Both President Bishop Mouneer Anis and the four (formerly six*) guys with a website who call themselves the Anglican Communion Institute are making reference to the "authority" of the Primates Meeting.
You see, this is the favourite tactic of those behind the hostile takeover of Anglicanism. When the facts don't suit, they make s*** up.
I want to be absolutely clear about this, so I'll type slowly.
T H E . P R I M A T E S . M E E T I N G . H A S . N O . A U T H O R I T Y!!!!
The Primates Meeting was created as a forum for "leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation."
The only authority the Primates Meeting has is the aggregate moral authority of the individual Primates. Despite the lies of the far right, the Primates Meeting does NOT have any juridical authority.
Of course, the irreconcilables want the Primates Meeting to become a full blown Anglican curia-cum-inquisition.
A profoundly unAnglican ambition.
They make up similar c*** about the supposed authority of the Lambeth Conference, despite the fact that the Lambeth Conferences themselves have repeatedly rejected the idea that Lambeth Conferences should have that kind of authority.
(* The Anglican Communion Institute really is nothing more than a shared website of a handful of apologists for the far right. There used to more of them, but after their treasurer was under police investigation, they denied any connection to him.)
2 comments:
It does seem to follow a pattern of trying to amass power - a very worldly way to deal with spiritual disagreements: if you can't beat them, change the governance structure to put you in charge. The most un-Anglican thing about it is the marked lack of humility with which we have always approached our differences.
I really find the creeping sense of authority in the consultative echelons of the Anglican Communion to be very alarming. Sometimes people point to statements by one of the Instruments of Communion/Unity/Whatever as justifying the mission creep, but that ignores the fact that those Instruments don't have the authority to change themselves. Besides being really dishonest, I think it shows a horrible view of the role of the individual in the Church and the world -- the "important people" make the rules, and the "little people" only have the job of falling in line.
Post a Comment