england awakes -
and about bloody time
The archbishops of Canterbury and York were today delivered a resounding snub to their plans to centralise power in the Church of England. The General Synod, being held in York, overwhelmingly rejected the proposals which would have made Dr Rowan Williams one of the most powerful Archbishops of Canterbury since the Reformation. Church bodies responsible for education, mission and finance were to have been abolished with the powers of the Church’s main boards and councils instead passing to Canterbury and York.
But tonight the laity, clergy and even some bishops threw the plans out in a rebellion that will keep the balance of power within the democratically elected Synod.
Full story at THE TIMES.
20 comments:
Thank God for at least some sense in the church!
Yay! And two days before Bastille Day! How appropriate. Yes, cancel the Popemobile.
Maybe GC will follow suit? One can dream!
FWIW
jimB
Welcome to reality.
God IS listening!!! and the Holy Spirit has a sense of humour!!!!
Wow. Rowan looks absolutely terrible in that picture in the Times.
You know, I'd really like to read a report of this by someone other than Ruth Gledhill. I'm sorry to say but I really don't trust her take on things to convey the complete picture. Maybe it has in this case. But I've just read stuff of hers in the past that seriously distorted matters.
The ABC should have presented this as a "green" initiative, then it would likely have garnered more support. But no matter what one does or doesn't do, there will be no shortage of ecclesiastical global warming gas any time soon.
Ellie, I'm sure there will be lots at Thinking Anglicans. Simon usually has several articles with different slants on issues like this!
Thanks, Susan. I was completely forgetting about Thinking Anglicans. I'll check it out!
A bishops' coup nipped in the bud.
I remember when ABC Rowan visited TEC's House of Bishops and told them to claim the charism of bishops, to tell the church what to do, or, in other words, don't let the priest and laity carry the day.
We in TEC are aware that this is the way of bishops in many parts of the Anglican Communion. TEC's charism is to show the world a different, may I say better? way to be church.
Again, this power grab for bishops is part of becoming like the other espiscopally ordered churches so Rowan can have street cred with the ecumenical community which evidently keeps trying to shoehorn us, the AC, into their way of thinking. I believe ABC Rowan's complaint was that when he is asked by ecumenical shorts what the Anglican Communion is, he has no answer for them that fits their assumptions.
Duh.
That's cuz we don't fit their assumptions. We're not supposed to. The ecumenical community has to do the work themselves of making sense of us just as we are - a mixed bag.
Sorry for being boring, for that is just what I have been. I needed to get that off my chest, and where better than OCICBW... ?
Not boring.
In fact, quite interesting.
Dr. Williams can find an American university more interested prestige than accomplishment and get a nice large salary. Then he can write another incomprehensible book. If he goes on about the "English gift of compromise" he might even get a contract for a comedy screen play! Sorry for him is gonna take me a while.
FWIW
jimB
Not boring.
In fact, quite interesting.
I agree with MadPriest, Lois. What you said here helps me make sense of it all.
The imbalance of power in the CofE is that it assumes that in order for anything to be run properly it has to have Bishops and Archdeacons in charge of it. If +York is fed up of boards and synods and committees and administration, let him resign from them and get on with the stuff he declaims as important. Parish clergy are no different, ordained to preach and administer the sacraments they are then expected to fulfill 101 other tasks in addition. Democractic process, organisational structure and the responsibility for it should be in the hands of the lay people of the church, allowing the priestly to do their priestly thing unhindered.
Priests are just lay people in chausibles. You would have the same problems. You only have to look at our government to realise that.
I would go for one lay dominated house, but with sufficient clerical representation to influence the debates. There would also have to be a written constitution to stop the underqualified (lay and clerical) from deciding that we should all worship Baal.
Oh, and no church wardens (see - general pain in the arse).
LOL, MP (...from deciding that we should all worship Baal). Fat chance!
And I'm glad that what I thougth was boring was not. You are very kind.
Same problems but not the vested interest, and I am quite with +Sentamu in his suggestion that the preferred worship now is of Baal.
I have also made arrangements this last week to ensure that my 'pain in the arse' appelation will not be for too much longer.
I have also made arrangements this last week to ensure that my 'pain in the arse' appelation will not be for too much longer.
Bloody brilliant!
It'll be alright to be seen in a pub with you (without having to go all the way to Edinburgh where nobody knows me).
Perhaps they could get him one of these instead.
Of course the need of having anything is predicated on flocks of people thronging to see you. His foul stench of recent days would not even attract flocks of diarrhetic pidgins.
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