Posted on 12/26/2007 12:27:02 AM PST by fgoodwin
For some time now, people have been asking me why I haven't written anything on the current—or, depending on your point of view, everlasting—crisis in the Anglican world. After all, I have been an Anglican for nearly twenty-five years, virtually all of my adult life. Surely I have some opinions on the mess the Anglican Communion is now in, on how it got this way, and how it might get out again?
Well, yes, I do have such opinions. But they are worthless. All such opinions amount to little more than the assignation of blame for past events and predictions of the future—the latter usually involving punishments to come for those blamed for the past—and neither of those activities interests me. There was a time when they did, but I have long since learned how futile such pursuits are, and (more important) how powerfully they distract from the core practices of the Christian life.
In leaving the Episcopal Church, then, I believe that I acted according to what Cardinal Newman long ago called "the supreme authority of Conscience … the aboriginal Vicar of Christ." For Newman, conscience is anything but "private judgment": it is, rather, the testing of one's own private judgments, and sometimes those of others, against Scripture and against the long testimony of the whole church of Christ. And if we test those judgments so, and invoke our consciences, we enter perilous territory: as Newman reminds us, the fourth Lateran Council (1215) affirmed that Quidquid fit contra conscientiam, ædificat ad gehennam—Whatever is done in opposition to conscience is conducive to damnation.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
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This is the primary reason why, after too long a season scanning the Anglican blogs daily, I now check just one of them, and once a week, at most. This abstinence has calmed my spirit and removed, I think permanently, my taste for such things.
His Tumblelog is where? Here. ;)
This sounds like a good and decent man. The Episcopalian Church will sorely miss him, though they are too far down the path of liberalism and gross error to notice.
Agreed! I tend to ignore most of the day-to-day noise, especially the VGR related items, and focus on those emphasizing a profound theological insight, stories of grace and redemption, important ecclesial, organizational or legal developments or the beauty of Anglican worship and tradition.
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