As for what has gone according to plan, I offer here excerpts from the infamous 'Chapman Memo' which was sent to realignment folks in late 2003 - outlining the plan.
- "In consultation with a wide circle of friends - inside this country and beyond - we have clarified our strategy and are now moving to implement it..."
- Our ultimate goal is a realignment of Anglicanism on North American soil committed to biblical faith and values, and driven by Gospel mission.
- We believe in the end this should be a "'replacement" jurisdiction with confessional standards, maintaining the historic faith of our Communion, closely aligned with the majority of world Anglicanism
- We seek to retain ownership of our property as we move into this realignment.
- We will move to initiate support structures for fellowship and strategy ... We will creatively redirect finances .... We will innovatively [sic] move around, beyond or within the canons
- We will seek, under the guidance of the Primates, negotiated settlements in matters of property, jurisdiction, pastoral succession and communion
- If adequate settlements are not within reach, a faithful disobedience of canon law on a widespread basis may be necessary..
- We do have non-geographical oversight available from "offshore" Bishops...
The big exception to the plan is that they have not gotten TEC kicked out - or Canada - but in fact have shown that the wider Communion is pretty resilient and tolerant. As it turns out, most Anglican provinces are going to move forward together, however tensely, with TEC and in obvious tension and disagreement over today's presenting issue.
The schismatics know that's the future, and that they can't accept it, so they have begun this project not of reform or realignment but schism.
3 comments:
Greg,
"A jurisdiction for the whole Earth" is a claim yet to be tested. Is Gafcon to be taken at their word when they say they want to remain in the communion. I would say yes, but you experience it differently.
Outside North America we see Gafcon as a network within the communion, that is linked to a new group in the USA/Canada. For us gafcon is essentially a group within the communion.
In North American your view is dominated by the new province which is most likely to be outside the communion. But to take that to mean that the whole Gafcon grouping is setting up a new communion is a bit of a streatch. It isn't. it just seems that way in your neck of the woods.
Obadiah,
Could be - but I'm basing the projection on the language of GAFCON leadership, and the trajectory we've seen in these efforts so far. What the GAFCON leadership have said is that the ABC, Lambeth and ACC are to be bypassed. They have said that the St. Andrew's covenant draft is a dead letter. They have said that they will continue to create new facts on the ground, including all the various border crossings, and the setting up of a 'Primates Council.' They have lost all support from the best conservative minds - (Wright, Radner, Poon, etc.) What the trajectory has shown us in the past five years or so is also this: 1)Talk, while preparing to act; 2)Keep talking while acting; 3)Launch new entity while talking about surprise at arch response from old entity.
What we've seen is an attempt at reform which ended up turning into an attempt a revolution which ended up leading to secession which all the while was marked by two sorts of folks - those who in earnest sought to reassert the traditional faith, and those who believed any means necessary was acceptable.
Anglican covenant a dead letter? For those of us who have been aware that the CofE is constitutionally unable to sign onto anything that gives another body power over it, it has been a dead letter for time . Some of the US progressive sites have made the connection, a little late in my view.
Yes, Gafcon leaders have said that the ABC and Lambeth are able to be bypassed. And yet they plan to stay in the communion.
You see that as contradictory, but yet they do not.
From my perspective, it seems odd that someone from TEC should be complaining about this. For it was from TEC that Gafcon learnt that these bodies could be ignored: that no discipline regarding +NH was likely in the communion, therefore, similaryly discipline regarding a new "province" is likely to be forthcoming.
I am not sure you can have it both ways. If the Anglican Communion is stretchy enough for TEC to innovate regarding SSBs and gay bishops, then for Gafcon to be inventive about structures seems rather mild.
Of course i could be wrong, and I am sure you see it that way.
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