News for Week Ending 9/19/2011

New Zealand dioceses vote for, against Covenant

Two more dioceses in the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia have passed resolutions regarding the Anglican Covenant. The Church as a whole will not make its decision about the Covenant until next year. According to Anglican Taonga, the Diocese of Wellington passed a resolution supporting the Covenant, and the Diocese of Dunedin rejected the covenant because of Section 4.2. (See Pittsburgh Update story about earlier diocesan actions in the New Zealand church here.)

Anglican Mission in England clarifies intentions

The Anglican Mission in England—see Pittsburgh Update story here—has published an essay titled “AMIE is a game-changer.” It is difficult not to read this essay as announcing a program of subversion of the Church of England (CofE), in the manner of the Anglican Mission in America (now the Anglican Mission in the Americas). The essay concludes:

The summer ordinations in Kenya were part of the process of saying that we will remain Anglican but not on the current terms of the CofE establishment. The process of welcoming the ordinands, launching the AMIE and now expanding its membership is a process of moving to the public square of Church of England life and saying: “We will not be robbed of our Anglican identity. We will not be marginalized. You are the usurpers. We will not allow you to deprive us of our Anglican heritage of faithfulness to the Bible. We will find a way of being faithfully Anglican in being true to the Bible which does not depend on you.”

Episcopal bishops meet in Ecuador

Episcopal News Service reported September 15, 2011, that the bishops of the Episcopal Church are meeting in Quito, Ecuador, September 15–20. Although ENS is reporting daily on the meetings, it is unlikely that any substantive news will be forthcoming from the meeting until it is ended.

Additional post-trial briefs posted in Virginia dispute

The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia added additional post-trial briefs from both sides of the ongoing property dispute on its Web site September 16, 2011. The briefs can be read here. See Pittsburgh Update story here for background information.