Posted on 02/27/2005 8:53:58 AM PST by sionnsar
As a graduate of the Johns Hopkins neurology program, I periodically receive the Johns Hopkins Magazine. This month’s issue tells the story of Lea and Tabea, two “Siamese” twins born joined together at the head, and the efforts of their physicians to give them a fuller life. The two infants were healthy, beautiful, and active, but were condemned to a lifetime of immobility, each unable to move because of the other. The article describes the heroic efforts of the hundred-member team, some of medicine’s finest, to save both children. Tragically, despite the best efforts of their physicians, only one child (Lea) eventually survived.
This past week, an equally skilled and motivated team of some of Christianity’s finest, tried to save both the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church. The two ecclesial individuals were joined together at Canterbury, but faced in opposite directions, neither able to move, because of the other. I believe that the primates did the best job they could possibly have done under the circumstances, and that the global Anglican Community owes them a tremendous debt of gratitude. Because of their heroic efforts the Anglican Communion, previously immobilized, has been given a chance to grow to greater maturity. The Communion will no longer be hampered by provinces, to whom they are joined, dragging them in the opposite direction, and we must be grateful to God for this mercy.
However, there will be casualties in this “ecclesial neurosurgery”. One of them may be the orthodox remnant in the Episcopal Church. Although currently on life support, it is unlikely that orthodox priests and parishes in liberal or even moderate dioceses will survive the three-year ordeal that has now begun. Once TEC rejects the primates’ directives (and she will) the persecution of orthodox clergy and parishes will resume in earnest. Liberals will scramble to consolidate their gains by ordaining even more gay priests and bishops, and by forcing out orthodox ones. The so called “moderate” bishops, forced to choose between TEC and Communion will, for the most part, side with sees and pension plans, and will become indistinguishable from liberal bishops. Within the Network and under the protection of various African and Asian primates, some orthodox clergy and parishes may prosper, however they are unlikely to survive unscathed, with property and pensions intact.
In the long run, this will be an enormous blessing for the Anglican Communion, both in America and elsewhere. The Communion will return to her apostolic roots. Over the next five years, as the primates slowly begin to exercise their authority (and they will), they will inevitably move away from the Janus-faced appeasements of Elizabethan ingenuity. Over time, as the Primates’ authority is challenged by rebel provinces (and it will be) the Communion will inevitably return to a model of faithfulness, rather than compromise. Times of heresy and persecution have ever been good for the health of the church, eventually resulting in greater faithfulness. I believe that in a generation or two, the Anglican Communion will slowly grow to resemble the Orthodox communion, with apostolic authority centered in a council of primates (though that council may not be centered at, or include, Canterbury long term). Either way, the Anglican Communion has been given a future, and for that she may thank those who worked so hard in Northern Ireland this past week. In the short run, my heart goes out both to little Tabea (the twin who did not survive) and to my beleaguered brothers in TEC, who now find themselves trapped behind enemy lines and cut off from the support of the greater Communion.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. "I believe that in a generation or two, the Anglican Communion will slowly grow to resemble the Orthodox communion, with apostolic authority centered in a council of primates (though that council may not be centered at, or include, Canterbury long term)."
You know, when I was a kid, a very long time ago, the Greek priests explained to me that the Anglicanism was a sort of Western Orthodoxy.
He's right. If the situation with ECUSA plays out as this writer suggests, I believe it will hasten the arrival of real persecution for all faithful American Christians. (Although why it has to be over homosexuality, which is so vulgar, I still don't see.)
The time is coming for the Lord to clear his threshing floor. He who endures to the end will be saved.
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