What reason should anyone have to believe that this conference will be decisive? The same has been said of every other "gathering" during the past couple of years and nothing decisive has happened.
This is all really sad for the body of Christ.
There has never been a time that Scripture supported active sin by anyone, let alone top leaders in the church.
It is one thing to have a homosexual tendency but fight the temptation. It is another to say submitting to the sin is fine in God's eyes.
This also holds for all Christian heterosexuals in sinful relationships though, too.
Griswold is blind. The vast majority of Episcopalians have yet to reaalu focus on these issues. They're passive, to date..the church is their parish, their minister...they igonore the bigger issues. They will soon be forved to make hard decisions, AND ONCE THEY REALIZE THEY HAVE OPTIONS...
When I first saw the headline containing "primate" and "communion", I thought it was about John Kerry attending Mass....
I don't mean to be unecumenical, but why should anybody care what a bunch of men who are only laymen in reality, think, say or do, no matter how they are dressed?
They are not appointed by God to their positions and their "ordinations" are merely like children playing house with each other.
There is only one, true Church, and the Anglican/Episcopalian one isn't the one.
I'd say this the most likely scenario.
But the truly wild card in these primatial gatherings is the growing preeminence of Nigerian Primate Peter Akinola. He ... poses the single biggest threat to any future cohesion of the Anglican Communion.
I'm not familiar with the Anglicans' church structure. What's to prevent this body from proclaiming an official position and offering to extend communion to any parish which accepts it?
Very interesting article. I've been following this for awhile now, particularly the legal and theological aspects.
I pray that the Primates will make the right decision, but I am also hoping that the traditionalist will break away formally. If only an informal split occurs, I fear that the mass exodus of the faithful will continue. Leave the revisionists to their sins and cast them out from among you.
While I am not Anglican, my grandfather's family was for generations upon generations and I have a traditional affection for the Anglican communion and long to see it repent from the current heresies plaguing it.
Think of it: Elizabeth Windsor may soon end up with the dubious honor of having reigned over not only the dissolution of the British Empire but also the collapse of the Anglican Communion.
The problem with A.C. is that, if you accept it's arguments, then EVERY Roman Catholic ordination since Vatican II is equally invalid. Indeed schismatics have made precisely this point (see HERE) So you can accept Roman and Anglican orders as both equally valid or equally invalid, take your pick.
For a neutral third party look at the matter I give you the Oecumenical Patriarch's Encyclical on Anglican Orders:
from the Oecumenical Patriarch to the Presidents of the Particular Eastern Orthodox Churches, 1922
[The Holy Synod has studied the report of the Committee and notes:]
1. That the ordination of Matthew Parker as Archbishop of Canterbury by four bishops is a fact established by history.
2. That in this and subsequent ordinations there are found in their fullness those orthodox and indispensable, visible and sensible elements of valid episcopal ordination - viz. the laying on of hands, the Epiclesis of the All-Holy Spirit and also the purpose to transmit the charisma of the Episcopal ministry.
3. That the orthodox theologians who have scientifically examined the question have almost unanimously come to the same conclusions and have declared themselves as accepting the validity of Anglican Orders.
4. That the practice in the Church affords no indication that the Orthodox Church has ever officially treated the validity of Anglican Orders as in doubt, in such a way as would point to the re-ordination of the Anglican clergy as required in the case of the union of the two Churches