Posted on 02/16/2007 5:36:19 PM PST by sionnsar
Just a follow-up, for whatever it’s worth, as we gather for Bishop Salmon’s “retirement” gala while at the same time, ironically enough, looking over our shoulders in the direction of Tanzania.
Last week’s Church of England Newspaper just arrived with Graham Kings’s and Michael Scott-Joynt’s articles, among others — so cogent, so even-handed, almost encouraging!
But now the Communion Sub-Group’s report has been published, and it seems that my fear about “815″ spin has been largely realized. I’m afraid that TEC, from the point of view of anything recognizable as biblical theology, evangelical conviction, or catholic ecclesiology, is on the verge of becoming a bad joke, although neither I nor my long-term ecumenical friends are laughing.
Can not the English Primates recognize sheer disingenuousness when it is as naked as it was at last year’s General Convention? Surely a bishop as theologically rooted and grounded as Rowan Williams, whatever his liberal bent on certain issues, cannot take seriously the utterances of Katherine Jefferts-Schori, in one interview after another, about the meaning, message and mission of the church?
Forty five years ago I was brought to faith largely through the human agency and mentorship of holy priests, many of whom were of homosexual orientation but who had no inclination whatsoever to confuse their condition of fallenness with the agenda of social justice.
Quite the contrary. They, poignantly enough, are among those utterly betrayed by the self-serving shibboleths of the kind of “inclusivity” that has no room for conversion or orthodoxy.
The name of the game, in terms of what seems to be playing itself out in the “western” branches of Anglicanism, is the very opposite of Elizabethan comprehensiveness.
If Tanzania can’t stem this tide, or (to change the metaphor) if the goal-posts are being effectively moved by the ecclesiastical bureaucrats in London and New York, many more of us than have so far given up on classical, historic, Canterbury-defined Anglicanism, will find it impossibly hard not to do so, at least if what Paul Zahl has discerningly called the ersatz christianity of TEC continues to be embraced by Lambeth.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. And I suspect this could reach even further into the Anglican realms not in communion (by whatever definition) with Canterbury.
You mean the church actually has a meaning, message, and mission other than the Millenium Development Goals?
Would you please elaborate a bit further? I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
Williams is terrified by the obvious truth that the majority of American and Canadian Anglican priests have rejected traditional Christianity and have converted to a religion as different from their own as Mormonism.
"And I suspect this could reach even further into the Anglican realms not in communion (by whatever definition) with Canterbury."
I should think it might to the extent that any of the Anglican groups not in communion with Canterbury retained any hope of ultimately joining some sort of orthodox Anglican grouping. The issue of communion with heresy, direct or indirect, even communion with those who refuse to acknowledge heresy within a church in favor of a certain sort of civility must be raised by any group which wishes to claim some connection, apostolically, to the One Church. The claim can be advanced that communion with Canterbury makes that connection. But if Canterbury falls into apostasy, where is the connection? All Anglican roads run through Canterbury back to the One Church. If Canterbury embraces, no eeven tolerates, the "ersatz Christianity" of TEC, it has pretty clearly apostasized. And where does that leave that part of the Anglican world which claims it is the English expression of Christian orthodoxy?
K, you have captured the issue exactly!
Not a strong point, but one that has to be made.
"Amendment: All Anglican roads run through historical Canterbury back to the One Church."
Better said. I wonder if there are many people today in the Anglican Communion who even know about the great English and Scottish saints of the pre-Schism Church or the stupendous monasteries or better yet even, the Council of Whitby which changed so much in the British Isles. You know, there was a time when the "lights went out" all over most of Western Europe from the Adriatic to the Channel. But in England and Scotland and especially in Ireland there were monastic beacons of learning and orthodox Christianity which preserved The Faith in the West...and it was the exact same Faith that I practice today. Looking at the scene presented by the AC, I fear it cannot say the same thing and I doubt it would want to, sadly.
I should think it might to the extent that any of the Anglican groups not in communion with Canterbury retained any hope of ultimately joining some sort of orthodox Anglican grouping.
Thanks for the clarification. I am not too sure that the original Continuing groups had much hope, the problems run much deeper than Gene R and Schiori's unorthodox beliefs.
There is a book, "How the Irish Saved Western Civilization" or something like that (there's a copy in the library downstairs) that discusses this.
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