Brothers+ A risk one runs by preaching or writing is that more often than not, wrong observations come back quickly to confound us. Leaders at the REC/APA Unity Synod acknowledged that it was difficult to see what the future holds for the Anglican Communion and the Continuing Churches. Wisely, there were few predictions. In recent months I had despaired of the ACC, especially since the Canadian Church and ECUSA showed up at Dromantine and then at Nottingham, apparently unrepentant. I felt sorrow for Rowan Williams that he had been handed the slings and arrows of outrageous fate, and I did not expect him to stand strong. As it turns out, while the ACC actions may not satisfy many Anglicans in the Southern Cone or those of us in Continuing Churches, the ACC did make it clear that Canada and ECUSA are expected to live up to the demands in the Windsor Report and they have no role in the ACC until Lambeth 2008. I did not expect such a stance. The ACC gave voting writes to more than 50 additional bishops assuring that there will be no opportunity for ECUSA and Canada to get a reversal of the findings. And the words of Rowan Williams who offered not Communion but friendship to “those who would walk apart” is exactly what I did not expect. ++William’s final words to the Council may be found at http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/39/75/acns3997.cfm. Here is the last paragraph of his speech. “So our being together here, at the table of the Lord, recognising that it is not about us but about Him, that our security lies not in the signs of our virtue and achievement, but in God's generosity - being here on that basis is itself a mark of hope. And those of us who care about our Anglican Communion worldwide - its unity, its life, and its peace - care for it not in order to keep an ecclesiastical institution more or less upright, propping it up with more and more crumbling pillars and struts and buttresses. We care about it because we are part of the Body of Christ and the world needs the Body of Christ. It is hungry for truth and for love. We are here to be fed with that truth and that love in the body and the blood of the Lord in His Holy Sacrament. As we open our hands to receive that gift, so we open them to one another and to the world. We do not have the nerve to walk away. So much the better for us. The appetite for truth is still alive. So much the better for us. May truth and love, the truth and love of Jesus as he sits with sinners, be the motive power of all we do and say in our meetings as Church, in our witness to the world, in our protest against division and violence and hunger. May we say to the whole world that we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will. “ Amen. ENDS (c) Rowan Williams 2005 Lambeth Palace press office -- To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: faithandlife-unsubscribe@...