["intercontinental ballistic bishops": never thought I'd have reason to trot this cartoon about NASA (National Anglican Space Administration) out again. --sionnsar]
Posted on 12/06/2006 5:03:12 PM PST by sionnsar
Kate Schori's new book looks like an interesting read:
In an essay entitled "Lab Report" from her forthcoming book A Wing and a Prayer, new Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori laments signs of conflict in the world, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet she is most concerned with "some pretty profound disunity" in the Anglican Communion. On this issue, her words for some fellow primates in the Anglican Communion are as strong as the words that she has been using when communicating with orthodox Anglicans in the Episcopal Church (TEC).
What is the source of "some pretty profound disunity" in the Anglican world? One thing, only one thing and NOTHING ELSE!!
In the bishop’s own words, it’s "primates lobbing fiats of dis-fellowship, edicts of impaired communion, and, when all else fails, intercontinental ballistic bishops." While she does not mention any primates by name, she apparently blames the current crisis in the Anglican Communion on the orthodox primates who have declared that their provinces are in "impaired communion" with the Episcopal Church.
Nice. Orthodox bishops are weapons of mass destruction. Planning on sitting out the Primates Meeting, Purple Haze? Then Kate plays the "prophetic" card again.
From here, the "Lab Report" gets "curiouser and curiouser" as Bishop Jefferts Schori proceeds deeper into her own Alice in Wonderland-like rabbit hole. She makes this comment: "This is not the friendly rivalry of a game of pick-up basketball. It is the grievous division of Joseph and his brothers."
Guess which side Kate thinks is Joseph.
So how does this story relate to the Anglican Communion? "Joseph," to Bishop Jefferts Schori, must be the Episcopal Church. "His brothers," then, are the orthodox Anglican primates. By comparing TEC with Joseph, Bishop Jefferts Schori implies that TEC is following and is favored by God. The primates, meanwhile, appear in a much less favorable light.
Orthodox Christians are compared to those who sold their brother into slavery. Let's reconcile around that idea, shall we? But it's understandable that PH thinks this since TEC isn't wrong and has never been.
More importantly, in her description of the Anglican Communion crisis, the bishop acknowledges no culpability on the part of the Episcopal Church in the current crisis facing the Anglican Communion:
She ignores the July 2003 warning of many primates that if TEC proceeded with actions at odds with traditional Christian teachings on sexuality, it would place itself outside the consensus of the Anglican Communion.
She sidesteps former Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold’s signature on an October 2003 statement in which the primates recognized that if TEC continued on its path, the whole Anglican Communion would be torn apart. (Bishop Griswold almost immediately turned around and declared his intention to participate in the consecration of the openly gay Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. He fulfilled his promise the following month.)
She disregards the deep internal strife within TEC. Even supporters of the highly controversial B033, the major resolution at the 2006 General Convention responding to the Anglican Communion’s Windsor Report, admitted that the resolution was only "the best that we [could] do."
Instead, Bishop Jefferts Schori charges that the root cause of the Anglican Communion’s mess is "the great sin of the church … the desire to be right." And what do the primates "desire to be right" about so much that they would, from her perspective, "[lob] fiats … [and] edicts" across the Communion? They desire to serve God faithfully in their teaching regarding issues and institutions such as marriage. Is marriage a "bond and covenant [between one man and one woman]… established by God in creation," as the Book of Common Prayer says? Or is it something culturally bound and therefore malleable?
"The great sin of the church" is "the desire to be right." From the beginning of Church history to the present day, those who have fervently desired to understand the Word of God and to obey its commands are "sinners" while those who bend over backwards to make the Bible say whatever the culture wants it to say are "prophetic." No finer epitaph for mainline Christianity can be written or even imagined.
["intercontinental ballistic bishops": never thought I'd have reason to trot this cartoon about NASA (National Anglican Space Administration) out again. --sionnsar]
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. The audacity of this false priestess is staggering!
Silly woman.
Yeah, it's unfortunate. Her election, along with my concerns about my local minister, finally convinced me that I have to leave the Episcopal church, and go where people believe in both God and the Bible. For me, that seems to be the Catholics. It makes me very sad, because I don't think I'll ever be able to take communion in the Catholic church, but I'll just live with that. It's my cross-- I'll pick it up, and He will help me carry it.
TEC as an organization will be viable enough, thanks to the looting of generations of the devout. But like a wild animal feeding off the carcasses of its parents, TEC will never be anything close to a Christian communion. Atheistic secular humanists like Jefferts Schori have a place, but it is not in the corridors of power of the church.
I like the graphic depiction of the "instruments of unity"!
"For me, that seems to be the Catholics. It makes me very sad, because I don't think I'll ever be able to take communion in the Catholic church, but I'll just live with that. It's my cross-- I'll pick it up, and He will help me carry it."
Staying away from communion is a very serious matter. Why not simply convert?
I don't think so. If they're smart and cut off the greater losses, yes... but there will be a loss of "prestige" in doing so. They could live a long time on what they've captured, but only by admission of what they've lost.
My guess: TEC runs out about the time the current "ownership" expects to pass on.
Only "silly" if she hadn't such (self-destructive) power.
"Only "silly" if she hadn't such (self-destructive) power."
She and her fellow travelers, sob sisters, limp wrists and lickspittles can't destroy the Church. Heresiarchs have been around from the begining and they all fail eventually. 'Course in the old days, The Church had better ways to deal with them; in the West, the auto da fe and the stake, in the East, usually a trial, eyes dug out, tongue cut off and exile to a monastery. But those days, sadly, are gone! Sigh!
Go faithfully where you are led. Obstacles that appear insurmountable may not be. There are people willing, even anxious, to help you.
This article emphasizes the disputes within TEC over the "gay" issue. However, there is also the feminizing of God, the voting down even of the first Christian creed, "Jesus is Lord", and the substitution of the NWO/Millennium Goals agenda for the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Jefferts-Schori is so heretical that even her heresies have heresies. It's time for all good Anglicans--and Lutherans--to run far, far away from her before she explodes!!!!
"It's time for all good Anglicans--and Lutherans--to run far, far away from her before she explodes!!!!"
There are alternatives. :)
In another age, they would set a match to her, and they would be right ;-)
Good note, because she is an ELCA Lutheran bishop, too, by agreement, with rights in the ELCA.
She is not silly, she is dead serious. I am weeping.....
You're correct...a good example of the oncomong implosion is the Diocese of Newark. They are expected to close some 40+ parishes within a a year. But what they are doing is consolidating them into some of the larger churches, the older ones that seat near 1000, that were built 70-80 years ago, at the apex of TEC. These buildings are cost afortune to run, heat, and are literally falling down, and will require enormous sums to make them suitable for use, let alone safe...and the diocese will have to front the cost...
Could be the common problem of divorce/re-marriage. This affects many potential converts.
There are other options. Look for orthodox/conservative anglican churches in your area.
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