Posted on 10/13/2005 5:00:52 PM PDT by sionnsar
Face-to-face conversation at the local level continues during a time when the Church is living through a time of “dread and enmity,” according to the Very Rev. George L. Werner, president of the House of Deputies, who preached Oct. 9 at Christ Church, Las Vegas, Nev.
In the same way that God showed Saul of Tarsus that he was headed in the “wrong direction,” persecuting the new Christians, Dean Werner suggested that the current turmoil and division in the Church may be God’s way of letting all the combatants know that it is similarly misdirected.
The liberal part, anyway.
The day before Dean Werner’s sermon, the national Executive Council, the legislative body responsible for the General Convention budget between sessions, received a multi-media report on the visit to the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Nottingham, England, made by Episcopal Church “observers:” Josephine Hicks of North Carolina; the Rev. Robert L. Sessum, rector of Church of the Good Shepherd in Lexington, Ky.; and the Rt. Rev. Catherine S. Roskam, Bishop Suffragan of New York.
Ms. Hicks elaborated with additional comments from Bishop Roskam and Fr. Sessum during a 45-minute slide presentation. She told council the group was received courteously and engaged in thoughtful conversation with representatives from a number of provinces after some initial awkwardness.
Apparently, it is now established Episcopal theology that something which is a sin in one country may not be a sin in another.
The presentation panel from the Episcopal Church, she said, “bent over backward” to make known that it was not trying to persuade other provinces to follow the lead of the 2003 General Convention,
A point which completely escaped those idiot reactionaries.
but she was disappointed to learn after the presentation that the reaction of many ACC representatives was that this was “a done deal, get on the bus or get left behind” situation for their province as well.
So C Rosk decided to play the victim some more and get a little ECUSA spin in.
Bishop Roskam told council that if the ACC vote to maintain the observer status of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada had been conducted according to the rules of the General Convention, it would not have had the required majority before adding that “the voice of the baptized is not widely embraced in the rest of the [Anglican] Communion.”
One of the most infuriating aspects of this whole controversy has been the sociopathic refusal of both the Diocese of New Westminster and ECUSA to recognize the radicalism of their 2003 actions. Both churches had to have realized that approving same-sex marriages and giving Gene Robinson a pointy hat would tear the Anglican Communion apart. Particulary since both churches were repeatedly told that in public statements released all over the Anglican world.
Anglican conservatives have made threats before and, for the most part, haven't followed through on them. Although Anglican losses were and continue to be severe on an individual level, issues like women's ordination, the theological innovations of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer or the later politically-correct evisceration of the Hymnal did not lead to any large-scale Anglican split; a few small denominations were created here and there but nothing more.
But Frank Griswold, at least, had to have known that consecrating Gene Robinson would cause turmoil in the Anglican world since his fellow Anglican primates, particularly those of the Third Word, told him as much to his face and he signed his name to a primatial statement to that effect, a statement which was also signed by the Primate of Canada. All things considered, both churches are without excuse.
It's been said by Roman Catholic observers and others that the lack of a Anglican Magisterium made same-sex marriage and Gene Robinson inevitable. And that is, of course, quite true(it should be emphasized that a Magisterium is like a gun; it's only efficacious if people know that you are willing to use it). Although they have different terms for it, other churches, both Protestant and Orthodox, have learned this lesson and currently profit from it
Anglican liberals, of course, quickly rediscover the virtues of Protestantism whenever the subject of an Anglican central authority comes up. No Anglican pope for us; Anglican churches run their own affairs. One wonders how virtuous the Anglican left would find this idea if some Anglican province decided that its own affairs demanded that its unrepentant homosexuals should be tied to a tree and whipped and went on to develop a liturgy for such an event.
The fact is that the absence of an Anglican Magisterium actually constitutes a kind of reverse Magisterium. For starters, forget ECUSA's worthless claim that "it was not trying to persuade other provinces to follow the lead of the 2003 General Convention." That's not and has never been the issue.
As soon as Gene Robinson got his pointy hat, he became, under Anglican rules, an Anglican bishop, no different from any other. Which meant, under Anglican rules, that other Anglican bishops had to accept him in their ranks regardless of what they thought about him and, more importantly, that 2,000 years of Christian tradition as well as clear Episcopal and Anglican teaching on homosexual activity(the 1998 Lambeth Conference resolution) had been insouciantly discarded simply because one Anglican church thought it felt good.
What about female bishops? Many of those shouting the loudest now didn't seem to have a problem with them. Perhaps many conservative Third World bishops didn't have a problem with the idea(although, having been exposed to the mindless Spongian radicalism of empty chasubles like Barbara Harris at Lambeth '98, many may have reconsidered). But that's evading the question.
They may not have had a theological problem with female Anglican bishops; they have a serious problem with unrepentant sinners being made into Anglican bishops without so much as a by-your-leave.
The fact that ECUSA and New Westminster instantly rewrote Anglican teaching without any international debate or discussion of any kind is the reason for this whole controversy. If both churches don't understand that, it's because they arrogantly and deliberately refuse to. And it's why, absent genuine repentance, neither should be permitted to remain Anglican and why any compromise that lets them remain will shatter Anglican Christianity beyond any possibility of repair. "Can two walk together," asked Amos, "except they be agreed?"
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. And no doubt they have, many times before.
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