and received answers to suit our own particular reappraiser/reasserter positionsâ??in other words opposite responses from the same mouth. That is not leadership and is precisely why we are in the mess we are in.”
SD
“By remaining neutral as regards Lambeth 1.10, TWR [The Windsor Report] implicitly OKâ??d the idea that one could remain neutral, or even opposed.
There is no question that Lambeth 1.10 is the present teaching of the Anglican Communionâ??thank God!â??but there is equally no question that TWR leaves the question of changing that teaching open. Until it is clear that changing that teaching is NOT openâ??that some doctrines are not open to â??developmentâ?? or â??evolutionâ?? from one species of doctrine to anotherâ??then we will remain in a never-ending doctrinal guerilla war, a war that TWR has failed to mediate.
Broadly speaking, TWR addresses two interrelated questions, â??developmentâ?? and authority in matters of doctrine within the Anglican Communion (or â??receptionâ??). I believe that it solves neither of them, and in fact at best confuses the issues. The main reason why parties can continue to either disagree or even simply talk past each other while claiming to adhere to the Windsor Report is not because one side or the other is disingenuous (although there is certainly plenty of that to go around), but because the Windsor Report failed so spectacularly.” Iâ??d Rather Not Say
Read some more of this discussion at Titusonenine. For a longer statement on the decisions the Anglican Communion has to take, read Ephraim Radner’s If there is a future for ECUSA and the Anglican Communion…
