Primates' Theological Commish responds to Council of General Synod

It's all rather confusing.

The story appears in Episcopal Life online (which is a'murkan), but for some reason I could not find it on our own Anglican Church of Canada site.  Or maybe I'm not looking in the right places.

ht: Steve London

Update:  here's the story

The Council of General Synod, meeting in Mississauga, Ontario March 7-11, 2007, decided to forward to General Synod in June a number of resolutions relating to the blessing of same sex unions. These resolutions have been publicly identified with the St. Michael Report. The Commission would like to clarify that with the exception of the first resolution ('That this General Synod accept the conclusion of the Primate's Theological Commission's St. Michael Report that the blessing of same-sex unions is a matter of doctrine, but is not core doctrine in the sense of being credal.'), these resolutions are not directly related to the St. Michael Report. In the interest of clarity, we respectfully request that in the future only resolution #1 quoted above be named as relating to the St. Michael Report.

The St. Michael Report highlights two crucial matters for the Anglican Church of Canada. The Commissioners continue to judge that these matters are of sufficient importance to bear re-emphasis. The first is cited in the last sentence of the Report and succinctly states the doctrinal issue before the Anglican Church of Canada:

• "It is now for the Church to decide whether or not the blessing of same-sex unions is a faithful, Spirit-led development of Christian doctrine."

In its report the Commission has drawn attention to a range of theological and biblical matters relating to how the Church determines whether such a matter is "a faithful Spirit led development of Christian doctrine."
The second is a pair of questions from paragraph 16 of the Report. These questions are of similar theological significance to the life of the Anglican Church of Canada as the doctrinal issue itself:

• "Is it theologically and doctrinally responsible for one member church of the Communion to approve a course of action which it has reason to believe may be destructive of the unity of the Communion?

• Is it theologically and doctrinally responsible to accept unity as the value which transcends all others, and therefore for a member church of the Communion to refrain from making a decision when it believes it has an urgent gospel mandate to proceed?"

The commissioners believe that these questions should be considered by the church, and most certainly by delegates to General Synod prior to General Synod's discernment and determination on these matters.

Comments

[Susan]

4th story down under News and Information
http://www.anglican.ca/news/index.htm
I ran into it yesterday on StandFirm

[joseph]

thanks susan; I finally found it & put up a link to the ACC item.

[Mrs. Falstaff]

Where are we, and where are we going in this handbasket??

[alex]

So, based on:

"Is it theologically and doctrinally responsible to accept unity as the value which transcends all others, and therefore for a member church of the Communion to refrain from making a decision when it believes it has an urgent gospel mandate to proceed?"

If we're talking about Gospel mandates, does this mean that the synod will focus more on evangelism than on SSM?

[Mrs. Falstaff]

I wish, Alex, I wish. This reminds me of when I was actively involved in politics. The way to influence Provincial Council wasn't to yell and argue from the floor; the way to influence Provincial Council was to wiggle into the backrooms and get on the committee that decided which items council *discussed*. Control the agenda, and you control the outcome.

It looks like we are finally going to get clarity, rather than more fudging, which I think is a good thing. Whichever way it goes, we can then *act*.