Anglican commission report

AKMA weighs in on the recent Lambeth Commission report concerning how the worldwide Anglican communion might engage the issues that arose when Bishop Robinson was consecrated. I particularly resonate with his conviction that as Christians we must be living more deeply in connection with those with whom we disagree, rather than less. His is not an argument that seeks to negate the differences, but rather to enter into a deeper relationship that can then be sustained when deep disagreement arises.

"If I had my druthers, I’d have had the Episcopal Church more actively involved in the lives of other Anglican Provinces for the past four decades or more, such that we would have had a more vivid sense of our mutual life, and would have communicated more effectively the sorts of reasoning that make the consecration of Bishop Robinson a source of joy, and the blessing of unions among our beloved friends and relations a source of renewed strength for our own committed relationships. We didn’t extend ourselves for those years, and now we can’t be surprised that others feel that we have left them (and the faith by which they have been saved) behind us. If we’re going to disagree, vehemently, we ought to devote all the more energy to working together and helping one another, so as to make sure that our discernment not be clouded by our provincialism, whether of the right or of the left. This Report, frustrating though it be in certain respects, seems to ask us to redouble our efforts to bind our lives more closely with those of sisters and brothers far away, so that we’re speaking and praying and reasoning and deciding about real human beings, rather than paper cutouts, projections, abstractions from the flesh-and-blood people whose lives will bear the consequences of the decisions we ultimately reach."

PS: Thanks to a more recent AKMA post, take a look at this interpretation of the report!