Grieving the Anglican Communion: English Primacy and the Anglican Consultative Council


Andrew Atherstone writes: After the high drama of the Church of England’s General Synod, we had one day to wash and repack before flying to Ghana for the eighteenth plenary meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC-18), hosted by the Province of West Africa. It was like being evacuated from the battlefield to a temporary sanctuary, where the artillery bombardment is hushed, wounds can be bandaged, and the foot soldiers of rival armies lay down their weapons for mutual refreshment and embrace. Eight days of Anglican bliss, while all around us the Communion implodes.

Joys and Griefs

The Anglican Communion is deeply precious. The richness of global relationships was palpable throughout our gathering. Each day began with 90 minutes of Bible study in the early chapters of Mark’s Gospel, and there are few greater joys than studying the Scriptures and praying together with Christians from across the world. On my table were new friends from Australia, Costa Rica, India, New Zealand, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Uruguay, and Wales. Part of the delight was to hear the practical illustration and application of biblical texts to local contexts entirely different from my own in Oxfordshire, and to hear moving testimonies of God at work. 

There were many joy-filled moments as we unpacked together the Five Marks of Mission. One of my personal highlights was the ACC’s own version of the Benedicite:

Bless the Lord you [fauna] and [flora]: sing his praise and exalt him for ever.

Everyone was invited to supply an animal and plant from their own context – peacocks, sloths, pandas, kangaroos, olive trees, proteas, mangos. Another highlight was hearing examples of ‘call and response’ from across the world, from Maasai to Maori. We rejoiced not only in the wonders of our diverse cultures, but also that the message of Jesus has reached so many peoples and nations. 

Another uplifting feature of ACC-18 was hearing about the remarkable ministries being pioneered across the globe through the Anglican Communion’s many networks and commissions – evangelism and discipleship, health care, theological education, Anglican schools, ecumenical dialogue, diplomacy at the United Nations, creation care, the fight against human trafficking and modern slavery, safe church, and the array of compassion initiatives coordinated by the Anglican Alliance. The work of the Anglican Communion Office is essential, led by the Communion’s energetic new Secretary General, Bishop Anthony Poggo from South Sudan. There are abundant riches here. In many areas of life, Anglicans are stronger together than apart.

But amid these joys, there was also an undertow of grief permeating the week, because what we now have may soon be lost. It was devastating to hear, in conversations over meals, how the Church of England’s plan to offer liturgies of blessings for same-sex couples is making an impact in other parts of the Anglican world. The strains we are causing to Anglicans in Khartoum, for example, a fragile church in a Muslim-majority nation. Or how in Kenya, the General Synod vote was major news on the country’s three main television channels. When would decisions by the Church of Kenya ever be broadcast on our main BBC News? In these conversations with Global South delegates, there was no aggression or anger at the Church of England’s trajectory, just a deep sense of sadness. 

The Anglican Communion has been in choppy seas for several decades, but the bishops of the Church of England are now driving it directly towards the rocks. If they do not change course, then what can be salvaged from the imminent wreckage? At the ACC we worked gallantly, with cheerful smiles, trying to believe it was ‘business as normal’, but all the time aware that the epoch-changing statement from the primates of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) would be waiting for us when we returned home. ACC-18 gathered delegates from 39 of our 42 provinces – only Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda were absent. But if the GSFA pull out of the old Instruments of Communion, then ACC-19 in Ireland in 2026 will take place without many of our African and Asian sisters and brothers, which would be a disaster. The ACC will become a shadow of its former self, dominated by wealthy but shrinking provinces from the Global North. Our silent grief in Accra was at the losses to come.

Forbidden Doctrine

One of the reasons that the ACC is so tranquil, on the surface, is that all discussion of doctrine is explicitly forbidden. This is a new ACC orthodoxy which has emerged in recent years, not written into the constitution. Of course, we do frequently discuss matters of doctrine on a whole raft of subjects like creation, racial equality, baptismal formation, and ecumenical relations. Resolutions from ACC-18 commended major reports on holy communion, anthropology, assisted dying, and ecclesial authority, among many others, all fiercely doctrinal documents. In actual fact, the ACC approaches doctrines like the trees in the Garden of Eden – in a bountiful arboretum, only one is forbidden, the doctrine of marriage.

The previous ACC-17 meeting, in Hong Kong in 2019, ended painfully when the Bishop of Oklahoma brought a resolution on sexuality which was strongly resisted by African delegates. There were passionate speeches and hot tears, which disrupted our smoothly-oiled proceedings. Desperate to prevent a repeat, the Standing Committee introduced a new rule for ACC-18, that resolutions ‘requiring the determination or opinion on matters of doctrine (in particular, matters concerning human sexuality) will not be permitted. The ACC cannot determine these matters, which are for each Member Church.’ Therefore anyone arriving in Ghana hoping that the ACC might be allowed to express an opinion on the Church of England’s recent actions was muzzled even before we began. Ironically, the English bishops are insisting that their current proposals do not touch any matter of doctrine, only of liturgy, but everyone realizes that is a specious distinction.

The Lambeth Conference in July 2022 also found this subject too hot to handle. The Lambeth Call on Human Dignity caused a furore when its first draft stated: ‘It is the mind of the Anglican Communion as a whole that same-gender marriage is not permissible.’ Faced by a backlash, this was rapidly changed to: ‘Many Provinces continue to affirm that same-gender marriage is not permissible.’ The bishops bounced the whole question to the ACC:

We call upon the ACC (informed by relevant networks and departments of the Anglican Communion Office and informed by Lambeth 1998 resolution I.10), to examine whether its work on Gender Justice should be expanded to promote provincial and inter-provincial vision and practices toward human dignity with attention not only to gender but also sexuality. The ACC should explore this possibility at the ACC-18 meeting in 2023.

But we didn’t explore it, because the final version of the Lambeth Calls still hasn’t been published, more than six months after the Lambeth Conference (though we are assured publication is now imminent). So the subject will be bounced again, to ACC-19 or beyond.

Transforming Unjust Structures

One of the glories of the Anglican Communion is its cultural and linguistic diversity. Since we last met in Hong Kong, another two new provinces have been born – Alexandria in 2020, and Mozambique and Angola in 2021. Ghana hopes to become a new province by 2026, grown from the province of West Africa, and conversations with the Church of Ceylon are also at an advanced stage. The Anglican Communion is not Anglophone. In Mozambique, the language of government is Portuguese, but the language of the home is more often Makhuwa, Makonde, Changana, Nyanja, Ndau, or about 40 others. At ACC-18 there were more languages heard from the platform and in plenary than ever before. Live translation was provided into French, Spanish and Portuguese, with some provision also in Japanese and Korean. At our closing service, in a half-built garrison church in the Accra suburbs, the Bible was read in Malay and Tagalog.

However, the structures of the Anglican Communion have not yet caught up with these global realities. Anglicans in England (those who are members of a worshipping community) are now a tiny proportion of the whole Communion, less than 2%. Yet the Church of England, and England’s primate, remain the centre of the Anglican solar system. Everything revolves around the Archbishop of Canterbury – he calls and chairs the global primates meeting, he issues the invitations to the Lambeth Conference, he is ex officio president of the ACC. In a dramatic reset of the Instruments of Communion, the GSFA have now announced that the Church of England has ‘disqualified herself from leading the Communion as the historic “Mother” Church’, and they refuse to recognize Justin Welby any longer as primus inter pares. But even if we don’t accept the GSFA’s scorching analysis, there are very good reasons for challenging England’s permanent seat at the top table, as a simple matter of justice and Christian equity.

According to the fourth Mark of Mission, Anglicans are called to ‘transform unjust structures’. This was a reiterated theme of ACC-18, as we lamented the disempowerment of communities and nations through the ongoing repercussions of colonialism and racism. In a compelling reflection, one West Indian delegate began with a rendition of Bob Marley’s famous protest song against the discredited philosophy which holds ‘one race superior, and another inferior’. And yet there is a giant unjust structure staring us in the face – the structure of the Anglican Communion.

Why should England always take first place, in the seat of Anglican power and privilege? Why should the ACC’s president live in a palace by the River Thames, at the heart of the English establishment, and not be an Anglican living by the River Nile, or the Amazon, or the Zambezi, or the Mississippi? This is structural injustice. The president of the Communion, if we need one, should be chosen by the Communion, not preserved as a perpetual English prerogative by divine right. At our sumptuous opening banquet, hosted by the President of Ghana, Archbishop Welby praised Ghana for being one of the first African nations to win its independence from the United Kingdom, in 1957. Yet the Anglican Communion is still living with structures which belong to the 1950s and which should be consigned to history. They are not fit for purpose. Structural transformation is urgent.

The Church of England’s General Synod in July 2022 made a mistake by changing the rules for the Canterbury Crown Nominations Commission, to include five representatives from the global Anglican Communion in choosing the next Archbishop of Canterbury. This is a structural reform in the wrong direction. It makes matters worse, not better. Presented as a magnanimous desire to include global voices, its effect is simply to bolster England’s primacy even further. It is like the strategy of a dying colonial power, faced by growing global unrest, which invites a few of its subjects to London as a last resort, offering them a modest voice in colonial policy. The new Canterbury CNC announces to the world that England comes first in the Anglican Communion, and always will be first. It trumpets our global aspirations. Rather than tinkering with the Canterbury CNC, what the Anglican Communion needs is a far deeper structural change.

These global dynamics were evident at ACC-18 in numerous ways. For example, on the first day of business the Archbishop of Canterbury offered to explain the recent proposals of the English bishops. It was billed as a ‘fringe event’, not part of the official ACC programme, but the room was packed. I encouraged the Lambeth team to broadcast the proceedings, for the sake of transparency, but they chose the opposite policy – the cameras were switched off, the press were expelled, the doors were shut, and we were instructed not to record or transmit what was said. In retrospect, that was probably a wise decision, as the Archbishop has a glorious habit of wandering ‘off message’ when providing unscripted answers to questions. However, after the English presentation there was time for only six short comments from global delegates. In a striking intervention, the Bishop of Valparaiso in Chile (who has given me permission to quote him) suggested that the fringe event itself was an example of ‘neo-colonialism’ – because England had taken 35 minutes speaking from the platform, while Chile was permitted only two minutes to respond from the floor. The bishop lamented, ‘this is a dysfunctional community’.

Colonial Dissonance at Cape Coast

The dissonance of England’s primacy in the Anglican Communion came into sharp focus in the middle of the week when we travelled from Accra to Cape Coast, in a convoy of buses driven at terrifying speed through oncoming traffic, led by a police escort provided by the President of Ghana. Our first visit was to Cape Coast Castle, captured by the English in 1664 and a key location in the iniquitous transatlantic trade in enslaved people between the 17th and 19th centuries. My pre-reading on the flight from Heathrow was Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative (1789), the autobiography of a young Nigerian who was enslaved at age 11 and shipped to Barbados from the Gulf of Guinea. His first-hand descriptions of the barbarity of slavery are chilling. But nothing can prepare you for standing physically in the cramped dungeons of Cape Coast Castle, in the darkness and the stifling heat, where hundreds of thousands of men and women were incarcerated before being loaded onto English ships. The Church of England built a chapel directly above the dungeons, where they sang their Hallelujahs to drown out the cries of the enslaved, dying in filth beneath their feet. It was a visceral experience.

Next we crossed the road to Christ Church Cathedral, consecrated in 1865, the oldest Anglican church in Ghana for a ‘Service of Reconciliation’ – though it was not clear who was being reconciled to whom. The generic prayers of repentance were no different to those used in many English parish churches on a typical Sunday. The Archbishop of Canterbury spoke in his sermon of the slave trade’s ‘industrial approach to cruelty’, a ‘dreadful precursor of Auschwitz’. Yet even in this very act of repentance and reconciliation, England’s primate was granted first place. There was a jarring dissonance with where we had just stood at the Castle. Instead of walking at the rear of the ecclesiastical procession, the traditional place of honour, the English delegates should have walked at the front, the traditional place of the penitent, wearing sackcloth. The Archbishop preached: ‘To proclaim the gospel is to announce freedom. It is also to announce equality. God knows no distinctions.’ But the Anglican Communion has not yet grasped the reality of those gospel truths for our global relationships.

Afterwards we walked down the street to the royal palace of Osabarimba Kwesi Atta II, the Omanhene (king) of the local Oguaa people. Here the Archbishop of Canterbury’s function as a dignitary of the English state reached its apotheosis. The crowd of onlookers waved Union Jacks furiously and ACC delegates were invited to sing the English national anthem. Then the Omanhene inaugurated Welby into the local council of chiefs. The Archbishop was placed on a throne, was adorned with heavy robes and red slippers, on a baking hot day, and was hymned by the choir. He was even granted a new name, Nana Kofi Canterbury I – the word nana means ‘chief’ in the local Fante dialect and, the Omanhene explained, the title suits Welby because he occupies ‘the chief seat in the Anglican Communion’. Having spent the morning at Cape Coast Castle, face to face with centuries of iniquity committed by the English in Ghana, the honour immediately lavished upon our English primate was discordant. It left ACC members squirming in their seats.

Ceding Power

The time is long overdue for the Church of England, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, to step back from primacy over the Anglican world. In light of the GSFA’s latest statement, that imperative has now become urgently critical if the Anglican Communion is to survive. In his opening presidential address to ACC-18, Welby deliberately propelled the conversation forward with fresh vigour: 

History shows us that when times change, so must the Instruments of Communion. The post Second World War era is ending. It is collapsing around us, as we sit here. … I will not cling to place or position as an Instrument of Communion. The role of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the See of Canterbury, is an historic one. The Instruments must change with the times.

This address has attracted considerable attention, and rightly so. It marks the formal recognition from the highest office in the Anglican Communion of a seismic shift in our Anglican polity. It also signifies the Archbishop’s personal backing for the ‘Good Differentiation’ project endorsed by ACC-18 and launched by IASCUFO (Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order). They seek to answer the question: ‘Steering between undue centralisation and unfettered autonomy, can we find ways to encompass our current divisions within the communion of our common baptism?’ The most likely outcome is formal proposals for a multi-track Anglican Communion, with provinces liberated to organise themselves into smaller groupings loosely held together within the ‘big tent’ of the Communion. One such grouping might be the GSFA, with its own covenant, and other groupings will emerge in due course gathered around common concerns. In this way the Anglican Communion is reconceived as an ecumenical fellowship, parallel to the World Council of Churches. It might have several ‘presidents’, nominated by the constituent groupings, and the ACC might evolve into a forum for ecumenical consultation between separated Anglicans.

Reimagining global Anglican relations as an ecumenical project is a fruitful way to dispel some of our current angst. When someone living in my house is trying to burn it down, I will grow fierce and fight them away. In those conditions, it is impossible to live together under the same roof without being constantly at war. But if they are burning down their own house, at the other end of the street, I can relax if there is a firebreak between us. Instead of warring against each other, we can find a safe space to meet for constructive conversation. For too long, we have stubbornly proclaimed, against all the evidence, that the Anglican Communion is ‘one body’ theologically and structurally. But, counterintuitively, this mantra simply drives us further apart, because it forces provinces to shout more loudly to make their differences heard. If, on the other hand, we start speaking of the Anglican Communion as an ‘ecumenical body’, and build in the necessary structural firebreaks, it will help us to stay closer together.

For over a century and a half, the Church of England has been hailed as the ‘mother church’ of the Anglican Communion, and relationship with the Archbishop of Canterbury as the sine qua non of Anglican identity. But that is no longer sustainable if the Communion is to survive. Global South provinces have now seized the initiative to establish firebreaks between themselves and the Church of England. Emergency action is needed, if the riches of the Anglican Communion are not to be squandered forever. Justin Welby has a slender opportunity to use his remaining months in post to facilitate the necessary structural reforms, and to cede the Archbishop of Canterbury’s presidential powers. But time is running out. In fact, it may already be too late.


Andrew Atherstone is a member of the Church of England’s General Synod, and an English delegate to the Anglican Consultative Council. He teaches at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and is Justin Welby’s biographer.


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78 thoughts on “Grieving the Anglican Communion: English Primacy and the Anglican Consultative Council”

  1. Just a pedantic note that the stirring words cited from Bob Marley are themselves a quotation from Haile Selassie’s speech before the United Nations, 4 October 1963.

    ‘On the question of racial discrimination, the Addis Ababa Conference taught, to those who will learn, this further lesson:
    that until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned;
    that until there are no longer first class and second class citizens of any nation;
    that until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes;
    that until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race;
    that until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained.’

    https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie%27s_address_to_the_United_Nations,_1963

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  2. And here is a further critique, with a breadcrumb trace of the roots of division, which the CoE as presently constituted, as a whole is likely to rail against.
    Anthropology, is the primary/tap root system of revision and division.

    It certainly raises points that have otherwise and almost everywhere have been ignored, avoided, it seems to me.
    From a self confessed recovering academic, Gavin Ashendon.
    https://www.christiantoday.com/article/the.case.for.leaving.the.church.of.england/139860.htm

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    • Yes indeed. Gavin has posted a very listenable, erudite 17min apparently spontaneous spoken response on his website. Goes heavy on the philosophical background to the current situation (especially on tracing everything back to feminism) but his overall thesis is, I think, credible.
      Listen here: https://youtu.be/GNkEg-higV4

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    • Ah ok sorry, having now read the CT article I see Gavin’s piece on his website (the link I gave) is just him reading out that article. Means you can listen whilst doing something else (eg driving) and you don’t have to dodge the CT adverts but otherwise it’s identical!
      Like Ian, he’s obvs. got good at reading a script to camera to make it feel spontaneous

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  3. Excellent and revealing article. Yes, there is need for change. The CofE will always have a historic place within the Communion. It must be remembered it was not the Archbishop of Canterbury that spread the faith but thousands of missionaries. Now it is time for their work to come to full fruition. Instead of the Archbishop being first among equals, he should be one among many. It is time, it is past time. But does he have the humility to accept this?

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  4. Thank you for a fascinating and disturbing article. I had not realised quite how much the ABC had been at the centre of proceedings, and so ironic given what else was happening and the venue. Having worked in Central Africa and South Africa I have been richly blessed but I was also aware that I was irredeemably white and privileged and so respected beyond what was reasonable. Post-colonial studies can help us explore something of this and expose the impressive and repressive power of colonialism on peoples.

    Some, (though others would disagree strongly), some would say the 4th mark of mission must lead us to work for the rights and equality of those excluded by their sexuality, just as much as we did for slaves, or should for those excluded or diminished by race or whatever other filter is imposed to reduce the well-being and full life chances of others. Justice must shape our unity.

    Others would argue the gospel imperative requires a standing firm – so much easier in cultures where the dominant view is so hostile to same-sex partnerships!

    Yes many African countries profess to be vehemently opposed to same-sex relations, and certainly cannot countenance them being given public approval, but there are always also sub-cultures, and there is often hypocrisy. The language of some church leaders, when talking about gay people has been deeply un-Christian. Every Province has flaws, every Province is set within its culture, in some aspects a dominant culture which shapes the church response.

    GSFA is not the Anglican Communion and includes vocal contributors from churches outside the Anglican Communion. One way whites can respond to colonialism is to continue to buy influence, another way some respond is to consider they cannot challenge the voices of the colonised, or even to believe the colonised voices are pure.

    Thank you Andrew for the description and the reflection on the ACC gathering.

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    • “Some, (though others would disagree strongly), some would say the 4th mark of mission must lead us to work for the rights and equality of those excluded by their sexuality, just as much as we did for slaves, or should for those excluded or diminished by race or whatever other filter is imposed to reduce the well-being and full life chances of others. Justice must shape our unity.”

      Thank you Peter. This is, without doubt, the position of many of us within the Anglican Communion. We respect those who disagree strongly, but think that they are wrong.

      I have just read that one of the signatories to the GSFA statement – the Archbishop of Melanesia – did not actually sign it all and disagrees with the GSFA position. It makes one wonder quite how strong their position actually is, and how much supposed agreement there really is on the conservative side. Time will tell, but whilst it is interesting to read about last week’s ACC, I did wonder how other versions might read.

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      • Are you saying this is not a reliable eyewitness, seen and heard, sampled, (even where openesses and transparency were locked out at the ABoC’s *fringe meetingout in whose best interests?) AA’s participant’s report?

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          • “Are you saying this is not a reliable eyewitness,”
            No I most certainly am not.

            Anyone care to try to disentangle the triple negatives out of that?

          • Let me be absolutely clear – because Geoff’s question is not phrased clearly.
            I am sure that Andrew’s account of ACC is reliable, but I’m sure that it is from a particular perspective – a conservative one. The same happened after the Lambeth Conference.
            Andrew’s account gives particular credence to the GSFA perspective as being a real one. He says that “In a dramatic reset of the Instruments of Communion, the GSFA have now announced that the Church of England has ‘disqualified herself from leading the Communion as the historic”
            No such thing has happened. The GSFA has issued a statement, but it is already clear that at least one of the signatories never signed the statement and does not agree with it.
            The GSFA makes many claims, but it is worth fact checking them. This is a helpful link for doing that.

            https://viamedia.news/2022/08/15/the-global-south-fellowship-of-anglicans-power-and-numbers/

          • Thank you for the Phil Groves link below Andrew. As extremely informative analysis which shows as is often the case things are not quite what they seem.. I have followed with interest Phil Groves ‘s posts on Thinking Anglicans. I was particularly interested to see that Nigeria regards the criminalisation of gay sex a part of GAFCON policy. Along with the ordination of women these conservative groups may have problems sticking together.

  5. Andrew – I’m grateful for this and largely ignorant (wilfully) of the developments in the Communion, which seems to be partly being force-marched by the sexuality debate towards new arrangements. Prof Stephen Sykes (a man deeply involved with questions of Anglican identity) told me over a late night Talisker 20 years ago that he thought (and feared) that the future of Anglicanism was to look like Eastern Orthodoxy – a patchwork of Provinces and Metropolitans with a common history, with weighted geographical strengths led by patterns of migration, with overlapping territories and limited mutual recognition. He thought this could only be avoided if Anglicanism could find a compromise on sexuality as it had on women priests (and later bishops).

    When I said the trouble for evangelicals globally is that it’s not like women priests, that’s only a matter of failed orders, for them gay sex is a moral issue – it’s sin. He sat up straight and said: ‘if people start calling it ‘sin’ – we’ll never get a compromise and Balkanisation is inevitable.’ ‘sin’ – I was impressed by his immediate recognition that that word (and it’s circumlocutions) was the question on which the whole unity project stands or falls. Though I was was a rather shocked by his utter naivety about the seriousness of problem (‘start’ – had the serious moral depth of the issue eluded him?) But I think you are saying that SS was right and that’s the best Anglicanism can hope for now.

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  6. Are there any conditions that new provinces have to meet in order to be admitted to the Anglican Communion? And if so are any of the conditions to do with doctrine?

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  7. It’s not easy to voluntarily relinquish power. Perhaps Justin Welby could cite an example able to inspire him, maybe someone 2000 years ago?

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    • I’ve always viewed Justin Welby as a very tough cookie indeed and thus far, despite his protestations of being powerless, he’s always managed to get his own way. But that may have a lot to do his good fortune in being Archbishop when there was no group in the C of E prepared to face him squarely and say ‘no’. Even at this momentous time a significant group of evangelicals appears to be desperate for a compromise arrangement rather than confront him with the ultimatum he needs to hear; it’s quite the weakest negotiating tactic one could imagine! So the response of the Global South primates will be a new experience for him. For that reason alone he’ll be on a hockey stick of a learning curve. It may be the best thing that’s happened to him since taking up his office.

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      • According to Justin Welby he doesn’t agree with these blessings and, despite promising to stay neutral, hes repeatedly let it be known that he opposes same sex relationships

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        • That’s wholly untrue, Peter. Welby said that he would not perform these blessings himself for the sake of church unity. As to his private opinions on such relationships, judge for yourself from the following facts. (The following is partly culled from a comment last year by a contributor to this thread, Don Benson.)

          On 9th November 2012 at a news conference in Canterbury (before he took up office), he said: “I know I need to listen very attentively to the LGBT communities, and examine my own thinking prayerfully and carefully.”

          On 21st March 2013 he told the BBC: “You see gay relationships that are just stunning in the quality of the relationship.”

          On 15th February 2017 he issued a statement on his website, saying: “… we need a radical new Christian inclusion in the Church. This must be founded in scripture, in reason, in tradition, in theology; it must be based on good, healthy, flourishing relationships, and in a proper 21st century understanding of being human and of being sexual.”

          In autumn 2017 he explicitly refused to answer the question “Is gay sex sinful?” when asked it as part of an interview by Alastair Campbell in GQ magazine, and went on: “I am having to struggle to be faithful to the tradition, faithful to the scripture, to understand what the call and will of God is in the 21st century and to respond appropriately with an answer for all people – not condemning them, whether I agree with them or not – that covers both sides of the argument.”

          In November 2019 he chose to take Jayne Ozanne, a militant campaigner for the promotion of LGBT views in the church, to Rome with him to meet Pope Francis.

          He has appointed two bishops who, at the time at least, were in same-sex relationships.

          In January 2022, by which time a pro-LGBT Archbishop was in place at York (Stephen Cottrell), Welby announced that a man, Stephen Knott, who had undergone a wedding ceremony with another man, had been appointed as the new Archbishops’ Secretary for Appointments.

          On 1st February 2022 Welby issued a statement on his website advertising ‘LGBT History month’ and saying “… As we work together to discover what it means to be a diverse church receiving the gift of everyone, our prayer is that this would be a time of truly valuing each other as God’s precious and beloved children.”

          At the 2022 Lambeth Conference (held in July-August), Welby gave up on attempts to forge a single position over LGBT issues within the worldwide Anglican Communion, with the result that Anglican churches in each nation might do as they please and still be welcome within the Communion.

          In October 2022 Welby permitted the appointment of David Monteith, who is in a civil partnership with another man, as Dean of Canterbury.

          In December 2022, in an interview in The Times newspaper, Welby made clear that he would not state his views on same-sex marriage publicly as his role was to be a focus for unity.

          In January 2023 Welby explicitly affirmed, in a comment concerning the case of Christian parents Nigel and Sally Rowe (who had won a legal victory against the Department of Education concerning transgender policies), the Church of England’s document “Valuing all God’s children”. This document contains guidance for the Church’s 4700 primary schools, and states that children as young as five “should be supported to accept their own gender identity” and that “children should be at liberty to explore the possibilities of who they might be without judgement”.

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          • Anton

            He may have said these things, but hes also repeatedly denounced SSRs as sin, blamed gay people for the persecution of Christians in some African countries and made it very clear that he doesn’t agree with even blessing gay individuals in marriage

          • Anton

            August 2022 Welby sent a letter to the bishops reaffirming that all same sex sex is sinful, despite claiming that he would not give a view.

            Before and after synod he gave media interviews opposing the new blessings.

            During synod he claimed the new blessings would lead to Christians being raped or killed, despite these blessings coming from the bishops and most LGBT people in the church pretty angry about the lack of any meaningful change.

          • August 2022 Welby sent a letter to the bishops reaffirming that all same sex sex is sinful, despite claiming that he would not give a view.

            If you mean https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/news/news-and-statements/letter-archbishop-canterbury-bishops-anglican-communion

            That doesn’t say that his view is that all same sex sex is sinful; it just states that the legal position is that the resolution passed in 1998 is still in force. It is merely a statement of legal fact; it carefully doesn’t give a personal view.

          • Before and after synod he gave media interviews opposing the new blessings.

            I can see a report of a press conference here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/27-january/news/uk/welby-opts-out-as-details-of-the-blessing-of-same-sex-unions-are-revealed

            ‘ Archbishop Welby said that, while he was “really pleased” that same-sex couples would be able to receive blessings in church, he would not personally conduct such services.’

            I don’t see how saying you are ‘really pleased’ about something can possibly be interpreted as ‘opposing’ it. Perhaps you could explain that one for me.

            Or were you referring to a different interview in which he did oppose the blessings, in which case can you give a link to it?

            During synod he claimed the new blessings would lead to Christians being raped or killed,

            Do you have a reference for that?

          • S

            I think one of the many media interviews that Welby gave indicating his personal opposition to the blessings the bishops were suggesting was on Sky News. He also later apparently suggested to a communion body that MPs had forced him into allowing it.

            He doesn’t support SSRs. He could not have been more clear.

            What’s wierd to me is that the Bishops wanted these blessings, yet all of the bishops media appearances I have seen about it have been in opposition to the blessings and blamed other people for them!

          • I think one of the many media interviews that Welby gave indicating his personal opposition to the blessings the bishops were suggesting was on Sky News. He also later apparently suggested to a communion body that MPs had forced him into allowing it.

            ‘I think’ and ‘apparently’ are not references! Did he actually say these things? Did you hear him say them or read them in a reputable report? Or is this just second-hand gossip and wild unsubstantiated rumours?

            He doesn’t support SSRs. He could not have been more clear.

            Then find the reference where he said that. No ‘I think’ or ‘apparently’. If he was clear, then link to the interview or the report in which he was clear.

          • S

            I watched the interview. He was rude and (deliberately?) offensive to gay people. He doesn’t agree with SSRs and has said so many many times. Hes a Conservative evangelical from Iwerne and HTB so it’s no surprise!

          • I watched the interview. He was rude and (deliberately?) offensive to gay people.

            Okay, well, firstly that’s not a reference. Link to the interview and cite what he said that was ‘rude and offensive’.

            But more to the point, the claims were that he disapproved of same-sex marriage, and that he thought same-sex relationships were sinful. You can be rude and offensive and still approve of same-sex marriage and think same-sex relationships are not sinful.

            He doesn’t agree with SSRs and has said so many many times.

            Then it shouldn’t be hard for you to find a reference, should it?

      • Indeed Don, I asked in a comment on this blog more than a year ago whether evangelicals would use terms such as “unrepentant heretic” for their liberal opponents only AFTER they (the evangelicals) had lost the battle.

        Reply
        • I think an influential group within C of E evangelicals have convinced themselves there’s a deal to be done whereby they would be able to exist under the church’s umbrella but maintain the (currently) existing doctrine regarding sex and marriage. So they’re certainly not going to utter words like ‘unrepentant heretic’ just yet! Their deal appears to involve setting up a ‘third province’ or something similar under the heading of ‘mutual flourishing’.

          But I think there’s a very stark truth staring at these evangelicals. Mutual flourishing under the umbrella of a newly heterodox Church of England would mean that an evangelical pastor must be happy for his own children to come under the spiritual guidance of another pastor who promotes the gay agenda within that other pastor’s own church even if he fundamentally disagrees with what that other pastor is teaching. If he could not be happy about that, how then could he in all conscience be happy for other people’s children to be placed in such a situation?

          Reply
          • Well, that is why some of us think that an intra-CofE split would not work.

            Instead, we need to look to the split in the Anglican Communion. Why should not those who don’t believe in the doctrine of the Church receive oversight from TECEurope, or SEC or CiW?

          • Mutual flourishing under the umbrella of a newly heterodox Church of England would mean that an evangelical pastor must be happy for his own children to come under the spiritual guidance of another pastor who promotes the gay agenda within that other pastor’s own church even if he fundamentally disagrees with what that other pastor is teaching.

            I agree the ‘third province’ idea seems mad to me on a theological level (it would basically mean the Church of England declaring that it didn’t have a doctrine of marriage) and on a practical level (one thing everyone in the Church of England seems to agree on is that there’s too much bureaucracy, and they want to add a whole new province with a structure of dioceses with offices etc?) but I don’t really get this.

            Surely the idea would be for there to be a third-province church available to cover every part of the country, so the evangelical pastor’s children wouldn’t have to end up under the care of a Yorkist or a Cantuarian, if they didn’t want to?

          • Why should not those who don’t believe in the doctrine of the Church receive oversight from TECEurope, or SEC or CiW?

            Isn’t the problem here that it just ends up back in the spiral of ‘You leave!’ ‘No, you leave!’ ‘Why should we be the ones to leave, you leave!’ and ends up with everybody hating each other more and more and more but nobody ever actually leaving?

            But maybe that spiral of hate is just the Church of England’s fate.

          • ‘Instead, we need to look to the split in the Anglican Communion. Why should not those who don’t believe in the doctrine of the Church receive oversight from TECEurope, or SEC or CiW?’

            Given that the revisionist faction are what you might call the entryists, this makes obvious sense. But we’re now in dog’s dinner territory (as someone recently said!) and that’s not a likely place to find the necessary ingredients of wisdom, humility and grace.

            I don’t claim to offer any more wisdom than anyone else. But unless there’s a miraculous change of heart as people start to realise the tragedy of what’s unfolding, I think it will be time to do a rather clinical cost/benefit analysis in terms of the potential loss or saving of souls in England. The gospel imperative must surely trump our hope or expectation that justice be done. We’ve inherited great riches here through what the Church of England bequeathed us. If God calls us to give up a considerable part of that for the sake of the great commission in the land that we live, we will have to do it with a glad heart and no small amount of faith. It’s a pretty familiar story where Christians are concerned. Maybe it’s our turn now!

          • If God calls us to give up a considerable part of that for the sake of the great commission in the land that we live, we will have to do it with a glad heart and no small amount of faith.

            As a certain person has put the Free Church of Scotland (‘it’s like the Church of Scotland, if it was Christian’) in the news, I thought I’d look up the original split there; and what do you know, it was also over whether the civil authorities could impose their will on the Church.

          • ‘Mutual flourishing under the umbrella of a newly heterodox Church of England would mean that an evangelical pastor must be happy for his own children to come under the spiritual guidance of another pastor who promotes the gay agenda’ For goodness sake, evangelicals have got Synod to affirm holy matrimony can only be between a woman and man. Evangelicals have been given an opt out from even the blessings for homosexual couples compromise Synod allowed in Church of England churches. Yet even then you still rant about how you can’t even allow anyone in your family to come into contact with a liberal Catholic Vicar who might, horror of horrors, have blessed a loving and committed homosexual couple after their civil marriage in their church!

          • S

            The gay agenda is that gay people get treated as equals of straight people.

            That should be tolerable for anyone who believes the core teaching of Jesus or Paul

          • The gay agenda is

            Dunno why this is addressed to me as I have never used that term, nor would I use a term so imprecise.

  8. Why is it OK for GAFCON and many members of the Global South to flagrantly ignore Lambeth 1.10, but *not* ok for the CofE to allow blessings for same sex couples/prayers by same sex couples/blessings for individuals (delete as applicable as to who you believe is telling the truth)?

    Why is it OK for Bishops to lie, but it’s not ok for gay people to get married?

    Why is everyone so worried about what these people say when they behave in such an immoral manner?

    Reply
    • Indeed, the CofE was founded over 300 years before the Anglican Communion was founded. If some Anglican churches in nations where homosexuality is illegal leave the Communion over the established CoE blessing homosexual couples whose marriages are legal in England then so be it.

      Reply
          • The C of E being a Catholic and Apostolic church

            You do realise that all Christian denominations are part of the one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, right?

            Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, Charismatics, Syriacs, Copts, all the flavours of Orthodox, all, inasmuch as they are Christians, are just as much part of the one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church as Romans and Anglicans.

          • Presbyterians arent’t, Methodists aren’t, Baptists aren’t and Pentecostals and Charismatics aren’t as they don’t have Bishops claiming Apostolic succession from the original disciples as Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox and Lutherans do

          • Presbyterians arent’t, Methodists aren’t, Baptists aren’t and Pentecostals and Charismatics aren’t as they don’t have Bishops claiming Apostolic succession from the original disciples as Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox and Lutherans do

            That’s not what makes a gathering of Christians part of the one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

            ‘Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.’

            Not ‘where two or three gather in my name, as long as one of them is a bishop claiming Apostolic succession from the original disciples‘!

          • S

            It’s more complicated than this, but Methodists essentially got kicked out of the CofE for being too inclusive of people the Bishops didn’t like. The details change over the centuries, but the story remains the same

          • It’s more complicated than this, but Methodists essentially got kicked out of the CofE

            But inasmuch as they still follow the Bible, they are still part of the one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Being kicked out of (out indeed walking out of) the Church of England didn’t change that (abandoning the Bible would though).

          • Good then we are agreed that allowing gay couples to marry is not abandoning the bible!

            Obviously we’re not, hence the ‘inasmuch as they still follow the Bible’ qualification.

          • P Jermey, your inability to reproduce what people are actually saying, together with your tactical decision to try and make it more like what you would wish that they would say, does your honesty no credit at all.

          • Christopher

            A person cannot claim British Methodists still count, but allowing gays to get married would make a denomination not count. I was merely exposing the contradiction

          • A person cannot claim British Methodists still count, but allowing gays to get married would make a denomination not count. I was merely exposing the contradiction

            i wrote explicitly that they count inasmuch as they still follow the Bible. Inasmuch as they have ceased to follow the Bible, they don’t count. I could not have been more clear. No contradiction.

      • Jesus had quite a lot to say about immoral church leaders placing impossible burdens on others while not obeying their own rules themselves! Things have not improved in 2000 years

        Reply
        • Jesus had quite a lot to say about immoral church leaders placing impossible burdens on others while not obeying their own rules themselves!

          Yes, and one of the things He had to say was that people should obey the teachings of those those immoral church leaders (Matthew 23:2-3).

          Because their teachings were right, and their moral failings and hypocrisy didn’t change that.

          Reply
          • Inaccurate.

            Jesus said people should obey the law even if the religious leaders werent. He didnt say that people should blindly follow corrupt and immoral leaders. Indeed Jesus taught against the blind leading the blind.

            The church needs to lose all the leaders with morals worse than the average atheist. Ignoring corruption, dishonesty and sexual abuse by leaders is probably the second biggest reason that westerners are turning their back on the church.

          • Jesus said people should obey the law even if the religious leaders werent. He didnt say that people should blindly follow corrupt and immoral leaders.

            Not blindly, no; but you keep arguing that people shouldn’t obey the law on the grounds that some who teach it don’t obey it, and I think it’s worthwhile pointing out that Jesus said the exact opposite.

          • S

            I’m not claiming people should not obey the law!

            I’m complaining about the complete lack of progress (in 10 years) of the CofE managing to say anything meaningful at all about SSM *or* acting to stop abuse of gay people by church leaders *or* coming up with teaching for realistic gay lives in the real world that’s any more practical than “just dont be gay”

          • S

            The major problems in the CofE and Anglican Communion are not caused by gay people or even gay people wanting to marry and have families.

            Its caused by corrupt immoral leadership

          • I’m not claiming people should not obey the law!

            You are claiming that people should not obey God’s law on marriage (that it is supposed to be a lifelong union between one man and one woman) on the grounds that those who teach that law are hypocrites (they have affairs, they get divorced and remarried).

            So I think it’s worth pointing out that Jesus didn’t think that teachers of the law not following their own teachings meant you shouldn’t follow the law.

            The major problems in the CofE and Anglican Communion are not caused by gay people or even gay people wanting to marry and have families.

            Very true.

            Its caused by corrupt immoral leadership

            No, it’s caused by a leadership that doesn’t take the Bible seriously.

  9. I found Anton’s comments [ February 22, 2023 at 9:38 am ] quite illuminating as I follow this thread. there seems to be a theological element and a philosophical element opposing each other [apples and pears] two different values in this and other posts.
    This whole debate reminds me of Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Will to Power.
    People have always veered toward seeing evil as good in the moment, but our culture has progressed to the point of enshrining a “transvaluation of all values” (the subtitle to Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Will to Power) as the new moral orthodoxy we must abide by.
    What does Nietzsche mean when he speaks of the revaluation of all values?
    Nietzsche’s concept of the “Revaluation Of All Values” is a very challenging concept to grasp in today’s world. To put it in simple terms, it means that values are no longer absolute or sacred and it is time to “Re-Evaluate” everything for ourselves.
    The transformation of all lives as implied by Nietzsche refers to the revaluation of values. This leads to new values emerging or are created. For instance, European countries have all held on the values of existence of a Christian God who provides guidance of values and norms.

    Did Nietzsche believe in values?
    Nietzsche does hold that values are the product of valuing. Things have value because they are valued. So we give things value; independently of our valuing attitudes, nothing is valuable. However, in Nietzsche’s view almost all human beings are incapable of truly valuing anything.

    What is Nietzsche’s main point?
    Nietzsche claimed the exemplary human being must craft his/her own identity through self-realization and do so without relying on anything transcending that life—such as God or a soul.

    What is Nietzsche trying to teach us?
    Nietzsche teaches us to seek and find a ‘harmonious whole’ — where we can synthesize ‘many voices in one nature’ into a central and single point— a ‘root force. ‘ So essentially, be a single person. And focus on your single, philosophical idea to share with others.7 May 2017

    What is Nietzsche’s analysis of the basis of moral values?
    Nietzsche argues that there are two fundamental types of morality: “master morality” and “slave morality”. Master morality values pride, wealth, fame and power, while slave morality values kindness, empathy, and sympathy.

    Transvaluation of values for example
    Elaborating the concept in The Antichrist, Nietzsche asserts that Christianity, not merely as a religion but also as the predominant moral system of the Western world, inverts nature, and is “hostile to life”.
    As “the religion of pity”, it elevates the weak over the strong, exalting that which is “ill-constituted and weak” at the expense of that which is full of life and vitality.

    Nietzsche contrasts Christianity with Buddhism. He posits that Christianity is “the struggle against sin”, whereas Buddhism is “the struggle against suffering”;
    to Nietzsche, Christianity limits and lowers humankind by assailing its natural and inevitable instincts as depraved (“sin”), whereas Buddhism advises one merely to eschew suffering. While Christianity is full of “revengefulness” and “antipathy” (e.g., the Last Judgment),
    Buddhism promotes “benevolence, being kind, as health-promoting.” Buddhism is also suggested to be the more “honest” of the two religions, for its being strictly “phenomenalistic”, and because “Christianity makes a thousand promises but keeps none.” Martyrdom, rather than being a moral high ground or position of strength, is indicative of an “obtuseness to the question of truth.”

    Nietzsche’s enthusiasm for what he called “transvaluation” stemmed from his contempt for Christianity and the entirety of the moral system that flowed from it: indeed, “contempt of man”, as Nietzsche states near the end of The Antichrist. Nietzsche perceived the moral framework of Christian civilization to be oppressive

    Reply
  10. Here are some very real examples of a trickle-down transvaluation from Western elites into popular culture:

    Objective truth – a fantasy created by powerful people to maintain power
    Biblical morality – a set of outdated, repressive, and destructive instructions
    Monogamous marriage – an institution which domesticates women as property
    Chastity – an unrealistic, harmful, and bland restriction of sexuality which benefits domineering, heterosexual men
    Christian evangelism/missions – a form of spiritual imperialism
    Sanctity of human life – a way for religious people to colonize women’s bodies

    Objective truth, biblical morality, monogamous marriage—each one of these help people flourish in countless ways. Yet each one of them, in modern Western culture, are being labeled as poison.

    Reply
    • Alan Kempston

      Somewhat ironically its actually the religious Conservative/establishment types who oppose monogamous marriage and the secular world broadly supports it.

      Reply
      • Yes, Peter. Conservative and establishment types (no-one is a type, unless to those not concerned to understand them) generally oppose monogamous marriage.
        And the secular world broadly supports monogamous marriage.
        That’s right.

        Reply
        • Christopher

          Yes.

          If the religious establishment supported monogamy as much as secular society then the CofE would not have spent a decade failing to come up with teaching on SSM

          Reply
  11. “The Church of England’s General Synod in July 2022 made a mistake by changing the rules for the Canterbury Crown Nominations Commission, to include five representatives from the global Anglican Communion in choosing the next Archbishop of Canterbury. This is a structural reform in the wrong direction. It makes matters worse, not better. Presented as a magnanimous desire to include global voices, its effect is simply to bolster England’s primacy even further. It is like the strategy of a dying colonial power, faced by growing global unrest, which invites a few of its subjects to London as a last resort, offering them a modest voice in colonial policy. The new Canterbury CNC announces to the world that England comes first in the Anglican Communion, and always will be first. It trumpets our global aspirations. Rather than tinkering with the Canterbury CNC, what the Anglican Communion needs is a far deeper structural change.”

    I both agree and disagree with this. I totally agree that the Communion needs a bigger structural change – why *should* the Archbishop of Canterbury have the prominent role, and not someone else? But that issue wasn’t even on the table at Synod – speaking as someone who was there in July 2022, the choice before us was who should be on the CNC, not whether the role of AoC should change. So I personally voted in favour of more members of the rest of the Communion to be on the CNC because that’s what we had to work with, and since the AoC seemed to be continuing to have the global role the position has currently, better to have more members of the Communion on the panel than not. But I think it would have been better, before the question of the Canterbury CNC came up, to have asked the question of ‘should the role of the AoC change?’ and then the decision of who should be on the CNC be determined by that, instead of what we’ve got now which I suppose could make any change to the AoC’s global role more difficult.

    Reply
    • It seems to me that the change to the Canterbury CNC makes it more likely that Welby’s successor will be someone who can properly pursue a complex agenda of decentralising the Instruments of Communion. A consensus would have to be built across the Primates Meeting and ACC particularly, about who has the privilege of calling the next global Anglican Bishops’ conference, and where that should be. Only if that consensus can’t emerge does the Communion cease to be a Communion.

      (I recognise it’s already fractured, of course! I was confirmed in the SEC, ordained in the IEAB and currently serve in the CiW…)

      Thanks for a really insightful summary from Ghana.

      Reply
  12. Well, Ian! This may be the right moment for you to declare which mast of variable Anglican polity vessels you will cling to in your ongoing rebellious stance against your parent Church of England. Your, so obvious, support here for the GSFA Statement of disaffiliation from the leadership role of the ABC (as Archbishop of the Founding Province of the Anglican Communion seems more in keeping with ACNA’s Archbishop Foley Beach (Chair of GAFCON) than it does with any self-respecting minister of the Church of England.

    Be careful though, Ian, of your chosen bedfellows in the Global South, who appear to have suborned the signature of the Archbishop of the Anglican Province of Melanesia to GSFA’s declaration of Independence from the Church of England – when, in fact, he is not a supporter of their homophobic statement, nor of their agenda of schismatic breakaway from the Communion’s roots in the Church of England. He never gave permission for his name to be added to the signatories. This seems more a deliberate act of the compilers of the GSFA Statement than a simple act of carelessness. Thie issues are too important for this breach of protocol to be overlooked.

    Reply
  13. I find Justin Wellby’s pronouncements on the Ukraine war

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/23/justin-welby-russia-must-not-humiliated-ukraine-peace-deal/

    (today’s Telegraph) much more disturbing than his pronouncements on blessings for SS couples (worrying as these are).

    Firstly, he is talking as if the war is already won (and there is absolutely no evidence of this – Ukraine hasn’t made any progress since they took Kherson – and the Russians are actually advancing – albeit slowly and at great expense).

    Secondly, he seems to have a problem with Russia paying reparations – and seems to think that requiring reparations would be a form of humiliating Russia – so I wonder who he expects to pay for the restoration of the enormous damage that has been done to Ukraine.

    Reply

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