Biased? Heiffer Dust!

I want to quote excerpts from some comments recently made on The Continuum by one of our longest-standing readers and most prolific commenters:

“I sometimes fear the only reason that Archbishop Haverland's letters are published is so they can be attacked…

“… It’s a shame that the ACC cannot even be given fair consideration on this blog. Why not just rename it the "TAC Promotion Forum"?

“It seems to me that a blog called "The Continuum", supposedly for all of the Continuum, has become very biased.”

“I appreciate that my feelings on this subject have been posted. Perhaps this is a sign that more unbiased attitudes might begin to prevail.”

My response, as gently as I can put it, is "Heffer dust!"

You might call this blog many things, but one thing you can't legitimately call it is "biased."

For the benefit of all our readers, I would like to state what the reality of this blog is. You can accept it or not.

1. The Continuum does not belong to, nor is it affiliated with, any jurisdiction of the continuing Anglican movement. It belongs to me. And while I am a member of the Anglican Catholic Church, albeit inactive by virtue of geographical isolation, it is entirely independent.

2. The blog’s stated aim is to be “a place where those who live in the Anglican Continuum, or who are thinking of moving there, might share in robust, if polite, discussion of matters theological and ecclesiological.”

3. An unstated aim, but one that has permeated posting and discussion here since the blog’s inception in November 2005, is to promote ecumenism within the continuing Anglican movement and, in the spirit of the Affirmation of St Louis, to promote unity within the Church Catholic.

4. Given the first three points mentioned here, this blog has no “party line” in support of any given jurisdiction within the Anglican movement, which we broadly define as comprising the Anglican Catholic Church, the Anglican Province of America, the Anglican Province of Christ the King, the Traditional Anglican Communion and the United Episcopal Church of North America. By the same token, it takes no stand against any of these jurisdictions.

5. While this blog is owned by me, it has three co-hosts, who are free to operate within the very loosely defined parameters that I set out after I invited them to join, and which from time to time we occasionally refine in a collegial fashion.

6. We have no predetermined editorial policy, in the sense of Item 4 above, of an agenda to be pursued.

7. We seek to balance content by offering news, as well as material of a theological, ecclesiological, historical and devotional nature. What is posted depends purely on the inclination, and energy, of any one of us at a given time.

8. Comments on this blog are managed, in the sense that they pass by me (or one of my designated co-hosts) before being published. But as has been pointed out on numerous occasions, there are only four basic reasons why a comment is rejected: it is spam, it engages in an ad hominem attack, it is off topic or it is written by someone who refuses to give a name, thereby causing confusion. No reasonable person can conclude from this that there is anything remotely akin to censorship.

9. We do not limit who reads this blog, or who submits comments to it. At the same time, the comments that are published represent the views only of those who have written them.