Glimmer of Hope

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The ACO has published the report by the ACC sub-group on whether TEC has responded adequately to the Windsor Report. It’s not good reading as some at Stand Firm are pointing out.

But all is not lost. Read the report carefully:

• The Primates gathered at Dromantine in February 2005 adopted three specific requests to the Episcopal Church from the Windsor Report:
• first, a request that the Episcopal Church should express its regret that the proper constraints of the bonds of affection had been breached in the events surrounding the consecration as a bishop of a person whose lifestyle contradicted the standard of teaching enshrined in the Lambeth Resolution 1.10 (see paragraphs 18-23 below);
• second, a moratorium on the election and consent of any candidate for the episcopate living in a same-gender union until some new consensus emerged in the Anglican Communion (see paragraphs 6-12 below); and
• third, a moratorium on public Rites of Blessing of same-sex unions (see paragraphs 13-17 below).

Trust me, this is dynamite. What these paragraphs do is standardise the principle that the Primates can take a report from a body of the Anglican Communion and modify it as they wish. So, if the Primates aren’t happy with the sub-group report then they can simply make whatever demands they want from TEC. They’ve done it before, and now this report by recognising and formally accepting that means they can do it again.