Daniel Weir - 07 December 2009 07:57 AM

A six-year moratorium felt like a moratorium to me.

Actually Dromatine said the following, inter alia:  “a moratorium on the election and consent of any candidate for the episcopate living in a same-gender union until some new consensus emerged in the Anglican Communion.”
There is no such consensus - so Dan it matters not what it feels like to either of us.  The letters after GC from Schori and Anderson tried to say that the moratorium was holding and now they are exposed as it has not.  From what Schori said last week probably it was never intended to hold.  It was simply a device to buy time - my opinion. 
It has been a mistake on the part of the Communion to listen to their words - they needed to look at their actions.  These actions make manifest the mendacity of their words.
Had Dromatine been adhered to we might still have a Communion albeit without TEC.  Now we do not really have a Communion, just a loose ragtag of folk who like tea at Lambeth every ten years.  That is not a foundation for a Communion. 
The moratorium was dead from the get go.

The Presiding Bishop just said a week ago that GC09 did not change anything, just clarified what was already in place. We all seem in agreement that there is no moratorium today, so by the PB’s own words we have to believe the moratorium really never existed.

The PB and PHoB went out of their way this summer to assure the communion that GC had not overturned the ‘06 resolution that “encouraged restraint” regarding the confirmation of partenered gay bishop candidates. If I were on a Standing Committee considering this election, I would have to take them at their word and deny consent.

I was being sarcastic. If there ever was a moratorium, it has become a thing of the past as of Saturday.

I thought so, and I agree.

Daniel Weir - 07 December 2009 07:57 AM

A six-year moratorium felt like a moratorium to me.

I’m sure it did. But we were not asked for a six-year moratorium. We were asked to refrain from electing or consenting to a non-celibate gay bishop until a new consensus was reached by the Communion as a whole, which hasn’t happened yet. I don’t think TEC ever intended to wait that long. On re-reading what I wrote last night, I think I could have been clearer. What I should have written is that I don’t think TEC ever agreed to the moratorium requested by the Primates (i.e. for an indefinite period of time). We have never yet unequivocally told the Communion, “we will refrain as requested—no more non-celibate gay bishops and no more SSBs until the Communion as a whole OK’s them”. If I’m correct and TEC has intended from the start to elect another non-celibate gay bishop even if a new consensus was not reached, I think it would have been more honest to say so up front than to act as we have.

I found one section of the Archbishop’s statement puzzling:

The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold.

I don’t recall a statement by “the bishops,” but only ones by the Primates. Perhaps I missed something, or perhaps Dr. Williams was being less than accurate in his choice of words, which would seem odd.

I have at times had to remind myself that the “mind of the Communion” actually means the mind of the bishops who were at Lambeth in 1998. Perhaps I will have to do something similar with this latest statement from Dr. Williams. Will we have to change the phrase, “episcopally led but synodically governed” to “primatially led….”?

Karen Younge - 07 December 2009 12:08 PM

Daniel Weir - 07 December 2009 07:57 AM

A six-year moratorium felt like a moratorium to me.

I’m sure it did. But we were not asked for a six-year moratorium. We were asked to refrain from electing or consenting to a non-celibate gay bishop until a new consensus was reached by the Communion as a whole, which hasn’t happened yet. I don’t think TEC ever intended to wait that long. On re-reading what I wrote last night, I think I could have been clearer. What I should have written is that I don’t think TEC ever agreed to the moratorium requested by the Primates (i.e. for an indefinite period of time). We have never yet unequivocally told the Communion, “we will refrain as requested—no more non-celibate gay bishops and no more SSBs until the Communion as a whole OK’s them”. If I’m correct and TEC has intended from the start to elect another non-celibate gay bishop even if a new consensus was not reached, I think it would have been more honest to say so up front than to act as we have.

I think Karen is right about the General Convention’s 2006 response to the request from the Primates - it was not the acceptance of the moratorium.

Resolved, that this Convention therefore call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.

I think it is a mistake to conclude that TEC “intended from the start to elect another non-celibate gay bishop….” There were people in TEC that hoped that would happen, but I don’t believe that was the intent of the Gernal Convention in 2006 or 2009, let alone of TEC as a whole.

Daniel Weir - 07 December 2009 12:47 PM

I think it is a mistake to conclude that TEC “intended from the start to elect another non-celibate gay bishop….” There were people in TEC that hoped that would happen, but I don’t believe that was the intent of the General Convention in 2006 or 2009, let alone of TEC as a whole.

Daniel, I think the actual functioning of ECUSA polity renders meaningless the assertion that GC ever intends much of anything, except for what they do positively. If they refrain from doing something, it doesn’t mean that the church intends to refrain from doing that thing.

There is certainly a party which wanted to put forth another homosexual bishop-elect, and another party, quite large, which if they weren’t actively seeking such a candidate, wanted such a candidate to be presented. And perhaps the largest group feel that they cannot object to such a bishop-elect once presented. The only parties who are prepared to put some actual restraint into the process—those who flatly object to a homosexual bishop from the start, and those who respect the objections of the rest of the communion—are by my estimate pretty small; the passage of the resolutions at the last GC was a rebuke to both groups. When this is put together, I’d say that the net will of the church WAS to elect another homosexual bishop.

Daniel Weir - 07 December 2009 12:47 PM

Karen Younge - 07 December 2009 12:08 PM

Daniel Weir - 07 December 2009 07:57 AM

A six-year moratorium felt like a moratorium to me.

I’m sure it did. But we were not asked for a six-year moratorium. We were asked to refrain from electing or consenting to a non-celibate gay bishop until a new consensus was reached by the Communion as a whole, which hasn’t happened yet. I don’t think TEC ever intended to wait that long. On re-reading what I wrote last night, I think I could have been clearer. What I should have written is that I don’t think TEC ever agreed to the moratorium requested by the Primates (i.e. for an indefinite period of time). We have never yet unequivocally told the Communion, “we will refrain as requested—no more non-celibate gay bishops and no more SSBs until the Communion as a whole OK’s them”. If I’m correct and TEC has intended from the start to elect another non-celibate gay bishop even if a new consensus was not reached, I think it would have been more honest to say so up front than to act as we have.

I think Karen is right about the General Convention’s 2006 response to the request from the Primates - it was not the acceptance of the moratorium.

Resolved, that this Convention therefore call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.

I think it is a mistake to conclude that TEC “intended from the start to elect another non-celibate gay bishop….” There were people in TEC that hoped that would happen, but I don’t believe that was the intent of the Gernal Convention in 2006 or 2009, let alone of TEC as a whole.

I had forgotten about that particular resolution from 2006, but I still don’t think TEC ever intended to hold off indefinitely as requested, and I still think that if so, we would have been more honest to say no from the start. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I don’t think TEC ever intended to be stopped from electing/consenting to a non-celibate gay bishop by the lack of a new consensus on the part of the rest of the Communion. As far as I can tell, TEC’s attitude has always been, “we’ll refrain…until we decide to go ahead. In the meantime we expect the rest of the Communion to accept our partial and equivocal responses as if we had fully agreed to the request that was actually made of us”.

We will see if the bishops and standing committees exercise restraint or if they consider themselves absolved by D025. My guess is the latter, unless Canon Glasspool has the sort of doctrinal skeletons in her closet that resulted in the lack of consents to the Northern Michigan election last summer.

Daniel Weir - 07 December 2009 12:13 PM

I found one section of the Archbishop’s statement puzzling:

The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold.

I don’t recall a statement by “the bishops,” but only ones by the Primates. Perhaps I missed something, or perhaps Dr. Williams was being less than accurate in his choice of words, which would seem odd.

I have at times had to remind myself that the “mind of the Communion” actually means the mind of the bishops who were at Lambeth in 1998. Perhaps I will have to do something similar with this latest statement from Dr. Williams. Will we have to change the phrase, “episcopally led but synodically governed” to “primatially led….”?

Possibly the “statement” the ABC has in mind is the passage of Lambeth resolution I.10 by the assembled bishops in 1998? Maybe not, though. That phrase “gracious restraint” sounds very familiar. Is it a quote from something?

“Working behind the scenes” is sometimes called private diplomacy.  If one is not acquainted with this practice one might go and look at the historical record of the private diplomacy of Henry Kissinger and compare it to the public diplomacy of Jimmy Carter’s presidency.  Particularly on the issue of human rights it has been argued that HK’s diplomacy was far more effective.  This may be more a reflection of the powers of one diplomat in comparison to another, but there is no question that private diplomacy can be more effective than public diplomacy.

I think one of the major problems many of us on the more liberal side have with the Archbishop’s lack of a public statement is the absolute zero (if not less) trust that we have in him now.  For those of us who are gay or who support full-inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the church, we see someone who used to be publicly supportive but then quickly changed his tune when he became Archbishop of Canterbury. Beginning with Jeffrey John, there’s been at least the perception of an almost constant stream of backstabbing.  He’s seen as quick to criticize what we’ve done while remaining hesitant (at best) to call other Anglican churches on their hostility to gays and lesbians. 

With that lack of trust and sense of betrayal, is it really surprising that for many the maxim Qui tacet consetire videtur, “He who remains silent is seen to consent,” seems to apply?  For pete’s sake, even the “ex-gay” group Exodus International has spoken out against hte bill.  Where then is the moral leadership that the Archbishop of Canterbury is supposed to exercise? 

As for the desire not to be counter-productive, well, if given the choice between staying silent and the bill passing and speaking out and the bill still passing, I’d rather err on the side of the latter. Of course, I don’t envy the ABC’s position, but it is possible to make a statement that does not necessarily rely on righteous indignation and high-handed sermonizing.