For up to date news about the Anglican communion see Thinking Anglicans and Anglicans Online. More news links here.
MCU Press Releases as at October 2006
The saga of Lake Malawi's bishop continues. In July we reported that The Revd Nicholas Henderson, currently Vicar of two West London parishes and until a few years ago General Secretary of the MCU, was still being refused permission to take up his duties as Bishop of Lake Malawi by the Archbishop of Central Africa, despite having been elected by the diocese. Local court cases have come and gone, and the matter is in the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Panel of Reference.
In the meantime church leaders in Africa are growing increasingly concerned about the situation. At the end of September the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa held a meeting at which they decided to set up a sub-committee to work towards an early resolution. Three archbishops - of Tanzania, the Philippines, and Uganda - are on it.
This is another indication that although the African churches are conservative in some ways, they do not share the agenda of British and USA conservatives.
Do archbishops know what they think?
Once again, a communiqué has been issued after a meeting of Anglican leaders, claiming to represent the views of those present, only to be rejected by some of those who were supposed to have signed up to it.
The ‘Global South' Anglican leaders held a meeting in Rwanda on 19-22 September. The communiqué was issued in the name of 20 Anglican provinces, including South Africa. Both the Daily Telegraph and the Times assumed that all 20 primates had signed it.
However Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town replied that that ‘Whereas Canon Livingstone Ngewu and I were present in Kigali, neither of us were made aware even of the possibility of a communiqué in the name of the Primates of the Global South, prior to its release.' He added that parts of it were not consonant with the position of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.
In particular he objected to proposals to develop alternative church structures in the USA and to sideline the new Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori. He chided the group for being ‘so dominated by an inordinate influence from the United States' rather than learning the lessons of black and liberation theology and black consciousness, in order to concentrate on their own priorities. He commented:
It was… ironic that the feast of Theodore of Tarsus fell during our meeting: as Archbishop of Canterbury, in 673 he summoned one of the most important Synods of our early tradition. In addressing both the rights and duties of clergy and religious, its decisions included the requirement, already acknowledged elsewhere, of bishops to work within their own dioceses and not to intrude on the ministry of others.
Suggesting that there may be a hidden agenda to which he is not privy, he said:
I am unable to understand why there seems to be a deliberate intention to undermine the due processes of the Anglican Communion and the integrity of the Instruments of Unity, while at the same time we commit ourselves to upholding Anglican identity.
If you want to know what I think about all this, don't ask me - somebody else has probably decided what my views are.
Thinking Anglican links to responses to the Kigali communiqué:
17 October - Colin Slee; Archbishop Yong Ping Chung; the Diocese of Burundi; LCGM
9 October - Fulcrum; Nicholas Holtam; Inclusive Church; Changing Attitude;
4 October & 7 October - various reports
28 September - Frank Griswold
27 September - The Times; Greg Venables; Anglican Mainstream; Church Society
25 September - Inclusive Church The end of the Communion?
22 September - various media and organizational responses
The MCU has run out of books!
We published two books to celebrate our centenary year in 1998: Paul Badham's The Contemporary Challenge of Modernist Theology and the collection of essays The New Liberalism. We ran out of copies of The New Liberalism some time ago. Occasionally we get enquiries about it. It would have been good to have a few copies available.
If you have a copy which you don't want, we'd be willing to buy it back from you for £3 - unless we get inundated with offers, which seems unlikely.
The Contemporary Challenge is in a similar situation. From the MCU's perspective this is a significant work which clearly and attractively describes the distinctive features of the tradition in which the MCU stands. It is now out of print too. Prof Badham still has a few copies, and negotiations are in hand regarding a reprint, but nothing has been agreed yet. If you no longer wish to keep your copy we may be pleased to buy that from you too.
Please contact Jonathan Clatworthy at the MCU Office if you can help us in these ways.