It doesn't seem to me that the Colorado academic and the Colorado newspaper have no more inside knowledge than anybody else.

Well the reality is that ACNA is actively recognised or supported not only by the Gafcon provinces representing a majority of Anglicans in the Communion, but de facto it is recognised in addition increasingly by the balance of the Global South.

We can perse our lips, pull faces and tut all we like behind their backs but the reality is that unless the Communion instruments engage with the elephant in the room, that the disconnect between the ACO and perhaps Lambeth Palace [although the latter is still perhaps capable of restoration], will grow.

We should support those in the US taking both the inside and the outside approach, ACNA and CP, and let what will be be.

There is no reason why there should not be two provinces in North America, there are in other places, and while TEC continues on its spin away from the Communion, if not into outright heresy, we should be thankful that there are safe places provided for faithful Angicans.

The best bet is to encourage those who will to sign the Covenant, and those who won't may do what they like.

But I expect what I say will fall on deaf ears, and the sniping will continue.

Articles are appearing from within that the division in ACNA regarding the ordaining of women or otherwise is a more serious problem than some wish to admit, and secondly the label of homophobia is sticking. These difficulties could lead to schism within ACNA itself, which is probably why there are efforts to tighten hierarchy - but such doesn't work when there are clear divisions, as indeed the Covenant won't work regarding the diversity of Anglicanism (especially now that the more liberal groups and voices are getting their act together). I was more interested in Gary L'Hommidieu thinking that being more like a sect and standing for something has a beneficial effect on recruitment, but I think he misses some key points in the argument from sociology of religion.

Looks like they are appointing an experienced church planter ....to plant and oversee churches...."bishop" is an accurate title for someone like that....but it does seem a tad fast!  I guess this sort of thing is a symptom of the torn fabric of the Communion.

Key question: do people want ACNA brought back into the AC?   Some do not, I am sure......  but I was very pleased to see +Durham calling for bridge building and it is great that the ABC is maintaining good relations with ++Duncan.....why lose the ACNA people when they would be pretty middle of the road in the CofE?   

I am interested to know how you think , Graham, the AC can build bridges with ACNA / GAFCON.  Pre the disappointing Jamaica political stalling, there seemed to be some building going on with you and Stephen Noll writing about the Covenant.....it seemed like lots of common ground was emerging - I hope that there are good foundations being laid for bridge building so that the Covenant can repair the tear in the fabric of the Communion.

There have been a couple of interesting articles recently concerning the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA):

1. Mark Harris has written 'New Bishops in ACNA' concerning Todd Hunter who was ordained priest on 23 March 2009 in the Anglican Mission in the Americas (Rwanda jurisdiction) and is to be consecrated bishop on 9 September 2009, Preludium site, 20 August 2009. Is anyone else worried about this haste?

2. Mark Barna has written 'Ex-Episcopalians struggle with where to go from here' concerning ACNA, Colorado Springs Gazette, 21 August 2009. It is worth reading in full and includes the following quote:

Some ACNA leaders, including Archbishop Robert Duncan, hope the organization becomes an Anglican U.S. province. But the Anglican Communion has never had overlapping provinces, and recognition would require the ascent of two-thirds of province leaders.

“There is very little chance that the Anglican Consultative Council would approve two provinces in the same geographic area, especially when the ACNA is, in fact, quite small,” said Lawrence R. Hitt III, professor of Anglican Studies at the Ilif School of Theology in Denver.

Kevin Ross, rector of the ACNA International Anglican Church in Colorado Springs, is skeptical that the organization will ever be officially recognized.

“To recognize (the ACNA) they would have to de-recognize the Episcopal Church,” Ross said. “You have a greater possibility of the worldwide Anglican Communion splitting than having the Episcopal Church de-recognized.”

The ACNA is scrambling to organize itself into a hierarchical system similar to that in Anglican Communion provinces, and it is also establishing various ecclesiastical councils.

But Greene worries how far leaders will take it. “If we get too structured, there won’t be enough people to adapt to creative ideas about building churches,” he said. “You can’t do that by creating dioceses and provincial structures that are really out of the Middle Ages.”

Is anyone else worried about how these attitudes relate to signing the Anglican Covenant?

Robinson was indeed quite a conservative scholar: it is on record that the editors of Soundings (c.1962) whose contributors included Cupitt, Habgood and Harry Williams, considered Robinson too conservative to be invited to contribute. His reputation of being a liberal was derived from his appearing as a witness for the defence in the Lady Chatterley's Lover case, and his paperback "Honest to God", which I always regarded as being a stage in the rediscovery of a doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

John Robinson taught me St John for my New Testament Studies at Cambridge at the end of the 70s. He was a most godly and inspiring teacher, whose personal faith and piety came through his teaching. He was not at all unsympathetic to the Mission to the University undertaken by Billy Graham in 1980. I get tired of people holding him up as an example of infidelity when he was exactly the opposite.

In his latter years he came to believe that the NT was all written before 70AD, an astonishingly early date, and one that strengthened the view that supported its essential reliability as being close to the events.

I remember him telling me about his own practise of prayer, and how each night before he slept he would pray the wonderful Collect for Trinity 6 - "Almighty God, who hast prepared for them that love thee..."

Does anyone else have recollections of being taught by him?

By the way I also had Don Cupitt for Philosophical Theology (and NT Wright for Paul and Romans) - but that is a whole other story

Since Pluralist puts me on the spot, I don't advocate investigating (already ordained) clergy on their orthodoxy, least of all by following the rumours.  I didn't think nersen did either.

John Robinson was indeed Bishop of Woolwich, but went to Cambridge afterwards - in other words, he ceased to be active in his bishopping. That's Cupitt's location.

There are such priests in the Church already. There is a group in Sea of Faith, for example, who haven't followed Don on the way out of church activity. I still get (though very rarely contribute to) SoF email debates. There are those in the expanding Progressive Christianity Network. There are, also, gay and lesbian partnered priests, but this is a different matter.

Sea of Faith originally began because a group of East Midlands priests got together, and they were in livings overseen by Emmanuel College. It formed when it attracted the like-minded from further afield, and I was one of them.

What stops the individuals being bishoped is that they are known, either in the wider public or on a sort of need to know basis. However, there are also bishops who do as they are supposed to, but when they retire breathe a sigh of relief and then shift the stance. Bishop Holloway is the best example from the Scottish Episcopal Church, who was straining at the leash until he retired, and then his publications became interesting.

There is a largely reported (has been?) actively gay bishop but he is doctrinally sound etc..

Cambridge was also the centre for Radical Orthodoxy and related movements, and I remember a conversation in Sea of Faith circles about one related to all that who was a bishop in Wales and his narrative postmodernism. You might have heard of him, but he is now sound as they come - apparently.

It all depends what you want to do. The way of Nersen Pillay is a witch hunt and 'root them all out'. Set up panels of investigation: follow the gossip. Either that or set up microphones so that these priests and ministers never say anything out of line. Some don't already, some are timid, some say a lot out of line.

But you don't have to go as far as PCN or SoF to find the heterodox. A lot of fairly central ministers are heterodox in places and are variously open or closed about such. Examine those of Affirming Catholicism, for example. What of a group called Affirming Liberalism, for example (though it has small beginnings still, around Oxford)? I find these participants very loyal and some rather safe with their liberalism - in a group that seems to centre around Keith Ward, who wrote consistently in opposition to Don Cupitt himself.

But who is it that will decide the cut off point for all these ex-communications? Is it Fulcrum, and why should it? Not that it will or can. In any case, there are some conservative evangelicals who would like to marginalise Fulcrum. Where does the knife go in, the scissors cut across. Who's going to manage the witch hunt and the surveillance? What of female priests who tend to be more liberal than male priests on the whole?

An interesting and thoughtful post by Pluralist.  I withdraw with apologies my comment about Kevin Thew Forrester being 'more religious' than Don Cupitt:  I have no valid way of reaching a judgement on the point, and what I said was unfounded.

This comment of Pluralist's is a bit delphic:

I don't think Don Cupitt ever expected or wanted to be a bishop at all. The experience of a much more central and even conservative figure, John Robinson at Cambridge should have taken that idea away.

... because Robinson WAS a bishop, though of Woolwich not Cambridge.  Referring to him as 'conservative' is unfair (a bit like, 'Unless you're two or three times as liberal as Robinson, you're no real liberal').  The point that Don Cupitt did not expect or want to be a bishop is, however, surely correct.

But I think my chief point stands.  To rephrase:  if we can have Buddhist Christian deacons and priests, we can have Buddhist Christian bishops;  ditto Christian non-realists;  ditto sexually active gays and lesbians.  As far as what that implies, I have to agree with nersen rather than Pluralist.

Perhaps all Anglican provinces might take the radical step of payng attention to and not going against scripture (eg Titus 1, 1 Tim 1) when appointing clergy......if we want to be united in the CofE and the  AC

No I don't think this is quite right. Don Cupitt remains religious in the way that, say, Michael Goulder did not. Goulder carried on teaching but gave up personal involvement, simply an atheist etc. who knew his New Testament inside out. Cupitt has given up church involvement, which means the end of a struggle to reform the language and thought forms and to be "in", to be a subversive strategy member.

Whilst the thought forms went in a Buddhist direction, they never went with Buddhism as a whole. They went with a combination of non-realism and affirming the life we have. I'd be interested in how he now relates to Confucian ideas.

I don't think Don Cupitt ever expected or wanted to be a bishop at all. The experience of a much more central and even conservative figure, John Robinson at Cambridge should have taken that idea away. Cupitt was happier giving his ideas and having a following by clergy and lay people in the churches and by many outside: I'm not in touch enough now to know what some who are inside the Church think of their mentor now throwing in the towel.

My own position is much more theological than Cupitt, who is more philosophical, but then I regard Mark C. Taylor as theological. I also experienced a form of Western Buddhism directly and as a package, so that has influenced much of my stance. At the moment I am not going forward at Eucharistic services and this may become settled, and increasingly the language of standard services is impossible as of having any explanatory sense.

I'm also more sociological and anthropological than Cupitt: he's never really grappled with this and it's a shame because it can help anchor some points in research and in actual human rituals.

There is no chance now that anyone near Cupitt's thought will be a bishop, indeed the Church is on a march backwards and narrowing its field all the time. All this GAFCON nonsense is an example of increasing sectarianism and pointlessness - inward looking and turf wars.

I've not yet come to a conclusion whether there is a reasonable, active religious life to be had. I suspect it is going to be, in the end, within one of the religious groups that retains an open stance - it might even be an odd congregation in the Church of England or other mainstream Church, or might be outside all of this. Some Liberal Catholic groups tend to be over magical with their symbolic mysticism, and some Protestant origin groups tend to lose out in having any symbolism or ritual that relates to human art and the richer aspects of broader language.

There are a lot of people like Cupitt who just end up on a lonely road, but not so lonely that there aren't people who broadly agree with his view, like I do, and our differences are where there is some good conversation to be had. What is interesting is that some far more mainstream people are also falling away in terms of the institutions available, increasingly dissident, especially as these institutions talk to themselves and few others more and more.

Being outraged won't accomplish anything.  Kevin Thew Forrester seems to be more religious than, for example, Don Cupitt:  whose website (http://www.doncupitt.com/doncupitt.html) says that 'in 2008 he finally ceased to be an active member of the church'--whatever that means (Don Cupitt is a more sophisticated interpreter of texts than me, so my understanding of the phrase may not correspond to his).

The point may be that he has moved from being a Christian non-realist, to being a Christian non-realist who doesn't bother to go to church.

Don Cupitt never had any chance of becoming a bishop, and that, I suppose, is the difference.  But a downside (?) of being episcopalian is that in our churches any beliefs or other characteristics which clergy can have, bishops can have, and eventually will.  So we have to (first) stop being shocked at what our bishops are like now, and (second) start cleaning up our whole church, because the bishops in practice won't be better than the rest of the clergy.