Jesus: Center of Our Unity

From The Living Church-

Toronto, Ontario

September 20, 2013

Greetings to the Faithful of the Anglican Communion and all our Friends in Christ:

We write to you from a conference in Toronto, Canada, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1963 Pan-Anglican Congress held here. We are Primates and bishops representing the Anglican Global South, including the chairmen of the Global South Primates’ Steering Committee, Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA), and Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON).

We thank Wycliffe College and her friends for hosting us.

We have heard talks recollecting our Anglican legacy from this 1963 Congress, and gave thanks in worship and fellowship for the astonishing missionary growth to which the congress both called and pointed us. In the midst of our gathering, we were blessed by a live address from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, commenting on the Congress theme of Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ.


More here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/jesus-center-our-unity

Catholic voices: Staying on Mission and in Communion

From The Living Church-

After a big storm there is usually a mess, and some reconfiguration of the landscape, as old landmarks are destroyed and new ones appear. Finding a path through the mess, and rebuilding connections with the wider world, is the first step in recovery. The storm of the last several years has indeed reconfigured the Anglican world. Realignment of a kind has come, along with a big mess. Significant numbers of conservatives have decamped to the Anglican Church in North America, Anglican Mission in the Americas, and other churches. Globally, the Communion has become a patchwork of churches in varying degrees of division or fellowship with each other. It is a bit of a mess, really.

The majority of theological conservatives remain in the Episcopal Church, and often in its larger and more evangelistically vigorous parishes and dioceses. As they emerge from the storm’s aftermath, just what sense are they making of the new landscape? And what pathways are they clearing to rebuild connections to the wider Church?

To hear what some of these conservatives were saying, I attended the recent Communion Partners conference in Orlando, Florida. Communion Partners began in 2008 as a fellowship of bishops, and quickly become a fellowship of rectors as well. Conservative in theology, committed to the Windsor Process, supportive of the Anglican Covenant, determined to maintain ties with the Anglican Communion, critical at times of the Episcopal Church’s leadership and policies, these leaders accept that they will need to take the long view and work for the renewal of the Episcopal Church. It is a new group with a low profile. But to judge from the enthusiasm of the Orlando meeting, we shall be hearing a lot more from it.

More here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2010/12/3/catholic-voice-staying-on-mission-and-in-communion

Communion Partners Meeting Promotes Mission

From The Living Church-

Emphasizing Communion life and unity, bishops and rectors of Communion Partners met in Orlando Nov. 15-17 to discuss interprovincial partnering possibilities. The conference drew 90 participants from across the United States and Canada. International guests spoke of mission opportunities open to individuals, parish teams, and diocese-to-diocese partnerships.

Participants from North America said they arrived feeling challenged by a fast-changing mission context and left feeling empowered for worldwide mission endeavors with global partners in Africa and Asia. The conference tone was hopeful about the Anglican Communion’s future.

“We have to think differently than a simplistic North/South divide. We must get beyond that approach,” said the Rt. Rev. Josiah Idowu-Fearon, Bishop of the Diocese of Kaduna, Nigeria, and former Archbishop of Kaduna Province. “Most Anglicans are committed to evangelization of the world.”

Idowu-Fearon speaks more often of an Anglican family than of a Communion. “We have much to learn from our brothers and sisters here in America. We are a baby church,” he said in an address that emphasized mutuality and interdependence. “Africans are still working out Christological and ethical issues. Episcopalians have something to offer us.”

He issued an invitation: “Just come and be with us. Come because you wish to be gospel friends with us.”

More here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2010/11/19/communion-partners-meeting-promotes-mission

Statement of the Communion Partner Bishops

From The Living Church-

A report of the meeting of the Bishops of Albany, Dallas, North Dakota, Northern Indiana, South Carolina, West Texas and Western Louisiana with the Archbishop of Canterbury on September 1, 2009:

As seven representatives of the Communion Partner bishops, we are grateful to have met with the Archbishop of Canterbury to discuss our concern in light of the recent actions of General Convention and the subsequent episcopal nominations of candidates "whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion" (General Convention 2006, Resolution B033).

At this meeting we expressed our appreciation for his post-Convention reflections, "Communion, Covenant, and Our Anglican Future," and were especially interested in his statement about whether "elements" in provinces not favorably disposed to adopt the Anglican Communion Covenant "will be free ... to adopt the Covenant as a sign of their wish to act in a certain level of mutuality with parts of the Communion."

Given our commitment to remain constituent members of both the Anglican Communion and The Episcopal Church, we are encouraged by our meeting with the Archbishop. We agree with him that our present situation is "an opportunity for clarity, renewal and deeper relation with one another -- and so also with Our Lord and his Father, in the power of the Spirit." We, too, desire to "intensify existing relationships" by becoming part of a "Covenanted" global Anglican body in communion with the See of Canterbury. We also pray and hope that "in spite of the difficulties, this may yet be the beginning of a new era of mission and spiritual growth for all who value the Anglican name and heritage."

We understand the divisions before us, not simply as differences of opinion on matters of human sexuality, but also about differing understandings of ecclesiology and questions regarding the independence or interdependence of a global communion of churches in discerning the mind of Christ together. However, we also shared our concern that the actions of the General Convention have essentially rejected the teaching of 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10 as the mind of the Communion, and raise a serious question whether a Covenant will be adopted by both Houses at General Convention 2012.

More here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2009/9/14/statement-of-the-communion-partner-bishops

Covenant is to be used as litmus test of Anglicanism

From the Church Times (England)

CONSERVATIVE BISHOPS in the United States are preparing to challenge their church hierarchy over the Anglican Covenant, it emerged this week.

A group of conservatives, known as the Anglican Communion Partners, met in Houston earlier this month and agreed a statement that is expected to be published this week.

In it, they express concern that the the Episcopal Church as a whole will resist signing the Covenant — the document that has been drafted to regularise belief and practice in the Anglican Communion in the wake of the consecration of the Rt Revd Gene Robinson, an openly gay bishop, in 2003.

The statement asserts the right of individual dioceses to sign the Covenant. Failure by the Church to sign the Covenant, or any attempt to prevent dioceses’ signing, “would be decisive”.
At the same time as producing this statement, the Anglican Communion Partner bishops have been planning to test the waters of diocesan autonomy. In a series of emails, they have discussed a potential request for alternative episcopal oversight by a priest in the diocese of Colorado, where the Bishop is a liberal (see further news).

The Anglican Partner bishops have declared themselves to be loyal to the Episcopal Church and to the Anglican Communion. Their move can be seen as an alternative path to that taken by the Common Cause Anglicans in the United States, who last year established the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) under the deposed Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Rt Revd Bob Duncan.

None the less, their latest move to use the Covenant as a test of orthodoxy parallels moves by the ACNA last week. The Covenant has been criticised by conservatives in the past, and the first version of a communiqué issued by the GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) Primates in London last week appeared to be sceptical about the latest draft of the Covenant (the “Ridley draft”, News, 17 April): “While we support the concept of an Anglican Covenant . . . if those who have left the standards of the Bible are able to enter the Covenant with a good conscience, it seems to be of little use.”

The rest-

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=74103