The Most Rev. Dr. Mouneer Anis, President Bishop of the Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East, has resigned from the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion.

In a letter dated Jan. 30, Bishop Anis wrote to his fellow primates and to members of the standing committee:

After much prayer and consideration, I hereby submit my resignation from the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion (SCAC). I have come to realize that my presence in the current SCAC has no value whatsoever and my voice is like a useless cry in the wilderness. …

I have attended every meeting of the Standing Committee as well as the [Anglican Consultative Council]-14. However, I have come to the sad realization that there is no desire within the ACC and the SCAC to follow through on the recommendations that have been taken by other Instruments of Communion to sort out the problems which face the Anglican Communion and which are tearing its fabric apart.

The full text of his resignation letter is available from the Diocese of Egypt as a PDF.
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I read this and the accompanying piece from the ACI before going to bed last night.  This morning I have again read and tried to digest this.  My response is personal but, as my wife pointed out, to leave and move on is what we have done ourselves.  I want to honor ++Anis for sticking it out for so long amidst this broken and for me hopeless mess that is the current Anglican Communion.  This tells me that the current state of affairs holds little or no hope.  Is this a shaking of the dust from his shoes?  Is this simply moving on?  We shall see in the next few months. 

IMHO this is hugely damaging to +++Williams who has effectually wrested control away from the Primates.  They are not due to meet until 2011.  He recast Lambeth (with its limited attendees) by faux indaba while issuing his own pronouncements.  +++Williams made a mockery of all due process at the Jamaica ACC.  Before that his behavior in New Orleans was that of a toady to the paymasters of TEC.  He unilaterally voided the Dar es Salaam resolutions of the Primates.  Now he has been called by this resignation.

ACI offer one possible way forward.  What will the CP group have to say on this?  Both these groups are struggling - honorably, in my opinion - to find a solution where the Communion stays united but in which provinces such as TEC and ACoC will inevitably be marginalized.  Will this be possible?  IMHO no.  Into this situation we await the effects of the consents to Ms. Glasspool’s election in LA.  I have no doubt that these will be given.  Also we await the response of the Global South gathering in April, where they are due to respond to the Covenant as presented in December.  I believe that they will gain further strength and develop upon ++Anis’ themes.  It is my guess that ++Anis will be a significant participant in this gathering.  I do foresee a non Canterbury centered Anglican Communion, but wonder who among the Western Churches might be part of the same.  This might well be a working out of the two tier membership described by Canterbury.  After WWII England was shorn of its empire.  Will this now happen to the AC and Canterbury?  Certainly the growth and spiritual life, vigor and energy are in the Global South.

When I walked out of TEC to work as a missionary in another Province of the AC it seemed to me that the future of the AC was in the hands of the non-Western provinces.  This is now reinforced.  I believe that Canterbury is a spiritually spent force.  I still am passionately concerned for the “faithful” in TEC.  I take great encouragement from Central Florida’s stand this last weekend.  However in terms of leadership I hope and expect that this will come from outside of the Western Anglican Church.

Painful times are ahead as God disciplines His Church - meanwhile I believe that God has in store for us much more than we can possibly imagine, and it will be GOOD.

Even though Ian Montgomery and I have been friends and colleagues for decades, I find it difficult to respond to a post containing phrases like “a toady to the paymasters of TEC.”

The mess in the Anglican Communion has been made by those who mistake what kind of thing it has been.  They want to turn a very low level series of informational and social gatherings with one collaborative effort towards ministry (ACC) into an engine for doctrinal and disciplinary uniformity. 

They did this not by engaging a slow, thoughtful, deliberative, inclusive process but through threats, ultimatums and half baked proposals.  I use half baked as a descriptive, not as a pejorative, because the ACI has been at the forefront of proposing and pressing forward ideas for structure, only to abandon them when they were not implemented as quickly as the ACI fellows demanded.  We now have the ACI dismissing as ineffective the very Instruments of Communion they proposed to acknowledge as authoritative so few years ago!

Their forays, one after another, into seizing control of whatever the Anglican Communion is has now incarnated itself as a proposal to bypass the newly formed Star Chamber of the Anglican Communion which was the one sensible administrative change that was made to the Ridley Draft.

It will be interesting to see how many CP bishops will go with a structure that repudiates the ++ABC even before the process initiated by the Anglican Covenant document is allowed to proceed through the Provinces.  I am hoping people will tire of all this ACI nonsense and I think their latest missive will accelerate that ennui with their constant deriding of stuctures, even those they invented!

Sorry Dan that my choice of words is not yours.  I suppose I could say the pawn of TEC.  I see Canterbury as wholly manipulated by TEC and sadly with great success.  I find that living and working outside of TEC has given me a fresh perspective.  While I pray for TEC to return to the apostolic fold I am not holding my breath.  TEC is moving faster and faster beyond the pale of the Apostolic community with its new gospel that is a faux gospel.  The significance of ++Anis’ resignation is that the middle ground is giving up - may God bless GAFCON
Michael now writes:

They did this not by engaging a slow, thoughtful, deliberative, inclusive process but through threats, ultimatums and half baked proposals

Who tore the net?  The sad part of this debacle is that there was no slow and deliberative process about the way TEC ripped apart the AC with its actions in 2003.  For my part we cannot reassemble Humpty Dumpty.  The attempts to do so have been valiant, if not heroic and ACI has done its best.  ++Anis represented the middle ground and I believe that middle ground is fast disappearing.  It is time to “Choose this day whom we will serve.”

I see this as a tremendous blow to Rowan Williams.  Anis is basically saying that the Communion bureaucracy is being so stage-managed that his presence is “useless”.  What Anis does not say, but what I see as implicit is that the person pulling all of the strings is Rowan Williams.

It brings to mind a leadership issue I have encountered in my profession.  Some managers like to appear as if they are collaborative while really just want to give off the image of being so, while all the while working towards the implementation of their own goal.  In other words, there is a problem.  So the manager calls together the staff and says “We need to deal with the problem.  I would like to involve all of you in reaching a solution, so lets set a PROCESS in motion.”  Then throughout the PROCESS, the manager keeps manipulating things (all the while trying to cast himself as being collaborative) to reach the manager’s preferred result.  This is fairly common in workplaces.  The problem with it is that very often the staff members recognize this behavior, and when it is recognized, staff commitment to the PROCESS is destroyed, as each staff member will say that they

have come to realize that [their] presence in the current [PROCESS body] has no value whatsoever and [their] voice is like a useless cry in the wilderness.

The end result is the loss of trust in both the PROCESS and the manager.

I think that this is what has happened in the Anglican Communion.  I don’t believe that Rowan Williams has been “in the pay” of TEC, but I do believe that he has not been a completely “honest broker” in terms of wanting there to be a collaborative solution to the Communion problems.  Rowan Williams might honestly think that his way is the best way, but he is most certainly pulling strings and manipulating the process to get his way.

The majority of the Communion’s conservatives now lack trust and confidence in his abilities.  I don’t see how Rowan Williams can now succeed in saving the Communion.  Love him or hate him, I think that if the Anglican Communion is to be saved, it can only now be saved by whoever succeeds Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury.  I say this not because I think Rowan Williams is a terrible guy.  However, for those who have lived through Parliamentary political systems, where prime ministers or premiers can step down while their party is still in office, so that a new PM or premier can be selected in hopes of staving off political disaster, I see a parallel.  Sometimes you can have a very likeable PM who you realize that for whatever reason, just can’t get the job done.  If that party is going to survive the next election, it needs to change faces.  It may be that the previous PM is just too closely identified with a previous debacle or unpopular policy.  The honorable PM recognizes such a situation and resigns so that the party can survive.  I think that we have now reached this point in the life of the Anglican Communion and the ABC.

The discussion had been going for thirty years on gay issues Ian.  The ACI has tried its coup in less than 10 and has proposed and dropped multiple ideas during that time.  That they cannot even allow a process to happen among provinces…. to learn just exactly where their ideas stand on the full stage of Anglicanism is absurd.  Their call to have groups covenant and then create their own structures will alienate people who would have worked hard to see the Covenant adopted.

I want TEC to sign the Covenant so we can begin to hold people accountable for their behavior.  But the covenant, at least, respects the processes of the Provinces, which the ACI clearly has no use for.  They have bumbled again.

The discussion may have been going on for 30 years in TEC but NOT in the AC.  Indeed the mind of the AC was given in 1998 that homosexual behavior is incompatible with Scripture.  Since then the Lambeth resolution 1.10 has been constantly held up as the norm.  Even by Canterbury who I do believe to be in the pay of TEC.

Michael Russell - 01 February 2010 01:38 PM

The discussion had been going for thirty years on gay issues Ian.  The ACI has tried its coup in less than 10 and has proposed and dropped multiple ideas during that time.  That they cannot even allow a process to happen among provinces…. to learn just exactly where their ideas stand on the full stage of Anglicanism is absurd.  Their call to have groups covenant and then create their own structures will alienate people who would have worked hard to see the Covenant adopted.

I want TEC to sign the Covenant so we can begin to hold people accountable for their behavior.  But the covenant, at least, respects the processes of the Provinces, which the ACI clearly has no use for.  They have bumbled again.

TEC will never fit the criteria for signing the covenant since they have acted contrary to the mind of the AC and its so called instruments.  Once Glasspool is confirmed and made a bishop that will truly be the end of that.

So far as I am concerned you can have the buildings, the endowments and the trust funds.  If TEC were to sign the Covenant then I doubt that the majority of the AC would want to sign.

Ian Montgomery - 01 February 2010 01:48 PM

The discussion may have been going on for 30 years in TEC but NOT in the AC.  Indeed the mind of the AC was given in 1998 that homosexual behavior is incompatible with Scripture.  Since then the Lambeth resolution 1.10 has been constantly held up as the norm.  Even by Canterbury who I do believe to be in the pay of TEC.

Michael Russell - 01 February 2010 01:38 PM

The discussion had been going for thirty years on gay issues Ian.  The ACI has tried its coup in less than 10 and has proposed and dropped multiple ideas during that time.  That they cannot even allow a process to happen among provinces…. to learn just exactly where their ideas stand on the full stage of Anglicanism is absurd.  Their call to have groups covenant and then create their own structures will alienate people who would have worked hard to see the Covenant adopted.

I want TEC to sign the Covenant so we can begin to hold people accountable for their behavior.  But the covenant, at least, respects the processes of the Provinces, which the ACI clearly has no use for.  They have bumbled again.

TEC will never fit the criteria for signing the covenant since they have acted contrary to the mind of the AC and its so called instruments.  Once Glasspool is confirmed and made a bishop that will truly be the end of that.

So far as I am concerned you can have the buildings, the endowments and the trust funds.  If TEC were to sign the Covenant then I doubt that the majority of the AC would want to sign.

I doubt that the majority of the WWAC will sign on to the ACI putsch either.  That the WWAC has not been discussing it for 30 years was their own choice.  They dithered, too bad.

++Anis’ action will mean less than nothing.  If anything it will push the ++ABC and the English away.  It is a betrayal of the process agreed to.  The big problem for the ACI and the parties of discontent is that they insist on dictating terms while pretending to be interested in interdependence and mutual accountability.  That is all hogwash on their part and the latest installment of ACI fulminating simply proves that.

Actually I believe that ACI and the so called “parties of discontent” are more concerned for the integrity of the Apostolic Church, the Truth of the Gospel and to oppose the faux gospel of TEC while pursuing the Apostolic mission of the Church which is to convert to Christ and to make disciples.  Mene mene tekel upharsim.

The decision of Dr. Anis to resign may well be a sign that attempts to hold the Communion together will fail. What I find troubling is the lack of patience with the Anglican Covenant discernment/adoption process. The final version has been in circulation for less than two months and no member Church of the Communion has had sufficient time to come to a sober decision about its adoption. Rather than accepting that the acceptance of this innovation will take time, there are those within the Communion who want someone to fix the Communion now. It can’t be done. The tensions and divisions that we are experiencing are the product of a great many forces working within the Communion over decades. We are dealing, in some measure, with the British colonial past in some parts of the Communion, with resistance to American dominance (recall the comparison of the consecration of Gene Robinson to Bush foreign policy!), and the reality of how different are the contexts in which member Churches profess and confess the faith. Add to that constellation of forces the rapid means of communication now available. It was far easier in the past to live with differences when we lived at some distance form those with whom we disagreed.

I continue to hope that patience will be the gift that is given and received in this time, that we will not press for quick fixes, and that we will discover,as D. Anis himself acknowledges, that those with whom we disagree are dear sisters and brothers in Christ.

The resignation of Abp. Anis is sad, but at least he is willing to tell the truth about the AC.  There is no energy around discipling a province that will do anything it wants and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about it.  A church devoid of discipline is not a church.

Michael,

How do you respond to what Bishop Anis has said? I already know what you think about ACI, etc.

It is very difficult to guage the import of this resignation. I had wished he had stuck it out. Full engagement in the agencies of the Communion by orthodox Anglican leaders at this pivotal moment would seem vital. Perhaps Bishop Anis is tired. No one could blame him. One can only hope and pray that an agile-minded traditionalist Primate will take his place.

Tony Clavier:  It seems like an increasing number of the non-GAFCON primates are growing skeptical of what appears to be a manipulated process.  Why would a different GS primate being ignored by Machiavellian western liberals make any difference?

Rather, I think that Mouneer’s calling it like it is might be the better move.  At this point, the JSC has NO representation from the Global South.  This is a pretty telling example of the utter lack of faith the GS has in the JSC and so this body is utterly lacking in credibility.  I think that the message to Rowan Williams and the western liberals is simply this:  “if you are going to ignore us, we won’t play your games.  If you are serious about including us, then stop the game-playing, take the necessary steps, and we will re-engage.  The ball is in your court.”

I think that the ACI has hit on the right solution.  Proceed with the Covenant absent the Machiavellian politicking and then from the COVENANTED PROVINCES, create a “Standing Committee” to implement the Covenant.  Then Rowan Williams can make his choice - an honest process of accepting the Covenant or an manipulated, Machiavellian, western liberal dominated process designed to circumvent the Covenant.

Good reading, James, both on the GS and ACI.