Nashotah House attempts to explain itself:
The term “Pax Nashotah” has been used for the last several years to describe life at Nashotah House. Life that involves people of multiple Anglican jurisdictions sharing the chapel, refectory, classrooms, and community. The current Dean-President, the Rt. Rev’d Edward L. Salmon, Jr. has said, “The House is a place – perhaps the only place – in the Anglican Communion where ecclesial affiliation has remained secondary to our primary mission of forming faithful priests and lay leaders for service on the modern frontier.” The announcement – made by roundabout means – of an invitation to the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church to come visit, preach, and experience the “Pax Nashotah” seems now to call this peace into question. Like all peace, it comes at a price. There are many who look at our active practice of reconciliation and see us “selling out” to one faction or another. It is sad and hurtful to hear, but we know that many before us – our Lord, the saints, and founders of the House – went through the same. We simply pray to be as faithful to Christ and His teaching as were our forebears, so that we may be agents of reconciliation in a broken world and to a broken Church.
Robert Munday, a former Dean of the place, has shed his illusions. The options for any remaining traditionalists in the Episcopal Organization, he says, are basically gone.
1. There is no movement today in the Episcopal Church capable of sustaining orthodox Christians or fostering the growth of orthodox congregations.
2. In the absence of any movement designed to promote repentance, renewal, resurgence, and revival among orthodox Christians in the Episcopal Church, those Christians who remain in TEC are fighting a holding action and will ultimately lose through attrition.
Which leads to a third conclusion (which I say with great sadness):
3. You can have orthodoxy or you can have the Episcopal Church, but you can’t have both.
“Wait,” some will say, “I am still in the Episcopal Church and I am orthodox, so I have both.” If that is true, then you are part of the remnant that is involved in fighting a holding action (whether you realize it or not). So while your present situation may be safe for the moment, apart from divine intervention, the faith you hold, and the parish or diocese to which you belong (if they are still orthodox) will be lost in the next generation, if not in your lifetime.
Two things. How is it possible to “reconcile” with someone who hates and despises everything you claim that you stand for and wishes that you didn’t exist? At this stage, it would be more reasonable to expect Czechoslovakia, Holland, Beligium and Luxembourg to “reconcile” with 1939 Germany than to expect the Episcopal Organization to retreat from its heresies any time soon.
Absent a genuine move of the Holy Spirit, of course.
The other thing is this: I don’t know how many traditionalist Episcopalians remain in TEO but you’re running out of excuses and you’re running out of them fast.
The term “Pax Nashotah” has been used for the last several years to describe life at Nashotah House. Life that involves people of multiple Anglican jurisdictions sharing the chapel, refectory, classrooms, and community. The current Dean-President, the Rt. Rev’d Edward L. Salmon, Jr. has said, “The House is a place – perhaps the only place – in the Anglican Communion where ecclesial affiliation has remained secondary to our primary mission of forming faithful priests and lay leaders for service on the modern frontier.” The announcement – made by roundabout means – of an invitation to the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church to come visit, preach, and experience the “Pax Nashotah” seems now to call this peace into question. Like all peace, it comes at a price. There are many who look at our active practice of reconciliation and see us “selling out” to one faction or another. It is sad and hurtful to hear, but we know that many before us – our Lord, the saints, and founders of the House – went through the same. We simply pray to be as faithful to Christ and His teaching as were our forebears, so that we may be agents of reconciliation in a broken world and to a broken Church.
Robert Munday, a former Dean of the place, has shed his illusions. The options for any remaining traditionalists in the Episcopal Organization, he says, are basically gone.
1. There is no movement today in the Episcopal Church capable of sustaining orthodox Christians or fostering the growth of orthodox congregations.
2. In the absence of any movement designed to promote repentance, renewal, resurgence, and revival among orthodox Christians in the Episcopal Church, those Christians who remain in TEC are fighting a holding action and will ultimately lose through attrition.
Which leads to a third conclusion (which I say with great sadness):
3. You can have orthodoxy or you can have the Episcopal Church, but you can’t have both.
“Wait,” some will say, “I am still in the Episcopal Church and I am orthodox, so I have both.” If that is true, then you are part of the remnant that is involved in fighting a holding action (whether you realize it or not). So while your present situation may be safe for the moment, apart from divine intervention, the faith you hold, and the parish or diocese to which you belong (if they are still orthodox) will be lost in the next generation, if not in your lifetime.
Two things. How is it possible to “reconcile” with someone who hates and despises everything you claim that you stand for and wishes that you didn’t exist? At this stage, it would be more reasonable to expect Czechoslovakia, Holland, Beligium and Luxembourg to “reconcile” with 1939 Germany than to expect the Episcopal Organization to retreat from its heresies any time soon.
Absent a genuine move of the Holy Spirit, of course.
The other thing is this: I don’t know how many traditionalist Episcopalians remain in TEO but you’re running out of excuses and you’re running out of them fast.
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