Anglican Mainstream: Masterly inactivity in the Great Game
Monday September 24th 2007

What is happening is the rejection of customary hierarchy for its failure to protect not just the vulnerable in the institution but those who are its mainstream. The message is being put across that parts of hierarchy are disconnected from the Communion’s mainstream and life-blood. The Anglican Communion needs to be rescued from disconnected, atrophied leadership. So what happens next? How long can Lambeth’s policy of “masterly inactivity” be maintained? As Bishop Bob Duncan noted, Dr Williams has done and said nothing so far to protect the orthodox in the United States.

Chris Sugden in Evangelicals Now

We are involved in a Great Game. “The Great Game” was the term used to refer to the diplomatic negotiations and intrigue that spanned Persia, Russia, Great Britain, Afghanistan and the Central Asian regions in the nineteenth century. Everything focused on the control of the land access to India, itself a source of great wealth and the one area where Great Britain, then invincible by sea, was vulnerable on land. For a significant period, the policy of the Government of Great Britain was “masterly inactivity”.

In the Anglican Communion another great diplomatic game is upon us. This is not to trivialise what is happening, but to clarify the level of diplomatic engagement we are involved in. the rest