TEC – “Doctrinal Indifferentism”

That’s a direct quote from an interview that Ruth Gledhill has just published with Tom Wright. Uber-kudos to Ruth for such a brilliant journalistic coup. Here’s more of the wisdom of Durham++

“For the last three years, every meeting has looked like this is the make-or-beak one. There is a bit of this now – yet one more time round the tracks. However, the film is gradually unwinding and we are closing in on the fact that something has got to happen soon. By the end of 2007 the Archbishop of Canterbury will have had to send out invitations to the Lambeth Conference. One way or another, the decisions he has to make in relation to that are bound to have some kind of effect in various parts of the Anglican Communion.

“That is a way of saying that by this time next year, we will certainly not be where we are now. Some lines will have hardened, one way or another.There is so much sound and fury in many different directions that it is a matter of several different pressures from several different corners – trying to hear them and listen to the voice of God in the middle of it all and make some sense of it.”

Excited? Tingly all over in the expectation that something might actually happen in Tanzania? Remember, Durham and Canterbury are actually quite close, so paragraphs like the following should be read in that context:

“For Kenneth Kearon to accuse Rowan Williams of fostering schism is quite extraordinary. That is like someone in a house that is on fire accusing the firemen of ruining the book collection because they have sprayed water on it. It is quite clear that the split is coming from those in the American church who are insisting on doing something that the Lambeth Conference and the rest of the Communion had asked them not to do. To accuse Rowan Williams of fomenting schism is really projecting onto Rowan the schismatic actions which happened in 2003 when the Americans first gave acquiesence to Gene Robinson at their General Convention and then went ahead and consecrated him. In October 2003, the Primates said clearly that if this action goes ahead it will tear the fabric of the communion at its deepest level. The Americans went ahead and did it. All that has happened subsequently is the rest of the Communion saying we really hope you did not mean that but if you did, have you thought through the consequences? There are many in America who are trying to have their cake and eat it, who are doing the schismatic thing and then accusing those who object of being schismatic. That is the bizarre thing.

When the likes of Tom Wright start making statements like this you realise that the game is really up for TEC. And about time too…