I find it difficult to understand the Communion Partners and the Anglican Communion Institute's insistence on the imperative of staying within pecusa as pecusa continues to distance herself from the Anglican Communion. Given the unilateralism that demonstrates pecusa has no interest in unity or catholicity and the innovations that demonstrate that pecusa has no interest in holiness or apostolicity, what claim can pecusa make to being in a real sense a church? The spiritual disintegration that Dr. Radner cites, is it not at the level to which pecusa is no longer recognizable as a church? In a previous back and forth with Dr. Radner I mentioned Athanasius and Dr. Radner countered with an obscure saint whose name I can't remember at this point. This time around I cite Hilary of Poitiers, another fourth century bishop who, like Athanasius, fought the Arian heresy of his day.
As the "Life and Writings of St. Hilary of Poitiers" in Volume IX of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers explains, "It was, in fact, the custom of the West to take the orthodoxy of its bishops for granted, and an external impulse was necessary before they could be overthrown" (p. ix). That external impulse in the fourth century was the Arian heresy.
In our day we cannot take for granted that Anglican bishops are orthodox and it takes an extremely strong external impulse to overthrow them (remember Bishop Bennison of Pennsylvania?). Like Athanasius was forced into exile by the Arians, Hilary was forced into exile by the emperor Constantius. As the biographical notes indicate
the fundamental difference of the Arian from the Catholic position was not
generally recognised. Arian practice and Arian practical teaching was
indistinguishable from Catholic; and unless ultimate principles were
questioned, Catholic clergy might work, and the multitudes of Catholic
laity might live and die, without knowing that their bishop's creed
was different than their own. (p. xi)
How similar to today! There are a good number of bishops in pecusa who profess to be orthodox and in their practice and practical teaching they may seem orthodox. But if these same bishops are asked to uphold the consensual view of Christian marriage they cannot do so. They profess a false gospel at this point and the decreasing multitudes of pecusa are none the wiser because they have been taught a false gospel for so long that they can't distinguish the false from the true.
As in Hilary's day, when the Arians "were in possession of many of the great places of the Church," so the pseudo-orthodox hold similar positions today. The Presiding Bishop can debate a retired evangelical bishop and the two can smile at the end of it and say there isn't much difference between them.
The biographer remarks that the Arians of Hilary's day could not have all been dishonest. "It seemed incredible that they could be sincerely at home in the Church, and intolerable that they should have the power of deceiving the people and persecuting true believers" (ibid.). Yet this is exactly what happens in our day.
Hilary acted to persuade other bishops to withdraw communion from Arian bishops. It was "an importation of the methods of Eastern controversy into the peaceful West" (p. xii). Except that the peace in the West was a false peace between a false gospel and the truth. This is where pecusa is with the Communion Partners and their ilk in communion with the false teachers of pecusa. Even one as esteemed as the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner admits that pecusa has no future, but still pecusa conservatives hang on (as Dr. Radner would have them do). What Hilary taught in his First Epistle to Constantius is that communion with Arians is "a participation in their guilt, a fatal sin" (p. xiii).
Athanasius and Hilary have left pecusa, but the Communion Partners hold on even as the Anglican Covenant moves forward to sideline pecusa. These are strange times and if history is our guide Athanasius and Hilary will prevail.
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