Thanks Andrew for drawing this to our attention. I have a few thoughts in response.
Tom Wright:
AS FAR AS ENGLAND IS CONCERNED, it is damaging, arrogant and irrelevant for GAFCON leaders to say, as they are now doing, ‘choose you this day whom you will serve’, with the implication that there are now only two parties in the church, the orthodox and the liberals, and that to refuse to sign up to GAFCON is to decide for the liberals. Things are just not like that. Certainly not here in England.
Good heavens. Are they meaning that? I certainly hope not. When I was deliberating at the conference about whether or not I could 'sign up' (to the statement, not the declaration) I was not given the impression that the stakes were so high. GAFCON affirmed that there were many orthodox believers not with us at the conference, and wishes to attract them to the movement, but not to censure people simply for not being part of it.
Of course, one of the liabilities of being part of a movement, just like being part of a church, is that there will always be people in it who say things you wouldn't say, or in ways you wouldn't say it. But it appears that Tom Wright, to demonstrate how overblown their rhetoric was, has blown it up ten times bigger.
Tom Wright:
Unfortunately, the great Dr Jim Packer, one of my early theological heroes and still someone I respect enormously, was used as a kind of stalking horse. It was a shrewd move by the organisers to get him there: for many older English evangelicals, with long memories of listening to John Stott and Jim Packer in conferences at All Souls, it will have stirred recollections of happier days.
Um.... stalking horse? shrewd move? Is it also possible Jim Packer maintains an independent brain, and makes his own decisions about where he goes and what he supports? Did they bring in a version from Madame Tussauds? He may be 87, but the videos of him being interviewed in Canada recently show him perfectly lucid and theologically sharp. For all his protestations of loving Jim Packer, Tom's turn of phrase here strangely bypasses the possibility that Packer still makes decisions for himself, which is just a little patronising.
Tom Wright wrote:
The problem is that GAFCON is addressing (at least) three quite different issues:
a. The real, substantial and scandalous situation in the USA and Canada;
b. The African sense that it’s time for leadership to come from black Africa rather than white N Atlantic;
c. The belief among a VERY SMALL group of hard-line right-wing English evangelicals (including in Sydney, Australia) that they are called to take over the C of E by aggressive planting of new churches under the nose even of existing evangelical churches and bishops, and insisting that they are the only real ‘evangelicals’, that they alone are true to scripture.
Well, in my experience GAFCON addressed (a); gave some expression to (b) but also left me with some cautions about haste in that area; and didn't talk about (c) at all.
Of course GAFCON is going to include and attract the firmer end of English evangelicals (I don't know about England, but Sydney evangelicalism is not tied to right-wing politics, my old parish was staunchly left). And if those people have some sort of bubbling desire to plant churches (how does one plant a church "aggressively", exactly?) then a lot of work needs to be done ensuring the church structures enable the vibrant life of church plants to emerge legitimately. Why would you squash down that sort of energy, which the CofE so desperately needs? Wouldn't you do everything you could to channel it positively?
But agenda (c) is not what GAFCON was about, not what GAFCON is about as far as I'm concerned. I never heard a peep about cross-diocesan church planting. Certainly we weren't discussing doing it in Australia, the Sydney bishops were totally committed to good order and working collegially with the house of bishops here. They insisted the house of bishops here functioned well, was firmly grounded in mutual respect and that Philip Aspinall was an excellent and very fair chair of their meeetings.
Tom Wright:
As to the structures, we wait to see whether the Lambeth Conference will ‘deliver the goods’ or not... Yes, the ‘Windsor process’ has not done what many of us wanted...
Yes, the ‘covenant’ draft has not so far reached a point where I am convinced it will do what we urgently need it to do.
Yes, I and some other ‘Windsor’ authors did assume that what we had said would mean that those who had consecrated Gene Robinson (or who had authorised same-sex blessings) would not be invited to Lambeth... I understand the disappointment over what has happened, including the remarkable non-appearance of key ‘letters’ which I was assured were about to be sent out (and which have been replaced by telephone conversations). But the key point is this: several of the GAFCON architects have a long-standing and oft-expressed vested interest in Lambeth failing, because they need point (b) to be true if they are to be able to advance their plan (c): but to help Lambeth to fail by telling key ‘orthodox’ bishops that they should not attend it is the worst kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Yes we will need to wait and see whether Lambeth 'delievers the goods' or not.
But Tom Wright here also tells us Windsor didn't work, the covenant draft (which is the only 'plan' for Lambeth) doesn't look like it will work either, and that Abp Williams, however holy his personal piety is, effectively destroyed Windsor (not to mention insulted the primates and not sent the "key letters") by inviting the North Americans to Lambeth; how exactly does he believe Lambeth can work? I, for one, really hope Lambeth can deliver the goods, and bring everything together again (except those in North America who should be regarded as having excluded themselves). But some indication of a functional plan would be good! Unless they find one, GAFCON's solution, flawed as it is, is still the ONLY one that helps our brothers in North America, about whom Wright is also deeply concerned. I believe Wright when he says he is working hard behind the scenes, and I understand his defense of his old friend ++Williams, but does he have, anywhere, even an embryo of a solution?
But the "key point" for Wright is that some English people wanted Lambeth to fail to further their church-planting agenda, and have helped that to happen by telling orthodox bishops they should not attend. I agree that orthodox people saying Lambeth won't work and not turning up is a self-fulfilling prophecy, one of which I have been very critical already.
But spying the English church-planting agenda as the driver strains credulity somewhat. How much influence does Wright imagine the English had over the African bishops decision regarding Lambeth? I think he'll find they made their decision amongst themselves, because of the insult to the Primate's council by ++Williams sending out invitations to the consecrators of Gene Robinson while there was an outstanding charge to them from the Primate's council to repent. To what can Wright be referring? Are we to believe they telephoned Chris Sugden (or whoever) for advice?
Tom Wright:
The point is this: global Anglicanism has never had, and still does not have, ANY mechanisms for enabling anyone, Canterbury or anyone else, to ‘intervene’ in another province.
That's right, it doesn't. But it desperately needs one to address the North American situation. And unless and until Lambeth produces one, and I honestly pray it does, the GAFCON solution is the best we have. GAFCON has, at least, been careful not to ripple the divisions of North America into the structures of other provinces, but it also has developed a plan that doesn't leave orthodox Americans high and dry while Canterbury re-muddies the waters every time a solution seems to be emerging. The recognition of Common Cause by GAFCON is irregular, but hopefully only interim. If it is made regular by the regular structures of the communion, then perhaps everything might calm down a bit and we come out of the storm with greater clarity on what it means to 'belong' to this communion.
Blessings
Matt
