Archival Documents
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ACI was surprised to learn of the Grace Church Vestry's vote to leave TEC and affiliate itself with CANA. This move comes in the midst of an argument between the Rector, Don Armstrong and the Diocese of Colorado, over financial matters at the parish, an argument still publicly unresolved. Although the Rev. Armstrong has been Executive Director of ACI over the past three years, the organization and its members are not party to any of particular matters in dispute between Grace, its Rector, and the Diocese of Colorado, and we are ignorant of any of the details involved, large and small. We...
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It is a maddening time within American Anglicanism. Even in the last few days, there is a new restlessness born of the energies of sorrow and hope both, as they seek some resolved path ahead. A few days ago, I wrote about the need to take this time seriously indeed. I wrote in terms of conservative presence within the Episcopal Church, and its now apparent incongruity with the official structures of our leadership. "Normative Christianity" (as one friend has put it) has been demoted and even banished: the Episcopal Church has declared independence. We must take our stands. Thus, we are no...
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Much was accomplished through obviously difficult and taxing work by the Primates at Dar es Salaam. In one key area, it is clear that the work of two Camp Allen meetings of Windsor Bishops was endorsed at Dar es Salaam. Up until now, that work has been largely confidential though public statements were released as was possible. Here is what was accomplished: • The Pastoral Council scheme (suggested in an early form by ACI) was discussed and adapted in Camp Allen deliberations – it emerged in the Dar communiqué in specific form • The agreement to work to see to an end to inventions was...
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The decision by the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church to reject the Pastoral Council, and the much harsher statements about the character and responsibility of the Primates Meeting as an Instrument of Unity, made by individual Bishops of the Episcopal Church, have caught many of us off guard. We leave here to the side the accounts of the Presiding Bishop's understanding of her role at Dar es Salaam in respect of the communiqué, and her subsequent interpretations of that role in the context of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (TEC). Much of this is simply confusing. At times...
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Many, including those opposing its content, have praised the recent House of Bishops Statement for its "clarity". In what follows, I want to dispute that evaluation. The Statement is unclear in numerous important respects, except one, viz. its animus against the Anglican Communion's Primates' Meeting. The reasons for that animus, however, are hardly spelled out, are often contradictory, and are lodged within a tissue of assertions that are without stated rationale. This is not clarity at all. And in the context of the current agonized and conflicted debate within TEC and the Communion, the...
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The Anglican Communion Institute has argued consistently for solutions to our present conflicts that preserve the integrity of The Episcopal Church (TEC), the Anglican Communion (AC), and the full membership of TEC in that Communion. The overwhelmingly negative response of the House of Bishops to the proposals from Dar es Salaam made by the Meeting of Primates (MP) leaves little doubt in our minds that the Bishops and Dioceses of TEC will soon have to decide two crucial questions that touch the very center of these concerns. (1) How they individually and collectively are going to continue...
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The Anglican Communion Institute is pursuing incorporation in the state of Texas, and the process should be concluded in good time. We have received excellent legal counsel. In many ways this move is a reversion to the status we had at SEAD for over a decade. We are grateful that the Revd Frank Fuller has agreed to serve as Treasurer and Mr Craig Uffman as webmaster. We have seen profit in adjusting our domain name at this time to http://anglicancommunioninstitute.com. The older site will automatically convert to the new one. It has a slightly different format but all the older material is...
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It is becoming obvious that the leadership of TEC means to move resolutely ahead with its mission of civil rights and inclusion, insisting that these are imperatives of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a kind of brand name for American Episcopalianism. (We leave to the side whether inclusion or civil rights are being honored or thwarted by this idea.) In the light of the failure to respond positively to the communiqué of the Primates Meeting, the course being charted is becoming increasingly clear. Apparently the Archbishop of Canterbury is prepared to hear out the leadership of TEC on an...
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One of the casualties of the current Anglican Communion struggle is our responsible grappling with the challenge of Christian communion as a church. It might seem that, with the Anglican Communion's own survival at stake, there would be a robust examination taking place of what it means to live "in Christian communion" and why it is important. Yet, despite strong encouragement from numerous sources like the Windsor Report, the topic has almost disappeared from serious engagement. Indeed, from a practical standpoint, parties in the Communion are pressing their commitments in a way analogous to...
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In the midst of an increasingly exhausting and exhausted ecclesial struggle, we are now once again hearing the plea, "Why can't we just get along?". It is a question many have long raised, but its renewed urgings, from leaders within TEC or recently from e.g. South Africa, have about them the resonance now of anxious desperation. We are watching relations slip from our grasp, relations that were once dear, and once fruitful, and that, in the face of the tremendous human needs of the world's confused peoples, seem more precious than ever. Is there no way to go back to the days before Anglicans...
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