With all this talk of "dis-inviting schismatic bishops" from Lambeth, time, perhaps, to take a second look at the invitation to Gomez to address General Synod?

More realistically, I sincerely hope he'll be facing a Q & A session at GS.

What a really strange bunch of people these are. The 'faith once delivered to the saints' was only possible because the folks in ol' Zion allowed pesky old Paul to let the impure millions in. Perhaps the disreputable beginnings of the 'faith once delivered to the saints' ought to be brought to the attention of those wishing to defend the fortress against its friends...

It'll be interesting to hear Synod's reaction to Archbishop Gomez's address next week when he proposes the Covenant as a means to corporate cohesion. He seems to favour 'excommunicating' ECUSA and replacing it with an orthodox multi-primatial province as the official Anglican presence. Don't think that'll go down too well with some at York.

Kieran Crichton wrote, "The 'faith once delivered to the saints' was only possible because the folks in ol' Zion allowed pesky old Paul to let the impure millions in."

Perhaps a little Biblical literacy is needed here. The 'impure' converts were allowed in if they were sexually moral: sexual morality was actually a litmus test for inclusion in he early church.

Not that I am saying that the church should only belong to the celibate or those living in monogomous heterosexual marriages. But there should be an IDEAL of sexual morality based upon scripture...even if it is an ideal with which many struggle. Just because the ideal is difficult doesn't mean we should toss it out and replace it with whatever is fashionable at the moment.

Our Lord wants what is best for us and what brings honor to Him. Can we trust Him on this one?

African primates will continue to appoint more bishops for the U.S.A., misled as they are to believe that TEC has become a heretical branch of the Anglican Communion by U.S. Americans that wish TEC ill. Yesterday David Virtue on VOL published a "fictitious" report of the induction of a Muslim imam as Dean of New York City's Cathedral of St. John the Divine by PB Katharine Jefferts Schori and Bishop Sisk of N.Y. Although labeled as a "ficticious" report, the reasserters, blogging on VOL, let TEC's PB have it as a pagan who no longer recognizes Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Lies like that, compounded by Anne Coulter-type of journalists, fan the fire, and give justification to the GS primates to cross jurisdictional borders, which will inevitably lead only to more litigation as TEC bishops have to balance their fiduciary responsibilities under Canon Law and U.S. law with Christian compassion for disaffected parishioners whose ire against TEC has been inflamed by writers of fiction like David Virtue.

When will ++Rowan Cantuar tell the African bully-bishops to cease and desist, cancelling their invitations to the Lambeth conference?

"It has, therefore, seemed good to the House of Bishops and the Holy Spirit...."

Blimey. These guys really do have connections, don't they?

Ah, the genius of ++Cantuar. Put Gomez in charge of the process, and within months he's making statements so outrageous that even Tertullian would blush. Net result, covenant dead duck.

Wonder if this gave David Virtue any inspiration for his fictional account:

http://www.standfirminfaith.com/media/Dio-Olympia-Episcopal-Voices-June2007.pdf#page=9

The faith once delivered to the saints is a Duncan favorite. I just wonder which saints?
Christianity was all developed by the end of the first century?

curious.
Peace,
Bob

Selah wrote, "The 'impure' converts were allowed in if they were sexually moral..."

Great Googly Moogly! Why is it *always* SEX with you people ?!? I've never in all my born days seen such an unhealthy, obsessive interest in the sex lives of other people than I've seen in the Anglican Right-Wing! Don't you "orthodox" think about *anything* else ?!

(Sorry for being so blunt, but I've become utterly exasperated with this prurient nonsense. Get your minds out of the gutter, please!)

Really Mynster - did the ABC have clever plans when he appointed Jeffrey John and when he presented the Primates in Tanzania with a report which tried to suggest that TEC had met the Windsor conditions???

I suspect you will see similar events....he and the Lambeth Palace hierarchy try to do as much as they can for old liberal friends...but in the end are not willing to see the AC be reduced to a few million liberals around the world - reducing to nothing within a few decades

David H.

Your post might be clever if it were not so inane. The presenting issue in the dispute between liberals and traditionalists relates to Biblical authority in a particular area: The nature of "sexually moral" behavior. Obviously, this is an area in dispute and has been and will be the subject of many posts by both sides. As you obviously find this topic difficult to deal with, you might find it advisable to avoid reading posts or commenting on posts in this subject area. You will, however, find very little at TA that doesn't touch on the subject either directly or indirectly.

Steven

I've asked this before and, if I'm spared, I fear that down the road I'll be asking it again, but ought "Thinking Anglicans" to be about making points, or about scoring them?

David H.

Selah's reference was to the letter the Council of Jerusalem sent to the Gentiles.

Acts 15:23b-29

The apostles and elders, your brothers, To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings. We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.

Hello Selah, and thankyou for your comment. I am bewildered, given that I read the Bible and pray the offices that you seem to think me somehow lacking knowledge of the New Testament, but then again, under God's grace we all stand to learn and grow in some new way every day.
I strongly disagree with the implication of your citing of sexual morality in the early church. If this was an issue at all, in the sense that we currently understand it, it was framed largely in the same way that it figures in the Old Testament; that is to say, that the sexual morality that we find in the epistles of St Paul was a way of marking off the religious practice of the Christians of the Apostolic age from other cults that featured behaviours that we would now regard as essentially exploitative as part of their worship and discipline - think temple prostitutes, vestal virgins, etc. I think you do Paul a misservice by equating much of what he taught as being concerned predominantly with sexual behaviour, and to do this without an appreciation of the context in which he wrote is dangerously simplistic. The reality of our own time is that there is a great deal of exploitation of human beings through sexual behaviour, and in this sense, what we find in Paul that addresses this is as true for 2007 as any time in the first century. It just happens that we seem to be getting in a tangle about people falling in love and living peacefully, while a host of things go on around us that we should rightly condemn and work to bring a stop to - it happens that *secular* governments have their eyes open where the Church so frequently has them sewn shut.
But sexual morality is not the whole story with Paul. I am sure you will agree that Paul did write about usury and litigious approaches to conflict resolution, among other things. Unfortunately, in the current debate Paul's voice on the latter point is often sorely drowned out by those claiming to be true to his message.
This is why I wrote as I did. The 'fortress' that is heaven to some people really does need to be defended against the (self-anointed) gate keepers at the moment.

Enough already. We have already reached the impasse everyone knew was coming. It is more than a matter of bedroom habits, it's about the authority of Scripture.

As the ABC has already admitted, St. Paul and the writers of Holy Writ would not see homosexual intercourse to be consistent with a Christian ethos. Therefore the issue is really about whether or not a national church will submit to Scripture. TEC has repeatedly said they will not, while the GS sees it as a non-negotiable issue. Thus, the two have already decided to walk apart. It is over.

Consequently, of course we will have 2 provinces in America and overlapping diocesan territories-we have two different faiths. The only question is where the ABC chooses to hang his hat...er mitre! Will it be with TEC and their gazillions of dollars or the GS and their poor but plenteous people? I think we all know where this is heading.

"submit to Scripture"

I see. And here I thought I was supposed to submit to God. And, I'm sure you will agree that the "Spirit will lead us into all truth", right. Not saying TEC is perceiving truth here, just that this kind of fundamentalism is the way some Churches operate, but not the Anglican Church. We know that God's self revelation didn't stop when St. John put his pen down for the last time on Patmos.

Ford, submitting to Scripture is submitting to God, for Scripture is God's own self-revelation. As "Anglicans" we've repeatedly affirmed that conviction in such varied places as the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, the entire 39 Articles, even our liturgy. Moreover, as Article XX plainly states, "...it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word..." So please, resist the urge to use ad homimen (calling us "fundamentalists") and simply admit that Scripture is superfluous to TEC.

This is why we have 2 faiths and why we need to re-establish an Anglican presence on the North American continent.

There's no need to be hostile. In fact, I say we give TEC their buildings (they've shown a penchant for managing empty buildings!) and we walk our separate ways. The ABC can decide which path he wants to walk and that's that.

Joe,
How is 'fundamentalist' ad hominem? For me, it describes those who believe that all authority in the Church resides in the Bible as it is literally written, possibly informed by the meaning of the original Greek. Doesn't sound overly ad hominem to me. And Scripture being God's self revelation is a bit of rhetoric, since, while true, it is Jesus Who is God's self revelation in the flesh, as you know. The first Christians came to believe without anything like what we now call Scripture. For them, Scripture was the Old Testament, and they had no trouble believing the Spirit was leading them in ways contrary to that. What's more, the Church hasn't had a problem with it either, until the development of sola scriptura and fundamentalism after the Reformation. Suggesting that Scripture is NOT the sole repository of authority in the Chruch is not an innovation, it is not heretical, and it does not deny the authority or the Divinely inspired status of Scripture. Scripture is NOT superfluous to TEC and it is false witness to claim it is.

"Will it be with TEC and their gazillions of dollars or the GS and their poor but plenteous people? I think we all know where this is heading."

Of course if a court were to direct those gazillions and buildings to Akinola, Minns, and their ilk, the high road doesn't seem so convenient anymore, does it?

Ford, don't you understand that Joe, NP, and the other reasserters here (golly, there are many more today than usual) are not to be denied. We not only have to contribute to their Church. We have to THINK EXACTLY LIKE THEM, TOO.

Hey guys, maybe next year you can get CANA listed as one of Time's top 10 churches!

Ford:

Joe is right on all points. Though, for my part, I wish he wasn't right about TEC. As to TEC, I'm afraid that, as we sometimes say down South, "It's all over but the shoutin'".

Steven

Joe wrote: "Therefore the issue is really about whether or not a national church will submit to Scripture."

Do people of your mindset really submit to scripture? Do you accept scripture's prohibition to charge interest on loans? If so, you would opt out of the capitalist system that provides you with a pension and many other benefits. Do you still maintain that women must not teach men?

Obviously, many of TEC's detractors are 'cherry pickers' as far as the authority of scripture in today's world is concerned.

You are hostile, Joe. It is an outrageous statement to say that "scripture is superfluous to TEC" - what you mean is some of us interpret it differently from you, and see authority elsewhere too. Plus the 39 Articles are effectively demoted as historic formularies.

Your side is attempting to produce this restrictive Anglicanism that is far more sweeping than against the ethos of TEC. Even if there is a split, it does not produce two "faiths" but two Anglican denominations of the same religion, one that would be more receptive to breadth and inclusion, and the other restrictive. The Church of Scotland does not describe the restrictive Wee Wee Frees as being of another faith.

No wonder things get heated, when you deny what you regard as the other side as not even being of the same religion.

John Henry:

Hmmm. So, you assert that the prohibition on interest is part of the moral law and therefore survives Calvary?

This is an interesting position, which is not to say that I am totally "agin it". It used to be that excessive interest was forbidden as usury--and I think American society, at least, was better off without the excesses that easy credit and high interest credit cards have brought with them.

However, you will have to watch this form of argument or you will be bringing in all the rest of Israel's civil/ceremonial law as part of the moral law.

Steven

P.S.-Your basic point is a "straw man" argument that has very little or nothing to do with the issues being discussed by Joe. /s

Oooo! Disagree with TEC and be vilified.

All I've said is that TEC has forced a split and offered another faith - call it heterodoxy if you like. The scriptures are clear and TEC says, "We're beyond St. Paul." Lambeth 1.10 was clear and yet TEC has basically said, "We don't care what the rest of the world thinks." So, in point of fact, TEC sees no need to submit to scripture or the church catholic.

But of course, TEC is right and everyone else wrong. Moreover, if TEC is ever challenged it is convenient to call the world ignorant, greedy, mean, fundamentalists. Now let me get this straight, the Africans are the intolerant ones? Please!

Steven,
"part of the moral law and therefore survives Calvary"
This is a false distinction, as you well know. The Law was, and is, the Law, you can't pick and choose the bits you don't like and call them "ritual".

"excessive interest"
All interest was prohibited. The distinction of "excessive interest" was invented as a justification for usury. By that argument, it's only "excessive homosexuality" that the Bible condemns.

Joe,
"vilified"?!?!? Disagreement is not vilification. If you want to be vilified, trot on over to Venomonline or some similar conservative blog and pretend to be a liberal. You'll find out what vilification really is, that is if they even bother to post your comments.

"So, in point of fact, TEC sees no need to submit to scripture or the church catholic."

Ah, but TEC believes itself to be obeying the Gospel in this. Again, we aren't literalists in the Anglican Church. Would you care to turn your eye to the conservatives and count up how THEY have disobeyed Lambeth '98, all of it, not just one section? Truly, you ought to before you go calling others disobedient.

Thank you, Ford, for your rebuttal of Steven's distinction between "moral law", "ceremonial law", etc., which is the heretic Jean Calvin's way of dealing with Torah, contrary to the Jewish understanding of Mosaic law.

For the Jews, and for Jesus, Torah was indivisible. The Church, for centuries, understood it that way and declared charging interest on loans illicit. It is the legacy of Jean Calvin that gave rise to capitalism (viz. Max Weber), the "rich" viewing themselves blessed by God, while the wrath of God was upon the poor and the deviant sinners.

No... Max Weber made a parallel between Calvin and Capitalism. He realised that causality was more complex, indeed was close to Marx in part, but added that ideas, such as Calvinism, had a semi-independent input into the situation, whereas for Marx ideas were just the resultant output of a set of economic and social relationships of power. No one thinks that Calvinism was a cause of capitalism, but that it was just one influence, but even then it is an argument that has been criticised for a very long time.

Someone mentioned the Council of Jerusalem. Odd reference for a legalist to make since the Apostles said:

"It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us"

You will note no reference at all to Scripture. Now, I have no doubt they consulted Scripture, debated it, perhaps even had some nasty arguments. But in the end they allowed the Spirit to guide them, not the word written, and She led them in a direction quite different from anything the Scripture said. "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us", not "Scripture says" much less "the Law says" and certainly not "the parts of the Law that relate to morals say...".

Hmmm. Interesting to know that so many of the "liberals" at TA are secret re-constructionists and are in kahoots with Rushdoony et al. in seeing no difference between the moral law and the rest of the Torah. Well, if there is no difference we should all be re-constructionists as well. However, that will put you in a much worse position than you are in at present. Perhaps you should give this some more thought. Stoning is a bad way to go.

Steven

PS-My BCP only has recitals of the 10 commandments. That also might be a clue. /s

Ford,

The Council of Jerusalem was comprised on apostles in the 1st C. God gave them special authority and many special events occurred during their ministries - resurrections, miracles and revelation of what eventually became the NT. These men saw Christ in the flesh! We have not.

I agree that the Spirit moves in God's people to give revelation beyond Scripture. In my own life the Spirit has revealed God's will for my life in ways Scripture never could. But I do not believe we are hearing a message from the Scripture that apposes the guidance from the apostles - unless we're claiming our authority is the same as the apostles or that some epoch changing event comparable to the resurrection has come to pass.

Well, I can't tell if my prior post was lost. I'll repeat its observations for the benefit of TA antinomians if it doesn't show up.

In the meantime, I think it is appropriate to respond to the criticism that the distinction between moral law and the civil and ceremonial law of the OT is some sort of Calvinistic aberration. In fact, as Article VII "Of the Old Testament" has it:

"Although the Law as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the Civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral."

In this, the Articles merely follow the teachings of Aquinas (who laid out this distinction in its fullest form) and even earlier authorities. Thus, any implication that observation of the Moral Law and not the Civil and Ceremonial Law of the OT--or even observing that there is a distinction--is not "Anglican" or "Catholic" is utter rubbish. You might also want to check out Col. 2:16-17.

Steven

"Well, if there is no difference we should all be re-constructionists as well."

No, we could all acknowledge that we are no longer under the Law and try to understand how it is that we are indeed called to holy living without the Law. It seems a bit...conflicted to sing "Free From the Law, Oh Happy Condition" then listen to an hour long sermon about obedience to certain parts of it.

"In my own life the Spirit has revealed God's will for my life in ways Scripture never could."

To you, no doubt. But, you see, what one man feels to be the guidance of the Spirit may not be at all. It requires the Spirit filled body of believers, the Church, to discern that, not the feelings of one person, nor one person's understanding of what Scripture says. Our whole faith is corporate. Just because you think it, even are certain of it, doesn't make it so.

And Col. 2:16-17? Are you suggesting this is some kind of list of things we are free to ignore, but anything that is not mentioned in those verses, well, we still have to abide by them?

"TA antinomians"

That took a little while!

Ford said,
"But, you see, what one man feels to be the guidance of the Spirit may not be at all."

Yes - and many claim this is an issue in the church today. Even if many people think something is guidance from the Spirit they can be wrong (see Arians).

Hi Ford:

I'm kind of confused about where we stand discussion-wise.

I reacted to a comment by John Henry implying that one could not seek to observe Biblical moral standards/precepts without accepting and observing all Torah law pronouncements. This is ludicrous and has never been the position of Christians (Catholic or otherwise) in any era so far as I know. It is certainly not the "Anglican" position or the "Catholic" position. Though, once again, TEC--as a fearless innovator--may be breaking new ground here.

On other points I fear we may be snarled by language. To me as a bumbling layman, and I think to most real theologs, the moral law is not the 10 commandments, though these are often referred to as a summary of the moral law. The moral law pre-dated Mt. Sinai, but was embodied in and assumed by its edicts. Likewise, it survives the nailing of the Mosaic law to the Cross. It is summarized most succinctly in the two great commandments, and a bit more fully in the 10 commandments. However, since it is ultimately about how to be "good" and "holy" in every situation, you could probably take the whole Bible as being an explication of the moral law (which is not to say that it could not equally be taken as a whole as an explication of a variety of other theological topics). See, also, for example, the Epistles of Paul with their discussions of how to behave in a Christian or Godly fashion as well as the Gospels.

Anyhow, I'm merely trying to lay some groundwork here as I'm finding the discussion and the objections to the idea of moral law I'm getting pretty hard to follow. Maybe it's the word "law" that's causing the problem?

Steven

Ford,
If I understand what you are saying there are at least three questions that deserve some thought:

1) At what level does the consultation need to go to in order for a "correct" interpretation to be assured?

2) Does this allow for personal vocations and how are they revealed and confirmed?

3) How do the spiritual gifts of teaching and prophecy fit in?

As we've seen from the 1C through the early Councils, the Reformation and today the church gets it wrong at times and individuals are often shown a re-centering from God.

"But, you see, what one man feels to be the guidance of the Spirit may not be at all."

Yes, that's undoubtedly true. And it is the one reason we continue to make mistakes throughout our lives and continue to require forgiveness.

Because we have no choice but to try to listen to the Spirit in our lives, and our personal lives are not always subject to corporate church decisions, certainly not the myriad of daily choices we make.

Steven,
For me, first and foremost, it's about what is it to live a Christian life? We are not under the Law. Yet, we are clearly, as Paul says, not free to sin, and there is, definitely, sin. I'm also not a theolog. I do not understand this claim that the ritual Law was done away on the Cross, but not the moral Law. We cannot claim to be free from the Law one minute, which as a very important part of my faith, then claim that certain parts of it still apply. When Jesus said "On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets", He was quoting someone. I believe, though am likely wrong, it was Hillel. The full quote ends with "...all else is commentary". Love God, love your neighbour. that's it. I think the issue here is that some people are unable to understand how we one can live a holy life without having clear rules to follow, hence this desire to hang on to a Law, despite claiming to be free from it. Others need a clear Law so as to be better than others in their obedience to it. Indeed, Paul's comments like 'the strength of sin is the Law' seem to me to imply that if we understand our life in terms of law rather than service to God and neighbour, we put ourselves at risk of sin.

Chris,
I suggest you read Kallistos Ware's The Orthodox Church. He addresses this problem from an Orthodox perspective. In short, it is not Councils that have authority in the long run. It is the people's acceptance of a Council's decisions that makes them authoritative. So there were many Councils of the Church but only 7 are accepted as Ecumenical. Everything is seen in terms of the Eucharistic community. Personal vocations are revealed and confirmed by the individual within the conmmunity. It can be a valid call, for instance, for a community to say to an unwilling candidate that s/he is to be their priest/bishop. At least one Patriarch was chosen like that, St. Basil, I believe. The spiritual gifts of teaching and prophecy are also exercised within the context of the community. It is, for instance, the community that chooses its chief teacher: its bishop. The Spirit works through this community. Now the community must of course be in mutual love one towards another, practicing Christian humility, and discerning the Spirit. Neither of these is particularly evident in the current debate. I realize this is idealistic, and the reality is often a lot messier. At First Nicea, Athanasius got so upset he crossed the floor and punched Arius in the face!
How we discern which individuals are being shown a recentering from God and how many are just trying to exert their will on everybody else, or exercising some retained adolescent rebelliousness? The myriad of literalist Protestants is proof that Scriptural literalism is no guarantee.