Another 'must read'

George Conger is usually worth a read. This piece from the Church of England Newspaper, however, is outstanding - not least because it signifies an historical moment. As he identifies, the Primates' Council, which was once crucial for the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Communion, has pretty much voted, in a very un-Turkey like fashion, for the ecclesiologial equivalent of Christmas: "Dr. Williams has now effectively gathered the authority once held by other instruments of the communion into his own hands, and into those of a London-based bureaucracy."

This is the new real politik of the Communion, and must equally be the signal for a new self-understanding of the Church of England:

Dublin primates meeting marks an ‘end to the communion as we know it’

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Rowan’s Pentecost letter in a nutshell

Help me out here. I am trying to finish working on the bathroom and tidying up before my wife gets home, so I really don’t have time to read through Rowan Williams’s Pentecost letter as thoroughly as it no doubt ought to be read. What it seems to add up to, though, is this (readers of Billy Bunter school stories will be familiar with the scenario): 

The pupils of the lower fifth have been warned about talking in class, but that naughty Jefferts-Schori girl, sitting at the back with her friends, has done it again. The patience of kindly-but-stern Dr Williams has snapped, and he has decided to keep the whole class in from break.

Meanwhile, he plans to ask the school council what else he can do to stop this class from disrupting the entire fifth year. But of course Ms Schori, along with the other talkers in the lower fifth is on the council, so that is going to be a difficult move.

Dr Williams has meanwhile retreated to his study, where he is perhaps wishing he could go back to the good old days of giving out six-of-the-best.

That seems to be the sum of it, unless I’ve missed something vital.

Yarooh!

John Richardson
29 May 2010

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