Misrepresenting On and On

Revd Canon Aaron Mwesigye, church spokesperson wants to make a correction. He said:

Some press stories have misrepresented our position...

The plain fact is that we are simply not attending the Lambeth Conference in July 2008, but we are still very much a part of the Anglican Communion.

He also says:

It is the Americans who have seceded from the Anglican Communion because of their decisions and their teaching... They have departed dramatically from the historic faith, teaching, and practice of the Bible and the Anglican Church.

How can they still be Anglican when they don't believe what Anglicans believe?

No they haven't. They have not seceded at all. So now he is misrepresenting the Americans. Of course, should the Americans remain part of the Western Anglican Communion then by logic the Ugandans will secede from this. So was he and his Archbishop right in the first place?

A reminder. Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi of Uganda was reported to have said:

Our leaders have done the right thing to boycott that conference and if possible they should secede from the Western Anglican Church.

The provincial secretary of the Church of Uganda Aron Mwesigye apparently said:

Anglicanism is just an identity and if they abuse it, we shall secede. We shall remain Christians, but not in the same Anglican Communion.

Gosh there is some rotten reporting in African and Reuters journalism. Journalists are always getting the blame. These journalists seem to write down quotes from church spokespeople entirely the wrong way around, and now the spokesperson is saying that the Americans have seceded. However, these inept journalists apparently did get it right about Ugandans not attending the Lambeth Conference, which would mean that the Americans are therefore seceding by being invited in (well all except one who was duly and properly selected by democratic means). So that must mean the Anglican Communion is seceding from...

Well the Americans are not seceding, according to the Brazilian Anglicans. The Most Revd Mauricio de Andrade said:

I believe The Episcopal Church of the United States has been showing all of us an example of the path to unity and reconciliation, because they have met all the requests for visits that were made and answered all the questions that were posed. They have spent time, money, and energy to meet the primates’ requests, always with generosity and openness. I think we need to keep in mind that we are Anglican. We are seeing a disregard of our richness and our ethos, that is, autonomy of the Provinces.

Thus Anglicanism receives a definition, and includes the Americans, which clearly flies in the face of what Aaron Mwesigye claimed. Mauricio-de-Andrade added:

The Anglican Province of Brazil has already spoken out against the creation of a new pact, because our way of being Anglican has already been defined in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. We are not nor do we want to be a mere federation of churches. We wish to continue in communion with Canterbury, a symbol of our unity, as full members of the Anglican Communion.

Is this an anti-Covenant statement? It is saying that the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral is sufficient and enough to be a communion. I hope they are invited in to Lambeth 2008, which wants all attending bishops to be in favour of the Covenant process.

So this is Anglicanism, with autonomous Churches all of which recognise Canterbury. This, he thinks, makes a communion not a federation.