tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-175526192024-03-13T21:08:20.295-07:00DCNYNews and opinion about the Anglican Church in North America and worldwide with items of interest about Christian faith and practice.Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.comBlogger15529125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-57745842024843164422018-10-04T11:17:00.000-07:002018-10-04T11:30:56.332-07:00Diocese of Central NY Continues Slide Into OblivionIn 2002, the Diocese of Central New York had 100 parishes and an average Sunday attendance of 6,734. In 2017, the DCNY had 81 parishes with an average Sunday attendance of 3,609. I believe that I can explain why this has happened.<br />
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When I was rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Vestal, one of our local rectors was called to become the dean of the Cathedral in Syracuse. After roughly a year, he requested to enter the search process for his former parish and was called a second time to be rector there.<br />
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He came back to our local clergy group and reported that there were only 19 full-time priest positions in the diocese at that time. Today, I wonder how many there are. A number of churches have been yoked with other churches to provide one priest with a livable stipend. As you can see from the numbers above, 19 churches have closed their doors.<br />
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Meanwhile, three churches that left the DCNY after an openly gay and divorced man was consecrated Bishop of New Hampshire continue to offer orthodox Anglican worship and ministry. A fourth Anglican church was planted in Syracuse and it is doing splendidly.<br />
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We give thanks for St. Andrew's Church, my parish in Endicott, Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton, St. Andrew's Church in Syracuse, and Church of the Holy Trinity in Syracuse. These four churches did not bow the knee to the neo-paganism that has swept across the Episcopal Church. These four churches continue to offer authentic orthodox Anglican worship and ministry to our needy world. Thanks be to God for their faithfulness!<br />
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Meanwhile, the DCNY continues its slide into oblivion, embracing, teaching and practicing a false gospel. Along with other liberal mainline denominations, the numbers continue downward for the Episcopal Church.<br />
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The only way upward is to repent of past and present sins and return to obedience to Jesus Christ as His ways have been revealed in His Holy Word. This is something that I would never expect the Episcopal Church to do. But it is their only hope.<br />
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<br />Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-4322716127332507872018-04-28T04:39:00.001-07:002018-04-28T04:40:48.008-07:00Leading Episcopal Trad Goes To Rome<div style="border: 0px; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 2.25em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.06em; margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; padding: 0px;">
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">This surprised me. I haven't kept up with the Stand Firm in Faith website, nor have I been a fan of Stand Firm for many years after some dust-ups with Greg and Sarah from the website. I was banned from commenting on SFIF after I said on the website that Greg would never permit the things Greg said about David Virtue to be said about him. Now, David Virtue in still standing and SFIF is pretty much gone, if not totally gone. My browser won't let me go to Stand Firm, saying its not safe to do so.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">I've found SFIF to be a place all too often run a muck with emotions. All too often SFIF was heavy into speculation and short on facts.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f25f3e; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">By </span></span><span class="author vcard" style="background-color: white; color: #f25f3e; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-transform: uppercase;"><a class="url fn n" href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/author/rod-dreher" style="color: #f25f3e; text-decoration-line: none;" title="View all posts by Rod Dreher">ROD DREHER</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #f25f3e; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> • </span><span class="entry-date" style="background-color: white; color: #f25f3e; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/leading-episcopal-trad-goes-to-rome/" rel="bookmark" style="background-color: white; color: #f25f3e; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="12:36 am">May 29, 2014, 12:36 AM</a></span><br />
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It’s hardly news when conservative Episcopalians become Roman Catholics. But prominent conservative Episcopal lay leader <a href="http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/31335" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(161, 174, 215); color: #27338d; text-decoration-line: none;">Greg Griffith’s embrace of Catholicism</a>is notable. Here’s a passage from an essay Griffith wrote announcing his conversion:</div>
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So for me, a move to Rome is not about a revolution in my theology, and certainly not about a rejection of Anglicanism. It is about a very painful choice between two dilemmas:</div>
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On the one hand there is Anglicanism, an expression of faith that in the abstract – its doctrines and theology – is as nearly perfect as I believe man has ever succeeded in achieving, but which in practice has unraveled into a chaotic mess. There is of course the heresy and false teaching that infects all but a handful of Episcopal parishes in this diocese – including its bishop, its cathedral, its dean, almost all of its clergy, and a distressing number of the few laypeople who have made the effort to pay attention and learn what’s happening – but the promise of the orthodox Anglican movement outside of The Episcopal Church never materialized either. Populated as that movement is by many good people, it has the institutional feeling of something held together by duct tape and baling wire. It is beset by infighting and consecration fever, and in several of its highest leadership positions are people of atrocious judgement and character.</div>
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On the other hand there is Roman Catholicism, some of whose doctrines give me serious pause, but which in practice has shown itself to be steadfast in its opposition to the caprices of the world. Even the horrific pedophile priest scandal forces one to concede that Pope Benedict’s purging of the ranks, while not complete, was at the very least spirited, and based on a firm rejection of the “everything is good” sexual sickness that’s all but killed the Episcopal Church.</div>
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I hope he finds what he’s looking for in the Catholic Church, but I would caution him not to think he has escaped all of the problems that drove him out of TEC. Friends and acquaintances in the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles, for example, could open Griffith’s eyes about a lot of things in American Catholicism. It sounds like he’s found a great Catholic parish with strong pastoral leadership, but I assure him this is not universal among Romans.</div>
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I would say to him if he were coming into Orthodoxy that he had better not believe that he’s escaped problems; Orthodoxy’s problems tend to be different from the problems faced by Western Christian churches, but we sure have problems too. Don’t misread me: overall, I believe that Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are in vastly better shape than mainline Protestant churches in terms of small-o orthodox Christianity. I just feel the need to express caution in these matters. All churches are made up of people.</div>
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From reading the essay, it doesn’t seem that Greg Griffith has decided that Catholicism is <em>true</em>, exactly, but that it’s a safe place in which to practice Christianity and to raise kids in the faith. There was a time in my life when I would have said no, you had better accept that it’s true, or stay out. Now, I understand exactly where he’s coming from — my embrace of Orthodoxy was kind of on the same basis at first — and I wouldn’t say he’s wrong to have made the jump.</div>
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Still, it was strange to read about Griffith and his wife looking at youth programs for their daughter as they were figuring out which church to leave TEC for. On second thought, though, I understood this a lot better now than I would have 10, 15 years ago, as a Catholic whose experience of the faith was primarily intellectual. Griffith, who has been a prominent activist and writer on Episcopal issues for a decade or so, said in his essay that his 12-year-old daughter has only ever known a relationship to her church in which her father has been battling it in a high-profile way. Maybe Griffith and his wife thought something along the lines I did in 2005, when I was so burned out from fighting over the abuse scandal and all the rest in the Catholic Church, and sick and tired of having to teach my oldest child (one was still a baby, and the other was not yet born) to mistrust his church before he had even learned to trust it. I remember well driving home from mass one Sunday morning, with my son in the backseat asking about Father’s sermon, and me having to tell him that that’s not what the Church teaches, and in fact a lot of times what you’ll hear from the pulpit is not what the Church teaches. I was exhausted by anger over the whole mess — an anger that was massively exacerbated by being on the front lines reading, talking to folks in the trenches, and writing critically. I bet Greg Griffith knows what I’m talking about.</div>
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I realized one day that I was a terrible icon of Christ to my children, in this state. I was showing them that being a faithful Christian was a matter of living in a state of anger, anxiety, and fear for their souls, growing up in this church in which orthodoxy didn’t seem to mean a lot. I thought about what kind of relationship with Christ they would have if we stayed in place. Yes, I mean in terms of the teaching they would receive, but I mean just as much the example they would get from their father, who had long since lost his joy in the faith, and had passed the point of being able to get it back.</div>
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We started attending an Orthodox parish, not intending to become Orthodox, but simply so we could worship at a parish that had the Real Presence, without being so sad and mad and tied up into a thousand knots. Eventually, we knew we weren’t going back. The liturgy was reverent and beautiful, everybody appeared to believe what the Church taught, and it seemed that this was a good place in which to raise children. By then, I really had lost my Catholic faith. The point I wish to make here is that the practical matter of where to raise your children so that they hold on to Christianity <em>in any small-o orthodox form</em> played a much bigger role in my own story than I would have figured.</div>
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Pay attention: <strong>I don’t say that to start a theological fight in the comboxes</strong>. If you want to fight about this, don’t bother posting, because I’m not going to approve it. I’d like to discuss it, though, and don’t hesitate to be critical, as long as you’re respectful. Mostly I’d like to hear from you readers, of whatever wing of whatever church, about how your thoughts about your children’s spiritual and religious lives and futures affects the way you think about your church, and the prospect of leaving it, or why you stay put. I’ve known a fair number of people over the course of my life who have said, one way or another, “I hate what they’re doing in my church, but by God, they’re not going to drive me out!” That can be noble and brave, but at some point, if you cannot connect with God there, and are losing Him, shouldn’t you consider your options?</div>
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I think Griffiths will find that he no longer has authority to speak in a leadership role to conservative Anglicans. He says he’s going to keep blogging at the Episcopal blog Stand Firm, though as a Catholic. But how can you blog for something called Stand Firm, the title of which encourages Episcopalians to stiffen their spines, when you did not stand firm, but rather jumped ship? When I confided to a fellow conservative Catholic friend that I was thinking of leaving the Catholic Church for Orthodoxy, he cautioned that I would lose all influence in the battle to clean up the Church’s Augean stables. I knew he was right, but at the rate I was burning out, I didn’t care about cleaning out the stables; I needed to save my soul.</div>
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I still write about Catholicism, of course, as I write about most forms of Christianity. Religion is what I’m most interested in, and besides, this is a news and opinion blog, not an advocacy blog. I don’t know him, but if I were Greg Griffith, I would leave Stand Firm, and focus instead on resting and repairing the damage of a decade of intense ecclesial combat. Continuing to fight the Anglican wars after one has left for Rome not only makes Griffith a less potent combatant, it also keeps him from fully re-orienting himself in his new church. Continuing to fight battles after the real battle — the one for your own soul, and your own future — has been concluded is a waste of time and energy that ought to be focused on learning how to the the best member of your new church that you can be. You don’t want to be the guy who has just married his second wife, but who spends a lot of time thinking and talking about the awful first wife he divorced.</div>
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Posted in <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher-categories/christianity/" rel="tag" style="color: #777777;">Christianity</a>. Tagged <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher-tags/catholic/" rel="tag" style="color: #777777;">Catholic</a>, <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher-tags/episcopalian/" rel="tag" style="color: #777777;">Episcopalian</a>, <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher-tags/greg-griffith/" rel="tag" style="color: #777777;">Greg Griffith</a>, <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher-tags/stand-firm/" rel="tag" style="color: #777777;">Stand Firm</a>.</div>
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Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-56239739559637945732018-01-12T10:30:00.002-08:002018-01-12T10:41:21.261-08:00Can Evangelicalism Survive Donald Trump and Roy Moore?<br />
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This was originally published in the New Yorker. ed.<br />
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December 19, 2017</div>
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“Evangelical” used to denote people who claimed the high moral ground; now, in popular usage, the word is nearly synonymous with “hypocrite.”</div>
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For <span data-page="page_1" data-reactid="150" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: geometricPrecision;"></span>centuries, renewal movements have emerged within Christianity and taken on different forms and names. Often, they have invoked the word “evangelical.” Followers of Martin Luther, who emphasized the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, described themselves in this way. The Cambridge clergyman Charles Simeon, who led the Low Church renewal movement within the Church of England, adopted the label. The trans-Atlantic eighteenth-century awakenings and revivals led by the Wesleys were also often called “evangelical.” In the nineteen-forties and fifties, Billy Graham and others promoted the word to describe themselves and the religious space they were seeking to create between the cultural withdrawal espoused by the fundamentalist movement, on the one hand, and mainline Protestantism’s departures from historic Christian doctrine, on the other. In each of these phases, the term has had a somewhat different meaning, and yet it keeps surfacing because it has described a set of basic historic beliefs and impulses.</div>
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When I became a Christian in college, in the early nineteen-seventies, the word “evangelical” still meant an alternative to the fortress mentality of fundamentalism. Shortly thereafter, I went to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, to prepare for the Presbyterian ministry. It was one of the many institutions that Graham, Harold Ockenga, and J. Howard Pew, and other neo-evangelicals, as they were sometimes called, established. In those years, there was such great energy in the movement that, by the mid-nineteen-nineties, it had eclipsed mainline Protestantism as the dominant branch of the Christian church in the U.S. When I moved to Manhattan to start a new church, in 1989, most people I met found the church and its ministry to be a curiosity in secular New York but not a threat. And, if they heard the word “evangelical” around the congregation, a name we seldom used, they usually asked what it meant.</div>
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Today, while the name is no longer unfamiliar in my city, its meaning has changed drastically. The conservative leaders who have come to be most identified with the movement have largely driven this redefinition. But political pollsters have also helped, as they have sought to highlight a crucial voting bloc. When they survey people, there is no discussion of any theological beliefs, or other criteria. The great majority of them simply ask people, “Would you describe yourself as a born-again or evangelical Christian?” And those who answer ‘yes’ are counted. More than eighty per cent of such people voted for Donald Trump, and, last week, a similar percentage cast their ballots for Roy Moore, in <a class="ArticleBody__link___1FS03" data-reactid="156" href="https://www.newyorker.com/current/alabama-senate-race-roy-moore-doug-jones" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-attachment: initial, initial, initial; background-clip: initial, initial, initial; background-image: linear-gradient(rgb(255, 255, 255), rgb(255, 255, 255)), linear-gradient(rgb(255, 255, 255), rgb(255, 255, 255)), linear-gradient(rgb(0, 0, 0), rgb(0, 0, 0)); background-origin: initial, initial, initial; background-position: 0px 87%, 100% 87%, 0px 92%; background-repeat: no-repeat, no-repeat, repeat-x; background-size: 0.05em 1px, 0.05em 1px, 1px 1px; box-sizing: inherit; margin-left: 1px; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; text-rendering: geometricPrecision; text-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 0px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -3px 0px; z-index: 0;">the Alabama Senate race</a>. So, in common parlance, evangelicals have become people with two qualities: they are both self-professed Christians and doggedly conservative politically.</div>
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The fury and incredulity of many in the larger population at this constituency has mounted. People who once called themselves the “Moral Majority” are now seemingly willing to vote for anyone, however immoral, who supports their political positions. The disgust has come to include people within the movement itself. Earlier this month, Peter Wehner, an Op-Ed writer for the <em data-reactid="161" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Times</em> who served in the last three Republican Administrations, wrote a <a class="ArticleBody__link___1FS03" data-reactid="164" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/09/opinion/sunday/wehner-evangelical-republicans.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fpeter-wehner&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collecti" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-attachment: initial, initial, initial; background-clip: initial, initial, initial; background-image: linear-gradient(rgb(255, 255, 255), rgb(255, 255, 255)), linear-gradient(rgb(255, 255, 255), rgb(255, 255, 255)), linear-gradient(rgb(0, 0, 0), rgb(0, 0, 0)); background-origin: initial, initial, initial; background-position: 0px 87%, 100% 87%, 0px 92%; background-repeat: no-repeat, no-repeat, repeat-x; background-size: 0.05em 1px, 0.05em 1px, 1px 1px; box-sizing: inherit; margin-left: 1px; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; text-rendering: geometricPrecision; text-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 0px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -3px 0px; z-index: 0;" target="_blank">widely circulated piece</a> entitled “Why I Can No Longer Call Myself an Evangelical Republican.” Many younger believers and Christians of color, who had previously identified with evangelicalism, have also declared their abandonment of the label. “Evangelical” used to denote people who claimed the high moral ground; now, in popular usage, the word is nearly synonymous with “hypocrite.” When I used the word to describe myself in the nineteen-seventies, it meant I was not a fundamentalist. If I use the name today, however, it means to hearers that I <em data-reactid="167" style="box-sizing: inherit;">am.</em></div>
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Understanding the religious landscape, however, requires discerning differences between the smaller, let’s call it “big-E Evangelicalism,” which gets much media attention, and a much larger, little-e evangelicalism, which does not. The larger, lower-case evangelicalism is defined not by a political party, whether conservative, liberal, or populist, but by theological beliefs. This non-political definition of evangelicalism has been presented in many places. The most well known is by the historian David Bebbington, whose “Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s” has become standard. He distinguishes evangelicals from other religions and Christians by a core set of beliefs. Evangelicals have generally believed in the authority of the whole Bible, in contrast to mainline Protestants, who regard many parts as obsolete, according to Bebbington. They also see it as the ultimate authority, unlike Catholics, who make church tradition equal to it. In addition, the ancient creedal formulations of the church, such as the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, as well as others, are taken at face value, without reservation. And, again, unlike many in mainline Protestantism, evangelicals believe that Jesus truly did exist as the divine Son before he was born, that he actually was born of a virgin, and that he really was raised bodily from the dead.</div>
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Under Bebbington’s formulation, another defining evangelical quality is the belief in the necessity of conversion, the conviction that everyone needs a profound, life-changing encounter with God. This conversion, however, comes not merely through church attendance or general morality, but only through faith in Christ’s sacrificial death for sin. A lyric from Charles Wesley’s famous hymn captures the evangelical experience of conversion through saving faith in Christ alone: “My chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose, went forth, and followed thee.” Finally, contemporary evangelicals feel bound by<span data-page="page_final" data-reactid="173" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: geometricPrecision;"></span> both desire and duty to share their faith with others in both word and deeds of service. In this, they seek to resemble, as well as to obey, their Lord, Jesus, who is described as mighty in word and deed.</div>
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Do the self-identified white “big-E Evangelicals” of the pollsters hold to these beliefs? <a class="ArticleBody__link___1FS03" data-reactid="177" href="http://lifewayresearch.com/2017/12/06/many-evangelicals-dont-hold-evangelical-beliefs/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-attachment: initial, initial, initial; background-clip: initial, initial, initial; background-image: linear-gradient(rgb(255, 255, 255), rgb(255, 255, 255)), linear-gradient(rgb(255, 255, 255), rgb(255, 255, 255)), linear-gradient(rgb(0, 0, 0), rgb(0, 0, 0)); background-origin: initial, initial, initial; background-position: 0px 87%, 100% 87%, 0px 92%; background-repeat: no-repeat, no-repeat, repeat-x; background-size: 0.05em 1px, 0.05em 1px, 1px 1px; box-sizing: inherit; margin-left: 1px; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; text-rendering: geometricPrecision; text-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 0px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -3px 0px; z-index: 0;" target="_blank">Recent studies indicate</a> that many do not. In many parts of the country, Evangelicalism serves as the civil or folk religion accepted by default as part of one’s social and political identity. So, in many cases, it means that the political is more defining than theological beliefs, which has not been the case historically. And, because of the enormous amount of attention the media pays to the Evangelical vote, the term now has a decisively political meaning in popular usage.</div>
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Yet there exists a far larger evangelicalism, both here and around the world, which is not politically aligned. In the U.S., there are millions of evangelicals spread throughout mainline Protestant congregations, as well as in more theologically conservative denominations like the Assemblies of God, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. But, most significantly, the vast majority of the fast-growing Protestant churches in Asia, Latin America, and Africa all share these same beliefs. And in the U.S., while white Evangelicalism is aging and declining, evangelicalism over all is not.</div>
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The enormous energy of the churches in the global South and East has begun to spill over into the cities of North America, where a new, multiethnic evangelicalism is growing steadily. Non-Western missionaries have started thousands of new urban churches there since the nineteen-seventies. Here in New York City, even within Manhattan, I have seen scores of churches begun over the last fifteen years that are fully evangelical by our definition, only a minority of which are white, and which are not aligned with any political party.</div>
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In my view, these churches tend to be much more committed to racial justice and care for the poor than is commonly seen in white Evangelicalism. In this way, they might be called liberal. On the other hand, these multicultural churches remain avowedly conservative on issues like sex outside of marriage. They look, to most eyes, like a strange mixture of liberal and conservative viewpoints, although they themselves see a strong inner consistency between these views. They resist the contemporary ethical package deals that today’s progressivism and conservatism seek to impose on adherents, insisting that true believers must toe the line on every one of a host of issues. But these younger evangelical churches simply won’t play by those rules.</div>
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In a book published earlier this year, “In Search of Ancient Roots: The Christian Past and the Evangelical Identity Crisis,” the historian Kenneth J. Stewart makes the case that the evangelical impulse in Christianity has been with us for centuries, taking on many different forms and bearing many different names, while maintaining substantially similar core beliefs. Many have analyzed the weaknesses of the current iteration of this movement. The desire by mid-twentieth-century leaders to foster more widespread coöperation between evangelicals and downplay denominational differences cut believers off from the past, some religion scholars have found. The result was an emphasis on personal experience rather than life in a church with historical memory. This has made present-day evangelicals more vulnerable to political movements that appeal to their self-interest, even in contradiction to Biblical teachings, for example, about welcoming the immigrant and lifting up the poor. However, evangelicalism is much more resilient than any one form of itself. The newer forms that are emerging are more concerned with theological and historic roots, and are more resistant to modern individualism than older, white Evangelicalism.</div>
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Does the word, then, have an ongoing usefulness? For now, the answer may be no. These new urban churches are certainly not mainline Protestant, yet they don’t look at all like what the average person thinks of by the term “Evangelical.” Will these younger churches abandon the name or try to redefine it? I don’t know, but, as a professional minister, I don’t think it is the most important point to make. What is crucial to know is that, even if the name “evangelical” is replaced with something else, it does not mean that the churches will lose their beliefs. Some time ago, the word “liberal” was largely abandoned by Democrats in favor of the word “progressive.” In some ways, the Democratic Party is more liberal now than when the older label was set aside, evidence that it is quite possible to change the name but keep the substance.</div>
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The same thing may be happening to evangelicalism. The movement may abandon, or at least demote, the prominence of the name, yet be more committed to its theology and historic impulses than ever. Some predict that younger evangelicals will not only reject the name but also become more secular. That is not what I have been seeing here in New York City. And studies by the <a class="ArticleBody__link___1FS03" data-reactid="192" href="http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-attachment: initial, initial, initial; background-clip: initial, initial, initial; background-image: linear-gradient(rgb(255, 255, 255), rgb(255, 255, 255)), linear-gradient(rgb(255, 255, 255), rgb(255, 255, 255)), linear-gradient(rgb(0, 0, 0), rgb(0, 0, 0)); background-origin: initial, initial, initial; background-position: 0px 87%, 100% 87%, 0px 92%; background-repeat: no-repeat, no-repeat, repeat-x; background-size: 0.05em 1px, 0.05em 1px, 1px 1px; box-sizing: inherit; margin-left: 1px; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; text-rendering: geometricPrecision; text-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 0px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -3px 0px; z-index: 0;" target="_blank">Pew Research Center</a> and <a class="ArticleBody__link___1FS03" data-reactid="195" href="https://www.sociologicalscience.com/articles-v4-28-686/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-attachment: initial, initial, initial; background-clip: initial, initial, initial; background-image: linear-gradient(rgb(255, 255, 255), rgb(255, 255, 255)), linear-gradient(rgb(255, 255, 255), rgb(255, 255, 255)), linear-gradient(rgb(0, 0, 0), rgb(0, 0, 0)); background-origin: initial, initial, initial; background-position: 0px 87%, 100% 87%, 0px 92%; background-repeat: no-repeat, no-repeat, repeat-x; background-size: 0.05em 1px, 0.05em 1px, 1px 1px; box-sizing: inherit; margin-left: 1px; position: relative; text-decoration-line: none; text-rendering: geometricPrecision; text-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 1px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 2px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) -1px 0px 0px, rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px -3px 0px; z-index: 0;" target="_blank">others</a> indicate that religious denominations that have become more friendly to secularism are shrinking precipitously, while the evangelical churches that resist dilution in their theological beliefs and practices are holding their own or growing. And if evangelicals—or whatever they will call themselves—continue to become more multiethnic in leadership and confound the left-right political categories, they may continue to do so.<br />
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A new generation of churches, more diverse and confounding political categories, may abandon the label but remain committed to its historic beliefs.</h5>
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Timothy Keller is the founder and Pastor Emeritus of the Redeemer Presbyterian Churches of New York City.</div>
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Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-31227600120532064362018-01-12T10:28:00.002-08:002018-01-12T10:28:37.065-08:00Why I Can No Longer Call Myself an Evangelical Republican<header class="entry-header" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Noto Serif";"><h1 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Noto Sans"; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px 0px 5px; text-align: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This was originally published as an op-ed in the New York Times. ed.</span></h1>
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<span class="post__date" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-right: 14px;"><a href="http://comment-news.com/archive/2017/12/09" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #02afff; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.4s ease;">Dec 9, 2017</a></span> by <span class="post__date" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-right: 14px;"><span aria-hidden="true" class="fa fa-user-circle" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span>Peter Wehner</span> </div>
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Preserving my identity as a Christian conservative means turning away from two movements that have shaped my life.</h2>
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Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-53072994933552449702017-06-23T12:26:00.002-07:002017-06-23T12:26:59.706-07:00Abusing the FathersThis essay from Touchstone magazine was referenced in an article at American Anglican, the website of the American Anglican Council.<br />
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<em>The Windsor Report’s Misleading Appeal to Nicea</em></div>
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<em>by <strong>William J. Tighe</strong></em></div>
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A year ago, after the uproar over the consecration as bishop of New Hampshire of the notorious Vicki Gene Robinson—the Episcopal priest who divorced his wife and subsequently openly entered a homosexual relationship that continues to this day—the Archbishop of Canterbury appointed a committee to look into the matter. The consecration clearly contradicted the 1998 Lambeth Conference’s resolution declaring such relationships to be incompatible with the Christian faith, and the “Lambeth Commission” was to recommend ways in which the Anglican Communion could maintain the highest possible degree of communion.</div>
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The ensuing “Windsor Report,” released on October 18, 2004, called for moratoria on the ordination of all non-celibate homosexuals and on the approval of rites for blessing same-sex “partnerships,” as well as for an end to the intervention of traditionalist bishops (usually from Africa or Asia) in the dioceses of “revisionist” bishops. It called both traditionalist and revisionist groups to express regret for their actions, which were deemed to be incompatible with the tangible and intangible bonds that held the Anglican Communion together.</div>
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<strong>Wright’s Defense</strong></div>
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N. T. (“Tom”) Wright, the bishop of Durham in the Church of England, was a member of the commission, and in various places since the issuance of the report has defended it. He has for some years deservedly enjoyed the reputation of a first-rate Scripture scholar who has been able to counteract and debunk revisionist—read, if you will, heretical or anti-Christian—views of the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord and of the authority of the Bible.</div>
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He appeals particularly to those “conservative evangelical” Christians who wish to uphold a generally high view of the authority of Scripture in doctrine and morals, but wish to leave room for some “developments,” such as the ordination of women, which Wright supports.</div>
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Wright has, in particular, defended the report’s implicit censure of the intervention of orthodox Anglican bishops in the dioceses of revisionist ones in the United States and Canada. In a report published in the liberal-leaning English Roman Catholic weekly<em> The Tablet, </em>he justified this censure on the basis that such interventions were “in contravention not only of Anglican custom but of the Nicene decrees on the subject.”</div>
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The theory of the inviolable integrity of diocesan boundaries has underpinned the statements of more than one or two Episcopal bishops in recent years, such as Peter Lee of Virginia and Neil Alexander of Atlanta. The result of the theory that “heresy is preferable to schism” and “schism is worse than heresy” has been the belief among influential conservative Anglicans that the faithful must put up with an unending stream of doctrinal absurdities and moral enormities.</div>
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In an interview with<em> Christianity Today, </em>Wright insisted that “border crossings” are not only “disruptive” but prohibited by the Council of Nicea. “And I think not a lot of people know this, but it’s important to say this was a question that the early fathers faced at the same time as they were hammering out the doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ, and that they gave it their time to say people should not do this because that’s not how episcopacy works.” He insisted that “the real charge” against the offending dioceses</div>
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is that they were going ahead with innovations without giving the proper theological rationale, without paying attention to the rest of the communion, without doing all the things which as Anglicans we all thought we were signed up to doing before people make innovations. The bishops and archbishops who have intervened in other people’s provinces and dioceses are, in effect, at that level making the same error.</div>
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The interviewer then noted that one theologian believed that, in the early Church, orthodox bishops considered a heretical bishop’s see vacant and would go into his diocese. “It’s not simply as easy as that, because who says that so-and-so is a false teacher?” Wright responded. Bishop John Spong would describe the Evangelical former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, as “a false teacher. . . . So you have to have some way of getting a handle on this and not simply one bishop saying that his next-door neighbor is out of line and therefore he’s going to invade. That has never been the Anglican way.”</div>
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As Bishop Wright’s grasp of the church fathers’ theory and practice seems a bit weak in these areas—and as he was clearly the most scholarly member of the commission—it may be useful to pursue the subject a bit further. Less can be said for the church fathers’ support for the commission’s claims than Wright asserts.</div>
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A regrettable feature of the Windsor Report is its lack of documented notes and references to back up its claims and assertions. For example, it simply cites “the ancient norm of the Church” for its claims about the unity of all Christians in one place and for its rationale against the intervention of outside bishops, without offering any evidence at all. It never quotes any “Nicene decrees on the subject,” to use Bishop Wright’s phrase, though an allusion to one of Nicea’s canons, of doubtful relevance, is tucked away in the report.</div>
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<strong>Inapplicable Canons</strong></div>
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The Council of Nicea, which met from May to August of a.d. 325 and is most famous for its formulation of the original version of the Nicene Creed, also produced twenty canons, or rules, to settle problems or fix abuses in the Church. Several of the canons concern the relations of bishops with one another and of clergy with their bishops. Significantly for the present case, none have any legal force in any contemporary Anglican church.</div>
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But more importantly, none of them seem to have any real applicability to the situation of the Anglican Communion, or the Episcopal Church, today. If any one of them underlies Bishop Wright’s oblique reference, it must be Canon 16. Members of the clergy, it declares,</div>
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who have the audacity, not considering the fear of God and not knowing the Church’s rule, to abandon their churches, must not under any circumstances be received in another church but by all means must be forced to return to their proper communities, and if they refuse, they are to be properly excommunicated. In addition, if anyone dares to take someone who is under the authority of another bishop and to ordain him in his own church without the consent of the bishop in whose clergy he was enrolled, let the ordination be regarded as null.</div>
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This canon obviously deals with “clergy flight” and “clergy poaching”: It assumes a community of orthodox belief between the churches and bishops concerned, and says nothing at all about interventions in churches whose bishops have abandoned orthodoxy of belief and practice and have begun to oppress those of their flock who continue to uphold it, even if that “oppression” consists only in contradicting that orthodoxy and furthering those who teach and act against it.</div>
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But while I was puzzling over Wright’s invocation of this inapplicable canon, I found an allusion to the eighth canon early in the report. In this passage, the report deplores “ as now part of the problem we face” the breaking of communion with the Episcopal Church by other Anglican churches, attempts by dissenters in America to “distance themselves” from the Episcopal Church, and the interventions of archbishops from other Anglican churches.</div>
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Then it comments: “This goes not only against traditional and oft-repeated Anglican practice [alluding to the 1988 and 1998 Lambeth Conferences] but also against some of the longest-standing regulations of the early undivided church (Canon 8 of Nicea).”</div>
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<strong>The Pure Ones</strong></div>
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So what does the canon say? It is one of the longer ones, and it concerns the re-entry into the Church of “the so-called ‘pure ones’.” It required them to “promise in writing to accept and to follow the rulings of the Catholic Church,” primarily to have communion with those who renounced the faith during persecutions but had since been given a period of penance and a date for their reconciliation with the Church.</div>
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In places that had only “pure ones” as clergy, they should keep their status, but if a “pure one” wanted to be admitted to the clergy in a place that had “a bishop or a priest of the Catholic Church . . . it is evident that the bishop of the Church should keep the dignity of bishop.” A bishop of the “pure ones”</div>
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is to have the rank of priest unless the bishop consents to let him have the honor of his title. But if he is not so disposed, let the bishop give him a place as a chorepiscopus [i.e., a bishop who exercised some supervision over Christian communities in the rural areas, while being himself subordinate to the bishop of a nearby city] or as a priest so that he can appear as being integrated into the clergy. Without this provision, there would be two bishops in the city.</div>
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“The pure ones” was the name given, perhaps self-given, to a schismatic group known as the Novatianists. They originated in the aftermath of the great persecution—the first empire-wide persecution—launched against the Church by the Roman Emperor Decius in 249–251. Before that persecution, a Christian who renounced Christianity under pressure and then wished to return to the Church could only be readmitted to the Eucharist when on his deathbed.</div>
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In the aftermath of the persecution, which saw apostasies on a large scale, the bishop of Rome, Cornelius, allowed the “lapsed” to be readmitted after some years of public penitence, which involved, among other things, standing in a particular place during the Church’s Liturgy and leaving before Communion. Most bishops elsewhere adopted this practice as well, but in Rome, Pope Cornelius was opposed by the priest Novatian, whose followers elected him bishop in opposition to Cornelius, and in the ensuing years the schism spread throughout the Roman Empire.</div>
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The Novatianists were moral rigorists, best known for their absolute prohibition of second marriages under any circumstances (including after the death of a spouse) and their refusal to readmit the lapsed to Communion. In every other respect, though, their beliefs were thoroughly orthodox. A Novatianist bishop turned up at the Council of Nicea, where he was as vehement in his opposition to the views of the heretic Arius as any of the other bishops there. It was only when he went on to insist on the exclusion of the lapsed from Communion that his Novatianist allegiance came to light, and he was ejected from the council.</div>
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Of all the various heretical or schismatic Christian sects, the Novatianists were viewed with the most indulgence, as this canon indicates. Although it was common at the time to regard as “heretical” all Christian sects that pertinaciously and as a matter of principle separated themselves from the “Catholic and Apostolic Church,” in practice the council treated groups of them who wished to rejoin the Church as though they were simply schismatics.</div>
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In fact, few Novatianists took advantage of this offer. Their church, or “denomination,” continued to exist as a rigorous and “pure” alternative to the established Church in parts of the Eastern Roman Empire for some three or four centuries afterwards.</div>
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<strong>Dealing with Defectors</strong></div>
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It is hard to see how this canon has anything to do with the troubles of contemporary Anglicanism that evoked the Windsor Report. The canon does uphold the unity of the local church, but the situation it addresses is the reunion of a schismatic group with the Church, not the appropriate response of bishops to the defection of one of their brethren from their common orthodoxy. However, the latter type of situation did arise in the fourth century, in the long aftermath of the Council of Nicea, and later still.</div>
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The main purpose of the Council of Nicea was to judge the views of the Alexandrian priest and theologian Arius, who held that Jesus was a creature—a divine being created by God before the angels, the cosmos, and mankind, but a creature nevertheless. Nicea condemned Arius’s views, and its creed confessed the full co-divinity and co-eternity of “the everlasting Son of the Father.”</div>
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However, since the controversy continued unabated after Nicea, and since Emperor Constantine had wanted the council to promote ecclesiastical harmony, the fact that it signally failed to produce such harmony induced him, within a few short years, to attempt to promote various theological compromises that would reconcile the Arians and the Niceans. (Many of the most influential bishops around the emperor were sympathetic to some degree with Arius.)</div>
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Among the most vigorous and uncompromising upholders of Nicea and its creed was the young archbishop of Alexandria, Athanasius (c. 296–373), who as a priest had accompanied his predecessor to Nicea. His vigorous opposition to any compromise earned him the hostility of the bishops who had most influence with the emperor, who himself in the last decade of his life (he died in 337) increasingly regarded Athanasius as a disturber of the peace, and finally exiled him to what is today the German Rhineland.</div>
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After Constantine’s death, as his Arianizing son Constantius became master, first of the East and then (in 350) of the whole Roman Empire, imperial policy shifted from conciliation to coercion of the adherents of Nicea, and these shifts continued down to the final defeat of Arianism in 381.</div>
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As time went on, the whole Church became divided over the question, with bishop opposing bishop. Athanasius was willing, as the conflict intensified—in his case, as early as the mid-340s—to intervene unilaterally in dioceses whose bishops were Arians or compromisers. The historians Socrates and Sozomen, writing in the middle of the next century, record that he ordained men in dioceses whose bishops were tainted with Arianism to serve the orthodox upholders of Nicea, and that he did so without seeking or obtaining the permission of those bishops.</div>
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We do not know for sure whether Athanasius ordained bishops for these orthodox communities faced with hostile heterodox bishops, or only priests and deacons. Socrates’s account in his<em> Ecclesiastical History </em>is obscure, stating only that “in some of the churches also he performed ordination, which afforded another ground of accusation against him, because of his undertaking to ordain in the dioceses of others.”</div>
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In his<em> Ecclesiastical History,</em> Sozomen wrote of Athanasius’s ejection of Arianizing clergy when he returned to Egypt from his second exile around 346, and added, “It was said at that time that, when he was traveling through other countries, he effected the same change if he happened to visit churches which were under the Arians. He was certainly accused of having dared to perform the ceremony of ordination in cities where he had no right to do so.”</div>
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<strong>Violable Boundaries</strong></div>
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And he was not alone. Other orthodox bishops acted similarly.</div>
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Theodoret of Cyrrhus, yet another historian (and bishop), tells us in his<em>Ecclesiastical History </em>that a contemporary and collaborator of Athanasius, Eusebius of Samosata, traveled around many of the eastern portions of the Roman Empire disguised as a soldier, and where he found Arian or Arianizing bishops, he ordained deacons, priests, and even bishops to care for the orthodox and oppose the official bishops and their supporters. He names five bishops Eusebius consecrated.</div>
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Another bishop, Lucifer of Cagliari, wandered throughout the Mediterranean world in support of those who upheld Nicea. Both Socrates and Theodoret record his intervention in the divided church of Antioch. In 362 he consecrated the leader of one of the orthodox groups, the leader of the other, larger group having early on in his career appeared to compromise with moderate Arians. The uncompromising orthodox group had never been willing to accept him as their bishop, and the consecration embittered the break between the two and led to a schism that was not to be healed for over fifty years.</div>
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Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, conducted ordinations in his native Palestine in defiance of compromising bishops during the Arian crisis. As Socrates relates, he did the same thing many years later in Constantinople, when he was led to believe that John Chrysostom, the patriarch there, supported the errors of Origen.</div>
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Details of the activities of such bishops are few, but in the next century, for 85 years after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, both proponents and opponents of that council among the bishops in the eastern parts of the empire were willing to intervene, or intrude, regularly in dioceses whose bishops were on the “ other side.”</div>
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All of this allows us to say that any attempt to construct a theory of the inviolability of diocesan boundaries cannot find any support in the theory and practice of the early Church. In the light of this history, Bishop Wright’s invocation of “Nicene decrees” and the Windsor Report’s allusion to “the ancient norm” and “some of the longest-standing regulations” vanishes altogether, and all that is left is “Anglican custom” (Wright) or “traditional and oft-repeated Anglican practice” (Windsor).</div>
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<strong>Deprived Christians</strong></div>
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Those who have followed the actual practices of Anglican churches over the past three decades, in the United States, Canada, and Australia especially, will see how readily proponents of one innovation after another have been willing to abandon norms, decrees, regulations, canons, customs—you name it—to gain their ends.</div>
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In the<em> Christianity Today </em>interview, Wright remarked that “the real question at the heart of much of this is, which [are] the things we can agree to differ about and which [are] the things we can’t agree to differ about.” He continued, speaking of modern questions the Nicene fathers he invoked would have thought settled matters of their common faith,</div>
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Again and again I hear people on both sides of the argument simply begging that question and assuming that they know without argument that this is something that we can agree to differ about, or assuming that they know without argument this is one of the things we can’t agree to differ about. What we all have to do is to say about any issue—whether it’s lay celebration [of Communion], whether it’s episcopal intervention, whether it’s homosexual practice—</div>
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How do we know, and who says which differences make a difference and which differences don’t make a difference?</div>
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Speaking for myself as a Catholic with many Anglican friends, the clearest and most instructive (as well as the saddest) lesson of this episode is how sincere and pious Christians, like Bishop Wright, deprive themselves of any compellingly persuasive basis for rallying a forceful “Athanasian” movement to retake their churches from the heterodox innovators who dominate them—and not least because of their own inability, as the bishop’s statements show, to make clear judgments about false teaching and false teachers and to take firm and decisive measures in response. In consequence, they render their own situations hopeless, being able neither to fight nor to flee.</div>
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<em>N. T. Wright’s article appeared in the 23 October 2004 issue of </em>The Tablet<em> and may be found at <a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/register.cgi/tablet-00945" style="color: #333333; font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;">www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/register.cgi/tablet-00945</a>. The </em>Christianity Today<em> interview can be found at <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/142/42.0.html" style="color: #333333; font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;">www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/142/42.0.html</a>. The sources of the quotations from Socrates are (in order): Book II, chapter 24; III.6 and 9; VI.12; those from Sozomen are III.21; and from Theodoret IV.13 and V.4; III.2.</em></div>
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<em><strong><a href="http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/author.php?id=123" style="color: #333333; font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;">William J. Tighe</a></strong> is Associate Professor of History at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and a faculty advisor to the Catholic Campus Ministry. He is a Member of St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is a contributing editor for </em>Touchstone<em>.</em></div>
<br /><br />Read more:<a href="http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=18-03-036-f#ixzz4kr5CkoWe" style="color: #003399; font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center;">http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=18-03-036-f#ixzz4kr5CkoWe</a><br />Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-77920803896730714502017-06-17T04:57:00.000-07:002018-03-10T03:54:41.620-08:00Dramatic Shake-Up in American Anglican Blog RankingsThis morning, I read an article at Anglican Mainstream, a British site, and clicked on a link. That link sent me to Anglican Ink, an American site, and it got me wondering. How are American Anglican blogs doing these days? Here's what I found at Alexa.com:<br />
<br />
Global Rankings<br />
<br />
Virtue Online: 432,834<br />
Anglican Ink: 1,451,785<br />
Stand Firm in Faith: 7,451,785<br />
Titus One Nine: 10,872,613<br />
<br />
This was the first check I've done in a long time, and it suprised me on two fronts.<br />
<br />
First, VOL is off a bit from previous global rankings, but Stand Firm in Faith and Titus One Nine have both fallen off a cliff. SFIF used to be a close second to VOL, but now a newcomer, AI is a distant second.<br />
<br />
Second, traffic to American Anglican sites is down overall from the heady days after the Episcopal Church's 2003 General Convention. This is to be expected, but I was surprised to discover how much traffic has fallen for SFIF and TitusOneNine. While AI is a relative newcomer, they do good reporting and their use of video sets them apart from the other sites.<br />
<br />
Since the province of the Anglican Church in North America was founded in 2009, the dust has settled, and the issues that were so prominent after GC2003 are less so. Orthodox Anglicans now have a place to go outside of PECUSA and the business at hand has become more and more the Gospel and not the issues plaguing PECUSA.<br />
<br />
What is the future of American Anglican blogs? That is hard to say, but I expect VOL will remain the dominant player for America Anglicanism. Anglican Ink will likely continue to grow in popularity given its use of video, which will attract viewers in our visual age. I expect that SFIF and T19 will continue to appeal to their smaller constituencies.Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-85940428023386761222016-04-16T09:45:00.000-07:002016-04-16T09:45:03.648-07:00"Shut Up, Bigot!": Civil Rights and Same-Sex Marriagevia Virtue Online:
By Ben R. Crenshaw
WITHERSPOON INSTITUTE
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2016/04/16749/
April 14, 2016
Supporters of "same-sex marriage" claim that its opponents are bigots,
like racists or misogynists, whose views should not be tolerated in the
public square. In fact, marriage traditionalists are not bigoted but
rather are realistic and honest about what marriage actually is.
In a Public Discourse essay last year, "Shut Up, Bigot!": The
Intolerance of Tolerance, I addressed how defenders of marriage are
often called bigots for holding the view that marriage is, by nature,
the union of one man and one woman, exclusively and for life. I objected
to this censoring and bullying, explaining that those calling
traditionalists "bigots" held a false postmodern conception of tolerance
that confuses intolerance of ideas with intolerance of persons. Here I
address the central objection that I have encountered to my argument.
Denying Gay People the Civil Right to Marriage?
The most common objection is that traditionalists are using "tolerance"
as a cover for their discriminating and harmful views. The objection
goes something like this:
Discriminating against homosexuals by not allowing them to marry is as
evil as racism and segregation, the banning of interracial marriage, or
denying women's rights. You wouldn't be tolerant of these abhorrent
things would you? America has become enlightened to LGBT rights, and you
are simply using religious rhetoric to cloak your animus and bigotry.
You have no right to demand tolerance just as the racist or misogynist
has no right to demand tolerance, and society should call you what you
are: a backward, intolerant bigot.
The core of the complaint is that people in a same-sex relationship have
a civil right to marry each other (i.e., a right to same-sex marriage),
and that denying them this right is as scandalous and repulsive as
denying blacks or women basic civil rights. In this case,
traditionalists' calls for tolerance are ignored, just as calls for
tolerance of racism, misogyny, and the like are ignored.
The Limits and Demands of Tolerance
If the analogies in this objection are correct, the critic has a valid
point. Tolerance can only go so far. If members of a society
systematically dehumanize any other group of people, the rest of society
should not tolerate it. The practice of tolerance itself, however, is
dependent upon a shared worldview that corresponds to reality.
For example, because we all agree that by the laws of mathematics 2+2=4,
we would not tolerate an elementary-school math teacher instructing her
students that 2+2=5. We all agree that Aristotle's law of
non-contradiction is necessarily true. Likewise, we wouldn't tolerate a
religion that engaged in human sacrifice. We all agree that there is a
moral law that unjustified killing of another human is murder and should
be prohibited. We may not agree on the ontological bases for these
truths, but all that is necessary is agreement that these things are
true. In these and similar cases, intolerance is appropriate. Without
it, society would become chaotic.
Tolerance becomes relevant when truths are obscure. Is God timeless or
in time? Are human beings body-soul composites or just physical matter?
Is discarding leftover embryos used in in-vitro fertilization the
equivalent of killing a person? These and a thousand other questions do
not have clear-cut answers. This is why ongoing public discourse,
academic freedom, and the joint pursuit of truth are necessary.
Tolerating the views of those with whom one disagrees is an integral
part of this task.
For millennia, the necessity of sexual complementarity for marriage was
one of the truths that cultures around the world shared (even those
cultures that approved of same-sex sexual practice, e.g., ancient Greece
and Rome). Yet this has now changed: the nature and definition of
marriage, once indubitably and unanimously believed to be a union
between man and woman, has become obscured. It has moved from the former
category of a shared truth to the latter category of a debated idea.
This means that, for traditional accounts of marriage, sexuality, and
gender to be tolerated, they must be rationally explained and defended
as reasonable, true, and moral. We can no longer rely on what everyone
once knew to be true about marriage.
False Analogies and Conceptions
Such a defense of marriage has been made thoroughly, in part
demonstrating that any comparisons to racism, misogyny, or prejudice
against interracial marriage are false analogies. Refusing two people in
a same-sex relationship the "right" to same-sex marriage is dissimilar
in every way from denying black people human rights or women the right
to vote, or banning interracial marriage. The reason the traditional
view of marriage should be tolerated in public discourse and its
adherents shouldn't be labeled bigots is precisely because it is a
comprehensible, virtuous, and well-argued account of marriage superior
in every way to revisionist accounts.
Critics of the traditional view of marriage often think of opposite- and
same-sex unions as two viable expressions of marriage, equally
intelligible and able to coexist harmlessly. Thus one can understand why
many think denying same-sex relationships marriage is a gross breach of
civil rights. Yet approaching the debate over same-sex marriage from
this premise is confused. In place of the fallacious analogies above, we
need a valid analogy that captures the severity and consequence of what
it means to redefine marriage.
A Valid Analogy
Consider the hypothetical case of a middle-aged couple, Dan and Susie,
who own a pet Labrador dog named Max. This couple love and adore their
dog so much that, for whatever reason, they come to believe he is
actually their flesh-and-blood biological child. When they fill out
their taxes, they claim the child tax credit for Max; when the new
school year begins, they enroll Max in kindergarten; when they stop at
McDonald's they order Max the child's Happy Meal and then let him romp
in the play place. In short, they do everything for Max that normal
parents would do for their children.
Things don't go smoothly, however. When the IRS denies them the child
tax credit, their local elementary school refuses to enroll Max, and the
McDonald's manager kicks them out of the play place, they are incensed.
How dare these people deny their child Max the rights and benefits of
full integration into society!
They decide to take their case to Washington, lobbying the government
for help. Despite their passionate pleas, they are refused. The US
government kindly but firmly explains that Dan and Susie are mistaken
about the nature of reality: dogs are a different kind of species than
human children. Their conviction that Max is their biological child is
false, despite what they feel, insist upon, or do.
Dan and Susie were not denied the civil right to have and raise children
just because they had confusedly adopted their pet dog as their child.
Instead, we would say that they failed to actually participate in the
institution of parenthood (i.e., mothering and fathering), something
that requires producing human offspring through sexual intercourse (or
via adoption, etc.). Despite their insistence and self-righteous
indignation, they were neither denied a civil right nor socially
marginalized. They do not have the right to treat their dog as if it
were a child, christen such behavior "parenting," and then insist that
everyone else in society--including state and national
governments--recognize their behavior as legitimate. Instead, their
belief that Max is their child is correctly identified as false and thus
detrimental not only to themselves and to their pet but also to society
as a whole.
But what would happen if Dan and Susie succeeded in convincing their
culture that Max was indeed their biological child? What if thousands of
other pet owners across the nation came to believe the same? What would
happen if the Supreme Court, in a contested and controversial 5-4
decision, sided with Dan and Susie and redefined "children" to include
pets? One could only imagine the social chaos that would ensue. Such a
society would rightly be deemed to be living in a fantasy--a delusional
world that would inevitably end in disaster.
This is the proper analogy to the redefinition of marriage. Of course,
this analogy is not asserting that gay people are somehow less human or
a different species, but rather that revisionist definitions of marriage
are as confused as Dan and Susie's revisionist definition of children.
The traditionalist claim is not primarily that same-sex marriage is a
bad idea, but that it is a nonsensical idea--an impossibility--just as a
"pet (i.e., animal) child" is an impossibility. Since marriage
necessarily requires sexual complementarity, to speak of "homosexual
marriage," "gay marriage," or "same-sex marriage," is a contradiction in
terms. It is akin to talking about square triangles, married bachelors,
or monogamous throuples. It is unintelligible. Any society that believes
it is possible to have "married bachelor" as a relational status with
legal protection and congruent civil rights would rightly be declared
delusional; so it is with "same-sex marriage."
Natural Rights and Civil Rights
How does this relate to the civil rights debate? Civil rights come in
two forms. The first are pre-political, natural rights that governments
recognize and codify as law, such as the inalienable rights mentioned in
the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. These rights are
naturally occurring, God-given, and innumerable. They are known as
negative rights because they place obligations of non-interference upon
everyone else. In this case the civil right is a moral imperative that
flows from the natural right.
The second kind of civil rights come from civil law. In America, this
includes the rights to vote, to trial by jury, to the standard of
reasonable doubt, etc. These rights are not naturally occurring,
innumerable, or provided by God, as they only obtain through social
contracts and government legislation. They are not universal, but can
vary from country to country and over time. It also means that changing
these rights is not immoral (although usually imprudent). These kinds of
civil rights are known as positive rights because they place obligations
of provision upon certain parties. In this case the civil right is
created when the positive right comes into existence via human effort.
Civil Rights and Same-Sex Marriage
Although debated, marriage is the former kind: a natural, pre-political
right that is part of the created order. Therefore, the civil right to
marriage depends on marriage as a naturally occurring, negative right.
Since marriage did not come into existence through social contract or
legislation (i.e., positive rights), governments and courts cannot
redefine either marriage or the civil right to it.
"Same-sex marriage" is a contradiction in terms, and one cannot have a
civil right to a contradiction. Just as there is no civil right to being
a "married bachelor," so there is no civil right to a "same-sex
marriage" because such a thing does not and cannot exist--despite
beliefs to the contrary. One can be granted the freedom to believe in
illusory relationships, but in no case does one have the moral right to
impose these false beliefs on the rest of society and use the strong arm
of governments or courts to reshape the culture accordingly.
In fact, just the opposite is true. Every government has the duty to
correctly discern truth and then to craft laws, customs, and values
according to those truths. While pluralistic societies should allow for
differing beliefs and lifestyles, under no circumstance does this excuse
the government from its duty to adhere to reality within its legitimate
domains of authority--one of which is marriage.
The irony is that same-sex attracted people have always had the civil
right to marry. What they have not had is the civil right to "same-sex
marriage," since such a thing is not possible. Just as Dan and Susie
were never denied the right to have children or become parents simply
because they were mistaken about what a child was, so same-sex attracted
people have never been denied marriage just because they are mistaken
about what marriage is.
Marriage traditionalists are not bigots because their view of marriage
is rational, well-argued, and virtuous, thus falling within the realm of
debated ideas that are tolerated in the common pursuit of truth.
Marriage traditionalists are not bigots because the analogies to racism,
interracial marriage, and the like are false. Marriage traditionalists
are not bigots because their understanding of marriage necessarily
excludes "same-sex marriage" as a possible concept.
Finally, marriage traditionalists are not bigots for denying same-sex
attracted people the civil right to same-sex marriage, because this
civil right does not exist. Everyone is welcome to get married, but we
must conform to the reality of what marriage is, not attempt to shape it
according to our desires. Facts are stubborn things, and the facts about
marriage are stubborn indeed.
Ben R. Crenshaw is a graduate student at Denver Seminary and a teaching
fellow at the Gordon Lewis Center for Christian Thought and Culture
------------------------------
Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-82455842566968984152016-03-11T04:13:00.002-08:002016-03-11T04:13:53.497-08:00Anguish and Amnesia: The Episcopal Church and CommunionFrom the Anglican Communion Institute:
Written by: Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner
Tuesday, March 8th, 2016
<a href="http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/PrimatesTEC.AnguishAmnesia.pdf">Download the full text of this article with footnotes (PDF)</a>
The hurt
The sense of sorrow and sometimes indignation expressed by many TEC bishops over the Primates’ meeting and its decisions is understandable. The sentiment of grief comes in many forms. For some (e.g. Connecticut), “sadness” is marked by a warning against primatial overreach. For others (e.g. New Hampshire), TEC is experiencing pain because she is being persecuted like Jesus. For some (e.g. Western New York), the Primates gathering “fails” as an ecclesial council and is but a “clanging cymbal” in its understanding of communion. Some (e.g. California) went so far as to accuse the Primates, on this “sad day”, of acting in a manner “antithetical to the way of Christ”, and of being “dishonest”, “devious”, and “scapegoating”.
Despite these strong notes of distress, TEC’s episcopal responses are generally gracious. They also almost all assert the fact that nothing has changed, nothing will change, and that TEC’s decisions regarding same-sex marriage are immovable. In this way, sadness is bound to a sense that the Primates’ common counsel is mostly irrelevant.
It is true that the Primates’ decisions mark a clear rejection of TEC’s policies and decisions at its own General Convention. Nobody likes to have people forcefully disagree with them; and the matter of same-sex marriage is one of deep feeling and passion, and also irresolvable contradictions in presupposition and perspective among disputants. It is painfully grating when fellow Christians and thoughtful human beings insist they cannot agree with another’s point of view.
I suppose it is also understandable that one might mourn the fact that such deep disagreements give rise to tangible estrangement. While the Primates insisted that TEC remains a beloved sister church in the Communion, they don’t want TEC representing the Anglican Communion or voting at Communion councils on matters of doctrine and polity. That too is painful. It is hard to hold together talk of “love” and the imposition of disciplinary “consequences”. All of us want voice and vote within our communities, and when these are restricted or taken away, we feel that our place in that community has itself been threatened or diminished.
So, I say, let the bishops vent. It’s only natural. We have all been venting about these kinds of things, each from our own vantage of experienced threat and diminishment, over the past few years.
But we should beware of confusing our hurts with ecclesial realities. In this case, TEC bishops have, one after the other, insisted that the Primates have no “right” or “authority” to make the decisions they have done, or to implement them. TEC bishops have said that the Anglican Communion has no means to shape their participation in its councils. They have said that the Communion itself has nothing to do with common teaching and an ordered common council. They have said, finally, that the Anglican Communion has historically been nothing like what the Primates have said it is. All of these claims are questionable, perhaps even false.
Historical Errors about the Communion
Let me take each of them in reverse order:
1. The nature of the Anglican Communion:
TEC bishops as a whole seem to have adopted the view that the Anglican Communion is a serenely immovable reality wherein independent churches around the world respect one another, enjoy each other’s company, and let each other do as each pleases. This is normative, they say, and has always been thus. The Primates are innovators, they assert.
This characterization is a gross historical fabrication. Respect, personal interaction, and legal independence among Communion churches, yes: but these constitute the thinnest veneer of communion life imaginable, and do not begin to touch the historical reality of the Anglican Communion itself.
The Anglican Communion is an entity that is both the product of and the continued subject of dynamic evolution. There is no “always thus” in the Communion. This dynamism, furthermore, has not been haphazard. It has been consistently driven by three much more profound elements, which I list in order of historical importance: mission, catholicity, and the witness of ecumenical unity.
This is no place for a history lesson, although it seems that reminders remain necessary. We can outline, then, what such a lesson would involve and how it would turn up some key continuities. There has been a clear current in the Communion’s emergence and evolution according to these elements of mission, catholicity, and witness to unity.
First, England Reformation had at its core a sense of catholicity; in part, this drove Cranmer to be one of the Church’s first deliberate ecumenists, searching for council and unity in Europes. Then there were the complex and knotted politics of a divided realm – England, Scotland, and Ireland in the 17th century especially — that forced the Church of England to reconsider its link to the apostolic mission of the Church catholic. Next came the impulses of those vibrant mission societies that, in the 18th century, moved from England into the wider world of Britain’s colonial expansion, channeling the new pluralistic energies of the nation into a shared religious fervor for sharing the Gospel. By this point the missionary current had begun to flow deeply and strongly. It was linked to the earlier Reformation press for disseminating Scriptural knowledge. When the Protestant Episcopal Church’s late 18th- and early 19th-century life unfolded, concerns regarding the catholicity of Anglican witness took explicit hold in the face of vying Christian communities within America. (It was also a time when we see the first expressions of American Episcopalian exceptionalism – “we’re different”.) More missionary impulses flowed out from this period, and took form in a range elements that, after around 1850, became associated with something called “the Anglican Communion”: Canterbury, Lambeth Conferences, more mission, Anglican Congresses, more mission, formal ecumenical engagement in the late 19th and early 20thcenturies especially, more and more mission, and then the cascading organizing symbols of the Communion Office, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates’ Meeting in the 1960’s and ‘70’s. Finally, in the early 21st century, emerged the rumbling flow of the Covenant Process. And yes, more mission – in Asia, Africa, South America, and beyond as the Christian Gospel offered from Anglican hands and voices took wing outside the fading religious precincts of the West.
Mission, catholicity, and unity have all driven the Communion’s emergence and formal articulation, as well as its developing order. What is more, American Episcopalians have, until recently, been at the forefront of this river of divine energy. This is all historically demonstrable, and TEC bishops today forget this at the risk of forgetting who they really are and why they are bishops at all. Saddened as I too am, in this case by TEC’s actions at Convention, I am grateful that I have been an Episcopalian: for because of this Communion dynamic that the Episcopal Church came out of and contributed to, I heard the Gospel of Christ Jesus, learned the faith, was caught up within the Scriptures, and drawn into the life of a world of unimagined yet holy believers from across the continents. It has been a foretaste of heaven in many ways, even with its all too this-worldly disappointments.
There has never been a stable or ideal “Anglican Communion”. It has always been “on the move”. Describing the Communion in such a dynamic way, of course, also includes contestation and debate: that too has always been a part of the flow of life that has moved evangelically around the globe since its first springs in early modernity. (The Anglican Communion is a quintessentially modern phenomenon, in the sense of it being a vessel of the one Gospel’s adaptation to this epoch of human history.) The role of the Primates is itself a part of this contestation. But there is a difference between debate that seeks to unleash the current of the Gospel and one that ends by stymying it. The last 15 years have seen a dam built up, through often intentionally stoked conflict, to block the Communion’s evangelical dynamism. Now that the Primates have sought to unblock it, they can hardly be called unfaithful to the Communion’s character.
For communion more broadly, and the Anglican Communion in particular is not a “thing”, but a movement in service of a divine gospel and evangelical imperative: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” and making us “ambassadors for Christ” who beseech the world for our Lord (2 Cor. 5:19, 20). The dynamic elements of Mission/Catholicity/Ecumenical Witness that mark the Anglican Communion are not theological criteria; rather they embody a divine vocation empowered by God’s own life. TEC can decide this vocation is not hers; or she can dispute its articulation. But to press for that vocation’s subversion as taken up by her sister churches is not only antagonistic, it has led her to embarrassing and shameful offenses, like the cultural racism that, in TEC hands, now paints African and non-Western church leaders as socially primitive exemplars of an undeveloped religiosity. It is a divinely developing Communion, by contrast, upon which the Primates have in fact made their wager.
It is, in any case, interesting to see TEC bishops, who frequently applaud the Holy Spirit’s progressive revelatory capacity in their own midst, assert an entity called “the Communion” in a way that is closer to the ahistorical and static platonic form of some imagined (and indeed, historically unreal) ideal that has never existed. It is a view that now strangely seeks to trump truths articulated in the process of catholic debate and discernment within the larger church.
2. Common teaching and ordered common council
TEC leaders like to describe this impassible Communion as something antithetical to shared teaching and decision-making. To be sure, these elements often seem in tension or even conflict with the dynamic character of the Anglican Communion. Common teaching and council was made difficult just at the moment when the Communion gained clear public profile in the late 19th century and beyond, due to a host of sociological changes: pluralizing indigenous leadership, the rise of the seminaries and their diverse formations, ideologies of debate and resistance that mimicked civil political attitudes, polities of individual choice. We see some of these social changes influencing debates already in England in the 17th century, in the Anglo-American world of the 18th-centurhy, and in formal ecclesiastical party strife in the mid-19th century. By the 20th century, diversity and divergence became positive cultural values in the eyes of many Westerners especially. It is, in any case, a political reality out of which we do not seem able of move, and for which we have no obvious alternative. Nobody seems to agree on much of anything these days, and civil political life is more and more about managing disagreement, rather than shaping and enacting common vision.
Nonetheless, in the midst of these social developments, the press for alternatives to such degraded diversity has in fact been central to the Communion’s life and for one main purpose: mission, catholicity, and ecumenical witness. Although hardly immune to the tensions and struggles of expanding diversity, the Anglican Communion has always sought for ways to overcome unchecked diversity’s debilitating and dispiriting elements. Thus, mission societies aimed at common catechesis around the globe; the Lambeth Conferences were first convened and continued to search for ways of resolving conflicts and furthering mission on the basis of agreed-upon frameworks of teaching and witness; the amazingly rich array of ecumenical discussions and dialogues, set loose in the wake of Lambeth’s Appeal for unity in 1920, were premised on the hard-won fruit of theological agreement. Other Christians were, for decades, astonished, not so much at the Communion’s uniformity, but at its thirst for “agreement” and the work Anglicans were willing to put into this just in the midst of their own humanly typical conflicts. Common teaching and common council have never been finished products for Anglicans. They have been given in the mode of hope.
The ordering of the Communion, as it has taken shape over the last 150 years, underscores how historically false are TEC’s claims regarding the way Anglican churches are “meant” to relate to one another. The fact that individual churches have chosen at this or that time – as TEC does today — to ignore the shape of common teaching and the decisions of common council proves nothing about the Anglican Communion other than that some members sometimes reject commonality and the reasons given for it; perhaps they have even lost hope in such coming-together through sheer historical forgetfulness.
The notion, furthermore, that there have never been consequences for rejecting communion commonality is also false, however contested these consequences may have been: concrete examples in 19th- and 20th-century South Africa, in Rwanda in the 1990’s and other smaller disputes are admittedly few and generally not that significant for the larger church. Where real consequences to a rejection of Communion teaching and council have been significant is found in the ad hoc and often more destructive realms of frayed relationships and their knock-on effects: estrangement, broken communion, the decoupling of missionary cooperation and material support, shameful discord in the face of a world in need of reconciliation. It is hard to argue that these informal and inescapable consequences, deriving simply from churches doing their own thing without formal pushback, are good ways of dealing with the rejection of common teaching. It is even harder to claim that they are better than a formal decision-making process that involves representatives from around the Communion. Only a glance at recent Anglican experience shows us how absurd such an argument would be: all around us in the Communion, and in the United States especially, we see the ugly consequences of laissez faire disunity scattered about in the form of rancour, lawsuits, and missionary drought. There are always “consequences” to disunity, most of them ugly and painful. The question is how we can faithfully redirect them towards the fulfillment of divine purpose.
What the Primates did, then, was to respond to a widespread desire for a deliberate rechanneling of the Anglican vocation. If TEC wants to resist this and reap yet more “informal” consequences, she is playing with the forces of her own demise.
3. Political means
TEC bishops tell us that the Communion has no legitimate means, in any case, to formalize the consequences of the Americans’ resistance to the wider church’s requests and witness. This too is false, and patently so. The Primates asked that TEC representatives no longer to serve on decision-making bodies of the Communion that either deal with matters of doctrine and polity, or represent the Communion in inter-church and inter-faith meetings. In fact, most Communion-wide commission-work and counsel is pursed via invitation. Invitation is made mostly through Canterbury or the Anglican Communion Office, and it does not follow any rules of choice or representation. Sometimes nominations for such invitations are solicited, sometimes not. Why invitations might be issued or not is up to the inviter, as Archbishop Rowan Williams showed in 2010 (“the Pentecost Letter”), when he did something similar with respect to TEC representatives according to his own counsel. If the inviter is swayed by the arguments of this or that group, then that is all that is required to control who comes to represent and decide. If Lambeth or the Primates or the ACC or Canterbury itself publicly “decided” that so and so should not be invited to participate in this or that form of Communion counsel, or represent Communion churches because of a failure to embody common teaching and discipline, and if the inviters listened to such a decision, that is all it would take. There is no code of Communion canon law and no tribunal that makes any of this enforceable; there is only the collective of the Communion’s leaders themselves. But where else is communion’s Christian force humanly embodied? Participation in the Communion’s formal life is not a right, but a privilege, based on the movement that is the Communion’s own apostolic evangelical witness.
4. Primates’ place.
Over and over TEC bishops have decried what they see as the Primates’ usurpation of powers. In this, rightly or wrongly, our bishops are behind the curve. The Primates have, over time, been given a very prominent place in the evolution of the Communion’s life. Obviously, the very category of archbishop and primate could only come to be as Anglican churches could form their own integrities, become locally independent and finally move towards a fully indigenized ministry. Much of this was driven by the mission and the apostolic quest for catholicity itself. So it is no surprise that it waited until the post-colonial moment of the 1960’s for the very notion of a “Primates Meeting” to emerge. In the late 1970’s this took concrete form, first with the locating of the Primates as an important aspect of common teaching and council – the Primates’ Meeting itself was born – and then with recommendations for the Meeting to assume greater leadership. Three successive Lambeth Conferences tell the tale:
The Lambeth Conference of 1978 passed Resolution 11 urging “member churches not to take action regarding issues which are of concern to the whole Anglican Communion without consultation with a Lambeth Conference or with the episcopate through the Primates’ Committee (emphasis added) and requests the Primates to initiate a study of the nature of authority within the Anglican Communion.”
1988 broadened the scope of the responsibilities assigned the Primates’ Meeting. Resolution 18.2 “Urges that encouragement be given to a developing role for the Primates Meeting under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury, so that the Primates’ Meeting is able to exercise an enhanced responsibility in offering guidance on doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters (emphasis added).”
The 1998 Conference reaffirmed Resolution 18.2 (1988) noting that it “urges that encouragement be given to a developing collegial role for the Primates’ Meeting under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury, so that the Primates’ Meeting is able to exercise an enhanced responsibility (emphasis added) in offering guidance on doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters.” The Conference further asked “that the Primates’ Meeting, under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury, include among its responsibilities positive encouragement of mission, intervention in cases of exceptional emergency which are incapable of internal resolution within provinces, and giving guidelines on the limits of Anglican diversity (emphasis added) in submission to the sovereign authority of Holy Scripture and in loyalty to our Anglican tradition and formularies.”
Since 1998, the Primates have been trying to follow these recommendations, albeit with some confusion at times, and certainly with some opposition. Their precise role and the form it takes are developing. That development is precisely how our Communion works as a Communion. The direction of the Primates’ Meeting’s emergence could be reversed, and TEC is free to argue (as some have) that it should be reversed. What TEC cannot argue persuasively is that the role of the Primates’ Meeting has been appropriated by misdemeanor, hijacked, invented, and so on. Not so. The fact that the Covenant’s first draft placed the Primates in the position they have recently assumed – a recommendation many supported even though it was later revised – was but a sign of this movement laid out by successive Communion recommendations.
Perhaps the argument made by some in TEC, that the Primates are, if not illegitimate in their actions, at least “unrepresentative” of the Communion, is a better line of attack. Yet this too would be a false assertion.. Short of universal franchise for every Anglican in the world (and we don’t even know who they are in our own parishes!), “representativeness” is a conventional act, not a quantitative science. Within Anglicanism, since the 16th century and reaffirmed repeatedly, that convention has, rather decidedly, been ordered around the episcopacy in a primary way. To be sure, the Primates constitute a group of mostly old men. But then, so does the House of Bishops of TEC (plus a few old women), along with the leaders of TEC’s General Convention as a whole. Come to think of it, it sounds like TEC all the way down.
Conclusion: What TEC leaders need to decide
It is worth bringing up the Anglican Covenant here, not to make any argument about it specifically, but simply to point to the way that the dynamics at work in the Primates’ directives are just those that the Covenant attempted to address. The notion that “the Covenant is Dead In the Water”, repeated by many TEC leaders and their allies, is wishful thinking at least when it comes to underlying substance: the Primates are trying to do what the Covenant itself is far more systematically laid out to do. They are doing so because Anglican churches have, thus far, failed to engage what they need to engage if they are to be truly Anglican Communion churches. Thus, in one form or another, the Covenant by some name or other, is not going away: what pressed for its articulation continues to press us. Instead of continuing to dig their heels into the ruts of rejection, TEC leaders should try to contribute to the creative ordering of the Communion as it really is.
The current discussion around the Primates’ directives has failed to substantiate TEC claims. Just the opposite: that discussion now only underscores the vanity of all those accusations regarding Communion “coercion” of member churches. Just as TEC is free to ignore any other church in the prosecution of its own affairs, so the Communion does not constrict the internal workings of this or that church. Today’s requests and “consequences”, just as the Covenant’s relational expectations, have always been framed by the inherent freedoms of local Anglican churches to determine their own way forward. One of those ways is “communion”, and its historically vibrant form in the Anglican Communion. Another way involves the rejection of communion altogether. TEC is free to be a part of communion or not. There are no legal compulsions in this regard.
But TEC leaders need to be clearer in their own mind as to what is at stake here. Some might feel that ecclesial discussions like those above are all beside the point. Some have, in fact, insisted that the matter of same-sex marriage for same-sex attracted persons is one of fundamental human dignity and justice; the ecclesial issues of Communion are irrelevant to its affirmation by this or any other church. That may be the case so far as TEC wishes to claim, according to its own special view. And the hurt some Episcopalians have strenuously voiced surely derives from their sense of indignation that justice, as they perceive it, is being denied.
Nonetheless, as long as the matter of same-sex attracted behavior is legitimately discussed and debated within the Church – and most TEC bishops still tell their conservative colleagues, priests and laypeople that such debate and diversity is legitimate – then the Communion can discuss and debate it, as they have. In doing so, the Communion’s leaders can claim, as did the Primates, that human dignity attaches to persons, not to internal feelings or behaviors, which are to be otherwise evaluated theologically; hence it is necessary to repudiate homophobia and civil penalties against same-sex attracted persons, even while insisting on the divinely created norm of heterosexual marriage. Furthermore, just as TEC’s General Convention has moved ahead to decide the issue for itself, so too can the Communion move ahead within the realm of its competencies to decide this or any other issue on the basis of Communion-wide counsel.
If, on the other hand, TEC leaders want to say that there is no longer any room for diverse perspectives and practical decisions to be made on the matter, the Communion’s life is indeed irrelevant to TEC’s life. But then why bemoan what the Communion’s Primates have decided on the basis of common discernment? TEC leaders would have already judged common discernment and decision-making as retrograde.
What TEC leaders cannot reasonably say is that the choice for Communion does not involve the commitments, responsibilities, and consequences tied up with Communion life – with common mission, catholic identity, and ecumenical witness. Hurt feelings are not a substitute for any of these realities. The next three years will require of TEC clarity and hard decisions about this. Without that, “safe distance” will become simply “distance”, and new and fuller tears will then be shed, and deservedly so.
Let TEC then be clear about the character of its independent life vis-à-vis a bona fide historical reality called the Anglican Communion. Let it seek to clarify its present self-understanding. Let it speak this out clearly so that the larger Communion can hear and understand who TEC now wants to be, and in just this way, how it wants to differentiate itself vis-à-vis the historical Communion’s evolution and present life. There is no need for too much sensitivity, but only clarity about its new self-understanding.
<a href="http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/PrimatesTEC.AnguishAmnesia.pdf">
Download the full text of this article with footnotes (PDF)</a>Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-64037173704234721982016-01-21T17:46:00.005-08:002016-01-23T10:31:32.898-08:00The Fruit of Nice Guy Bishops
<p>During my lifetime, the Episcopal Church changed dramatically and one of the biggest changes was in the selection of bishops. Once upon a time, the Episcopal Church elected theologian-bishops like Fitzsimmons Alison of the Diocese of South Carolina or Robert Terwilliger of the Diocese of Dallas. In more recent times the Episcopal Church has been electing nice guy bishops. This trend has been seen in a number of instances and one in particular is the Bishop of Central New York.<end p>
<p>This is his statement on last week's decision by the primates of the Anglican Communion:<end p>
<p>21 Jan 2016<end p>
<p>Author: Gladstone Adams<end p>
<p>You probably have heard of the decision that has come out of the recent Anglican Primates meeting in Canterbury, England. (The Primates are the head bishops of the various provincial churches that make up the worldwide Anglican Communion, of which our Presiding Bishop is one.) Of the Primates gathered, a majority voted to censure The Episcopal Church for our full embrace of LGBTQ persons, specifically for our most recent General Convention’s action approving inclusive marriage rites that can be used for same-sex couples.<end p>
<p>According to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, the Primates' decision is not a “sanction” of The Episcopal Church, but a “consequence” of our theological and pastoral decisions that are not embraced by a majority of the head bishops of the Anglican Communion. Whatever the term used, the Primates decided that clergy and lay leaders of The Episcopal Church, for a period of three years, cannot participate in any official Anglican bodies that deal with matters of doctrine or policy.<end p>
<p>The positive part of the Primate’s declaration is that they unanimously expressed a desire to continue to walk in partnership, joined in Christ in mission and ministry. In my perspective, however, the Primate’s decision to censure The Episcopal Church compounds the pain of discrimination that LGBTQ people have suffered over the centuries and continue to suffer as a result of Church policy. For that pain I am deeply sorry, and as a Bishop of the Church I apologize to all LGBTQ people, especially those of this Diocese.<end p>
<p>Discipleship can be costly and sometimes, although we do not want it to be so, relationships are strained as part of that cost. People who love God can honestly disagree on weighty matters, and it is my desire to respect and remain in relationship with those who disagree with me. It is my belief, however, that as I read Scripture, understand the teaching of Jesus, examine the history of the Church, and apply God’s gift of human reason seeking the Spirit’s direction, that the actions of The Episcopal Church moving toward full inclusion of LGBTQ people are of God. The Spirit is calling us to stand by our carefully and prayerfully made decisions.<end p>
<p>We, the people of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York, will continue to embrace our baptismal promise to “strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.” As we believe everyone is made in God’s image, we will continue to work to be a faith community that offers God’s radical hospitality to all, assures everyone of God’s loving embrace, and supports relationships lived in fidelity to God and one another, no matter one’s sexual orientation. All leadership positions of this Church remain open to all who seek the Way of Jesus.<end p>
<p>The decision of the Primates does not affect us in the every day life of our churches except in one essential way. That is, we must continue to pray for one another and love one another as Jesus has loved us, especially where we may disagree. As the Archbishop of Canterbury said, reconciliation and agreement are not the same thing.<end p>
<p>I will be attending an Episcopal House of Bishops meeting in March where I may receive much more information and clarity regarding the decisions made and where we may go from here. Until then, God be with you all. I call upon you to remain steadfast in God’s hope as we seek “to be the passionate presence of Christ for one another and the world we are called to serve.”<end p>
<p>In Christ,<end p>
<p>Skip<end p>
<p> [http://www.anglican.ink/article/bishop-central-new-york-responds-canterbury-primates-communique]<end
p>
<p>As you read that statement, did you notice any theology? Of course not, which is the problem in the Episcopal Church. When the leadership of TEC asked the Theology Committee of the House of Bishops to write a theological statement on human sexuality, the statement released in 2003, "The Gift of Sexuality: A Theological Perspective," was roundly criticized by liberal and conservative theologians alike [a conservative critique is found in <a href="http://www.anglicancommunion.org/resources/document-library.aspx?author=The+Windsor+Process&language=English">The Windsor Report</a> and a liberal critique is found here: <a href="https://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/dojustice/j033.html">https://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/dojustice/j033.html</a> - there were a number of others from both sides of the theological divide].<end p>
<p>The level of theological work is certainly not raised by the Bishop of Central New York, but this is what we've come to expect from him. He told a group that I was a part of in 2003 that he had written a theological statement on the General Convention's action that summer in endorsing the consecration of Vicky Gene Robinson, a divorced man in a committed homosexual relationship, but when he gave it to his staff along with a more personal reflection piece, they thought the reflection piece was a better statement to be published in the diocesan newspaper. Instead of a reasoned affirmation of the General Convention's action, the diocese was given much less.<end p>
<p>In the statement copied above, the bishop says "as I read Scripture, understand the teaching of Jesus, examine the history of the Church, and apply God’s gift of human reason seeking the Spirit’s direction, that the actions of The Episcopal Church moving toward full inclusion of LGBTQ people are of God." That has about as much weight as the folks who preface or explain their actions with "the Lord told me to do it." People of God, it has been the age-old premise of the Church that the Holy Spirit does not speak or lead contrary to the revealed Word of God, which is the Bible.<end p>
<p>The bishop next quotes from the 1979 prayer book liturgy, that we are to “strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.” In his perspective, to maintain the historic position on sexuality and marriage is to disrespect the dignity of people who hold to other views of sexuality and marriage. It is to deny them justice and to create discord. This is strange thinking considering that it is the same prayer book that has the baptismal covenant from which he is quoting and the wedding service that clearly states that marriage is between a man and a woman.<end p>
<p>In his statement, do you see any acknowledgment of the discord that TEC has created in the worldwide Anglican Communion by her unilateral actions? Of course not. To do so would require humility. Instead, the victim card is played and the defiance that has marked the words and actions of TEC since 2003 come to the fore.<end p>
<p>This is what you get when you elect nice guy bishops. What you don't get is theologians who understand how to do the hard work of properly interpreting Scripture. Even a committee of six bishops and "seven academic theologians" [from the Gift of Sexuality] could not adequately do that. And this is precisely the problem in TEC. This is why TEC has been censured by the Anglican Communion.<end p>
<p>Skip is a nice guy, but hardly a theologian. Unfortunately, the Episcopal House of Bishops is filled with other men and women like him that exhibit the same deficiency.<end p>
Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-61987043626704423922016-01-19T13:13:00.002-08:002016-01-19T18:59:45.676-08:00Where Do U.S. Anglicans Get Anglican News?
Last week was an important week in the life of Anglicans in the United States, and American Anglicans of the Episcopalian variety and the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) variety used a number of websites to track the news from the historic meeting of Primates at Canterbury Cathedral in England.
<p>The heads of the 37 of the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion were joined by Archbishop Foley Beach, the head of the ACNA. The meeting began on Monday and there was a partial media blackout due to no press conferences being held until Friday and the lack of availablity of the primates during the meeting. Information leaked out in drips and drabs and Anglicans and Episcopalians received what news and conjecture that was released through a variety of sources.<end p>
<p>The principle sources for reporting on the meeting for the United States were EpiscopalChurch.org, Episcopal Cafe, Virtue Online, Anglican's Online and Stand Firm in Faith. It may be too early to say which was the go to site, but here are the stats according to site metrics from Alexa.com as I write:<end p>
<p>EpiscopalChurch.org's worldwide rank is 93,868. It's national ranking is 16,300. <end p>
<p>Episcopal Cafe's worldwide rank is 176,909, with a national ranking of 32,992. <end p>
<p>Virtue Online's rank worldwide is 349,069. It's national ranking is 59,184.<end p>
<p>Anglican's Online ranks 413,758 worldwide and 127,986 in the United States. <end p>
<p>Stand Firm's worldwide rank is 564,827. It's national ranking is 109,191. <end p>
<p>So, two liberal sites were more popular than Virtue Online, and three liberal sites were more popular than Stand Firm. Interestingly, today, the traffic to the liberal sites were all increasing while the traffic to Virtue Online was down and the traffic to Stand Firm was dramatically down. <end p>
<p>Alexa.com explains their ranking system, saying, "The rank is calculated using a combination of average daily visitors to this site and pageviews on this site over the past 3 months. The site with the highest combination of visitors and pageviews is ranked #1." Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-23735656985731148262015-11-26T14:39:00.001-08:002015-11-26T14:39:30.796-08:00LGBTTQQFAGPBDSMI'm still waiting for an apology from Susan Russell. I've known for a long time that she isn't about to apologize for her blatant lie. When I commented that the LGBT movement would be expanding to other perversions she denied it. Then Bishop Vicky Gene Robinson opined that there are many letters in the alphabet. That was an open admission that the LGBT movement was moving on to greater sins. Still, no apology from Susan Russell.
Then this from the Washington Post: "Wesleyan University’s student government threatened to cut the school newspaper’s funding because it published a column critical of campus leftists. Wesleyan created a “safe space,” a.k.a. a house, for LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM students (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning, Flexual, Asexual, Genderf---, Polyamorous, Bondage/Discipline, Dominance/Submission, Sadism/Masochism)."
Read it for yourself: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/higher-education-brought-low/2015/11/25/a79f118e-92d6-11e5-b5e4-279b4501e8a6_story.html
By the way,this is just one example of why I call so-called higher education higher propaganda. The propaganda starts in elementary school and continues into college. You can read more about that in the same article.
Susan Russell, I still waiting.Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-40127414364934538262015-06-02T03:19:00.001-07:002015-06-02T03:19:40.742-07:00pecusa legal expenses revised by the Anglican CurmudgeonFRIDAY, MAY 29, 2015
What Is ECUSA Spending on Lawsuits? (Updated for General Convention 2015)
[WARNING: the following post may be dangerous to one's mental health. The panoply of unbelievably large figures in it may also cause one's eyes to glaze over. For those who cannot wade through it all, here is the bottom line:
The Episcopal Church (USA) has spent, and further committed (in its adopted budgets) to spend, a total of $42,675,466 on suing fellow Christians in the civil and ecclesiastical courts over the first eighteen years of this century. When one adds in the estimated additional amounts spent by individual dioceses on such litigation, the total amount exceeds Sixty Million Dollars.
Can't believe it? Well, then, read on -- you have been warned.]
Since September 2010, when I put up an analysis, based on ECUSA's monthly statements and their annual audited statements through 2009, I have kept track of how much ECUSA and its major dioceses has spent on attorneys' fees and other costs associated with all of the 90 or so lawsuits against former Episcopalians to which it (or one of its dioceses) has been a party. In 2010, it was only 60+ lawsuits, as catalogued here (see pgs. 23-26), but the Church continues to sue everyone who leaves it, whether the law is against it or not. In order to give as complete a picture as possible back then, I also included the latest ECUSA budget projection of legal expenses through the triennium 2010-2012.
One has to realize that ECUSA does not make it easy to discover the amounts it spends on litigation -- the leadership at 815 Second Avenue would obviously prefer that those who sit in the pews every Sunday and contribute their pledges not be aware of just how many millions have been squandered on ECUSA's scorched-earth litigation policy.
I am fully aware that those are fighting words to all those who support the current administration at 815 Second Avenue: "Prove it!" they say. Well, in the course of this post, I intend to do just that. So please suspend your judgment until you have digested the entire piece, and checked out all the links to my sources -- which are uniformly from ECUSA's own published financial statements and official minutes. I am a lifelong Episcopalian myself, and I am utterly ashamed and outraged by what the Presiding Bishop and her cohorts are doing in our Church's name.
The amounts the Church spends due to its litigation policies come in a number of different categories. Not all the categories are shown in the same financial documents. For instance:
The yearly audited financial statements, which are the most accurate source, do not break out "litigation expenses" as a separate category, but instead lump them in with all the other general operating costs of the organization. But what they do disclose are (a) the amount of moneys loaned (not granted outright) to rump dioceses; and (b) the amount of legal out-of-pocket expenses contributed to ECUSA by the Presiding Bishop's Chancellor's law firm, Goodwin Procter.
(Note: While the IRS does not allow lawyers to deduct the value of their services rendered pro bono, it does allow them to deduct out-of-pocket expenses incurred in performing the services -- travel, hotel and meals; telephone, freight, postage and similar amounts. In order to keep track of ECUSA's full legal expenses, these contributed costs must be added back into the totals, or else those totals would appear artificially low in comparison to other corporations incurring similar legal services and related expenses. Moreover, ECUSA includes their amount in its income -- see the auditors' note -- so they have to be part of its expenses, as well.)
The monthly statements of operations, though not audited, are the best source of information for (c) the cost of Title IV proceedings -- at least until recently -- and (d) the amounts paid to Goodwin and Procter over and above their donated services, as well as to local law firms retained in various states by ECUSA.
The minutes of the Executive Council are the best source for (e) the amounts of grants and credit lines extended to the rump dioceses. (The audited financials show only the amounts actually borrowed against credit lines as of the year end; they do not disclose the total amount of credit lines extended.)
The budgets adopted by General Convention and the Executive Council are the best detailed source for actual moneys spent in the past on particular line items, and they are the only source for (f) the future anticipated legal expenses of the Church. These are most often wildly understated, and Executive Council is constantly having to revise them upwards.
In September 2010, I had concluded that ECUSA and its Dioceses of Virginia, Los Angeles and San Diego had committed to date a combined total of Twenty-one Million Six Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars ($21,650,000.00) on litigation for the years 2000-2012. Four years later, I revised the total spent by ECUSA alone (not including any of its dioceses) during that same period to $21,858,714. This number I broke down as follows:
For the Griswold years (2000-2006), the total is somewhat higher than estimated previously, because I found an entry for "Legal Support to Dioceses" paid in calendar 2006 in the amount of $443,519. The new total is:
TOTAL 2000-2006: $ 1,777,180.00
For the first triennium under Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori (2007-2009):
Title IV Expenses: $ 1,702,222 -- i.e., almost as much as PB Griswold spent on everything legal!
Litigation Expenses (including contributed expenses): $ 8,392,584
Grants to Sustain Rump Dioceses: $1,200,000
TOTAL 2007-2009: $ 11,294,806.00
For the second Jefferts Schori triennium (2010-2012):
Title IV Expenses: $ 992,921
Litigation Expenses (including contributed expenses): $ 4,933,807
Grants to Sustain Rump Dioceses: $ 575,000
Loans to Rump Dioceses: $ 2,285,000
TOTAL 2010-2012: $ 8,786,728.00
Jefferts Schori Actual Total, 2007-2012: $ 20,081,534
Plus: Griswold Total, 2000-2006: $ 1,777,180
GRAND TOTAL, 2000-2012: $ 21,858,714
That amazing number is now historical fact, and does not change. But the totals since 2012 do.
At the time of my 2014 post, I did not have the final, year-end figures for 2013, but now I do. Actual 2013 legal expenses alone (not including contributed expenses) were reported (p.3) at $2,125,008 -- more than $1.1 million over the amount budgeted. (This item includes in-house legal staff support, such as the salary of the Presiding Bishop's Special Assistant for Litigation, Mary Kostel.) To this must be added the amounts of contributed legal expenses, which are disclosed only in the 2013 audited financial statements (p. 11): $386,000. (The Presiding Bishop's Chancellor's law firm, in return for being awarded all of ECUSA's litigation work, gives ECUSA "discounted hourly rates" -- isn't that fine?)
The total thus for 2013, exclusive of grants, loans, and Title IV expenses (which the Treasurer no longer itemizes), comes to $ 2,511,008.00. Now include the $735,000 authorized in grants and loans to just the South Carolina rump diocese in 2013 (after a further $300,000 increase authorized in June), the $785,000 authorized for San Joaquin, plus amounts to other dioceses, and the $270,000 spent on Title IV (per the 2014 budget, line 277), and you reach:
TOTAL LEGAL EXPENSES (ECUSA ALONE) FOR 2013: $4,601,008.
For calendar 2014, ECUSA has reported legal expenses of $1,741,166 -- this time only $526,681 over budget. (Those darn legal expenses! Just cannot budget for them!). Contributed expenses are not known yet, but a safe estimate is $300,000. Add in the 2014 grants and loans to litigating dioceses: a general $500,000 line of credit approved in February 14 (FFM038); a separate loan of $785,000 to the Diocese of San Joaquin approved in June 2014 (FFM050), along with a further $775,000 to be drawn as necessary for the "maintenance of any recovered property"; and $270,245 budgeted for Title IV proceedings (line 277). The total then comes to:
TOTAL LEGAL EXPENSES (ECUSA ALONE) FOR 2014: $4,371,411.
For calendar 2015, we have budget amounts only thus far (which are notoriously underestimated). The budget for legal expenses in 2015 is $1,160,486 (line 346), and for Title IV expenses (line 277) $275,622. The number for legal expenses almost certainly needs to be increased (March 2015 already ran 50% over budget), and we do not have the figures for any of the other components yet in 2015. The safe thing to do is to estimate that the total for 2015 will be something like the average for 2013-2014:
TOTAL LEGAL EXPENSES (ECUSA ALONE; ESTIMATED) FOR 2015: $4,486,210.
This in turn allows us to estimate the total for the last triennium of Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori's term: it comes to $ 13,458,629. Note that the total far exceeds either of the two preceding triennia ($11,294,806 for 2007-2009, and $8,786,728 for 2010-2012). And so, for 2000 through 2015, we have:
Jefferts Schori Total, 2007-2015: $ 33,540,163
Plus: Griswold Total, 2000-2006: $ 1,777,180
Note the hugely disparate legal expenses under Jefferts Schori, as compared to Bishop Griswold's last six years (there were no litigation expenses during Griswold's first three years) -- an increase of nearly 1,900%. Now do you see what I mean by "scorched-earth litigation policy"?
Together, the two are responsible for the Church's spending the following
GRAND TOTAL, 2000-2015: $ 35,317,343
Just to put that number into perspective, take a look at line 362 in the (2014) budget. It is even larger than the amount as ECUSA budgeted to spend for ALL of its operations in calendar 2013! And we are not done yet.
We have a budget proposed for General Convention to adopt for the next triennium, 2016-2018. There we see (line 346) $3,572,082 proposed for legal expenses, and (line 277) $888,305 for Title IV expenses. Given the inadequacy of the previous budgets to forecast actual amounts, it would be safe to increase the larger amount by 50%, so say: $5,358,123. Then to that total must still be added the (unbudgeted) estimates for loans to litigating dioceses, and for contributed expenses (will the new Presiding Bishop elected in 2015 continue to use David Booth Beers and his law firm, Goodwin Procter, to handle all of ECUSA's litigation?). A good estimate for those numbers, as we have seen, is a round $2 million.
So the total spent and committed to be spent by the Episcopal Church (USA), all on its own, and for the first eighteen years of this century, comes to
TOTAL LEGAL EXPENSES (ECUSA ALONE; ESTIMATED) FOR 2000-2018: $42,675,466.
Note that this total now exceeds the amount budgeted by the Church for all of its operations in 2015 alone ($40.8 million).
And we still are not done. We have to add in the amounts spent by individual dioceses -- Los Angeles, Fort Worth, San Diego, Ohio, Virginia, Tennessee, etc., etc. Starting with Virginia, we know the Diocese took out a $2 million line of credit, but that sufficed for only the first two years of its protracted litigation. Taking into account interest and the duration of the lawsuit, it is safe to estimate that Virginia alone spent $4 million litigating against former parishes. Los Angeles' total must be comparable. But Fort Worth's litigation is not yet over, and because it has hired several law firms, it is safe to say its budget is the highest of all -- around $6 million. Add another $6 million total for all the many other dioceses in litigation (see the bottom of this page) and you can easily see how, by the end of 2018, the total spent on litigation-related items within ECUSA will easily be WELL OVER SIXTY MILLION DOLLARS.
In other words, the total estimated amount has trebled since I first estimated it five years ago, and increased by 50% over my estimate just last year. That is an unconscionable waste of non-profit resources. Even taking into account Bishop J. Jon Bruno's (he of the forkèd tongue) announced intention to sell the St. James property for $15 million -- rather than allow the parish for which the Diocese supposedly sued to recover its property to continue to use it -- the amounts recovered in property values to date pale into insignificance compared to the amounts being squandered in seeking to recover them.
And the administration at 815 is becoming less and less transparent in disclosing the waste on this huge scale. No longer do they break out "legal aid to dioceses" or "Title IV expenses" as separate line items in their monthly statements. And why do they not publish the total amounts they expect to be repaid from the dioceses receiving the loans? Is it realistic, for example, to expect the rump Diocese of San Joaquin alone, which is unable to sustain itself on its own, to repay the more than $3 million ECUSA has loaned to it thus far? How does that represent "good stewardship"?
Will no one at the forthcoming General Convention -- House of Bishops, House of Deputies, clergy, or laity -- hold them to account?
Will the bishops and deputies not require each candidate for Presiding Bishop to state clearly his intentions regarding carrying on this waste of the Church's precious resources?
Ultimately, the New York Attorney General is the officer who has the jurisdiction and power to look into the misuse of non-profit assets, and it is high time he did so. After all, at the request of both clergy and laity he invoked his jurisdiction over the scandal involving Treasurer Ellen Cooke, and that involved only a few million dollars: chump change in comparison to what is going on now.
For almost ten years now, the Episcopal Church (USA) has had an out-of-control litigation budget. It is a scandal of ineffable magnitude. It must -- and hopefully soon will -- be brought to a halt.
Posted by A. S. Haley at 9:50 AMTony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-36611202541849840592014-10-24T11:07:00.001-07:002014-10-24T11:08:12.611-07:00Money talks for pecusa no matter what<div class="MsoNormal">
<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Former Connecticut church sold for benefit of local Muslim
community</span></strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001geDC1MV4Tj3USd3w_R-nVIJDCPJ-b1atJo9z25tm3laY77Z2A21nX21GfoKvKHda2BPtrMGXn9DcPhJFAGx9w3VI34ELqXgNLHCwkq3kAA6e8GgaMJdMdnIhG_m04Z3nEHIjSl1P9ogRUJ7jyhbyK5sGAs-kGxO6dp27FqwInb86UcgDJoknV6NGF8xmzFSRW7QxSu0M7AOPPjkIGL86JFpXLIj_Xrax3l4AQ5zXkf4vcA0-1Is68nHP6wwuZfinuMWsNdzboA0whAqXbsfj-85eW4cOXDE3-kyosF4rmJcsIvPMI4iuzPZvrImhhFqMgkZ__dWdvvXtZc8KknixUKaOGiVwiCjcS_-e8-hOB3TNG7Xw2wN3g46VUB9ChrxQR5QakZMr3IQoXPUXZxZcMEdp59msEusK1uPKrRH9BcfI6KomiwWnDyn12pDD6l2K&c=LWLxFjVwB4YShvu0uYy4vuxvogoy6NvlGC6N6uH53iV0h9dtvGwx0A==&ch=Oc3-SOVWLGOrmOgtUUBW5ORHxGVbGaMCY_u9PD0YlHkWkgY7Eulu1w==" linktype="1" shape="rect" target="_blank" track="on">Anglican Communion News Service</a><br />
October 23, 2014<br />
<br />
The Episcopal Church in Connecticut (ECCT) has sold its property at 35 Harris
Road, Avon, former home to Christ Episcopal Church, to the Farmington Valley
American Muslim Center, Inc. (FVAMC).<br />
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The sale, for $1.1 million, was completed on Oct. 21.<br />
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The building was vacated after the congregation voted in 2012 to dissolve as a
parish and close by the end of that year.<br />
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The following spring, Bishop Ian T. Douglas and other ECCT staff hosted a
meeting of community leaders and interested residents to discern how the
property could best be used "as an asset to God's mission of restoration
and reconciliation" in greater Avon and beyond....<a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001geDC1MV4Tj3USd3w_R-nVIJDCPJ-b1atJo9z25tm3laY77Z2A21nX21GfoKvKHda2BPtrMGXn9DcPhJFAGx9w3VI34ELqXgNLHCwkq3kAA6e8GgaMJdMdnIhG_m04Z3nEHIjSl1P9ogRUJ7jyhbyK5sGAs-kGxO6dp27FqwInb86UcgDJoknV6NGF8xmzFSRW7QxSu0M7AOPPjkIGL86JFpXLIj_Xrax3l4AQ5zXkf4vcA0-1Is68nHP6wwuZfinuMWsNdzboA0whAqXbsfj-85eW4cOXDE3-kyosF4rmJcsIvPMI4iuzPZvrImhhFqMgkZ__dWdvvXtZc8KknixUKaOGiVwiCjcS_-e8-hOB3TNG7Xw2wN3g46VUB9ChrxQR5QakZMr3IQoXPUXZxZcMEdp59msEusK1uPKrRH9BcfI6KomiwWnDyn12pDD6l2K&c=LWLxFjVwB4YShvu0uYy4vuxvogoy6NvlGC6N6uH53iV0h9dtvGwx0A==&ch=Oc3-SOVWLGOrmOgtUUBW5ORHxGVbGaMCY_u9PD0YlHkWkgY7Eulu1w==" linktype="1" shape="rect" target="_blank" track="on">read more.</a></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"></span><br />
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(via the ACC)Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-90711237589455336662014-10-24T11:06:00.002-07:002014-10-24T11:06:35.657-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<strong><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Reconfiguring the Anglican Communion without Archbishop Welby's
input?</span></strong><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001geDC1MV4Tj3USd3w_R-nVIJDCPJ-b1atJo9z25tm3laY77Z2A21nX21GfoKvKHdaRRb7tPQEHJNUQ07Er7QxHDQKZzDia5ee_baH9GfIPc8fvGvss4DPNI9Gfi2XVYSGCXUjunvd3ngUPYNg9DQjsdcA7pqWgqaiOgsY74Zc0tZzOM8KVgah6l3PDxGKTEG-YRXwl8Nc8mK5hVaDevqtL7jq-n-rWii2GfkdY7DQskgJHlTBBKpnda11UwKX97ualDpAXcpiJFo1kMGyAtSLvi8q2yWqXiyHy0DkAWAAV0kDbznoJQdbOJPDyeoXCigOOxySS8XxIEG9S4n_Fp03FdgH4xJk3gCnZHsR4CwaWE5ODQYZBqE2eV_N1woitI5F2n-13-1jPw7dS3rw6SKKCap0Fn1s_rsQr4nuPCeiTKM=&c=LWLxFjVwB4YShvu0uYy4vuxvogoy6NvlGC6N6uH53iV0h9dtvGwx0A==&ch=Oc3-SOVWLGOrmOgtUUBW5ORHxGVbGaMCY_u9PD0YlHkWkgY7Eulu1w==" linktype="1" shape="rect" target="_blank" track="on">Anglican Mainstream </a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">By Barbara Gauthier<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">October 22, 2014<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">On October 3rd, Archbishop of
Canterbury said that the Anglican Church in North America was not Anglican and
definitely not part of the Anglican Communion. The next day, the Diocese of NW
Australia recognized the ACNA "as a member church of the Anglican Communion,
in full communion with Diocese of North West Australia." On October 9th,
seven primates of the Anglican Communion welcomed Archbishop Foley Beach of the
ACNA as "an archbishop and fellow primate of the Anglican Communion."
A week later, the Diocese of Sydney's Synod passed a resolution "without
dissent" declaring that they intended to be in full communion with the
ACNA. This prompted a commenter to observe that ++Welby's decision may not
matter much at all in the long run - or, for that matter, in the short run
either:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The dominos are starting to fall and I'll bet they start picking
up speed before the end of the year. The ACNA issue is being taken out of
Welby's hands (and he essentially asked for that) and he's going to soon be
asking someone "what happened?"...<a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001geDC1MV4Tj3USd3w_R-nVIJDCPJ-b1atJo9z25tm3laY77Z2A21nX21GfoKvKHdaRRb7tPQEHJNUQ07Er7QxHDQKZzDia5ee_baH9GfIPc8fvGvss4DPNI9Gfi2XVYSGCXUjunvd3ngUPYNg9DQjsdcA7pqWgqaiOgsY74Zc0tZzOM8KVgah6l3PDxGKTEG-YRXwl8Nc8mK5hVaDevqtL7jq-n-rWii2GfkdY7DQskgJHlTBBKpnda11UwKX97ualDpAXcpiJFo1kMGyAtSLvi8q2yWqXiyHy0DkAWAAV0kDbznoJQdbOJPDyeoXCigOOxySS8XxIEG9S4n_Fp03FdgH4xJk3gCnZHsR4CwaWE5ODQYZBqE2eV_N1woitI5F2n-13-1jPw7dS3rw6SKKCap0Fn1s_rsQr4nuPCeiTKM=&c=LWLxFjVwB4YShvu0uYy4vuxvogoy6NvlGC6N6uH53iV0h9dtvGwx0A==&ch=Oc3-SOVWLGOrmOgtUUBW5ORHxGVbGaMCY_u9PD0YlHkWkgY7Eulu1w==" linktype="1" shape="rect" target="_blank" track="on">read more. </a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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(via the ACC)</div>
Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-70840562608901219942014-10-15T09:47:00.002-07:002014-10-15T09:47:57.309-07:00<div data-motopress-static-file="static/static-title.php" data-motopress-type="static" style="background-color: #e6e6e6; color: #6f7172; font-family: Lato; font-size: 17px; line-height: 22px;">
<section class="title-section" style="padding: 25px 0px 0px 25px;"><h1 class="title-header" style="color: #5479a1; font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 24px; margin: 11px 0px 18px; overflow: hidden; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-transform: uppercase; word-wrap: break-word;">
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA AND THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION</h1>
</section></div>
<div data-motopress-loop-file="loop/loop-single.php" data-motopress-type="loop" id="content" right="" style="background: rgb(230, 230, 230); border-right-color: rgb(214, 216, 217); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 2px; color: #6f7172; font-family: Lato; font-size: 17px; line-height: 22px; margin-right: -2px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 51px;">
<article class="post-6923 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-current-news category-featured post__holder cat-43-id cat-64-id" id="post-6923" style="margin-bottom: 35px; overflow: hidden;"><figure class="featured-thumbnail thumbnail" style="-webkit-box-shadow: none; -webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border: none; box-shadow: none; float: left; margin: 5px 20px 10px 25px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;"><img alt="IMG_2701" class="attachment-post-thumbnail wp-post-image" height="119" src="https://americananglican.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/IMG_2701-170x119.jpg" style="border: 0px rgb(221, 221, 221); display: block; height: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="170" /></figure><div class="post_content" style="padding-bottom: 20px; word-wrap: break-word;">
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<b>GlobalView from Bishop Bill Atwood</b></div>
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A “Communion” is a relational network of churches and people who are “in Communion.” What that means in the literal sense is that they have Eucharistic fellowship, in other words, they have Holy Communion together. In the case of Anglicanism, it has been expanded to include a number of institutional protocols, but the heart of the arrangement is the ability to share Holy Communion.</div>
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When the Episcopal Church (TEC) and the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) moved away from Anglican faith and practice (especially in regard to sexual practice), many provinces broke Communion with them. The previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, and the current one, Justin Welby remained in Communion with TEC and the ACoC. They also have put heavy emphasis on the institutional structures. When many people in the US and Canada separated from TEC and the ACoC, the institutional structures did not respond. The GAFCON Provinces were quick to recognize the new Anglican Church in North America. Very shortly after that, the regional fellowship called the Global South recognized the ACNA as well.</div>
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Recently, in response to questions from the <a href="http://www.coigazette.net/?page_id=2004" style="color: #193f6a; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Church of Ireland Gazette">Church of Ireland Gazette</a>, the Archbishop of Canterbury stated that the Anglican Church in North America was not part of the Anglican Communion. It was a very bad week to posit that. Some very significant things happened that demonstrated that most of the Anglicans in the world do not agree with his assessment.</div>
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Shortly after the TEC House of Bishops met in Taiwan, a group went to West Malaysia. They announced that they had heard the consecration of a new assistant bishop was about to take place and they were there to participate. Leaders in the Anglican Church in Malaysia said, <b>“You are welcome—to our country. You cannot participate in the service however, because of the actions you have taken to tear the fabric of the communion and you remain unrepentant. We are not in Communion with you, so you cannot participate in the service.” </b></div>
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The visit was part of TEC’s initiative to demonstrate that they are fully part of the Communion and are in relationships with other Anglican Provinces. The tactic has been used in a number of places in Africa where they visit, are received with hospitality (because that is the culture of those people), and then take pictures to demonstrate that there are no significant issues even though there may be disagreement over things like sexuality.</div>
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In this case, the TEC plan did not work in Malaysia. The leaders in the Diocese of West Malaysia are very well informed and steadfastly faithful. Not only did they turn TEC away, they knew I was traveling in South East Asia so they sent me a message. “Can you change your travel plans to be at the consecration we are having in Kuala Lumpur? We want to demonstrate that we are not in Communion with TEC, but we are in Communion with the ACNA. If you can get here, we’d like to make your visit highly visible.”</div>
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I was able to change my itinerary and arrived in time to participate in the Consecration including the laying on of hands for Charles Samuel, consecrated as Assistant Bishop for the Panang district of the Diocese of West Malaysia. Here is the official photo:</div>
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<img alt="malaysia consecration" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6925" height="360" src="https://americananglican.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/malaysia-consecration.jpg" style="border: 0px; display: block; height: auto; margin: 5px auto 10px; max-width: 100%; text-align: center; vertical-align: middle;" width="640" /></div>
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I’m on the left with Bishop Rennis Poniah (Singapore). Newly consecrated Bishop Charles Samuel is in the middle flanked by his daughter on the right and his wife on the left. Directly behind Bishop Charles and just a bit left is Archbishop Bolly Lapok (Archbishop of South East Asia). The Bishop of West Malaysia, Ng Moon Hing is right behind Bishop Charles’ daughter. Bishop Peter Tasker of Sydney is on the back row right.</div>
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My invitation to participate in this consecration is not particularly significant because of me, but it is very significant. When the Diocese of West Malaysia (Province of South East Asia) refused to allow representatives of the Episcopal Church to participate in the service and made a point of inviting me, they demonstrated the fact that there has been a paradigm shift in the Anglican Communion.</div>
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Historically, there have been four “Instruments of Unity” in the Anglican Communion. They are:</div>
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<li>The Archbishop of Canterbury</li>
<li>The Primates’ Meeting</li>
<li>The Lambeth Council of Bishops (every ten years)</li>
<li>The Anglican Consultative Council</li>
</ul>
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Over the last fifteen years, all four of the Instruments have been compromised. Repeatedly, the Primates would meet and make a decision and The Archbishop of Canterbury would either modify it or nullify it. That was done most stridently by ABp Rowan Williams overturning the Primates’ call from Dar es Salaam for the Episcopal Church to turn back from their revisionist agenda. There were also decisions in Dromantine, Ireland, and well…actually it was all the Primates meetings where decisions were made and then overturned. As a result, a large group of Primates have refused to attend Primates Meetings until the provisions of previous decisions are actually put in place.</div>
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The Lambeth Bishops’ Conference in 2008 failed to gather all the bishops. More than 300 bishops refused to attend because those who had consecrated Gene Robinson as a bishop were invited. It was in that environment that the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) was born and met in Jerusalem.</div>
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The Anglican Consultative Council’s agenda has been completely dominated by revisionists, causing many of the orthodox Provinces to lose interest.</div>
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Over the length of his tenure, Archbishop Rowan Williams skillfully steered the communion in a way that has institutionally enshrined the practices that deeply tore the fabric of the Communion. Initially, there was great enthusiasm for the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. Archbishop Welby shares the testimony that he came to faith in Christ through the Alpha movement and has experienced charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit. His comments two weeks ago that the Anglican Church in North America “is not part of the Anglican Communion” were met with stunned surprise by many Anglican leaders.</div>
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In 2008, GAFCON in Jerusalem called for the launching of a new Province in North America; one that would be faithful to Anglican formularies. Upon the launching of the ACNA in 2009, all the GAFCON Provinces made declarations of Communion. Even more significantly, they wrote:</div>
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While acknowledging the nature of Canterbury as an historic see, we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury.</div>
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GAFCON then claimed for itself the ability to recognize “authentic Anglican bodies” where they were encountered. The efficacy of their decision to recognize the ACNA as genuinely Anglican is seen in the fruit that many of the Provinces of the Communion—and certainly the vast majority of the world’s active Anglicans—not only share Holy Communion with the ACNA, but they also share in ministry together.</div>
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My invitation to the consecration in Kuala Lumpur (and the dis-invitation of the people from TEC who had volunteered to attend) is a graphic example of the new reality. What actually happened at the consecration was not dictated by what the Archbishop of Canterbury thought or said, it was constrained by the realities of relationships, both good and bad.</div>
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Last Thursday night, Primates from the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (the ongoing ministry of GAFCON) and from the Global South led the investiture of Archbishop Foley Beach as the new Primate of the ACNA. In the course of the service, the eight Primates who represent the leadership of the vast majority of the world’s active Anglicans said:</div>
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“Foley, we receive you as Archbishop and a Primate in the Anglican Communion.”</div>
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The next day, they reiterated that and expressly pledged their partnership and commitment to shared ministry in a written statement.</div>
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Next month, representatives from many mission minded Provinces will join the Diocese of Singapore for a Mission Roundtable. The ACNA will be there. TEC will not. Canada will not. The people who believe the same things are getting on with the mission of the church. Those who believe different things are left stuck in an institutional quagmire that isn’t doing Gospel ministry.</div>
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Here’s the rub: The Anglican Communion is not <i>going to</i> re-align, it <i>has</i> re-aligned. It is true that the structures have not yet caught up with that reality, but the re-alignment has taken place. Increasingly, those who pursue the liberal agenda of TEC and insist on maintaining partnership with them are finding that the fruit of their actions will continue to be increased marginalization.</div>
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<em> The Rt. Rev. Bill Atwood is Bishop of the ACNA International Diocese and an American Anglican Council contributing author. </em></div>
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<em><br /></em></div>
<div style="margin-left: 25px; margin-right: 30px;">
<em>Source: American Anglican Council</em></div>
</div>
</article></div>
Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-21636042058883280942014-10-11T04:23:00.003-07:002014-10-11T04:23:59.485-07:00<div class="storyHead" style="background-color: white; color: #282828; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
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Pope Francis signals blessing to breakaway traditionalist US Anglican church</h1>
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Headache for Archbishop of canterbury as Anglican Bishop of Argentina offers personal greetings to leader of breakaway church from friend Pope Francis</h2>
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<span class="caption" style="color: #404040; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.38em; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px;">Bishop Greg Venables kisses Archbishop Foley beach of the Anglican Church of North America</span> <span class="credit" style="color: #999999; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.38em;">Photo: kkalsen / youtube</span></div>
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By <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/john-bingham/" rel="author" style="color: #234b7b; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="John Bingham">John Bingham</a>, Religious Affairs Editor</div>
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7:37PM BST 10 Oct 2014</div>
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Pope Francis has signalled his blessing to the breakaway traditionalist American church at the centre of the split which has divided the 80 million strong worldwide Anglican Communion over the issue of sexuality.</div>
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He sent a message offering his “prayers and support” to Archbishop Foley Beach, the new leader of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), the conservative movement which broke away from The Episcopal Church after the ordination of the first openly gay bishop.</div>
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His message underlines the pressure facing the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, as he attempts to avert a formal schism in worldwide Anglicanism.</div>
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ACNA sees itself as the true Anglican church in the US, Canada and Mexico and believes that The Episcopal Church has abandoned the teaching of the Bible by embracing liberal stances on issues such as homosexuality.</div>
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Crucially it is recognised by the leaders of Anglican churches across Africa and Asia, many of whom were present at <a href="http://anglicanchurch.net/?/main/page/889" style="color: #234b7b; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">the new primate’s installation</a> in Atlanta on Thursday.</div>
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But, in an interview last week, Archbishop Welby underlined his view that ACNA is “not part of the Anglican Communion”.</div>
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The message from Pope Francis was delivered during the service by the Rt Rev Gregory Venables, the Anglican bishop of Argentina, who had a long-standing friendship with his former Roman Catholic counterpart, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, until his election as pope.</div>
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Bishop Venables, told how he was recovering from a severe illness earlier this year when he had a telephone call from an Argentine man who introduced himself as “Francis”.</div>
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To laughter from the congregation, he explained that he had responded: “Francis who?”</div>
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“He said, with a wonderful degree of humility and patience, ‘no it’s Father Jorge’,” the bishop explained.</div>
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He went on: “He asked me this evening … in fact he wrote to me just a few days ago and said when you go to the United States please, in my name, give my personal congratulations and greetings to Archbishop Foley.</div>
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“Assure him of my prayers and support at this moment and in the future as he leads the Church at this very important moment of revival and mission.”</div>
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Summoning the Archbishop forward, he passed on the blessing in Argentine fashion, kissing him twice on the forehead before embracing him.</div>
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Underlining the challenge faced by Archbishop Welby, who was not present, Bishop Venables added: “This is a celebration of true Anglicanism.</div>
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“This evening meeting in this place is the majority of the Anglican Communion, this evening here the majority of the Anglican Communion is represented because the vast majority in the Anglican Communion believe that the word of God is true, believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and believe that he is our only hope as we move forward.</div>
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Source: The Telegraph<br />”</div>
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Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-35786982140646354432014-10-10T03:40:00.001-07:002014-10-10T03:40:58.864-07:00<div class="MsoPlainText">
Go Green?</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
By Michael Heidt</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Special to Virtueonline</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
www.virtueonline.org</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Oct. 7, 2014</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
If you feel unsettled at the prospect of large groups of
privileged</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
people from the developed world spending vast sums of
money and fossil</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
fuel to listen to pep talks on climate change activism,
then prepare to</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
be dismayed.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The Episcopal Church just spent a whopping $500,000
flying its House of</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Bishops to Taipei, for their fall meeting. To what end?
Expanding the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Apostolic Imagination, apparently, that being the theme
of the event.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
But what does this mean? If the Episcopal Church's
Leaderene, Presiding</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, is anything to go by,
it's code for</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
being "green." Here's an excerpt from her September
17 sermon to the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
assembled prelates. Following an introduction about the
life of St.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Hildegard von Bingen, from whom she gets the word
viriditas (greenness),</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Schori goes on to ask:</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"Where do you meet viriditas? Where is joy and
wonder in the world</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
around you? What creative ferment engages and transforms
you? All are</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
signs of expanding possibility, divine creativity, and
new green shoots</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
emerging."</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Then, after referencing Sirach and the Psalmist, Schori
goes on to</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
enlist St. John the Evangelist in the climate change
movement, and even</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Christ himself gets a mention (it's the one time he's
named in the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
sermon) -- as the "green man" of pagan myth.
Remarkable:</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"John's gospel speaks of those who love darkness as
those who refuse the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
encounter with God's creative, greening Word. Those who
do what is true,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
he says, are those who are willing to live in that fiery
light that</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
burns and transforms like a laser -- perhaps a green
laser that</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
enlightens or heals. The light has come into the world
for life. The</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Celts and others often imaged Christ as the green man --
the life-giver</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
-- the way, the truth, and the life."</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The Lindisfarne monks and their co-religionists saw
Christ as the green</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
man? The same nature spirit that Saint Rabanus Maurus
described as</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
demonic in the 8th century? Who knew? And it's more than
a little</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
worrying to note that Global Warming skeptics find
themselves on the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
wrong side of St. John. But the Presiding Bishop isn't
finished</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
expanding the apostolic imagination of her bishops with
the virtues of</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
viriditas.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"This Episcopal Church is in the throes of creative
ferment, yearning to</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
find a new congruence that will discover emerging life in
new soil, and</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
refreshed growth in the plantings of former years. Our
gathering here</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
will offer opportunities to learn of greenness in
different pastures,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
and God willing, transform us to discover abundance and
possibility in</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
more familiar ones."</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Creative ferment? An interesting way to describe the
interior workings</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
of a small and declining denomination that's reinvented
itself as an</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
LGBTQ advocacy group with a sideline in aggressive
litigation. But</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
still, Jefferts Schori isn't above a "call to
action," green action, of</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
course.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"Viriditas begins in wonder, and emerges to motivate
constructive,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
healing connection between air and ocean, carbon and
crops, hunger and</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
floods, Ebola and economic inequality. Bishop Michael
Baroi of</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Bangladesh challenged the bishops of this Church to find
that connection</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
when we gathered in Puerto Rico in 2003. He told of
flooding on his</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
coastal plains, and cried, 'save us from these curses!'
He might as well</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
have said, 'show forth greenness.'"</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
She concludes by describing Saint Paul's viridic power as
evidenced in</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
the Apostle's Epistle to the Colossians. He's part of the
green movement</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
too, along with Sirach, the Psalmist, St. John and Jesus
himself.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"As Colossians puts it, be at peace, let the
creative word of God take</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
root within you and bear new branches, discover viriditas
and truth, and</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
be not afraid. New life is springing forth -- be thankful
-- and pray</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
for the gift of joy and wonder in God's good, green,
creative</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
possibility."</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
And there you have it. In the whole address the word
"green" appears 13</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
times, almost rivaling the word "the." The word
"Christ" appears once,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
in an astonishing sentence equating him with the
"green man" of pagan</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
legend, and the word "salvation" appears not at
all. We could perhaps be</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
forgiven for wondering if the whole thing was written by
a U.N.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
apparatchik, rather than a Christian. But that aside,
there is an irony</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
in the Presiding Bishop's idea of what it means to expand
the apostolic</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
imagination. I hope, for her sake, that it's unconscious.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
In the first place, urging some 100 comparatively
privileged bishops to</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
be green on the heels of who knows how much spent jet
fuel, is at best</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
ironic and at worst, bald-faced hypocrisy. All at the
cost of $500,000.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Climate change awareness doesn't come cheap, it seems,
and so much for</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
the House of Bishops' brave attempt to minimize their
carbon footprint.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
This is bad enough but it gets worse. Schori's new-found
green virtue,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
viriditas, isn't original with her and she freely admits
it. It's a word</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
used by the famous 12th century "Sibyl of the
Rhine," Saint Hildegard</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
von Bingen, who was a reforming Benedictine Abbess,
scientist, musician,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
preacher and visionary, or prophet.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The Presiding Bishop likes Hildegard because she
celebrated the creative</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
power of God in creation by using the word
"greenness," which fits in</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
well with Schori's own climatic sloganeering. The
Episcopal Church is</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
all about being green and so too, evidently, is
Hildegard. The 12th</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
century abbess is also a woman, notoriously, who wasn't
afraid to use</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
feminine imagery for God, which makes her a fit patron
for Episcopalian</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
feminadoxy. To cap it off, Hildegard was a prophet, just
like the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Episcopal Church imagines itself to be. Here's Schori
reverently</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
touching on this last aspect in the introduction to her
sermon:</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"Listen to Hildegard the prophet: 'He Who Is says,
'I destroy contumacy,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
and by myself I crush the resistance of those who despise
me. Woe, woe</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
to the malice of wicked men who defy me! Hear this, king,
if you wish to</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
live; otherwise my sword shall smite you.'"</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Jefferts Schori is in favor of this and supplies her
hearers with the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
fact that Hildegard is rebuking the Emperor Barbarossa
for fueling</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
schism in the church. We'll return to that, but first
listen to</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Hildegard the prophet speaking in a different context,
one that the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Presiding Bishop doesn't mention:</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"Diabolical seduction [by the Cathars] gives rise to
criminals and</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
seducers, the hate and the crime of the devil, brigands
and thieves; but</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
it is in homosexuality that the sin is most impure, the
root of all</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
vices. When these sins have accumulated among the
nations, the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
constitution of God's law will be torn, and the Church,
like a widow,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
will be stricken."</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
This brings us to the point. Saint Hildegard, one of the
few Doctors of</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
the Church, no less, was fiercely anti-schismatic, as
we've seen, a</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
scourge of heretical Catharism and about as far removed
from being an</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
LGBTQ champion as you could hope to get. In short, she
was a zealously</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
orthodox catholic Christian of the 12th century, and
while she was able</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
to use feminine language to describe God, she could only
do so because</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
she was firmly grounded in his transcendent Fatherhood.
We see something</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
of this in Hildegard's opposition to the ordination of
women as priests.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"Therefore," she writes in Scivias, quoting God
the Father, "just as the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
earth cannot plow itself, a woman must not be a priest
and do the work</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
of consecrating the Body and Blood of my Son; although
she can sing the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
praise of her Creator, just as the earth can receive rain
to water its</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
fruits." Take it or leave it, that's Hildegard's
view on the matter and</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Schori is either unaware of this or conveniently ignores
it.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Still, the Saint was a prophetic apocalyptic visionary.
Listen to</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
another utterance made by the "Teutonic Seer,"
and ignored by Schori, in</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
which the Beast, as Antichrist, emerges from the womb of
a wounded</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
church that has been raped by the Devil. It's worth
quoting at length:</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"The image of the woman [the Church] before the
altar in front of the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
eyes of God that I saw earlier was now also shown to me
again so that I</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
could also see her from the navel down. From the navel to
the groin she</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
had various scaly spots. In her there appeared a
monstrous and totally</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
black head with fiery eyes, ears like the ears of a
donkey, nostrils and</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
mouth like those of a lion, gnashing with vast open mouth
and sharpening</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
its horrible iron teeth in a horrid manner... Lo, the
monstrous head</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
removed itself from its place with so great a crash that
the entire</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
image of the woman was shaken in all its members.
Something like a great</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
mass of much dung was joined to the head; then, lifting
itself upon a</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
mountain, it attempted to ascend to the height of heaven.
A stroke like</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
thunder came suddenly and the head was repelled with such
strength that</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
it both fell from the mountain and gave up the
ghost."</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
After describing the fall of Antichrist and the woe of
those who had</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
been deceived by him, Hildegard continues:</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"Behold, the feet of the aforementioned female image
appeared to be</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
white, giving out a brightness above that of the sun. I
heard a voice</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
from heaven saying to me: 'Even though all things on
earth are tending</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
toward their end, so hardships and calamities is bowed
down to its End,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
nevertheless, the Spouse of my Son, though much weakened
in her</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
children, will never be destroyed either by the heralds
of the Son of</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Perdition or by the Destroyer himself, however much she
will be attacked</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
by them. At the End of time she will arise more powerful
and more</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
secure; she will appear more beautiful and shining so
that she may go</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
forth in this way more sweetly and more agreeably to the
embraces of her</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Beloved. The vision which you saw signifies all this in
mystic</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
fashion.'" (Scivias 3:11; Translated by B McGinn,
Visions of the End,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
pp101-102)</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Hildegard's words speak for themselves and I'll leave you
to consider</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
the extent to which they apply to Katharine Jefferts
Schori's version of</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
God's church: a church which has come out of the church,
and which</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
wounds the Body of Christ by its violently continued
schism, heresy and</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
open immorality.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
That a quasi-Cathar, such as the Presiding Bishop, should
have chosen</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
such a Saint as the patron of her House of Bishops is
irony indeed and</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
perhaps apt. Hildegard stands as a prophetic voice to the
heretics of</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
her own time and to ours, a voice calling for repentance
and a reminder</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
of the implacable will of God. A will that guarantees
Antichrist</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
overthrown and the church beautiful and shining in the
embrace of her</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Beloved.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Herein lies true viriditas, or "greenness" if
you like, the abundant,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
procreative, life-giving power of God in His Bride, the
church.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Fr. Michael Heidt is Editor of Forward in Christ magazine
and a priest</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
in the Diocese of Fort Worth.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
This article can be found at
http://www.forwardinchrist.org.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText">
END</div>
Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-17743496232641893402014-10-10T03:30:00.001-07:002014-10-10T03:30:00.428-07:00<div class="MsoPlainText">
Episcopal Church dropped 6% in ASA in 2013 over 2012</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Church edges closer to dropping below 2 million
membership mark</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Departure of Diocese of South Carolina left TEC with
plummeting numbers</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
By David W. Virtue with Mary Ann Mueller</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
www.virtueonline.org</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Oct. 4, 2014</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The Episcopal Church dropped six percent in domestic
Average Sunday</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Attendance from 2012 to 2013, with every diocese except
one experiencing</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
decline. Only Western North Carolina saw a slight uptick
in membership</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
(72); ASA (44); and pledging ($282,000).</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Based on bar graph calculations, overall domestic ASA
figures in 2012</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
(including South Carolina) were 640,142. Approximate
figures for 2013</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
are 611,575 -- a drop of 28,567 (without South Carolina
which did not</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
report its figures). With figures obtained from the
Diocese of South</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Carolina (Anglican), the ASA drop would be 38,498
bringing the TEC's</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
overall ASA down to 601,664 - a six percent drop in the
domestic ASA</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
figure.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Through death and departure to other denominations, The
Episcopal Church</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
lost nearly 550 Episcopalians each week of the year.
That's the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
equivalent of 408 parishes closing in one year, though
most of the loss</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
was localized to South Carolina.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
TEC's domestic membership, excluding TEC's 10 foreign
dioceses, was</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
1,894,181 in 2012. In 2013 that figure was down to
1,862,294, a</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
preliminary drop of 31,887. Adding in South Carolina's
anticipated</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
loses, TEC's church-wide membership, including the
foreign dioceses,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
would drop to 2,011,378 or a drop of more than one
thousand a week --</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
55,332 -- from 2,066,710 in 2012. Parochial reports from
the foreign</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
dioceses will be released later this month.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The domestic membership dropped below two million in
2010. If TEC</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
continues to lose membership at its current rate, the
church-wide</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
membership, including foreign dioceses, will drop below
the two million</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
mark by 2015.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
SOUTH CAROLINA</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The DIOofSC (Episcopal) 2012 membership was 29,236.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The 2013 membership numbers, following the split in the
diocese,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
reflects a drop of the 23,445 members that Bishop Mark
Lawrence took</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
with him, leaving 5,791 behind in TECinSC.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
ASA in the DIOofSC (Episcopal) in 2013 was 12,371.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The 2013 ASA figures reflect a drop of 9,931 -- the
number Bishop</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Lawrence took with him, leaving 2,440 behind in TECinSC.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
DIOofSC 2012 Plate & pledge was $27.9 million.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
In 2013 Bishop Lawrence took in $22.6 million leaving
$5.3 million in</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
TECinSC.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
If one adds the DIOofSC's $22.6 million to TEC's $15.2
million, the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
National Church would have had a $37.8 million income
increase over</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
2012.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
If one adds the DIOofSC membership of 23,445 to the
31,887 loss, it</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
would show a domestic membership drop of 55,332 or a 3%
drop.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
If one adds the DIOofSC ASA of 9,931 to the 28,567 loss,
it would show a</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
domestic ASA drop of 38,498 or a 6% drop.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Overall, Bishop Lawrence took 81% of the diocese with him
leaving 19%</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
behind.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
TEC PLATE & PLEDGE</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
In 2013, 57 dioceses reported an increase in Plate &
Pledge, an increase</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
of $15,224,974 or 1.1%</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
This is the second year in a row that TEC has shown an
increase in Plate</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
& Pledge.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
2012: also showed domestic dioceses increasing their
P&P of $15,878,404</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
or 1.2%, although the figures will be skewed because
South Carolina is</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
not included.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
NOTE: Information for this story was garnered from graphs
which could</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
show a 1-3 percent differential from the final figures.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Overall, the Episcopal Church continued to decline in
membership and</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Average Sunday Attendance. The uptick in income might
indicate a "dead</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
cat bounce" situation. In finance, a dead cat bounce
is a small, brief</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
recovery in the price of a declining stock. It is derived
from the idea</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
that "even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a
great height"; the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
phrase, which originated on Wall Street, is also
popularly applied to</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
any case where a subject experiences a brief resurgence
during or</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
following a severe decline.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
END</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-60071824609254264422014-10-10T03:20:00.001-07:002014-10-10T03:20:31.229-07:00<div class="MsoPlainText">
ATLANTA: 3000 Anglicans Participate in Historic
Investiture of New</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Anglican Archbishop</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
By David W. Virtue in Atlanta</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<a href="http://www.virtueonline.org/">www.virtueonline.org</a></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
October 9, 2014</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
More than 3000 Anglicans packed the Church of the
Apostles in Atlanta to</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
throw their support behind the new Archbishop of the
Anglican Church in</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
North America, the Most Rev. Foley Beach, as hands were
laid on him by</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Primates of the Anglican Communion acknowledging his
leadership as it</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
passed from Archbishop Robert Duncan to a new generation
leader.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Anglicans, including laity, clergy, bishops and
archbishops from eight</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
provinces and from all walks of life, sang, intoned
prayers and cheered</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
for their new leader as the 57-year old archbishop took
the reins of</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
leadership of a church that numbers more than 112,000 in
some 27</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
dioceses in Canada, the US, and Mexico. The ACNA is now
larger than the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Anglican Church of Canada in average Sunday attendance.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
In his investiture sermon, Archbishop Beach remarked,
"We are a diverse</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
lot. We are united, but not uniform. We are Evangelical.
We are</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Anglo-Catholic. We are Charismatic. We are high church.
We are</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
low-church. We are contemporary. We are traditional. We
are classical.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
We are the body of Jesus Christ called Anglicans who have
been given a</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
mission to minister in North America. We have our part to
play in the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Great vision of God for the nations on this continent.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"I think about Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Jewell,
Lancelot Andrews,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Hooker, Whitfield, Wesley, Newman, Keeble, Pusey, C.S.
Lewis, John</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Stott, J.I. Packer, Os Guinness. We have always been a
diverse lot! And</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
we are today," he added.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Addressing ACNA's brief history, Beach noted that what
began as a</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
confederation and coalition of various Anglican churches
has now evolved</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
into a vibrant, missional Province with the purpose of
reaching North</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ.
"This Anglican</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Movement is positioned to impact the Continent of North
America with the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
powerful and life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ in a
tremendous way.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Aslan is on the move as we see people all over the
Americas drawn to</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
what God is doing in our midst."</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
He publicly praised Bishop Greg Venables of the
Argentine, formerly</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Archbishop of the Southern Cone, who offered life boats
for faithful</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Anglicans across the US and Canada as they split from the
Episcopal</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Church because of its serious deviation from Scripture,
the Creeds and</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Anglican tradition.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Touching on the theme of reconciliation, a key theme of
Archbishop</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Justin Welby's ministry, Beach observed, "When I
speak of</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
reconciliation, I am not talking about being reconciled
with the world,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
or with sin, or with sinful behavior or giving up one's
principles or</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
compromising Biblical Truth in order to be reconciled.
However, the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Scriptures do tell us that we are all ministers of
reconciliation and</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
that we are to be reconciled with each other.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"This reconciliation is based on the cross of Jesus,
on the Truth in the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Scriptures, and on the Tradition handed down to us by the
Church</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Fathers. To be reconciled means there was once a
problem."</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Beach praised the work of his predecessor, Archbishop
Robert Duncan,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
saying, "Archbishop Bob brought the various Anglican
tribes together and</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
has wrought us into a united movement for the Lord. King
David had 40</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
years; Archbishop Bob only had 5 years."</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Beach described Archbishop Duncan as "God's
instrument to bring us to</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
where we are. I compare his ministry to that of King
David, King of the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
nation of Israel." (Archbishop Duncan received a
standing ovation).</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The archbishop said the ACNA must be a repenting,
reconciling,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
reproducing and relentlessly compassionate church in the
midst of a</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
hostile world that needs the Good News about Jesus.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"When we gathered in June and I was elected the new
Archbishop and</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Primate, I was asked to preach at the closing Eucharist
of the Assembly.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
If you were there, you may remember that the Lord gave us
all a charge</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
in the words of Archabbot Boniface, the founder the
monastery of St.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Vincent Arch Abbey - where we gathered for our summer
Assembly:</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"Forward, Always Forward, Everywhere Forward</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"Forward, Always Forward, Everywhere Forward"</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The installation was witnessed by eight archbishops of
the Anglican</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Communion, including Kenyan Archbishop Eliud Wabukala;
Southern Cone</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Archbishop Tito Zavala; The Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh
Archbishop, Primate,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
and Metropolitan of All Nigeria; The Most Rev. Dr.
Onesphore Rwaje,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Archbishop and Primate of Rwanda; The Most Rev. Stanley
Ntagali,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Archbishop and Primate of Uganda; The Most Rev. Dr.
Mouneer Hanna Anis,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Chairman of the Anglican Global South; Bishop of Egypt
with North Africa</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
and the Horn of Africa and President Bishop of the
Anglican Church in</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
the Middle East; The Most Rev. Stephen An Myint Oo,
Archbishop of</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Myanmar; and The Most Rev. Ezekiel Kondo Archbishop of
the Internal</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Province of Sudan and Bishop of Khartoum. Together they
represent more</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
than 50 million global Anglicans, the vast majority of
Anglicans in the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
world today and the largest provinces of the Anglican
Communion.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Also present were two active, though retired archbishops,
including</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Argentine Bishop Gregory Venables (former Archbishop of
the Southern</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Cone), a close personal friend of Pope Francis and
retired Archbishop</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Ben Kwashi of Jos, Nigeria.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
"I give thanks to God that we have here tonight the
Primates of numerous</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Anglican Provinces Representing the Provinces of Kenya,
Nigeria, Uganda,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Rwanda, South America, Myanmar,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Egypt, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and
Jerusalem. We also have</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
representatives sent by the Primates of Southeast Asia,
Congo and Sudan.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
And we have bishops here from South Sudan, Argentina and
Brazil."</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Other bishops and ecumenical guests included the Rev.
Herzen Andone of</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist
Church; the Most</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Rev. Dr. Mark Haverland, Archbishop of the Anglican
Catholic Church; the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Rt. Rev. Chandler Jones, Bishop of the Anglican Province
of America; the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Most Rev. Melchisedek, Archbishop of Pittsburgh and
western</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Pennsylvania, Orthodox Church in America; the Rt. Rev.
Mark Lawrence,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina; The
Rev. Dr. David</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Wendel of the North American Lutheran Church; the Rev.
Larry Vogel,</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
representing the Lutheran Church -- Missouri Synod; the
Rev. Dr. Roy</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Taylor, stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
in America and representing the National Association of
Evangelicals;</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
the Rt. Rev. William Millsaps, Presiding Bishop of the
Episcopal</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Missionary Church; and the Rt. Rev. Paul Sobiechowski,
Bishop of the</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Eastern Diocese of the Polish National Catholic Church.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Greetings were sent from President Barack Obama and
Archishop Justin</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Welby and from those primates present bringing greetings
from their own</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
provinces.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The service of investiture marked an historic milestone
and a first for</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
the fledgling denomination, most of whose members left
the Episcopal</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Church over unacceptable theological and moral
innovations. Archbishop</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Robert Duncan pioneered the new denomination steering it
through its</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
early years, drawing together disparate Anglicans from
across the North</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
American continent into what has become a growing,
vibrant movement</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
recognized by the vast majority of Anglicans, though
still as yet not</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The denomination has grown by 40 percent in four years.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Archbishop Beach spent 34 years as an Episcopalian, which
included 12</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
years as a priest, before coming to the full realization
that he could</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
not stay in that denomination due to the Episcopal
Church's moral and</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
theological innovations.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
END</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-45890992421171814022014-09-25T12:48:00.000-07:002014-09-25T12:48:11.842-07:00You may have noticed that I haven't posted to this blog since July (and if you haven't noticed, that's why I have been blogging less). Life is more full and busier than ever, the readership of this blog has never been huge. It has been read my members of the DCNY including diocesan staff and that was the primary audience for this blog when I started it.<br />
<br />
As I have said all along, I started this blog to keep tabs on the Diocese of Central New York, particularly when they were making vicious actions and falsely accusing Father David Bollinger of all kinds of nonsense. The diocese, led by Bishop Skip Adams, persecuted him for seeking to find justice for victims of sexual abuses by another DCNY priest. That priest was subsequently arrested and is now in prison. That wouldn't have happened without the tireless work of Fr. Bollinger. It also wouldn't have happened if the DCNY was successful in their attempted cover-up.<br />
<br />
At the time, the DCNY hired a public relations firm to create and frame stories against Fr. David Bollinger and generally try to control news coverage. In that time period, the DCNY, at the direction of Bishop Skip Adams, shut down diomail. Diomail was a free email forum for discussions in the DCNY, but it became a way that people in the diocese could hear about how the diocese was falsely maligning Fr. Bollinger and doing other things that were detrimental to the health and welfare of the diocese.<br />
<br />
During Bishop Adams' tenure, control of information flow and information content has been uppermost. One of his first acts as bishop was to seek training on making public statements. I'm really naive because I thought that if you told the truth you don't need training in public relations. But, truth has not been a hallmark of the present diocesan bishop or staff.<br />
<br />
Since the time of Fr. Bollinger's persecution and the ecclesiastical trial against Fr. Bollinger, I have offered an alternative news outlet from the public relations spin from the DCNY. In case you don't know, Fr. David Bollinger was acquitted of all charges by the ecclesiastical court of the DCNY. He was acquitted at least in part because the bishop and his legal team withheld evidence from Fr. Bollinger's legal team. <br />
<br />
Fairness is also not a hallmark of this bishop or his regime, which was seen in their withholding of evidence and their public statements about Fr. Bollinger. To my knowledge, the Shaffer report, which was issued based on an investigation of the conduct of the diocese, has still not been released. The reason can only be that the report was critical of the bishop and the bishop's persecution of Fr. Bollinger. It is likely that it also highlighted the illegal actions of a diocesan staff member, but unless that report is released we will never know. That is obviously as Bishop Adams wants it since he has fought tenaciously to not release the report.<br />
<br />
It should be noted that a diocesan staff member did resign during this period of time and there is evidence that she illegally obtained information about Fr. Bollinger's financial accounts.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I still keep this account active in case there is further need for an independent source for information about the Diocese of Central New York. I am thankfully no longer a member of that corrupt organization, but I still have friends that are. Should they ever come under unjustified attack like Fr. Bollinger did, I will certainly come to their defense. Otherwise, I'm still keeping busy and so I will still be blogging less than I did up to July. Shalom to my regular readers.Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-26618500091836090722014-09-25T12:20:00.002-07:002014-09-25T12:20:26.557-07:00<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" id="Sl9e0df2Y0iTlQ62Eu1kT9QV8EP5uT8gQsIarS2s1BQ=_148ad0720e1:76dfe:17b7b560_main" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; width: 647px;"><tbody style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">
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<div class="u100Entry" data-alternate-link="http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-unraveling-of-anglican-communion.html" data-entryid="Sl9e0df2Y0iTlQ62Eu1kT9QV8EP5uT8gQsIarS2s1BQ=_148ad0720e1:76dfe:17b7b560" data-selectentryid="Sl9e0df2Y0iTlQ62Eu1kT9QV8EP5uT8gQsIarS2s1BQ=_148ad0720e1:76dfe:17b7b560" data-title="The Unraveling of the Anglican Communion" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
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<a cdf_container="10" class="entryTitle title read" href="http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-unraveling-of-anglican-communion.html" id="Sl9e0df2Y0iTlQ62Eu1kT9QV8EP5uT8gQsIarS2s1BQ=_148ad0720e1:76dfe:17b7b560_entry_title" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: #333333; display: block; font-size: 26px; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: -0.04em; line-height: 30px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 700px; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;" target="_blank">The Unraveling of the Anglican Communion</a><div class="metadata" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); color: #a0a0a0; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17px; overflow: hidden;">
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For some time now -- ever since ECUSA's unilateral decision to consecrate V. Gene Robinson as a bishop -- the Anglican Communion has been unraveling, but since it was such a loosely based agglomeration of churches to begin with, hardly no one has noticed. And yet, there <i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">were</i> warnings aplenty.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />From the <a href="http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/653/primates-meeting-2003-final-statement" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">October 2003 statement of the Primates</a> who gathered specially in London before the consecration scheduled for November:<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><blockquote style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">
If [V. Gene Robinson's] consecration proceeds, we recognise that we have reached a crucial and critical point in the life of the Anglican Communion and we have had to conclude that the future of the Communion itself will be put in jeopardy. In this case, the ministry of this one bishop will not be recognised by most of the Anglican world, and many provinces are likely to consider themselves to be out of Communion with the Episcopal Church (USA). This will tear the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level ...</blockquote>
From <a href="http://www.anglicancommunion.org/windsor2004/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">the Windsor Report</a> of a year later:<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><blockquote style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">
In terms of the wider Communion, and our wider relationships with a number of key ecumenical partners, the consecration [of V. Gene Robinson] has had very prejudicial consequences. In our view, those involved did not pay due regard, in the way they might and, in our view, should have done, to the wider implications of the decisions they were making and the actions they were taking....<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />...<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />There remains a very real danger that we will not choose to walk together. Should the call to halt and find ways of continuing in our present communion not be heeded, then we shall have to begin to learn to walk apart.</blockquote>
From the statement issued by the Primates meeting at <a href="http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/resources/downloads/communique%20_english.pdf" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Dromantine in February 2005</a>:<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><blockquote style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">
Whilst there remains a very real question about whether the North American churches are willing to accept the same teaching on matters of sexual morality as is generally accepted elsewhere in the Communion, the underlying reality of our communion in God the Holy Trinity is obscured, and the effectiveness of our common mission severely hindered.</blockquote>
From the statement issued by the Primates meeting at <a href="http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/resources/downloads/communique2007_english.pdf" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania) in February 2007</a>:<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><blockquote style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">
The response of The Episcopal Church to the requests made at Dromantine has not persuaded this meeting that we are yet in a position to recognise that The Episcopal Church has mended its broken relationships... We are deeply concerned that so great has been the estrangement between some of the faithful and The Episcopal Church that this has led to recrimination, hostility and even to disputes in the civil courts....</blockquote>
The strained attempts by the collected Primates to hold on to unity took two directions after the Tanzania gathering: on the one hand, they placed their hopes in a new Anglican Covenant; and on the other, they tried to establish arrangements for alternative pastoral oversight within the divided churches of Canada and the United States. Both attempts came to naught.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />The Archbishop of Canterbury was unable and unwilling to do what was necessary to save either of the two initiatives. Consequently, the bishops of ECUSA (who received their invitations to Lambeth as though nothing had happened) had no motivation to change course. Indeed, the latter were only too willing to see the Primates' efforts fail, without their having to do anything overt to torpedo them. And Lambeth itself was both a collegial dud (thanks to the imposed but phony <i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">indaba</i> gimmick) and a financial disaster.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />By 2008 the hostility and disputes inside ECUSA spilled over into the uncanonical depositions of four orthodox bishops -- three of them diocesan (+Schofield, +Duncan and +Iker). The lawsuits picked up in earnest, and largely remain unabated to this day. These blatantly illegal actions by the new Presiding Bishop of ECUSA directly brought about the formation of what in time became the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA). The division of ECUSA was now formal -- even if most of those whose actions had led to it refused to recognize what had happened.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />Dr. Williams' dithering over Lambeth, ECUSA's thumbing its nose at him over pastoral oversight, and its continued actions against dissident bishops and clergy, greatly widened the fractures in the Anglican Communion. Over three hundred bishops from African denominations refused to attend Lambeth, and a number of the Global South primates announced GAFCON's first gathering, timed to take place <a href="http://gafcon.org/news/gafcon_final_statement/" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">before Lambeth 2008 even convened</a>. The division within the Anglican Communion was now formal, even though again most refused to recognize what was happening.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />After the events of 2008 within ECUSA, there was no longer any reason for the revisionists in ECUSA to hold back in the slightest. The 2009 refusal by bishops in ECUSA to honor a moratorium on further confirmations to the episcopate of priests in same-sex partnerships wrote <i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">finis</i> to the career of Dr. Rowan Williams as the Archbishop of Canterbury. He had made a personal plea to General Convention not to proceed with the approval of the elections of two lesbian-partnered women to the episcopate, which that body spurned (one could say: contemptuously).<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />The broken Communion limped along, with all pretenses of unity ringing hollow. The <a href="http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/history/2011/index.cfm" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">seventh and last meeting of the Primates</a> was a <a href="http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2011/01/primates-meeting-briefing-5.aspx" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">total failure to heal the splits within the Communion in January 2011</a>. The paper on the "<a href="http://www.aco.org/communion/primates/resources/downloads/prim_scpurpose.pdf" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">purpose of the Primates Meeting</a>" adopted at its conclusion now reads rather plaintively in light of the widening fissures. The new Archbishop has not even bothered to try to resurrect the body, which is now irrevocably sundered.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />General Convention 2012 completed the dismantling of the Windsor Report by formally (and again, uncanonically) licensing bishops to authorize same-sex blessings within their jurisdictions. Rowan Williams resigned as Archbishop as of the end of the year. His replacement, while listening to the alienated primates, has been unable to reverse the causes of their alienation, and indeed, has only added to them with the recent moves by the Church of England to authorize same-sex (but theoretically celibate) partnerships between clergy.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />In short, the Windsor Report's much-touted "Instruments of Unity" have failed to fulfill their calling. The Lambeth Conference, after the precedent set in 2008, has no further Communion-wide purpose, and the Church of England will probably not agree to finance it again. The Archbishop of Canterbury has lost all his stature within the Communion, and is now having trouble even keeping the Church of England together. The Primates Meeting is dead. And the crevasses that have opened wide in the Communion have rendered the Anglican Consultative Council into a meaningless gathering for futile debates and pursuits -- much like Jonathan Swift's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagado" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Academy of Lagado</a>.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />From 2003 to 2013 -- it took just ten years for ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada to unravel the Anglican Communion. Which fact goes to show how loosely knit it was in the first place: the rebellion against papal authority which began it replaced that authority with the English monarchy -- but the Erastian structure could hold only until the Church of England began to found branches in other countries. Those branches came to view themselves as autonomous, and none more so than the Americans, who had to fight the English for their freedom.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />Yes, Americans had to fight the English, but <i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">not</i> for their religious freedom as Anglicans. England instead fully cooperated in establishing apostolic succession in the branch that would bring about the Communion's unraveling, just 225 years later. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York who ordained the first American bishops did so on the latter's promise that "We are unanimous and explicit in assuring your Lordships, that we neither have departed, nor propose to depart from the doctrines of your Church. . . ." (see <a href="http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2008/11/know-enemy-as-church-formed-so-it-may.html" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">this post</a> for more details).<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />So much for promises. ECUSA is now part of only one-fourth of a Communion, while the vast majority of persons who call themselves "Anglicans" are part of the other three-quarters. The Archbishop of Canterbury has cast his lot with ECUSA, as have those denominations which depend on ECUSA for financial support.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />Money, however, cannot a Communion make. Instead, as ECUSA's wealth grew exponentially from the 19th to the 20th century, we must now conclude that with greater wealth came greater irresponsibility -- just as it did with all the great and wealthy families of the world. Money, indeed, has<i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">unmade</i> a Communion.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />Meanwhile, ECUSA continues blithely along, acting as though nothing of moment has happened.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />And of course, since in its own collective mind it is not responsible for anything, then of course nothing <i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);">has</i> happened.<br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" /><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);" />There are none so blind as those who will not see.</div>
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Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-33317048402866537302014-07-24T14:59:00.002-07:002014-07-24T14:59:45.294-07:00<div class="entryHeader" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
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– On the 12th day of the trial of the Diocese of South Carolina vs. The Episcopal Church and its local subsidiary, The Episcopal Church in South Carolina, TEC attorney David Beers attempted to introduce the concept of church hierarchy once again into the trial, ignoring Judge Diane S. Goodstein’s repeated rulings that church hierarchy plays no role in this case.<br /><br />Beers asked the first provisional bishop of TECSC, Charles vonRosenberg, to tell the court why the Bishop of San Joaquin, Ca., the Rt. Rev. John David Schofield had been removed as bishop of that diocese.<br /><br />Judge Goodstein said, “It’s not relevant. For this reason: I don’t know what [that] state’s position is regarding the analysis of church disputes. I don’t really care. What I care about is the state of South Carolina. My Supreme Court tells me what I do when I analyze church disputes.’<br /><br />She added, “In terms of whether or not the parishes in SC and the Diocese in SC were allowed to leave the national church – I’m going to make that determination on the basis of neutral principles of law under South Carolina law. I don’t care what happened any where else.”<br /><br /><a href="http://www.diosc.com/sys/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=602:day-12-tec-uses-bishop-vonrosenberg-to-claim-dioceses-cant-leave&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=75" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Read it all</a>.</div>
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Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-84327508241133930502014-07-24T14:58:00.002-07:002014-07-24T14:58:36.916-07:00<div class="entryHeader" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<a cdf_container="10" class="entryTitle title read" href="http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2014/07/s-carolina-day-10-when-will-ecusa-start.html" id="Sl9e0df2Y0iTlQ62Eu1kT9QV8EP5uT8gQsIarS2s1BQ=_1475c6d028c:2569d3:d107165b_entry_title" style="color: #333333; display: block; font-size: 24px; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: -0.04em; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 700px; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;" target="_blank">S. Carolina Day 10: When Will ECUSA Start to Play by the Rules?</a><div class="metadata" style="color: #a0a0a0; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17px; overflow: hidden;">
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Why are ECUSA and its attorneys <i>so incapable</i> of following the rules? Could it be that the lawlessness of 815, as aided and abetted by its attorneys, has now infected ECUSA's ability to present a civil case under the rules of court in South Carolina?<br /><br />From first appearances, that would seem to be the only conclusion to draw from today's proceedings. First, let me use the account from the Episcopal Diocese's Press Office to provide the necessary background for what I shall go on to explain, and then I will put things into context:<br /><br /><blockquote>
<b style="line-height: 1.4;">DAY 10: DIOCESE OF SC v. THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH</b><br /><br /><i>TEC Attorney Admits TEC Constitution Does Not Prevent a Diocese From Leaving the Denomination<br /><br />Judge Refuses to Consider Evidence about Whether TEC is Hierarchical</i><br /><br /><b style="line-height: 1.4;">ST. GEORGE, SC, JULY 21, 2014</b> – An attorney for The Episcopal Church on Monday acknowledged that – despite TEC’s repeated claim that dioceses may not leave the denomination – there is nothing in the group’s constitution that specifically prohibits such a disassociation.<br /><br />“It’s true it doesn’t say whether a diocese in the U.S. can or cannot [leave],” said Mary Kostel, attorney for TEC. “It’s arguably ambiguous.” [<b style="line-height: 1.4;">Ed. Note</b>: Ms. Kostel could scarcely expect that such an outlandish remark on her part should be allowed to pass without editorial comment. What she is saying is that <b style="line-height: 1.4;">the absence</b> of a specific prohibition in a governing document makes it somehow <b style="line-height: 1.4;">ambiguous</b> as to whether or not the drafters still meant to prohibit the act they specifically did <b style="line-height: 1.4;">not</b> prohibit. <b style="line-height: 1.4;"><i>Example:</i></b> The First Amendment does not contain any express language about a person's "freedom to disassociate from a group." So such a "right" must be "ambiguous" -- because it was not made express in the language of the Amendment -- and thus whether such a right actually exists is up to Congress to decide. Contrary to Ms. Kostel, what the courts have always held is that the First Amendment's "freedom to associate" <i>necessarily embraces</i> a corresponding "freedom to disassociate." The question of "ambiguity" in such a case does not even rise to the point of being debatable.]<br /><br />The comment came during the 10th day of trial in suit to prevent TEC from seizing the property of the Diocese of South Carolina and its parishes. Much of the morning was spent in a discussion between attorneys and Judge Diane S. Goodstein about the admissibility of testimony by historian Walter Edgar, a professor at the University of South Carolina.<br /><br />Though Edgar was not identified as an expert witness, TEC wanted him to testify about his expertise and provide opinions on the hierarchical nature of TEC and to demonstrate that it has authority over its dioceses and parishes. But Judge Goodstein denied that he would be allowed to.<br /><br />This is the second time in this trial that TEC failed to follow the rules on the use of witnesses. “When he shifts from saying ‘this is what it says,’ to ‘this is what it means’ we’ve crossed into expert testimony,” she said.<br /><br />Judge Goodstein acknowledged that she understands TEC’s attorneys want to introduce the idea of a hierarchical denomination in order to pave the way for an expected appeal. However, she made clear that the claim is irrelevant to the case under South Carolina law.<br /><br />“Let me be very clear that in every way the defendants [TEC attorneys] have done everything within their ability to establish the hierarchal nature of this church. I accept that,” she said. “Our courts have said we will not enforce the hierarchical decisions. We’re a neutrality state.” [<b style="line-height: 1.4;">Ed. Note</b>: The Judge is on solid ground here. The Supreme Court of Carolina, in the <i><a href="http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2009/09/dennis-canon-loses-in-south-carolina.html" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">All Saints Waccamaw</a></i> decision, came down clearly <b style="line-height: 1.4;">against</b> deference to hierarchical tribunals (<i>i.e.,</i> as in<i><a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16990107050916488756" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Watson v. Jones</a></i>), and in favor of the more recent "neutral principles" standard of <i><a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6042690814736394970" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Jones v. Wolf</a>.</i> ECUSA's attempt to put South Carolina back into the earlier deference camp is a non-starter. As a trial court Judge, Judge Goodstein is required to follow the Supreme Court's precedents -- she has <i>no</i> discretion if those precedents are on point. ECUSA itself had a full opportunity to argue for its "deference" standard in the <i>Waccamaw</i> case -- and it <b style="line-height: 1.4;">lost</b> that argument at the highest level. So how can it possibly hope to persuade Judge Goodstein to acquiesce in its attempt to disregard what the South Carolina Supreme Court decided -- in a case, I repeat, in which ECUSA had <b style="line-height: 1.4;">full opportunity</b> to argue as it is trying to do now? One of the hallmarks of the law is that, unlike a popular audience, it does not listen to you when you keep trying to go back to the same losing argument over and over again.] The afternoon was spent with Edgar literally reading highlighted excerpts from numerous journals of the Diocese of South Carolina [see his report linked earlier], showing that the Diocese participated in TEC activities and adhered to its rules while the Diocese was a member of the denomination. The diocese has never disputed that fact.<br /><br />In fact, during the morning discussion before Edgar even began his testimony, Diocese of South Carolina attorney Henrietta Golding said, “If you’re a member of a club or fraternity, you abide by the laws. …There’s no relevance that the Diocese followed the Constitution and Canons. They were together at that time. There’s no significance because a party to this action followed the rules. We were members then.”<br /><br />Edgar also spent some time testifying about individual financial contributions TEC had sent to the diocese and its parishes through the years. While he never mentioned a total number, after reading page after page of excerpts, it was clear that the denomination had provided several thousands of dollars.<br /><br />However, when asked in cross-examination by Alan Runyon, lead attorney for the Plaintiff, Dr. Edgar testified that he had not been asked to, nor did he attempt to, see how much money the diocese had voluntarily given to TEC during the same time TEC says the Diocese received grants and loans "It could even be 900 percent more than you testified TEC has given over the same period and you do not know because you did not ask?" Runyan said.</blockquote>
I am still shaking my head over this report. I find it difficult to believe that ECUSA, the ECSC, and their collective attorneys could think that they would be allowed to call <a href="http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/31443" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><i>another</i> witness</a> to the stand to give "expert" opinions after they had failed <i>to disclose him as an expert witness</i> to their opponents, or to Judge Goodstein.<br /><br />Professor Walter Edgar is an acknowledged authority on South Carolina history. The <a href="http://www.episcopalchurchsc.org/uploads/1/2/9/8/12989303/2014-06-23_expert_opinion_statement_-_dr._walter_edgar.pdf" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="report he prepared for "disclosure" to the plaintiffs">report he prepared for "disclosure" to the plaintiffs</a> is replete with passage after passage he has pulled from historical documents pertaining to the Diocese of South Carolina, in order to demonstrate how, in his view, the Diocese always took note of, and followed the Constitution and Canons to what was then the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, or PECUSA.<br /><br />But at the end of his expert report, there comes this amazing passage:<br /><blockquote>
I will use my expertise as a professional historian to give a proper analysis and interpretation of any of the voluminous documents that are involved in the factual history I have been asked to present. I will render an expert opinion whenever necessary to explain the context of the history of the Diocese as it relates to these matters.<br /><br />It would be impossible for me to list each and every expert opinion I might be required to render because such will depend upon issues raised by the Court and counsel in search of correct interpretations of the documents I am asked to inspect.</blockquote>
In effect, this passage asks the court to extend the witness <i>carte blanche</i> to render any opinions he sees fit to give -- without the necessity of alerting the other side in advance, so as to allow them to prepare for his cross-examination.<br /><br />Needless to say, those are not the rules. The purpose of expert discovery in the first place is to (a) pin down the other side's expert to specific, articulated opinions -- which may then be subjected as necessary to the cross-examination required to test their merit; and (b) to avoid any element of surprise at trial when the expert <i>does</i> testify.<br /><br />Apparently ECUSA did not bother to disclose Prof. Edgar as an expert, and represented that he would simply catalog an entire litany of historical facts, taken from the various diocesan and other records, for the Court to consider. Well, he was allowed to do that -- but he was stopped when it came to expressing his<i>opinions</i> about those facts, because he had not previously disclosed just what those "opinions" would be.<br /><br />I am accordingly in some doubt about ECUSA's game strategy. Were they counting on the plaintiffs' lawyers waiving, or being ignorant of, the relevant rules? That's hardly a winning strategy.<br /><br />Did they count upon the good graces of the Judge to excuse their ineptness? Again, after they flouted her orders to <i>disclose the names and opinions to be rendered by all experts,</i> how could they reasonably expect any quarter from her corner?<br /><br />The case for ECUSA and ECSC has now lost any momentum it ever had. Instead, the case flounders as counsel struggle to put on what evidence they can after they are required to follow the same rules that everyone else in South Carolina must.<br /><br />This is not the way to impress a trial judge who expressed herself as <a href="http://www.episcopalchurchsc.org/july-2014-trial-in-state-court.html" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">eager to be guided through the historical documents</a>, and who looked forward to hearing from qualified experts for that purpose (see the beginning of the account for Day 9 at the link just given). This is not to deny that Prof. Edgar might well have been just such a capable expert. Instead, however, the opinions he might have offered have gone to the trash heap of "what might have been."<br /><br />All that remains, as the diocesan press release notes, is a litany of instances where the Diocese of South Carolina, while it was a member in good standing of the national Church, diligently followed all the then rules to be a member in good standing.<br /><br />But evidence that one followed the rules when one was a member of the club is not evidence that one agreed to permanent membership in the club. The two issues are entirely different, and evidence of the one is no proof of the other. (Nor is the evidence that the national Church gave a few ten thousands to the Diocese over the years, while the Diocese itself gave millions back to the national Church. That is evidence only of the <i>good relationship</i> that once existed between them, but which is no more as a result of the national Church's (and its SC followers') <b style="line-height: 1.4;">ham-handed insistence</b> on seeing Bishop Lawrence <a href="http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2012/10/new-level-of-repression-signaled-by.html" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">illegally removed from his position</a>.<br /><br />In other words, evidence that everyone abided by the rules becomes irrelevant once one side proclaims that it does not intend to follow them any longer.<br /><br />[I note that the ECSC website now has its <a href="http://www.episcopalchurchsc.org/july-2014-trial-in-state-court.html" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">account of the day's proceedings</a> up -- but one reads it in vain to find out just <i>why</i> Prof. Edgar was prevented from offering opinion testimony as to the documents he highlighted. This must be why ECUSA cannot learn its lessons: from the highest level at 815, on down to the laborers in the ECSC trenches, all talk about following laws and rules, about playing the game fair and square, falls on deaf ears. They are interested in one thing, and one thing only: can they jawbone, or bully the court into letting them run things the way <i>they</i> want? When they are held to following the rules, it's all the other side's fault for insisting on those rules -- and the Judge is being "partial" and "biased" because she decides to enforce them.<br /><br />I will have more to say about this brazen strategy in a separate post. For now, let us be content to observe that it has profited ECUSA and its rump group nothing.]</div>
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Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-42220350224516063782014-07-24T14:38:00.001-07:002014-07-24T14:38:06.447-07:00<div class="entryHeader" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<a cdf_container="10" class="entryTitle title read" href="http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/clergy/the_vanishing_of_middle_class.html" id="q1YtVmhySul8O3SZbxur583qWfIDCuabdhIFhJQc87A=_147634f7fd5:5c981e:31ceb6ef_entry_title" style="color: #333333; display: block; font-size: 24px; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: -0.04em; line-height: 28px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 700px; text-decoration: none; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;" target="_blank">The vanishing of middle class clergy</a><div class="metadata" style="color: #a0a0a0; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17px; overflow: hidden;">
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<a href="http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/higher-calling-lower-wages-the-collapse-of-the-middle-class-clergy/374786/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Atlantic</a> notes that full-time salaried church positions for clergy are becoming rarer:<br />
<blockquote>
... despite applying to nearly a hundred jobs over the course of two years, Barringer, who lives in Lexington, Kentucky, could not secure a full-time, salaried church position.<br />...Barringer’s story is becoming increasingly typical as Protestant churches nationwide cut back on full-time, salaried positions....<br />
Working multiple jobs is nothing new to pastors of small, rural congregations. But many of those pastors never went to seminary and never expected to have a full-time ministerial job in the first place. What’s new is the across-the-board increase in bi-vocational ministry in Protestant denominations both large and small, which has effectively shut down one pathway to a stable—if humble—middle-class career.<br />
For example, the Episcopal Church has reported that the retirement rate of its clergy exceeds the ordination rate by 43 percent. And last year, an article from an official publication of the Presbyterian Church wondered if full-time pastors are becoming an "endangered species."</blockquote>
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Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17552619.post-6091054173176228082014-07-14T06:59:00.001-07:002014-07-14T06:59:56.241-07:00<div class="entryHeader" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
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In the new edition of his biography of Archbishop Justin Welby, Andrew Atherstone draws the following contrast between the approaches of Archbishop Welby and his predecessor:<br /><blockquote>
Rowan Williams spent most of his archepiscopate seeking areas of core theological agreement around which Anglicans could coalesce, most notably in the failed Anglican Covenant. Welby’s project is different: not the pursuit of theological agreement but learning to live with theological disagreement.</blockquote>
<br />In this quotation Atherstone has put his finger on the heart of Archbishop Welby’s approach to the challenges facing the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion. Rather than trying to get everyone to agree on issues such as women bishops or same-sex relationships the Archbishop is concerned instead with getting people to disagree well with each other, what he has called ‘good disagreement.’<br /><br />The phrase ‘good disagreement’ is one that the Archbishop has used on several occasions and it has also been used by the Church of England’s House of Bishops, most recently in a statement about the facilitated conversations on issues of human sexuality that are due to take place across the Church of England in the next couple of years. This statement said that one of the objectives of these conversations is ‘to clarify the implications of what it means for the Church of England to live with what the Archbishop of Canterbury has called ‘good disagreement’ on these issues.’<br /><br />Unfortunately, neither the Archbishop of Canterbury, nor the House of Bishops, nor anyone else, has produced a clear definition of what is meant by ‘good disagreement’ and no understanding of the term has ever been agreed by the Church of England. This is a problem because you cannot begin to think about whether good disagreement is a sensible idea unless and until you know what this term means. In this blog post I want to suggest that whole idea of ‘good disagreement’ is radically misconceived and that what we should be talking about instead is how to handle disagreement, which is in itself necessarily a bad thing, in the best way possible as part of our calling as Christians to be a community of truth....<br /><br /><a href="http://anglicanmainstream.org/why-disagreement-is-not-good/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(187, 187, 187); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: inherit; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Read it all</a></div>
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Tony Seelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15751662054424993371noreply@blogger.com0