Thinking Anglicans

more about the questionnaire authors

Updated Saturday 18 March
I can now also link to the Church Times report of last week:
Pat Ashworth Carey group looks to set up rival US province.

The following announcement issued by Lay Episcopalians For the Anglican Communion gives some insight into the purpose of the recent questionnaire.

No website yet for LEAC as far as I know, but the local parish church of Jim Ince is All Saints Chevy Chase.

Meanwhile, the Presiding Bishop wrote to all his colleagues about the questionnaire, see this article from the Living Church: Survey, Archbishop Carey Draw Presiding Bishop’s Ire which also reports on an interview with Mr Ince.

A professional statistician explains why an anonymous survey has technical problems.

Invitation to traditional Christians who wish to stay in the Anglican Communion

IT’S ACTION TIME! Save more than a remnant. Please help now!

Lay Episcopalians For the Anglican Communion (Not affiliated with any parish church.)

presents rescue initiatives assisting clergy-led efforts impeded by bullying revisionist bishops:

“Action Now: A Plan to Save Our Church”

In Memorial Hall, All Saints’ Church, 3 Chevy Chase Circle, Chevy Chase, MD

TUESDAY, March 21
7:30-9:00 p.m.

and

SATURDAY, March 25
10:00-11:30 a.m.
(Duplicate events)

BACKGROUND: Leaders of clergy-led traditional Episcopal organizations — Anglican Communion Network, American Anglican Council, Anglicans United — and faithful foreign bishops are publicly and repeatedly appealing for powerful, new, dedicated action by laypersons. The unmet need: education and fearless communications exposing the Christian gravity of revisionist errors and agendas. Clergy cannot lead this, because of a gruesome pattern of professional and economic reprisal by revisionist bishops run amok.

ECUSA’s presiding bishop and his fellow schismatic leaders failed to heed admonitions from Anglican primates whose membership represents more than 75% of worldwide faithful. That caused suspension of the American church from the Consultative Council of the Anglican Communion. We are out of communion or have impaired communion with most of the Anglican Communion. (Affiliation with the Anglican Communion Network gives some a sense of comfort, but historic ties are torn.) Schism is imminent. We can save a million Anglican innocents trapped in ECUSA, heading for Unitarianism.

With GC’06 coming, the new Lay Episcopalians for the Anglican Communion (LEAC) is executing a plan for believing parishes to remain in a cleansed ECUSA. Failing that, we will rescue, in Anglican Communion safety, Episcopalians in “THE SILENT MIDDLE 80%,” many now innocently trapped in their pews as ECUSA heads for Unitarianism.

Learn about and help D.C.-based LEAC’s important, positive programs. Invest your time and talent in your church’s survival, with partners in faith. Bring along orthodox friends.

Our American Church in extremis needs your talent and free time now. Pick your niche:

MAKE TIME FOR: PRAYER PROTOCOL, LEADERSHIP/STEERING/ PLANS, ACTION-PROJECT LEAD, PR, WEBSITE/NEWSLETTER/WRITING, ADMIN., PHONE/LIAISON, CLERICAL, RESEARCH. Join a big, loving,vital, historic team!

Can’t come but need info? Call or email Jim Ince: (240)485-7357/j.ince@earthlink.net
(These meetings are about a national movement, NOT specifically about All Saints’.)

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Tim
Tim
18 years ago

Is that the sound of someone causing division I hear?

k1eranc
k1eranc
18 years ago

There are just a couple of tiny things that get under one’s skin here. First, to be pernickety about form, despite what the Living Church or LEFAC people say Lord Carey is just a Bishop – the Arch bit lapsed when he moved out of Lambeth Palace. Second, why do this? It’s not as if Runcie tore around the joint stirring up trouble for his successor, so why does Lord Carey feel the need to do this? Given that he planted the bomb in the first place, it’s rich to to see him encouraging the fallout. Will Tony Blair do… Read more »

Christopher Calderhead
Christopher Calderhead
18 years ago

Good sleuth-work, Simon. Thanks for bringing more about this group to light. Hardly a surprise, I must say. But it’s useful to have one’s gut reaction confirmed by facts. It was obvious from the get-go that no one had anything to gain by this questionnaire but the groups working for realignment. Any bishop with half a brain would have binned it after the reading the first paragraph of the cover letter. This group has chutzpa, I’ll give them that. I hope they have the good sense to be embarrassed that they’ve been caught playing a deceitful game (I’m not holding… Read more »

Alan
Alan
18 years ago

Not the sound of someone causing division, but more trying to manage it.

Marshall Scott
18 years ago

I did respond on the “Magic Statistics” web site (linked above) out of my limited research experience. However, I thought I would share my last paragraph: “In any case, without attributing direct ill will to LEAC, I think this effort is misplaced. Individual bishops have not been “opaque.” They’ve been speaking openly in addresses to diocesan conventions, in their pastoral letterrs, and in their actions regarding the AAC, ACN, and unhappy parishes and clergy at both ends of the spectrum. As a body the House of Bishops has not been opaque, but procedural. The House of Bishops, in our polity,… Read more »

David Huff
David Huff
18 years ago

“With GC’06 coming, the new Lay Episcopalians for the Anglican Communion (LEAC) is executing a plan for believing parishes to remain in a cleansed ECUSA.” “Believing” parishes in a “cleansed” ECUSA ?! “Believing” as determined by whom ? Jim Ince of Chevy Chase, Maryland ? His cronies in the AAC/”Network” ? The epistemic arrogance of this one sentence is positively breathtaking, and I won’t even go into how creepy being “cleansed” sounds… “Failing that, we will rescue, in Anglican Communion safety, Episcopalians in “THE SILENT MIDDLE 80%,” many now innocently trapped in their pews as ECUSA heads for Unitarianism.” If… Read more »

StatGuy
18 years ago

That LEAC announcement is inflammatory stuff. May I ask how it came into your hands?

J. C. Fisher
18 years ago

If you hadn’t documented this, Simon, it’d be hard to believe “LEAC” was real…

“Cleansed”??? In the early 21st century, they can use the word “cleansed” (describing the removal of one “defiled” population, by another “pure” one), without any self-consciousness whatsoever? (Maybe the LEACers are paying tribute to that other noted religious “Cleanser”, the dearly-departed Slobodan Milosevic? :-/)

steven
steven
18 years ago

Marshall: I appreciate your hopes for reconciliation. However, no one yet has been able to suggest an intermediate position acceptable to both sides. Traditionalists insist that the U.S. and Canada toe-the-line in terms of the Communion’s position on ordaining and marrying practicing homosexuals. The other side insists that it be free not to toe-the-line now and in the future. As far as I can tell, there could not be a starker contrast and two more irreconcilable positions. But, if you have some ideas I’d be happy to hear them. I hope they go beyond the usual “let everybody be free… Read more »

Tim Stewart
Tim Stewart
18 years ago

Actually IMNSHO the best description for this so-called survey is “bush-league” although I don’t know if that usage is common in Great Britain.

Alan Harrison
Alan Harrison
18 years ago

k1eranc writes: “First, to be pernickety about form, despite what the Living Church or LEFAC people say Lord Carey is just a Bishop – the Arch bit lapsed when he moved out of Lambeth Palace.” While I would agree with k1eranc’s comments about Lord Carey’s constant and irritating attempts to foul his successor’s nest, I’m not sure about this bit. I think that the practice of a retired Archbishop calling himself just “Bishop” is one of those fashionable Uriah-Heapish faux-humble tics which the C of E has recently developed. I much prefer the practice of our Roman Catholic brothers and… Read more »

Marshall Scott
18 years ago

Steven: My understanding has long been that the Via Media was a broad highway, and not simply the white line down the middle. Granted, there have always been shoulders off to which one could fall; but the Anglican position was, to use a more recent analogy from American politics, a “big tent” position. So, should reconciliation really require an “intermediate position” with which almost all would be uncomfortable? “Let everybody be free to do their own thing?” There is a risk, always, in recognizing our freedom in Christ. Truly, “not all things are useful.” However, Gamaliel was right: we discover… Read more »

Cheryl Clough
18 years ago

One way to ensure Synod votes the right way is to “cleanse” the church of unsuitable parishes and/or their leaders.

Jake
18 years ago

Are traditionalists “toeing the line”? Foreign bishops are pillaging parishes in the U.S. on a regular basis. Or do the traditionalists get to define which parts of the Windsor Report must be adhered to, and which parts can be ignored?

k1eranc
k1eranc
18 years ago

Alan H- The form of Archbishops of Canterbury and York dropping the Arch bit on retirement is not “one of those fashionable Uriah-Heapish faux-humble tics which the C of E has recently developed”, although has become more common given the rarity of them retiring prior to the last century. At the very least, I suspect the custom of de-Arch-ing the Archbishops dates back as far as Randall Davidson, who, despite a great deal of illness & unlike his predecessor did not die in office, seems to have initiated the custom of retirement to the peerage. In relation to Canterbury and… Read more »

Prior Aelred
18 years ago

Lord Carey’s comments in this article seem at odds (very much at odds) with the tone of the questionnaire:

http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local/article/0,2845,MCA_25340_4544956,00.html

steven
steven
18 years ago

Marshall:

So, stripping away the fine sounding rhetoric (my compliments), the answer is: everyone should be free to do their own thing. Alternately, the “shoulders” of the road are so far away from the center of the road that the distinction becomes meaningless–EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING IS PART OF THE ROAD (or probably more appropriately part of “the WAY”). In either case, the end result is the same, and the proposed solution is the same: just apply more of that good ol’ Anglican fudge. Hmmm. Well, it’s always worked in the past–why not one more time! LOL

Steven

Diana Smith
Diana Smith
18 years ago

Quoting from LEAC’s Manifesto: With GC’06 coming, the new Lay Episcopalians for the Anglican Communion (LEAC) is executing a plan for believing parishes to remain in a cleansed ECUSA. Failing that, we will rescue, in Anglican Communion safety, Episcopalians in “THE SILENT MIDDLE 80%,” many now innocently trapped in their pews as ECUSA heads for Unitarianism. Gracious! Cleansed? Well, All Saint’s neighbor ECUSA church, St Alban’s (of which I am a member) could use some cleansing, but of the Lysol, Mr. Clean and Bon Ami type. Nor are we “innocently trapped in our pews” and above all, we are nowhere… Read more »

Neil B
Neil B
18 years ago

Diana: “I find the idea of a “cleansed ECUSA” to be an Orwellian vision.”

That’s the first time I’ve heard of heaven likened to Orwell. 😉

Marshall Scott
18 years ago

Steven: Well, thanks for the compliment on my writing and word use. I understand you don’t find my point compelling. Yes, I do believe the way is quite broad. Looking at the history of all those who have understood God to be One in Three, and Christ to be fully divine and fully human, I find quite a wide space. I have noted elsewhere that the Anglican Communion through the Lambeth Conference or through ecumenical dialogue has come to recognize an agreed Christology with both the Oriental Orthodox Churches (Copts, Armenians, et al) and the Ancient Syriac Churches(the so-called Nestorian… Read more »

Patrick Rothwell
Patrick Rothwell
18 years ago

And you guys are actually worried about this little group? One thing I’ve observed over the years with the conservative contingent in the ECUSA is that it is all sound and fury, signifying nothing. I fail to see how this endeavor will be any different. I am especially amused at this: “The unmet need: education and fearless communications exposing the Christian gravity of revisionist errors and agendas. Clergy cannot lead this, because of a gruesome pattern of professional and economic reprisal by revisionist bishops run amok.” There have been conservative Anglican journals, pamphlets, magazines, brochures, “direct action” fundraising letters, newsletters,… Read more »

steven
steven
18 years ago

Marshall: The answer to your question is no. You are comparing apples and oranges, or perhaps more accurately, apples and hemlock. There will not be agreement within the Anglican Communion on these issues for the very same reason there will not be agreement between the Anglican Communion and any of the aforenamed churches (plus the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic churches) on these issues. Sorry, but as a comparison intended to imply both a similarity of conflict and a similarity of solution this fails miserably. For the reasons, I would suggest you refer to the RC or Orthodox responses… Read more »

faithwatch
faithwatch
18 years ago

Jake said:
“Are traditionalists “toeing the line”? Foreign bishops are pillaging parishes in the U.S. on a regular basis. Or do the traditionalists get to define which parts of the Windsor Report must be adhered to, and which parts can be ignored?”

Why not? They do that now with scripture, and they are of course, always right! Ah, the power of possessing “absolute truth”.

Dave
Dave
18 years ago

Hmm, “cleansed”… washed ? I wonder whether LEAC are thinking that the following passage has some relevance to the evolving situation in ECUSA (the more liberal reader should be warned that the following passage may offend sensibilities): “I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is… Read more »

J. C. Fisher
18 years ago

Junk translation, Dave: it’s *your choice* to go w/ this junk, instead of a credible translation, which offends. Not Scripture!

Dave
Dave
18 years ago

Dear JCF, That’s from the NIV version – probably the translation used most CofE churches nowadays – certainly not junk! I don’t think that you will find anything significantly different on most translations (I checked some) except maybe the LOMV (Liberal Offenses Modified Version).

Simon Sarmiento
18 years ago

Yes, NIV is indeed used in many parishes of the CofE, although NRSV is more widely used I suspect. NIV seems to be preferred by many evangelical parishes, though I have never understood why.

Göran Koch-Swahne
18 years ago

The NIV is really very bad (as I have told Dave a dosen times). It’s a non paraphrase ony in method ;=) And it’s certainly not “international”. The language of the Septuagint is technical/theological; specific, not general and abstract. So consequently is that of 1st century NT scriptures. This means that such generalízed abstract concepts as “sexually immoral” are not found in the Bible, only in sloppy translations. Pórnois specifically means “men who use sacral prostitutes”, which refers to other cult, not to sex… It’s the 1st Commandment; Don’t have, don’t worship, don’t serve! The same goes for a host… Read more »

J. C. Fisher
18 years ago

Simon, you now *know* why! (Not that “evangelical” is synonymous w/ “anti-gay conservative”, but there is tragically large overlap…) Despite being called “New *International* Version”, the NIV is an overwhelmingly (U.S. of) *American* creation, fully partaking of all the extremities of contemporary U.S. Evangelical Christianity (I use that last term loosely). Published right around the time Anita Bryant was first muck-raking in the States about the “Gay Menace”, it is a frankly tendentious (not to mention *modern*) invention, NOT a faithful translation of God’s Word in the Old and New Testaments. Anglicans around the world should smell the NIV coming… Read more »

Dave
Dave
18 years ago

Dear JCF, Simon et al, I was thinking about the Corinthian church’s tolerating a broad range of sexual behaviours etc and lawsuits among the church (and St Paul’s rebuking of them on those issues) as much as particular sins in the sin list.

Maybe the ECUSAn context is also similar to that which existed in Corinth then?

Prior Aelred
18 years ago

According to a book I read about Bible translations, one of the specific purposes of the NIV translation was to bolster an evangelical understanding of key scriptural texts, one of the most important being to mistranslate “almah” as “virgin.”

J. C. Fisher
18 years ago

We get your point, Dave: “logs/splinters” back atcha. :-/

Tobias S Haller BSG
Tobias S Haller BSG
18 years ago

The one thing that always troubled me about the NIV is the odd use of “scare quotes” around words like clean, unclean, and sinners. (See Mark 7:1-21; Luke 5:30, 7:34, and especially Luke 15:1.) I am not sure what the translators are trying to convey by this, but it strikes me as sort of creepy — as if Jesus didn’t associate with real sinners, just people the Pharisees thought were sinners. I can’t help but picture a lector making Dr. Evil quote-mark hand gestures as these words come up.

Dave
Dave
18 years ago

Com’on guys ! If you read the 1 Cor 5:9-6:11 in the NRSV the *overall* message is almost identical – sexual behaviour is far from a matter of indifference (the more liberal reader should be warned that the following passage, even from the NRSV, may offend sensibilities): I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons— not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone… Read more »

Göran Koch-Swahne
18 years ago

Well dear Dave,

The NRSV isn’t necessarily right because the NIV is wrong. Both are post Dynamic Equivalence ;=)

Remember that some of us read this in Greek…

Dave
Dave
18 years ago

Dear Göran, I refuse to post 1 Cor 5:9-6:11 again in Greek ! ;=)

Simon Sarmiento
18 years ago

Thank goodness for that, Dave.
Any other comments please relate them directly to the subject of this item, i.e. the activities of LEAC.

Anna
18 years ago

Sarah Dylan Breuer has a report from inside an LEAC meeting up at her website:
Inside LEAC.

Anna
18 years ago

The link didn’t show up– Dylan’s piece is at http://www.sarahlaughed.net/gracenotes/2006/03/inside_leac.html.

Rev. Lois Keen
Rev. Lois Keen
17 years ago

Dear friends,

The link to Sarah Dylan Breuer’s article “Inside the LEAC” did not come up using Anna’s link. I got to it through an email link today to The Witness magazine:

http://thewitness.org/article.php?id=1045

I hope this works for y’all.

Lois Keen, Priest
Diocese of Pennsylvania

Mark
Mark
17 years ago

I see LEAC has published its survey results. They’re here: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-31-2006/0004330631&EDATE= And by the way, the PR release points to a web site which makes LEAC’s agenda pretty clear (“Bold Rescue action supporting the orthodox”) It’s here: http://www.layepiscopal.org/ The survey PR says that they got 27% of the 298 bishops solicited to respond anonymously, and their “pro-bono opinion research professionals” assured them this was a “good sample”. Their self-selected bishops voted 57.5% and 56.25% to oppose same-sex blessings and Gene Robinson’s consecration, and based on this LEAC felt justified to headline their piece, “Episcopal Bishops, If Voting Secretly, Would Oppose… Read more »

Simon Sarmiento
17 years ago

NIV enthusiasts may be interested in this post by Bigbulkyanglican
http://bigbulkyanglican.typepad.com/bigbulkyanglican/2006/04/niv.html

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