More analyses of Sentamu and the vacancy at Canterbury; GAFCON proposes to reorganise the Anglican Communion; Archbishop of Canterbury to lose worldwide Anglican role under plans; News from the Church in Wales’ Governing Body meeting; VAT lobby on alterations; Executive remuneration: The charity perspective
More analyses of Sentamu and the vacancy at Canterbury
Andrew Brown writes – The fight to become the new archbishop of Canterbury is getting dirty.
The Guardian – – John Sentamu will likely be Rowan Williams’s successor – but the campaign to get him there has employed unpleasant tactics. John Sentamu, the archbishop of York, is expected to announce his candidature for Canterbury this week, by the opaquely Anglican manoeuvre of declining a place on the committee that will choose the next archbishop of Canterbury to succeed Rowan Williams. Already his allies are suggesting that only racism could keep him from the job. Since Arora has just been appointed as head of all the Church of England’s communications, this is a fairly heavy accusation. If Sentamu does not now get the job, it will hang over the successful candidate in a rather nasty way. And if he does, it will be open to his opponents to say, or at least to think, that he did so because it would have looked terribly racist not to give it him, and not because of his merits…
…The style that people object to is autocratic, and prelatical. The idea that God blesses success, and that might therefore shows forth righteousness, is embedded in a lot of African religious culture. Sentamu’s younger brother, for example, is a hugely successful “Prosperity gospel” preacher in Kampala, with a mansion, a Mercedes, and a church where journalists are searched on entry. Authority, in such a church, is fawned on sooner than questioned.
There’s nothing essentially African about this. For one thing it is the opposite of Desmond Tutu’s manner; for another, it was the natural behaviour of archbishops of Canterbury up until about the retirement of Geoffrey Fisher, in 1961. But it hasn’t worked in England since then.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/apr/23/archbishop-of-canterbury-john-sentamu
George Pitcher writes – If Dr John Sentamu isn’t made Archbishop of Canterbury, it won’t be because he’s black.
Mailonline. – I’m probably as close as anyone to Church gossip about the runners and riders for Canterbury and I’ve not heard a single racial slur, directed at Dr Sentamu or anyone else.
If anything, the situation has been rather the reverse. My impression is that those who have had criticisms or reservations of Dr Sentamu’s candidacy have largely kept them to themselves over the past couple of years, precisely because they fear that they may have been accused of racism if they expressed them. Political correctness has served Dr Sentamu well.
Lately, it’s true that some of his critics have concluded that their views are as valid and innocent as if he were a white man. And so I’ve heard these words: Capricious, impulsive, vain with the media and quick to temper (as well, I might add, as words such as prophetic, inspirational, generous and kind). None of these words has anything to do with Dr Sentamu’s ethnicity.
For what it’s worth, my feeling is that the moment has passed for John Sentamu and Canterbury. He celebrates his 63rd birthday in about seven weeks’ time, meaning that he would be pushing compulsory retirement age by the next Lambeth Conference in 2018. He’s not been blessed with the best of good health lately and, most importantly, I really don’t think he wants it anymore. We really shouldn’t have another Archbishop of Canterbury who doesn’t want to be.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2133916/If-Dr-John-Sentamu-isnt-Archbishop-Canterbury-wont-hes-black.html#ixzz1swdaaCTl
A Global Communion for the 21st century – Archbishop Wabukala
Keynote Address by the chair of the FCA Primates’ Council
……Our conference in Jerusalem was truly a mountain top experience, a rich time of fellowship in the Holy Spirit, of inspired teaching and prophetic insights. But we have to come down from the mountain top and not simply rest on the experience or think that by articulating a vision we have somehow done our work. What does the Lord require? He requires, says Micah: that we act, that we act justly and with mercy, not just write and think about things. We must act out of our God given identity, we must be true to ourselves as we are in Christ crucified, redeemed through the cross where God’s Justice and Mercy meet.
This is what it means to act with authenticity. It is not a matter of following our subjective dreams and feelings, but being true to the one who has risen from the dead, so that we might live not for ourselves, but for Him who died and rose again for us…….
……We should look to the pioneer the new wineskin of the global governance structures which will help and not hinder the task of evangelism. Four years ago the Jerusalem Statement spoke of the ‘manifest failure’ of the instruments of Unity in the Anglican Communion, and since then it has become entirely clear that these instruments have failed us. Orthodox leaders must now do more than simply stay away. We have to go back to the basic principles and develop new structures while remaining firmly within the Anglican Communion. We need to consider how we can build on the model of councilor leadership initiated in Jerusalem in 2008 with the setting up of the GAFCON primate’s council. Our communion has come of age and it is now time that its leadership should be focused not on one person or one church, however hallowed its history, but on the one historic faith we confess. There is added urgency to these concerns and need for creative thinking so that a pattern of global governance that is no longer fit for this context is not perpetuated by default.
http://gafcon.org/news/a-global-communion-for-the-twenty-first-century/
Archbishop of Canterbury to lose worldwide Anglican role under traditionalist plans
Telegraph – The Archbishop of Canterbury could be stripped of his role as figurehead of the worldwide Anglican Church, leaders representing 40 million churchgoers have signalled as they launched a scathing attack on a liberal drift within the Church.
A coalition of bishops and leaders from Africa, the Americas and Australasia said it was time for a “radical shift” in how the church is structured away from models of the “British Empire”.
They criticised what they called “revisionist attempts” to abandon basic doctrines on issues such as homosexuality and “turn Christianity merely into a movement for social betterment” during Dr Williams’s tenure.
And they said it was now clear that the leadership in England had failed to hold the 77 million-strong worldwide Anglican Communion together, leaving it in “crisis”.
They spoke out as 200 clergy and laity from 30 countries gathered in London to discuss what they called the “present crisis moment” in the church.
The meeting of leaders of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans comes amid growing warnings of a split over issues such as homosexuality.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9221603/Archbishop-of-Canterbury-to-lose-worldwide-Anglican-role-under-traditionalist-plans.html
News from the Church in Wales’ Governing Body meeting
For a full round-up of the meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales which met at Venue Cymru, Llandudno, on April 18-19.Please see:
http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/structure/govbody/apr12/highlights/highlights.pdf
VAT lobby on alterations
C of E Media – Vital alterations to churches should be not be compared to installing luxury swimming pools, says Second Church Estates Commissioner.
http://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2012/04/vat-lobby-on-alterations.aspx
Executive remuneration: The charity perspective
C of E Media – The Church of England and a group of charities have joined together to urge investors to vote during the 2012 AGM season on executive remuneration packages that have risen excessively.
With the main part of the 2012 AGM season yet to come, the Daily Telegraph has published a letter from the Church Commissioners for England and a group of other charity organisations which reminds charity and other investors of the shareholder rights they have at their disposal to shape company practice.
http://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2012/04/executive-remuneration-the-charity-perspective.aspx