From the American Anglican Council Weekly Update:
The Chaplain's Corner
By The Rev. Canon Phil Ashey, J.D.
Chief Operating and Development Officer, American Anglican Council
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Dear Friends in Christ,
Two weeks ago I wrote "Whither the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion?," posing a number of questions about the lack of transparency, hypocrisy and overreaching by this new ersatz "Instrument of Unity."
Since then, and up to and including the time the Standing Committee (SCAC) met, The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada continued to breach the Windsor moratoria. Please note: the following are not allegations or opinions, they are documented actions by TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada:
- July 10, 2010: Reported in the Montreal Anglican that Bishop Barry Clarke of Montreal has approved a liturgy for same-sex blessings in his diocese
- July 16, 2010: The Episcopal Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley CA, announced it has received a $400,000 grant to help the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music gather and develop rites for blessing same-sex couples. The grant is 16 times the $25,000 approved by General Convention 2009 for developing such rites.
- July 18, 2010: Bishop Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire preached at Foundry United Methodist church in Washington, DC, and urged them to "get in trouble" by conducting same-sex marriages to show "God's limitless, boundless and unimaginable love."
- July 20, 2010: Bishop James Mathes of the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego publicly authorized clergy in the diocese to bless same-gender relationships in churches within the diocese.
- July 29, 2010: Bishop Eugene Taylor of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland announced that as of July 2010 the diocese will borrow "the theological and liturgical resources" put together by the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio so that Maryland clergy can begin offering "generous pastoral responses" in conformity with Resolution C056 of General Convention 2009 to gay and lesbian couples with "The Blessing of a Sacred Union."
And how did the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion respond to these ongoing and repeated violations of the moratorium on same-sex blessings by TEC? Did they remove TEC from the SCAC as the majority leadership of the Anglican Communion demanded from the 4th Global South Encounter in Singapore in April, and reiterated by a proposal from Dato' Stanley Isaacs of Southeast Asia, for these repeated and ongoing violations of the moratoria on same-sex blessings, and more?
Quite the contrary. In the words of their July 26 daily bulletin from the Anglican Communion office: "[the removal of TEC and its representatives on the SCAC] would inhibit dialogue and ... would therefore be unhelpful." Both the Presiding Bishop of TEC, the chief consecrator of the Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, and Bishop Ian Douglas, who continues to authorize same-sex blessings in the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut, were seated as full participating members of the SCAC despite their ongoing violations of two of the three Communion moratoria.
Are we surprised? Of course not. As the Rev. Dr. Stephen Noll and others have observed, we have only 7% of the SCAC membership representing the 70% percent of the world's active Anglicans living in the Global South provinces and 93% of the SCAC representing the remaining 30% of Anglicans located in the Western provinces of the US, England and their close allies, such as South Africa. The discrepancy is most glaring in the fact that over half of the members hail from either the US (2), England (2), Wales (1), Australia (1), New Zealand (1) and South Africa (1), which are accounted by most as sharing the theologically revisionist agenda of TEC.
According to its newly adopted articles, the "Standing Committee" is supposed "to have regard to the desirability of achieving so far as practicable regional diversity and a balance of representation between clergy and laity and between the genders." The listing by geography shows that none of the major African provinces of the Communion (Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda), with more than 60% of its total members, is even represented on the Committee. It follows that the current make-up of the SCAC will have the effect of effectuating the will of a minority within the Communion.... namely, TEC and its adherents.
As "The Anglican Curmudgeon" observed in his blog on July 24:
"[TEC] is all for majority rule, except in two areas: in those of its dioceses which (by majority vote) have chosen to withdraw, on account of its apostasy, and in the case of the majority of the provinces of the Anglican Communion, which for the same reason disagree with its current course. In the process of taking over the reins of the ACC, [TEC] is assuring itself that it will need the votes only of those provinces in the Communion which either agree with its apostasy, or which believe themselves financially dependent upon it for survival. Those provinces, however, are a minority within the Communion as a whole."
Finally, to add insult to injury, the SCAC concluded its meeting by promoting the Continuing Indaba Project to "encourage mutual sharing on the experience of homosexual persons." The American Anglican Council has written an in-depth expose of this "Indaba Process" regarding both the TEC and theologically revisionist sources of its funding, and the people committed to alternate expressions of sexuality far outside any Biblical norms of decency that have been involved in the development of the processes (and who will presumably have a hand in monitoring the process according to the terms of the grant).
The SCAC concurred in the characterization of "Indaba" as an outgrowth of the Listening Process commended by Lambeth Resolution 1.10 (1998). But that is only a part of Resolution 1.10. By seating PB Schori and Bishop Douglas of TEC the SCAC brushed aside the whole point of Lambeth Resolution 1.10 - namely, an overwhelming acknowledgement by the then bishops of the Anglican Communion that the Bible affirms sexual relationships only between a man and a woman in a lifelong marriage, and that the Anglican Communion can neither consecrate persons living in same-gender relationships nor bless same-sex unions - period.
The French sociologist Emile Durkheim examined the effects of moving the moral boundary markers in traditional societies. If those boundaries are moved, even by a tiny minority of the group, and there is no move by the majority to effectively move the markers back, the new moral boundaries actually become the real values of the entire group, even though the majority continues to maintain the old boundaries. The Anglican Communion has essentially allowed TEC to move the moral markers with impunity so that Lambeth 1.10 no longer represents the normative moral values of the Anglican Communion despite its being set forth as the "mind of the Communion." As the Rev. Canon Gary L'Hommedieu observed in applying Durkheim's findings to the results of the SCAC meeting, "In overruling the known moral position of the majority, the ACC and the SCAC embody the worst of colonialism, 'redrawing the spiritual maps of distant 'dark' continents according to the needs of those sitting at the table.'" (see Virtue Online's story)
The writing is on the wall for all to see. It has been for some time - only those in denial can ignore it. It is time for the GAFCON Primates Council and other Global South leaders of the Anglican Communion to come together and develop credible structures for good and Godly governance of the Anglican Communion - structures that will affirm the doctrine, discipline and worship of classical, Biblical, orthodox Anglicanism. We need credible leadership and governance structures in our Anglican Communion that are undeterred by false gospels and are instead committed to focusing Anglicans at all levels to fulfill the Great Commission as given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ through evangelism, discipleship and mission. We need such credible leadership and governance structures so that people everywhere may be transformed by the love of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit - rather than being led astray by the current power structures of the Anglican Communion into a false gospel that plunges them further and further into spiritual chaos and moral bondage.
The American Anglican Council is fully engaged in the work of supporting and equipping credible leadership and governance structures within the Anglican Communion. If you believe in this work, please join us with your prayers and financial support!
Yours in Christ,
Phil+
The message above is also on the AAC's website
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