I find this document avoidant…it is institutional speak without real get up and do…

The real sign that nothing of substance is going to be said is in the last lines where the issue of sexuality has been again coupled with listening…and we all know what that means…

And what about really addressing what it means for example when someone says Jesus is ‘a’ way instead ‘the’ way…

The above comment was speaking to the third draft of the Lambeth Statement…I am not sure how it ended up here…sorry, I did something wrong I am sure.

There was a plea to have an enabling environment to discuss issues without creating a win-lose situation.

Weasels. It’s a good thing this idiotic mentality wasn’t at Nicea 1,683 years ago or at Chalcedon 1,557 years ago.

It is important to be careful not to make judgments because on both sides people have come to their decision by careful study of the Bible. Those who take different positions regarding this issue have exercised compassionate pastoral care to homosexual/lesbian people. We need to repent of positions that have been taken that have further damaged the dignity of homosexual and lesbian people.

yeah, right. Interestingly, this paragraph has the only use of the term “repent”. But I’m sure there’s nothing significant about that.

In some cultures the actions of the North American churches has commended the Gospel in some quarters.

like hell it has. It has only commended a foreign gospel.

It starts by saying:

Apologies have been expressed in the Indaba groups by some in the Episcopal Church who had no idea that their action in the consecration of the present Bishop of New Hampshire had caused such a negative impact in many parts of the Communion. 

I extend an honest invitation to anyone who can explain how this could be anything but the most shameless pravarication.  I can respect a bishop who says “Of course we knew we were really upsetting our African brothers, and making life very hard for them in their dioceses; and even those of us who didn’t realize the extent of it certainly realized it by spring 2006; and naturally we didn’t like causing this much pain; but we felt it was still the right thing to do.”  That I can respect: no attempt to claim ignorance, but saying that they felt like it was the right thing to do anyway.

But when they say, AFTER FIVE YEARS (!!!): “Gee, we had no idea!”  Well, all I can say is that this is shameless lying; either that or they are so stupid that they shouldn’t even be hired to be the church janitor much less a bishop.

I would like to be wrong here, however.  Can someone explain to me how these bishops could truly have been ignorant of all the suffering their actions were causing?

PS.  This isn’t a specific issue of just one group bishops saying one thing about one specific crisis in the AC.  It’s something that happens all the time in everyday life: person X hurts person Y horribly, and in a fashion that there’s simply no way he could have been ignorant of, and then later expects to be exhonerated by the preposterous claim that “he had no idea” he injured Y.  It’s the nonapology apology so common in the life of public figures, but also in the lives of husbands and wives, friends, co-workers, and so on. 

I wonder whether it is because almost nobody, including apparently those in the Church, really believes in real forgiveness?  They can’t say “I did this terrible thing and knew I was doing it—I was an awful man and I am so sorry” because they think there’s no way they could be forgiven if they admit the wrongdoing?

Of course it does.  The libs running things won’t be satisfied until all of humanity marches right behind Schori through the gates of hell.  Safety in numbers…the liberal mantra.

The word repent has been misdirected.  It is the prohomosex affirmers and practitioners who are demeaning human dignity and are hating persons with same sex disorientation and identity distortions.  Scripture does not recognize or exempt any particular sinful inclinations as a separate people - I Corinthians 6:9-11 is a very inclusive passage and so is Hebrews 7:25.

This is one of the worst documents of the many we’ve seen over the past few years.  Things are NOT getting better, they are getting worse within the historic Communion.  Fortunately, however, thanks to the truly useful conference in Jerusalem in June, there is now a way forward.  Documents such as this make it clear why GAFCON was necessary.  What a complete waste this Lambeth Conference has been.  The only benefit I can see out of it at all is that it has illustrated the complete necessity for an alternative to the Canterbury-based historic Communion.  Canterbury has shown itself incapable of dealing with the crisis in the Communion.  Boundary crossing with surely now increase, as will the speed of the TEC agenda.  We are two different faiths and documents such as this make that fact plain.  The historic and faithful Anglican witness will survive, but it will look very different than it has up to this point.  For some time, only the Lord knows how long, both sides are likely to maintain their historic connection to the Communion, but in reality they will speed up the process of moving apart in practice.  Ultimately, I think this will be a healthy thing for everyone.

#4, Jon, it is truly astonishing that anyone could be that clueless, but I think most of these folks are so invested in their cause du jour, which in this case is the oppression of rightous GBLT’s by the evil fundamentalists, that anyone else’s suffering goes right over their heads. They know they are right, this is a justice issue after all, so how could their actions possibly cause harm?

Let’s remember what this document is (a varied collection of “thoughts” expressed by the bishops and carried to an appointed writing team) and in what context (indaba groups where the clear premium was on “building relationships” and “open listening”). 

So you have 100 bishops - 80 of them say “A”, 5 say “B”, 10 say “C” and 5 say “both B and C”.  So what does the final “reflection” document say?  Pretty clearly it will say something like:

“We talked about this and we all agreed that we want to be friends and in relationship with each other.  Some said A, some said B, some said C, some said B and C.”

And that is exactly what this is.  Pretty clever by the Lambeth organizers.  There was no other result possible given the arrangement.  You have the indaba pressure to be “in relationship”; you’ve got the “reflection” just being a big brainstorm report of what people said; you’ve got TEC heavily over-represented.

The question is - what will the orthodox majority of bishops think when they see this?

#9, excellent analysis.  That is exactly what is going on and it makes it look like all points of view are equal.  And since none of us are there, TEC’s bishops can come back and claim all points of view were equal and we can’t oppose their statements.  Brilliant machiavellian politics by the AbofC and Ian Douglas’ planning team.  Also, seems to support the reasoning behind the Africans refusal to attend and the need for Gafcon.

#9, good summary.  It seems to me that the word ‘reflections’ is getting used simultaneously to mean two different things in the titles of Lambeth reports.
The normal literary usage means that the giver of the reflections has thought, prayed and otherwise considered an issue and is providing his/her/their ‘inward reflections’ on a matter.  So for example +Anis’ ‘Reflections’.
But the trendy and more superficial group-dynamic meaning when some group’s output is called a ‘reflection’ is analogous to that of a mirror.  It is suggestive of a facilitator holding up a mirror to the group considering some matter, and all the rays of every wavelength that reflect off that mirror are captured in a summary for all to see.  The reason for doing this is to provide the complete ‘spectrum’ for all to see objectively, as everyone will have missed something in the total group output.  The unresolved issue of course is whether everyone ‘inwardly reflected’ in a useful way on the matter before contributing his/her ray to the total spectrum of the group’s reflection.

When it was time to evaluate the TEO response to the DeS communique, Rowan required the evaluation to be done through the very skewed lens of the Joint Standing Committee report instead of simply asking did the TEO comply with the DeS or not. Over half of the ACC members and Primates declined even to participate in the sham. When the votes were in, he declared a hung jury/mixed bag/“varied repsonses”/“no clear consensus”. And with that the DeS communique was dead and its death irrelevant.

Now, Rowan will do the same with Lambeth: hung jury/mixed bag/“varied repsonses”/“no clear consensus”. Ah, but we did some wonderful indaba-ing.