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Hallo again to all. Today, 18 October 2004, the Windsor Report, known to most as the Eames Report or the Lambeth Report, was issued by the Lambeth Commission in London at high noon British Summer Time. Our News Centre has enough coverage for you to understand what it is and how people have reacted. We had originally planned to offer our insightful opinion of the document and what it means, but now that we've read it, we shan't. The document says what it says, and there are dozens of good summaries of it. We recommend the summaries in Beliefnet and The Guardian as being clear, concise, and nonpartisan, and that on the Wibsite for brevity. Our four-word review: brilliant classic via media. The Anglican world has spent the last months speculating about what the report would contain. Those journalists who claimed to have advance knowledge either did not have it or did not, it seems, entirely understand what they were told. We chose not to join that speculation because it was, well, speculation. We see even now that the Anglican world is shifting from speculation on what the report would say to speculation on what the report will mean. If you want to know what the document says, read it. To know what it means, we should all wait and see. We do note that no group -- from public statements -- seems to have changed its mind after reading the Windsor Report. They will do whatever it is that they will do. All in the name of God, of course. We will say that we think the entire crisis about 'What is the Anglican Communion?' was precipitated by the internet and electronic publishing. In that golden age when bishops wore gaiters and ladies wore hats, an Anglican in Uganda or Singapore or Fort Worth had virtually no way of knowing what a faraway parish was doing, and was probably too busy to care*. Now we can all stay entirely too informed, whether we need to or not. And every angry activist group now has a website and an email newsletter, by which they can stir up indignation in people who otherwise wouldn't have cared a whit about the lives of people that they would never see or meet. But that's the Anglican Communion now. And we'll take it, for better or worse. We're here to stay. See you next week.
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updated: 18 October 2004 *Note to church historians and well-read others: Yes, we're aware of Bishop Colenso and that issue being the nominal reason for the first Lambeth Conference. |
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