BREAKING NEWS ---
ANGLICAN CONSULTATIVE COUNCIL REJECTS PRIMATES' "CONSEQUENCES"
The Anglican Consultative Council voted today to reject the "consequences" imposed on the Episcopal Church by the primates in their January 2016 gathering in Canterbury.
According to the Episcopal News Service report just posted, the ACC today passed Resolution C34 which recognized the Archbishop of Canterbury's report on the primates' gathering and affirmed the decision to "walk together." Then, the ACC tabled (withdrew without a vote) Resolution C35 which would have accepted the primates' statement. The ABC himself wanted C35 to be withdrawn. For EpiscopalCafé's report see: www.episcopalcafe.com/intentional-discipleship-in-a-world-of-differences-acc-2016-declines-to-enforce-consequences-issued-by-primates .
For the long story by ENS see: http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2016/04/18/anglican-consultative-council-declines-to-go-along-with-consequences .
Passing C34 and killing C35 speaks loudly and clearly that the ACC rejected the primates' directive to the ACC to impose punishment (using the euphemism of "consequences") on the American Episcopal Church.
Two points to emphasize here: 1-the Anglican Communion has no central government. It has "Four Instruments of Communion" that are separate and co-equal. No one Instrument has any authority over any other. No one has any right to interfere in any of the 38 independent churches (provinces) of the AC. The primates' had no right to direct the ACC to do anything and the ACC has now told the primates' that in no uncertain terms.
2-More evidence to support my contention that the movement to drive the Episcopal Church out of the AC and replace it with the Anglican Church in North America is dead (see my postings of April 11, "The Collapse of the Anti-Episcopal Church Movement in the Anglican Communion" and of Feb. 1, 2016, "The Failure of the Replacement Strategem"). The ABC and the ACC rallied to save the Episcopal Church's place in the AC. The anti-TEC hardliners have now been reduced to a marginalized handful of the most fiercely anti-homosexual-rights primates of equatorial Africa. In one case, Kenya, even the delegates rejected their archbishop's wish and attended the ACC meeting anyway.
