Exclusion of the Episcopal Church From the Anglican Communion? Who Cares?

The Prayer Book Society and Dr. Peter Toon do not get it. Who cares if the Episcopal Church is excluded from the Anglican Communion? With the advent of liberal theology and Anglo-Catholicism, not to mention the early departures from the English Reformation by the Carolingians, the Anglican Communion splintered into a thousand sects within the umbrella of the church. The pretended unity at last shows signs of fracture.

Moreover, there is no real authority with either the primates, the Anglican Consultative Council or the archbishop. Basically, each province does what it wishes. The only authority that functions is with the bishops in their dioceses. Other than that any pretended unity in the "communion" is a total farce. The Lambeth Quadrilateral is a complete and total failure since no one can agree on doctrine. With the rise of Anglo-Catholicism the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion were shanghaied and re-interpreted totally out of their historical and textual context.

With the rise of modern higher criticism, the Bible as well has been interpreted so loosely and in so many ways that it has practically become something like the Rorschach Inkblot Test. "What does this text mean to you?"

The certainty of language, theology, or even plain interpretation of Scripture is out the window. One can see the effects of modernism even in the news and in modern politics. Remember Bill Clinton's famous rhetorical lie? "What does 'is' mean?" The short of it is that we are basically in a propaganda war. Words mean whatever the opponent wants them to mean and that could be just about anything.

Whatever happened to objective truth, evangelical theology, and the five solas of the English and Continental Reformation? Who knows? The one thing I do know is that the Anglican Communion is rotten to the core and beyond salvage. For one thing, the Archbishop, Rowan Williams, is just as pro-homosexual as any liberal in the Episcopal Church USA. I would include the vast majority within the English Province and the Canadian Province, etc.

But even if we examine the Global South and the Asian Provinces and the conservatives left in the USA and the UK, we still have the subversion of the Gospel by Anglo-Catholicism and other in house heresies that have compromised the integrity of any "common cause" agreements.

The fact of the matter is that there is no way to reconcile forty different interpretations of the Bible and the Christian faith. There is no via media between the truth and lies. If there be any hope left, it is a return to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion as a statement of faith, a return to a confessional understanding of the Anglican church. The idea that Arminianism, Amyraldianism, Anglo-Catholicism, Evangelicalism, Latitudinarism and Reformed/Calvinist Anglicanism can all be reconciled by reducing doctrine to a bare minimum will only result in the rise of a similar crisis in the near future.

As I see it, the only hope for Anglicanism is a return to the Augustinian/Calvinist roots of the English Reformation and a return to an understanding of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion as a creed or confessional document that binds us all to obey it as our common faith. This does not mean that we are free to re-interpret Scripture or the Thirty-Nine Articles any old way or that we are free to distort Scripture to our own destruction (see 2 Peter 3:15-16). It means using our faith, reason and tradition within the parameters of a conservative use of critical scholarship and hermeneutics. It means rejecting the Kantian/Barthian philosophy/theology which attacks the idea that Holy Scripture is a direct revelation from God rather than merely a book that contains the Word of God in some mystical encounter. It means taking Carl F. H. Henry's theology of propositional truth expressed in written form as the literal Word of God which is to be reverenced and obeyed with God's grace.

Will the Episcopal Church be excluded from the Anglican Communion? I do not believe it will because the leadership at Canterbury is all for the same agenda held by the Province of Canada and the Episcopal Church USA. Do I believe the Global South will pull out and start a conservative Anglican Communion in competition with Canterbury? Hardly. Why? Because the same rot has infested the Global South and the conservatives left here in the US through the continuing Anglican movement. This rot is the idea that there is some middle way between the Protestant Reformation and "Catholicism", i.e., Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodoxy. There is no middle way. Either one believes the Bible or one believes in the church as the final authority. To choose a middle way is to compromise the very Gospel that Jesus died for on the cross. The bottom line is that the Global South could have done something solid about this decades ago but they refused because they are enamored with being a part of the "Anglican Communion". If the Global South were serious about the Gospel, it would not tolerate false gospels like the Anglo-Catholic/Tractarian movement.

Evangelical/Calvinist Anglicans should be looking for the exit stage right. Sectarianism is the result of papal usurpation. Until Christ returns the church will continue to splinter and even to go into outright apostasy as history repeatedly shows us over and over again. The solution is not compromising with co-belligerents and fighting a culture war against immorality. Co-belligerency is fine when dealing with the society at large. However, we should and must never forget that fighting a culture war against the erosion of family values is not the same thing as defending the faith once delivered to the saints. That faith, my friends, is the Gospel of Jesus Christ which was handed down to us through the apostles and prophets and written down for us in the canon of Scripture. The Gospel is so simple that anyone, including a child, can read the Bible and be saved. Yet, the wealth of theology is so complex that we could spend a lifetime fine-tuning our understanding of who Jesus is and what God's will for us is. Let us never give up fighting for the true Gospel and a right understanding of the teaching of Christ in the Bible.

Peace!

Charlie

A Dissenting Opinion From the ACC Standing Committee's Report

Addendum

Assessment of the response the House of Bishops of TEC to the Windsor Report and Dar El Salam recommendation

First, I would like to thank the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church in America (TEC) for her kind invitation and for the great hospitality we enjoyed while we were in New Orleans. I am also grateful for the opportunity I was given to address the House of Bishops (HOB).

It is very unfortunate that not all the members of the Joint Standing Committee (JSC) were present when a response to the HOB of TEC was drafted. The lack of discussion and interaction will not produce a report that expresses the view of the whole committee.

The response of the House of Bishops of TEC represents a superficial shift from their previous position; the fact remains that their position since 2003 has not changed. The House of Bishops has not responded positively to either the Windsor Report or the Dar El Salam Primates recommendation.

Therefore I strongly disagree with the report of the JSC which states that "We believe that the Episcopal Church has clarified all outstanding questions relating to their response to the questions directed explicitly to them, and on which clarifications were sought by the 30th of September, and given the necessary assurance sought of them." The reasons for my disagreement are as follows:

On Public Rites for Blessing of Same-sex Unions

The statement of the House of Bishops in New Orleans did not meet the request of Windsor Report that the "Bishops must declare a moratorium on all such public rites". It also failed to meet the request of the Primates at Dar El Salam that the Bishops should "make an unequivocal common covenant that the Bishops will not authorize any rites of blessing for same-sex unions in their Diocese."

They did not declare a moratorium on authorization public rites of the blessing of same-sex unions. Instead the House of Bishops pledged not to authorize any public rites of blessing of same-sex unions. I understand moratorium as "cessation of activity". In the explanatory discussion they mentioned that "the majority", not all, of Bishops do not make allowances for the blessings of same-sex unions. This means that a number of Bishops will continue to make allowances for the blessing of same-sex unions. I see this as an equivocal and unclear response.

While the House of Bishop's response means that 'authorization' of the rites will not take place, but it also stated that some will continue to ''explore and experience liturgies celebrating the blessing of same-sex unions''. The exploration of liturgies celebrating the blessing of same-sex unions, keeps a window to continue such blessings under another title !! This unashamedly disregards the standard teaching of the Anglican Communion which is still torn over this issue.

On the elections non-celibate gay and lesbian persons to the Episcopate

Those who read the whole response of the House of Bishops of TEC, not only parts of it, would find the following.

• The House of Bishops clarified Resolution B033 of the General Convention 2006 in such a way that "non-celibate gay and lesbian persons are included in the restraint". But in the same response we find them saying "We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God's children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ's Church." What does this mean? This statement contradicts their explanation of B033 which put a restraint on electing and consecrating non-celibate gay and lesbian persons to the Episcopate Order, as it restricts them from full participation in the church.

• The request of the House of Bishops to the Archbishop of Canterbury to explore ways for Gene Robinson to fully participate in Lambeth Conference demonstrates clearly that they see that the manner of life of Gene Robinson, as a non-celibate gay, does not present a challenge to the wider church and will not lead to further strains on the Communion. This again contradicts their clarification of General Convention Resolution B033 that it does indeed refer "to non-celibate gay and lesbian persons".

On the Pastoral Scheme

In regard to the recommendation of Dar El Salam Primates Meeting, for the establishment of a Pastoral Council "to act on behalf of the Primates in consultation with the Episcopal Church", the House of Bishops did not respond positively. Their excuse was that such a pastoral scheme would compromise the authority of the Presiding Bishop, and place the autonomy of the Episcopal Church at risk.

The House of Bishops came up with another internal plan that allows the Presiding Bishop to appoint Episcopal visitors for Dioceses that 'request' alternative oversight. This is completely different from the Pastoral scheme recommended by Dar El Salam. The composition of the recommended pastoral scheme has the ability to stop the interventions of outside Provinces because it represents TEC, the Primates, and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Suspending all Legal Actions

The Primates in Dar El Salam urged the representatives of TEC and of those congregations in property disputes with TEC to suspend all legal actions against each other. The House of Bishops did not address this issue.

Conclusion

The House of Bishops did not respond meet the recommendation of Windsor Report and the Dar El Salam Primates Meeting Communiqué. Instead they used ambiguous language and contradicted themselves within their own response.

Mouneer Hanna Anis.

The Report of the Anglican Consultative Council Sells Out Conservatives in the Communion

It becomes obvious that the Anglican Consultative Council is on the side of the liberals. The report given by the joint standing committee, composed of primates and the consultative council, basically upholds the statement on human sexuality imposed by the primates at Lambeth 1998 and the subsequent challenges to the apostate provinces in the US and Canada. But unfortunately the report says that the the Episcopal Church USA has agreed to comply with the mandate, which is obviously a fraud to anyone reading the statements released after the House of Bishops' meeting in New Orleans.

This leaves no other option for conservatives in the Anglican Communion but to continue in their efforts to create another communion that is conservative and faithful to the Gospel. My only concern with this is that conservative Anglo-Catholics are preaching a false gospel which distorts the Bible and the Protestant nature of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.

Few Anglicans these days are aware of the tremendous apostasy which has taken place within the Anglican Communion as a whole. Here in my own area there is only one Episcopal parish within the Central Florida Diocese of the Episcopal Church USA that I would even recommend. And of the continuing Anglican churches in my area, almost all of them have sold out to a conservative form of Anglo-Catholicism and are hence apostate as well.

May God sovereignly restore the Anglican Communion to the Biblical foundations of the Protestant and Evangelical faith. God is able to do the impossible but from the current situation things do not look hopeful that there will be repentance or even regeneration of a dead and dying communion.

Just as the nation of Israel suffered through times of restoration and times of national apostasy and decline, so the Christian and universal church has suffered through great departures from biblical faith. When kings worshipped in the secret places the nation as a whole departed from God's Law and his Word. So today when preachers, bishops, pastors and deacons no longer know and obey the Gospel, the provinces and dioceses of the church depart from God's will into outright apostasy.

If not for the sovereignty of God in these matters we would have cause for great despair. However, Isaiah and Romans both assure us that God always preserves a remnant of true believers. Modernists and Anglo-Catholics call those who are a part of the remnant "fundamentalists." While I do not consider Evangelical, confessing Anglicans to be "fundamentalists," I do declare that they are the faithful few who place the Gospel ahead of ecumenical concerns. They are the faithful who desire to please God rather than man.

Please pray for the state of the whole church! May God regenerate the liberals, pagans and Anglo-Catholics within the Anglican Communion and the so-called conservatives in the Anglican Communion Network and the American Anglican Council.

In Christ,

Charlie