LAODICEANS

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

Have you ever felt the urge to slam somebody against a wall, slap him in the face as hard as you can and scream, “For the love of God, WAKE THE HELL UP!!“ Spend any time watching Anglicans and that feeling will occur to you all the time:

An archbishop in the Church of Nigeria has urged Primates from the Global South not to boycott the Primates’ Meeting in Dublin in January.

Writing in the Church Times today, the Archbishop of Kaduna, Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, who was a member of the Lambeth Commission which produced the Windsor report, pleads with the Primates “not . . . to give room for the Communion to break up, during the time God has given [them] the privilege to represent [their] various provinces”.

“An archbishop may hold a strong position on a particular theological debate, but that should not be a reason to silence those of his colleagues with an alternative opinion as representatives of their dioceses,” Dr Idowu-Fearon writes.

Sigh.

Speaking on Friday, he said that his intervention was not prompted by pressure from any individual, “but by my conviction to work for the unity of this communion”.

He said that he feared that some of the Primates had “not actually consulted properly” before announcing their intention to boycott the meeting. There was “a huge desire” among “ordinary members” of the Church of Nigeria for the Communion to stay together, he said.

Doubtful.

In his article, Dr Idowu-Fearon writes: “History reminds us that all the 22 Councils of the Christian Church contained both those in favour and those against the subjects under discussion, and that the discussions were not always eirenic.”

True. But at least those gentlemen were more-or-less in agreement on the basics. They were not representatives of two different and mutually-exclusive religions.

Archbishop? How can I put this? The argument is over. It is finished. It is done. It is dead. It is bereft of life. It has bought the farm. It has checked out. It is deceased. It is done for. It has expired. It is extinct. It has gone to meet its maker. It has croaked. It has breathed its last. It’s six feet under. It has gone to its reward. It is inanimate. It is lifeless. It is no more. Worms are snacking on it. It’s fertilzer. It’s yesterday’s news. It has shuffled off this mortal coil. It is dirt-napping. It no longer exists on this plane of reality. It has been offed. It has been put out of its misery. It has passed away. It closed out of town. It has perished. It’s pushing up daisies. It’s resting in peace.

Any of this sinking in, Archbishop?

“An archbishop may hold a strong position on a particular theological debate, but that should not be a reason to silence those of his colleagues with an alternative opinion as representatives of their dioceses?” Really?

What if one primate affirms the necessity of what Jesus accomplished on the Cross but another primate denies it? What if one primate declares homosexual activity to be sinful while another primate happily consecrates homosexual bishops?

Should all these primates remain in the same club? I would think that a person of integrity might have a serious problem with that.

Archbishop, you and I both know that Mrs. Schori isn’t a Christian in any meaningful sense of that term. So for Christian primates to pretend that she is merely to keep the Anglican Communion going a little while longer just so you can keep going to important international Anglican meetings is about as dishonest an idea as I can think of.

The Anglican Communion is only 142 years old. It no longer serves to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is time to put away childish things. Let it die.