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General Synod Day 1

Regular readers of this site will be aware that General Synod of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia is meeting in Gisborne. On this site I have been calling for more information to be made available online. This site has a wide, international, ecumenical readership, and I’m always conscious to try and keep that focus in mind, but from time to time, this being the most-read Christian site based in New Zealand, I do have a particularly local and/or Anglican focus. Hence, I’m delighted that the General Synod media release was sent to this site, and know that many, internationally, are seeking to follow what we are doing here.

Regular information directly from General Synod:
Bishop Kelvin Wright, our only blogging bishop
Anglican Taonga, the sermon
Rev. Peter Carrell, observing General Synod
General Synod blog, with photos

For more particularly about liturgy discussion see here

Here is the media release:

Archbishop gives wake up call

Anglicans meeting in Gisborne have been told to be ambassadors of hope on issues including proposed mining and to help bring solutions to concerns including alcohol abuse.

Archbishop David Moxon told delegates to the Anglican General Synod that there is a need for the Church to take a stand on issues and act on beliefs. To be people with a mission, which is a mission of hope.

“There is a need to look in our country for that which is the common good, said Archbishop David Moxon. “Otherwise there is the chance that hope can be lost, and this can result in a kind of coma where huge opportunities and challenges in our society and environment go either unnoticed, or ignored,” said Archbishop Moxon.

The Anglican Church is to make a submission to the Government opposing the proposed mining in the Coromandel and other areas including National Parks.

Archbishop Moxon told delegates the Government’s recent support of the United Nations Charter of Indigenous Rights is a sign of hope. “The integrity and rights of tangata whenua are crucial to our way of life as Anglicans; they are enshrined in our own Constitution – and we have benefited so much from this affirmation.”

Tomorrow morning, delegates at the General Synod will discuss the proposed Anglican Covenant. This addresses the debate in the Anglican Communion about the ordination of bishops in same sex relationships. Later in the week the Synod will receive a report by Sir Paul Reeves on the governance of St John’s College in Auckland, where most Anglican clergy are trained.

Archbishop David Moxon asked delegates to bring the same hope to church issues as to those of wider society.

A new Bishop of Polynesia, who will automatically become one of the three archbishops of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia will be announced at the General Synod. The Diocese of Polynesia has already met to nominate a bishop and the final confirmation by the wider church will take place at the Gisborne gathering.

The Synod is meeting at the Emerald Hotel in Gisborne until Thursday evening and media are welcome to attend.

For any inquiries please contact the Rev’d Jayson Rhodes at the Synod, 021 661319.

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4 thoughts on “General Synod Day 1”

    1. Brian, can you expand on your question, please. I think the article on that site is straightforward enough, and there are a couple of others on the same site. You can also comment on that site now, and I would encourage you to do so. My understanding is that General Synod is asking for 2 years of reflection by the whole province on Section 4 of the covenant as well as seeking legal advice on its implications.

  1. Sorry Fr. Bosco,

    To wear my stripes, I am a flagrant member of TEC and am in accord with its various apostacies [sic], as such I am opposed to the thrust of the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant. I am opposed to it first and foremost because it is clearly a contract, and not a covenant. It is a contract that arises in response to a particular set of recent conflicts, and to my reading favors a particular constituency of these conflicts.

    While no Church should cringe from its statements, the dictates of the fullness of the Christian revelation and the life of the Church, at least as I know them, would beg, “Yes, and…,” or in some instances “Yes, but…” however, most certainly not simply, “Yes! Only, yes,” at every turn.

    It has the feel of a line of hostile questioning by a barrister, or of an employment contract in dense, legalistic boilerplate offered by a corporate human resources department that seeks to preferentially dictate and control a relationship and indemnify the drafter. Only there’s no cross-examination forthcoming, no counter-proposal to be tendered. I am surprised that the Church of New Zealand would seriously and apparently earnestly enter in to it reserving concerns only about Section 4.2.8.

    It would be disingenuous for any to represent that the intent of this document is not expediently aimed at seeking to have the North American (and I thought the New Zealand) Churches to capitulate on their discernments about the full roles of women and all the baptized in the sacramental life, leadership and all lay and ordained ministry of the Church, or either to voluntarily renounce and remove themselves, or be involuntarily moved in the direction of marginalization and possibly eliminaton from the Anglican Communion.

    The Churches in the Developing World face different theological issues and different pastoral needs than those in the Developed World. To maintain that they do not is either to be dense or to to have a hidden agenda. I do not believe that we stand in the way of the Church in the Developing World, except perhaps when they advocate imprisoning or executing people on the basis of their sexuality. For the most part, I believe we support the Churches of the Developing World materially and spiritually. I hear the concern that false characterizations of the pastoral positions of some of the Churches in the Developed World make it difficult and purportedly even dangerous for impoverished and persecuted Churches in the Developing World. I’m not convinced of the clear validity of these claims nor of the solitary nature of these problems, i.e., if we in North America didn’t support the ordination of women and homosexuals to all orders, and supported extending marriage to homosexuals, or weren’t looking deeper at the Faith in the context we find ourselves that life for the Churches in the Developing World would be a bowl of cherries. I think that is a false dilemma.

    These areas of conflict are really issues of church discipline, arguably with aspects of moral theology. They are clearly not dogmatic issues. Confusing and treating matters of church discipline as matters of dogma is a hallmark of the Roman Curia (not to be confused with the Roman Church, mind you) and as such should be looked upon with deep suspicion as suggesting more an origin in the Will to Power, rather than out of genuine, pastoral concern.

    Blessings,

    Brian

  2. Thanks Brian, I think you may be responding to the article on the Taonga website – that has recently enabled commenting (I know you need to log in, but it’s not as onerous as it first appears – it’s a one-off process). I think you could repeat your comment there as that is the better place for your discussion to occur where people interested in discussing the covenant might form some energy. The other Kiwi place where the covenant has been discussed a lot is Rev Peter Carrell’s Anglican Down under.

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