CoE to consider communion with ACNA
Times columnist Ruth Gledhill reported January 8, 2010, that a motion will be considered at next month’s Church of England (CoE) General Synod that would declare the CoE in communion with Robert Duncan’s Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). (See business for February 10 on the Outline Agenda for the General Synod.) Approval of such a motion would not, of course, add ACNA to the Anglican Communion. Gledhill, describing the General Synod as “dominated by evangelicals,” suggested that the motion might indeed pass. Others have questioned both that characterization and Gledhill’s speculation.ACNA introduced a new Web site and Web address this past week. The new Web site can be found at http://anglicanchurch.net/.
Pastoral visitors bash Episcopal Church
Anglican Journal ran a story January 9, 2010, on the report of two “pastoral visitors” sent by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to observe a meeting of the Anglican Church of Canada’s House of Bishops last November. The report was written by Bishop Chad Gandiya of Harare, Zimbabwe, and Bishop Colin Bennetts, retired bishop of Coventry, England. According to the Journal, “Archbishop Williams is seeking ways to heal divisions among member provinces of the Anglican Communion.” (Anglican Journal also published an earlier interview with Bishop Bennetts.)The report was largely positive with regard to the Anglican Church of Canada, whose bishops were described as weary of the same-sex blessings issue. The main reason the report received attention in the U.S., however, was its criticism of The Episcopal Church, though the visitors did not set foot in the U.S. (See, for example, this post on The Lead, which inspired an unusual number of comments, as well as this post on Thinking Anglicans.)