RSVP

Recently I asked the question, did our Presiding Bishop change her tune about inviting Akinola?

The Washington Times provides one answer:

The head of the 2.3-million-member denomination first made her wishes known last week in a request leaked to the New York Times. When that did not produce a response, Bishop Jefferts Schori sent Archbishop Akinola an official letter Monday.

Is the Washington Times implying a request was sent to Akinola? And why the PB's original statement being characterized as a leak? It wasn't a leak. The NYT asked for her views and she provided them with a statement.

What was made public was her letter to Akinola of April 30. That letter requesting that he not come to the US for the installation of the unelected Martyn Minns.

LATER. May 3 in The Washington Times:

Earlier this week, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori sent Archbishop Akinola a request by e-mail and airmail that he not officiate at the gathering.

Canon Akin Tunde Popoola, a spokesman for the archbishop, e-mailed The Washington Times yesterday morning to say they had received neither request.

"It will however be strange that [the Episcopal Church], which had all along explained why the election, consecration and enthronement of Gene is irreversible," he wrote, "suddenly feels that of Martyn Minns, elected by the Nigerian House of Bishops, can be tampered with."

Don't come to US, Akinola?

Has Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori changed her tune?

Here's part of what she wrote in a statement issued April 28 (source):"I have only just become aware of the possible visit by the Primate of Nigeria. Unfortunately, my office has not been directly informed of his pending visit, but we will now pursue extending to him a personal invitation to see him while he is in the United States. I regret that he has apparently accepted an invitation to provide episcopal ministry here without any notice or prior invitation."

Characteristic of our Presiding Bishop, her statement reflects both hospitality and rebuke (but not anger).

On April 30th she sent Akinola a letter which opens, "I am writing this letter with my prayers for you and for the entire worldwide Anglican Communion from a fellow child of Christ. I understand from press reports you are planning to come to the United States to install Martyn Minns as a bishop in the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. I strongly urge you not to do so."

The letter does not include "a personal invitation to see him while he is in the United States."

What happened to her hospitality? Perhaps it's still available, but has been quietly refused. Could it be that Akinola signaled he wished to be saved the embarassment of declining an open invitation to visit our Presiding Bishop?

Mohler on Jefferts Schori

I like to bring views like this into the light of day. From The Christian Postin a story headlined "Episcopal Head Says Anglican Churches Will Make Same 'Journey' to Pro-Gay Stance":

"In other words, Jefferts Schori argues that time is on her side," commented the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and one of America's pre-eminent evangelical leaders, in a blog post Thursday. "The African churches will simply have to grow up and learn to play the game. They will have to learn to replace the authority of the Bible with the authority of modern therapeutic ideologies.

"In time,” he wrote, “she expects the African churches to learn to play the game - relativizing Scripture, redefining biblical morality, and flaunting the moral wisdom the church has known for over 2,000 years.

"She may be right," Mohler added. "We must pray she is wrong."

The full article is here. Mohler's blog post is here.

Primatial creep explained :: Loren Mead

Posted at The Episcopal Majority is Loren Mead's letter on state-side primatial creep:

I come from the branch of the Episcopal Church that knows that our constitution was not shaped by the federal Constitution (the way all the confirmation classes insist), but by the form of government the United States had when the Church constitution was produced: "The Articles of Confederation." So our constitution doesn't really have an executive branch (or president); its focus is in legislative authority that is bicameral – with only vestigial executive and afterthought judicial powers, and no provision for a president or for "national" taxation or rules. So we provided for a presiding officer for each of our legislative branches, but the presiding bishop has no authority in any diocese, and can only act in a diocese by the authority of the diocesan bishop.
...
I think it was in John Hines' time that "primatial creep" set in. The instrument was the General Convention Special Program (GCSP). ... You'll remember the fireworks and anxiety about national staff "interfering" with dioceses (especially dioceses in the South where racial issues were painful and keen). Primatial creep is not my name for what happened to the Presiding Bishop – but for what happened to the House of Bishops. The House of Bishops had to work with conflict between dioceses and 815. (By now it had been built. Remember, it was 1963 when it was finished and we actually had national staff located in one place.)That – in my opinion – was when the House of Bishops first began usurping the power of the bicameral legislative process that was in our constitution.

Emphases in the original.