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Report on the 2007 Forward in Faith Assembly
FiF/UK REPORT FOR THE 14th ANNUAL ASSEMBLY
19-20 October 2007 at the Emmanuel Center, Westminster, London
by the Rt. Rev. Paul C. Hewett, SCC
Bishop Jack Iker gave the report for FiF/NA; I reported for the continuing churches (report attached).
FiF/UK is making course corrections and administrative improvements and is increasingly “living the new province.” That is to think, speak and act as though the new province were already in place. If it is not to be granted by General Synod, it will be taken by force.
The gnostic bishops in England are reluctant to pursue their own agenda for the consecration of women bishops, now that they have seen the utter chaos of TEC. It would seem that the legislation enabling women bishops is somewhat delayed, but not interminably so. Things will come to a head in England in the not distant future. It is important that parishes that have not signed resolutions A, B and C to do so, lest they become engulfed in the storm that is surely coming. They must, before it is too late, learn the lesson of the scores of catholic parishes in the U.S. that were taken over and swallowed up because they would not place themselves under the protection of a catholic bishop.
In Australia, FiF/UK supports the “real” FiF there, led by TAC bishops, John Hepworth (the Archbishop), David Chislett, Harry Entwistle and David Robarts. The latter three gave the report and told how the TAC works closely with FiF in Australia.
Bishop-elect Roald Flemestad reported for the Nordic Catholic Church in Norway, and Bishop Goran Beijer for the Mission Province in Sweden. Both churches are stable and in the growth mode, with new vocations and missions. The Mission Province is expanding into Finland.
There are a number of people thinking about our Anglican patrimony, the gift we bring to the rest of the Body, the unique elements in our tradition we want to carry forward. Fr. Aidan Nichols, OP, has asked that we identify these elements. Frs. Andrew Hawes, Arthur Middleton, Peter Moss, Geoffrey Neal and I discussed this over lunch. Canon Neal and Fr. Middleton are members of the Anglican Association, a body which shares this aim and includes Francis Gardom, Tony Kilmister and others. Some topics we touched upon were our Benedictine ethos (the family of God as our model), the Book of Common Prayer (as a Benedictine regula for the ordering of the whole of life), vocation (as including the laity and permanent deacons as well as the priesthood), the Anglican divines of the 17th century and the underlying affinity of Anglicanism with Orthodoxy. We will be e-mailing one another, sharing each other’s works and co-opting others in the on-going discussion.
Pre and post-Assembly activities involved visiting Fr. David Wastie in Chesterfield, preaching at All Saints’, Northampton on October 21, and visiting Pusey House, Oxford.
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