More to the point, Karen, how many churches have said, even if informally, that they will have nothing to do with the CCE or anything like it. I kmow of one for sure.

Hi

good point

Hi

weird thing just happened, but hopefully this post will get there!

anyway, good point Karen.  I reckon that if this is happening it will be in a small minority of CE churches.  My church is an Evangelical church of the middle type, I would say, and I haven't heard it mentioned, which I think is wise to be honest - the difficulty is for CE congregations who don't really understand the implications of the covenant and that it isn't really a covenant in the communion sense.  I would be very disappointed if I did hear that it had been presented to PCCs.

x Jody

Hi Karen

Oh dear, already happening is it?  I had hoped that the CEs who had put forward the CCE would have learned from the response from other Evangelicals, that this is not a good way to behave.

As my last post indicated, I am very disappointed.

x Jody

Hi

Karen asked me to post this cartoon cos something weirdo technical has prevented her doing it!

Karen thought it might be better entitled 'A Conservative Evangelical PCC votes on the CCE'

food for thought.

x Jody

Yes Jody, we need to be disappointed, but then what should we expect.......sad isn't it, some people will only learn from consequences rather than instruction. It is even more sad to think of the fellowships they are taking down with them.

At least we know the Freedom in Christ and NO ONE can take that from us

.....you shall know the truth and truth shall set you free

This link to Thinking Anglicans article After Tanzania 06/03/07-

http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/002272.html#comments

Jody, I wonder whether your remark is well-considered, considering the global context in which these issues are being worked out.  Your 'that's not the way to behave' sounds just a bit like the 'now, now boys' you hurled in the direction of Pluralist and Baptist Noel.   

While the CCE is intended as a solution to a C of E problem, its motivation is very much in keeping with Global South concerns and initiatives (although the Global South is by no means a monolith).  Those concerns force us to take seriously the idea that doctrine cannot be abstracted from communion.  In other words, they alert us to the way in which leaders like ++RW with their process-model of revelation can only help us fashion a lowest common-denominator temporary arrangement, rather than offer prophetic leadership (whether your standard is progressive or conservative).  

As I dig into the Global South website, I gather that while Singapore may well be a theological fulcrum in some ways, as Graham Kings has written, there's an impulse there that's not entirely fulcrumesque.  To be precise, Abp Chew and Dr. Michael Poon, both of whom earned Graham's praise in an article here not too long ago, come forward in ways that I don't see the 'communion' middle doing, quite frankly.   ++Chew, I take it, was one of the six not to receive communion with ++J-S, while Dr Poon points out something about change that the middle doesn't seem to be too alert to:  'And even if things are moving slowly, how does change happen? I do not suppose the status quo achieves this. It is happening because of the initiatives that some Global South churches are taking. For some, such initiatives may be too audacious and inconvenient, but they are part of the learning processes that challenges our suppositions and widen our horizons'.  

Centrists under a 'communion' banner want to keep two religions in the one church together if possible, while the Global South leads us in recognizing that this can't be done.  Who really hopes that TEC will now do an about face?  The two religions that Global South leaders have had the courage to name are going to have to part company.   

I like Dr Poon's conclusion about the proper basis of trust: 'Right interpretation of the Word, and right and proper praise underpin Christian ecclesial life'. 

Those of us on the CE side of things may well need to think more about the churchly dimension of the Christian life, as Fulcrum and others call us to do.  I'll sign up for that.  But following what Dr Poon implies, I propose that right worship and doctrine be central to that task. 

Steve

I do think this is bad behaviour and I was not being gender-specific when I stated that it was (unlike the deliberately sexist comment I made on the other thread, the reasons for which I won't go in to now)

However, you have shown your hand haven't you?  You only confirm my sneaking suspicion that the CE wing of the CofE is becoming a boys rugby club and if that is the case then 'now now boys' is not anywhere near enough of a reprimand.

With regards the covenant.  My comment on bad behaviour is more linked to the sense that PCCs will be hoodwinked into joining this covenant without really knowing or fully understanding the wider implications of doing so.  The most basic of which being that the AC is attempting to draw up a covenant that will draw us all closer to imaging the God we worship!

Fulcrum, as I understand it, is not 'happy' with the 'status quo', as you suggest.  We simply believe that mercy and grace come before judgement.  God gave the Ammonites 400 years to repent, but then he judged.  TEC have been given space to repent, we must let them have it, whether we think that will happen or not!  We hope that like Nineveh they will, or are we all going to be Jonahs about this? (oh please Lord, not the liberals, surely not them.....)  Additionally we do not wish to hold two religions together, what a ridiculous idea.  We wish all to come to know and trust Jesus as Lord and Saviour.  To make inflammatory statements to the contrary makes me think that this is just why PCCs are being frightened into signing up to this covenant, after all if the rest of us are liberal backsliders........

The CCE was meant to speak for all Evangelicals.  The response showed that it did not.  And yet there seems to be another movement to push it forward as if this was the only voice in Evangelicalism.  This leaves me disappointed and frustrated, yet again.

jody

'And even if things are moving slowly, how does change happen? I do not suppose the status quo achieves this. It is happening because of the initiatives that some Global South churches are taking. For some, such initiatives may be too audacious and inconvenient, but they are part of the learning processes that challenges our suppositions and widen our horizons'

- relate to the quick and often covertly and undemocratically obtained changes of evangelical allegiance in a minority of evangelical English parishes where the vast majority of people wouldn't know what Global South is [the most they are likely to hear is that they are a good godly bible-believing lot with no details of the Dar Es Saleem secret conclaves or the Nigerian human rights issues] and are only just being introduced to the CCE now that all the fuss has died down? CCE was a travesty of unity with change - it was the complete opposite. Do you think that these PCCs will be introduced to any of the other alternative arguments from the other evangelicals? N. T Wright or Andrew Goddard? Very doubtful is the answer. Transparency in leadership intention doesn't seem to be within the remit of CE clerics because really it's all about power, money and control. We'll just trust the leaders to make the right decision on our parish's behalf - as one person was alleged to have done off tape of course!?!?

Some evangelical people think Anglican CE revelation and especially recent CE behaviours are the lowest common denominator, (I borrow you phraseology). Which is why many who would consider themselves conservative and evangelical now avoid the epithets when describing themselves and no longer wish to be associated with certain of that milieu.

Will Global South be moving in "such initiatives [WHICH] may be too audacious and inconvenient, but they are part of the learning processes that challenges our suppositions and widen our horizons'

on matters that would also concern Jesus - remember Him - like Third World governmental corruption, economic injustice, child slavery, trafficking, polygamy, witchcraft, dirty water, malnutrition, warlords, radical Islam, HIV/Aids, Malaria, orphans, widows, women's rights and zero human rights for anybody in most countries - not just Gay people in Nigeria - or will they continue to fall back on rich liberal lowest common denominator christians [and seculars]in the USA and elsewhere to tackle these Jesus issues; whilst telling them how to put their house in order? When Brother Akinolo has sorted out Nigeria he can sort me out.

In Jesus

ps You don't like the way Jody spoke to some other posters? And then you denigrate Rowan Williams? Splinters and Logs; Splinters and Logs Brother.