Saturday, June 23, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
The final tally on the 5th ballot.
Fred Hiltz 60 / 81
Victoria Matthews 56 /56
A strong showing among the laity in the second ballot was obviously quite convincing. This is not unknown in episcopal elections, for example. I can think of at least two elections where the clergy house has moved quite dramatically towards the laity. It's not the result I had expected but then what are expectations but a very common blockage to good and holy movements in human experience. God's blessing on Fred Hiltz!
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6/22/2007
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Balloting in the Primatial Election 2
Second Ballot
Voting: clergy/lay
George Bruce 1 / 4
Fred Hiltz 49 / 69
Bruce Howe 1 / 5
Victoria Matthews 64 / 60
The next ballot will have only two candidates: Fred Hiltz and Victoria Matthews. Candidates come off when they pull less than 10% of the votes. I wonder if we'll have a third ballot result showing a clergy favourite and a lay favourite. In the two episcopal elections I have participated in where such a situation occured the movement was on the part of the clergy house towards the lay house [note at the end of balloting - this is exactly what happened]. I'm out for supper with my girlfriend tonight. We will eat quickly. I think we'll skip pudding.
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6/22/2007
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Balloting in the Primatial Election.
1st Ballot
Votes Clergy/Lay
George Bruce 14 / 9
Fred Hiltz 40 / 57
Bruce Howe 5 /18
Victoria Matthews 56 / 54
Some rather succinct background on the four candidates written by an American priest studying for his Th.D at Trinity College in Toronto. This appeared on Fr Jake's website a number of months ago. A name will drop off the ballot after the second round. They gather again at half twelve CDT (6:30 pm in the UK) for the announcement of the 2nd ballot results.
I'm told that those voting for George Bruce and Bruce Howe would be unlikely to vote for Fred Hiltz. There may be a very few for whom gender trumps theological stance but very few indeed.
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6/22/2007
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General Synod in Winnipeg (continued)
Two items from last night's (Thursday evening's) session as reported by one blogger-delegate from the Diocese of New Westminster and the Anglican Essentials folks who have some sort of observer status at GS. The new Prolocutor of General Synod (who acts as vice-chair of GS and chair of the Council of General Synod) is a 'relatively' conservative clergyman from the Diocese of Algoma. The author of the 'live blog' which Anglican Essentials Canada is hosting from General Synod got breathless at this point and, noting that the individual in question was 'Essentials-friendly', promptly spelled the man's new position incorrectly at least once.
This prompted the following comment:
Praise the Lord that Stephen Andrews was elected Proluctor (sic) of our General Synod. This a major step in the right direction. Now we need to elect a Primate who will call the Church back to the Authority of Scripture and defeat all motions which would allow same sex blessings in our church or even allow for local option. We need to come under the Authority of Scripture and not align ourselves with our culture. The church must always stand over against the culture of our time to call people to repentance and to new life in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Okay, so it's not an easy word to remember. It's probably not even included in the spell-check so the poor blogger is really on his own.
One is hesitant to see this as a decision by General Synod to elect 'a conservative' to a senior position in the hierarchy of General Synod. Bloggers from Anglican Essentials Canada are looking constantly for the presence of 'their folks' in the wings, in the visitors' seats and potentially in key positions. Equally one might conceive that a blogger from the Diocese of New Westminster might be looking at the same possible evidence from an entirely different treetop.
Nonetheless, one does wonder what the 'conservative in hand' as vice-chair of General Synod and a potential middle-right Primate could possibly do with an eventual decision to proceed with the blessing of same sex-unions.
Synod also defeated an amendment to a motion to receive the report of the Windsor Response Group. The amendment called on Dioceses (such as New Westminster with its 8 parishes presently able to bless such unions) to abide by a moratorium on the blessing of same. This caused much discussion on what was implied by the 'reception' of a report - is it simply received or is it accepted? Speakers against the amendment noted that such a decision would prejudge the discussion and decisions to take place later at Synod and the amendment failed massively.
The Anglican Journal Daily Journal, - Issue 3, dated the 22nd of June is available HERE
A propos of nothing: Andrew Goddard was speaking to the Essentials folks about the Anglican covenant. The video of his presentation is here
The Primatial Election is to start at 11:00 CDT (5 pm UK time) !!
Do note the Friday updates to yesterday's post linking to various General Synod resources.
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6/22/2007
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Thursday, June 21, 2007
General Synod 2007, Winnipeg Manitoba
(updated Friday a.m.)
Live Coverage of some of the General Synod debates is apparently available HERE. Some of the plenary sessions will be broadcast courtesy of the good folks at Anglican Video.
Remember that Winnipeg's time zone (CDT) places it six hours behind the UK.
A series of articles which give some background to the issues (and not simply THE issue - sorry cyclops!) being dealt with at General Synod can be found HERE
Update Friday morning - The bloggers listed below were all out at the pub last night with the exception of one delegate from New Westminster who dutifully checked in. The Anglican Journal's Daily Journal covering General Synod 2007 is also available and appears to be the most comprehensive record of the events of the day. These are .pdf files.

The third video in the series, dated Wednesday the 20th of June, available via the Synod on Demand website. I'm not sure whether this site (an anglican.ca address) is going to include much blow-by-blow coverage of interesting debates.
I've listed some of the blogging delegates who appear online. There are other offerings from the two extreme ends of the spectrum but I can't bring myself to read them. If anyone knows any other delegates blogging from GS who haven't already met in caucus to discover what their opinions are meant to be on the proceedings, then please drop me a line and I'll link to those as well.
one blog
two blog
red blog
blue blog
un blog
das blog
Do note that, as expected, these bloggers are busy being delegates and so there's not the real time blogging that one might want. After having unsuccessfully tried to blog from a conference recently in Derbyshire I realized that one either has a laptop equipped with the proper wireless technology or one must wait until the house computers become available at the end of the day - a time where one should probably be in the pub getting the skinny on what's really going on rather than poring over copious handwritten notes. I don't have a laptop with the appropriate bits. I'm not rich enough to afford one - I will have to think about getting a patron or running a lottery here on Raspberry Rabbit or maybe just begging the blogosphere for anybody's old (but not too old!) equipment once they upgrade. Would that the SEC took blogging seriously and equipped their clergy with proper equipment. I shall suggest this to Kelvin and get him to shake his finger at the Primus.
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6/21/2007
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Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The Second of the Synod on Demand videos - dated Tuesday the 19th. Includes material from the Opening Eucharist and some background on the city of Winnipeg where the General Synod is being held.
The Rev'd Michael Fleming writes an article entitled Don't Tear Apart Our Church from yesterday's Ottawa Citizen
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6/20/2007
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The first of the Youtube videos can be found below. It's dated Monday the 18th of June and it is basically an introduction to General Synod.
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6/20/2007
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