Posted on 07/07/2006 4:51:46 PM PDT by sionnsar
Down below, I wondered why the Anglican Communion Network won't admit what everybody knows and leave at once. I speculated that if the Network walked now, lawsuits would instantly begin all over the country. Over the past three years, TEC bishops have shown themselves to be quite willing to play hardball with rebellious parishes. Which leads me to ask the same question of TEC that I asked of the Network. Why do TEC liberals refuse to see what is right in front of their faces?
Lord knows, the Episcopal left is angry right now. The scorn and raw hatred directed against the Network bishops and men like Peter Akinola continues to build up like steam in a steam engine. Respect for Rowan Williams among the left is dropping faster than TEC's average Sunday attendance. To put it bluntly, the Episcopal left and right don't like each other and haven't for a long time. So why hasn't the left departed yet? Why does it still wish to share a church and a tradition with people it obviously despises?
Part of the reason is the international stage Canterbury supplies. The Episcopal Church gets attention all out of proportion to its numbers and part of that has to do with the fact that it is an "international" church that tells the culture what it wants to hear. The ability for TEC's primate to promote the leftist political agenda on an international stage(which Katharine Jefferts Schori has already indicated that she intends to do) is an invaluable asset for both the sacred and secular left, one not lightly tossed aside.
Even if TEC is eventually run from the Communion, they'll still have an international stage(since many liberal Anglican bodies will no doubt throw in with them) and more than their share of attention from the media. And people who don't have time for fine distinctions will still call them "Anglican."
Not being able to call themselves "historic" anymore and, most importantly, not being able to invoke the term "apostolic succession" with any plausibility at all will be a major blow. Because at the end of the day, a numerically-insignificant American Protestant sect with international friends is still just a numerically-insignificant American Protestant sect.
But I think there's something else at work here. When you believe that what you did in convention this year and three years ago was a "movement of the Spirit" then you have backed yourself into a corner. You cannot retreat or compromise. In this situation, the last thing you want to be forced to say is, "Whoops. Never mind."
And when conservatives in your church or your tradition take issue with what you have done and the reason why you have done it, they have essentially called you liars. So naturally the rhetoric will heat up and words like "bigot" and "homophobe" will be indiscriminately tossed around. Calmer voices will prattle on about "conversations" and "places at the table" in the hopes that the conservatives will change their minds.
But you will not leave and you will not let anyone peacefully leave. And you will fight with every fiber of your being to remain part of your historic, international tradition. Because if a large segment of your church walks away from you or if your international body reduces you to in-name-only status or no status at all, then a major rationale for what you did three years ago is fatally undercut.
At the first Pentecost, tongues of fire sat on all the assembly, not just a part of it. All were filled with the Holy Ghost and spoke with other tongues. In Acts 4:31, the building where they were assembled was shaken and all were filled with the Holy Ghost. So you can't leave and you can't let anyone else leave either.
Because if the Network walks away or the Anglican Communion awards the United States primacy to Bob Duncan, that means that both have rejected TEC's claim about what the Holy Spirit did three years ago, with the confirmation of Robinson, and this year with the election of Schori. According to the Bible that TEC's left claims to respect, it would seem that if the Holy Spirit genuinely moved among a church assembly, the entire assembly would realize it, not just a select few.
So, like the 60's liberals that so many of them are, TEC's left would have to confront the fact that all it did in 2003 was to slap a blasphemous label on a political act in order to advance a secular cause. And 60's liberals have never been very good at admitting when they were wrong.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. Blasphemous, indeed. To anyone with a righteous fear of God it should be unthinkable to claim that 'the Spirit' (presumably they mean the Holy Spirit) is doing a new thing by contradicting every scripture on a certain subject.
Did God change His mind and only the enlightened ones of the last few decades have had the spiritual discernment to see that? If so, what's next, will their 'Spirit' condone pederasty? What new hoops can they get their 'Spirit' to jump through? And the rank-and-file sheeple are expected to just follow whatever comes next.
Excellent point about the Holy Spirit's moving in the entire body. It is a law of hubris that the foolish will always take one step too many and fall into a trap of their own making. It appears that the liberal faction of TEC has apparently arrived at this point. Jesus cleared out the money changers in the temple; I am assuming the same should be true for those pandering political merchandise.
And only with regard to their feelings and beliefs?
This whole thing isn't about Christianity, it's about the hijacking of a formerly greatly respected mainline U.S. church to promote a sexually-oriented agenda.
Griswold, etc. couldn't care less about the cause of Christ, they're after the robes and all the outward show and social respectability as a platform to promote their abnormal sexual desires.
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