Thinking Anglicans

Open letter from Archbishop Akinola

The American Anglican Council has published An Open Letter from Archbishop Akinola to Archbishop Williams.

…In preparation for the meeting I asked The American Anglican Council to prepare the attached report on the continuing situation of The Episcopal Church to enable people in the wider Communion to have a fuller perspective of the circumstances in North America. I shared it with my colleagues in the Global South but did not release it more widely in the hope that we would receive assurances from the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada that they were willing to exercise genuine restraint towards those Anglicans in North America unwilling to embrace their several innovations.

Sadly that did not prove to be the case. Instead we were treated to presentations that sought to trivialize the situation and the consequences for those whose only offence is their determination to hold on doggedly and truthfully to the faith once delivered to the saints. In addition I have learned that even as we met together in Alexandria actions were taken that were in direct contradiction to the season of deeper communion and gracious restraint to which we all expressed agreement. For example, in the days leading up to our meeting, the Diocese of Virginia declared the “inherent integrity and blessedness” of same sex unions and initiated a process to provide for their “blessing”. While we were meeting, The Diocese of Toronto also announced that it will start same sex blessings within a year and The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia filed further costly legal action appealing the court’s decision in twenty cases favouring nine Virginia congregations. These and many further actions are documented within the report…

Associated with this letter are two documents prepared by the AAC, one about The Episcopal Church and another about the Anglican Church of Canada, both in PDF format. The former was prepared by the AAC, and the latter by ANiC.

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JPM
JPM
15 years ago

I wonder which of Akinola’s ventriloquists composed this particular letter.

JCF
JCF
15 years ago

{Yawn}

Akinola wants us to restrain love—while he won’t restrain hate (more draconian anti-LGBT legislation in Nigeria).

God bless him—but we really have nothing to talk about.

jnwall
jnwall
15 years ago

Akinola has just declared the Primates of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada to be heretics. This is outrageous and absurd, not to mention confrontational and provocative. It should not go unanswered.

Tim
Tim
15 years ago

What is a `faith once delivered’?

I have a tendency to walk along paths, not revere their builders. Perhaps Akinola would benefit from doing likewise.

Geoff McLarney
Geoff McLarney
15 years ago

The allegations against the ACoC seem to boil down to:

*Being soft on same-sex marriage
*Disciplining “Network” clergy who tried to go bishop-shopping while maintaining the pretense of being in the Communion
*Having a bishop (+Ingham) with dodgy views on the unique divinity of Christ

I find only one of these as troubling as the document’s authors, and I expect that he’s something of an anomaly, not to mention a product of his generation.

BillyD
15 years ago

“What is a `faith once delivered’?”

Check out Jude 3.

The letter and the documents that accompany it are nonsense. Surely no one with the ability to read a daily paper intelligently would find them persuasive?

Kevin Montgomery
Kevin Montgomery
15 years ago

Wow, Pelagianism, Gnosticism, Marcionism (?)
I’m surprised they didn’t bring in Arianism.

Btw, pluralism is a heresy? And hoping everyone is saved in the end? Shock! That is totally unacceptable.

Roger
Roger
15 years ago

This appears to be the planned counter-attack from the AAC, Martyn Minns is probably the ghoster, as he is for all of Akinola’s statements. This was probably the document delivered by Dobbs to Akinola in Alexandria, I’m guessing.

They appear to think this is a clever strategy. Clever to them, maybe.

Pluralist
15 years ago

Such a document could be made about people in the British Isles. Big deal.

Marshall Scott
15 years ago

I would encourage all Episcopalians to take the time to look through the AAC report. Especially, go to page 36, where the purport to link to resolutions in diocesan conventions that demonstrate American perfidy regarding the moratoria against consecrating partnered gay bishops and against blessing same sex couples. If your diocese is listed, to read the resolution. You may discover, as I did, that the writers of the report haven’t read the resolutions. The one from my diocese was about expressing locally the Listening Process. It quoted Lambeth resolution 1998 1.10, the Windsor Report, and the Anglican Communion web site.… Read more »

Göran Koch-Swahne
15 years ago

What JCF said ;=)

Father Ron Smith
15 years ago

“We will be at TEC General Convention in July 2009, as we have at previous General Conventions, to provide a strategic retreat for Biblically orthodox Episcopalians serving as delegates and alternates to General Convention”. – Phil Ashey – American Anglican Council – This GAFCON-generated ‘Anglican Council’ sounds like some weird and not-so-wonderful underground group intent on sabotaging the authentic witness of ordinary peace-loving church-goers in TEC. I notice the face of the Archbishop of Sydney among those of the assembly of eminent personages on the letterhead of this AAC message. What on earth is the Sydney Archbishop doing interfering in… Read more »

Fr Mark
Fr Mark
15 years ago

It’s very interesting to read the schismatics’ reports on TEC and ACiC. I don’t know whether anyone in the C of E has been paying much attention to these people, but the appalling heretical quotations from TEC/ACiC clergy listed for their shock value in the reports reads pretty much like the average Sunday sermon material you would hear in most C of E parishes… and indeed are the kind of views that most intelligent Anglicans hold.

Cynthia Gilliatt
Cynthia Gilliatt
15 years ago

Are there versions of the two documents in format other than PDF?

bobinswpa
bobinswpa
15 years ago

“Offence,” would be a dead give away that the writer/ghoster is English not American.

Charlotte
Charlotte
15 years ago

Fr, Ron Smith writes: “This GAFCON-generated ‘Anglican Council’ sounds like some weird and not-so-wonderful underground group intent on sabotaging the authentic witness of ordinary peace-loving church-goers in TEC.” Spot on. That’s what it is, and that’s what the key players in it have been doing for years on end. I’m afraid at this point that their lives would have no meaning if they gave up trying to sabotage the Episcopal Church. In addition, they are addicted to the adrenaline rushes they get off their own repeated episodes of bile, fear, and paranoia. So they keep on. No matter what the… Read more »

Cynthia Gilliatt
Cynthia Gilliatt
15 years ago

“”Offence,” would be a dead give away that the writer/ghoster is English not American.”

Minns holds American citizenship, but is English by origin. Having, thankyouJesus, not heard him speak since he left TEC and our Diocese, I can’t recall how Americanized his vocabulary is. His accent is certainly English.

Pluralist
15 years ago

The .PDF AAC file was made by MS Word 2007 but attempts to convert and provide more by properties have failed and indeed a to text reader can’t see it and a formatter to .RTF states that it is invalid. It gives the impression of accessibility in the properties.

Obviously Sugden and Minns learnt their lesson from the earlier episode a few years back when their mitts were all over the documents.

Pat O'Neill
Pat O'Neill
15 years ago

Bob:

Or that, in the final edit, the documents were run through a Brit-English spell-checker.

Pluralist
15 years ago

Another piece of software tells me that the Word document was converted by iSEDQuickPDF 4.14, and then enter that in Google and the top entry is a cracks based webpage http://4.madbe.net/tag/geo-spider. Its update replacement is a $350 application, at http://www.quickpdflibrary.com/(though there are lots of free print to .PDFs around and free programs to chop and merge).

The author, title, subject are all left blank in the document properties.

karen macqueen+
karen macqueen+
15 years ago

“During a joint Hindu and Episcopal service celebrating an Indian Rite Mass in Los Angeles, Ca. in January 2008, a statement by diocesan Bishop Jon Bruno was read which apologized for centuries-old acts of religious discrimination by Christians, including attempts to convert Hindus.” I haven’t posted here in a long time, but how can I resist when David Anderson et al get to pillorying the Episcopal Church by misquoting my bishop and me, all in one paragraph. If this section represents the authenticity of the rest of the paper, it seems not to be worth much. There was no “joint… Read more »

karen macqueen+
karen macqueen+
15 years ago

As I stated above, the Bishop of Los Angeles, +Jon Bruno did not apologize for “attempts to convert Hindus”. He did state that in our diocese we renounce proseltyzing. This is an extremely sensitive issue for Hindus. It has been a common practice among Christian missionaries in India, including Anglicans, to offer places in Christian schools to Hindu children on condition that they prepare for Baptism, or send these children home from school to tell their parents that they are demon influenced idol worshippers who are going to hell (So much for “family values”). Material assistance has sometimes been conditioned… Read more »

karen macqueen+
karen macqueen+
15 years ago

from the AAC document on TEC, “The celebrant,” (of the Indian Rite Mass)… “the Rev. Karen MacQueen, an associate priest at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Pomona, said both faiths revere “great figures who embody the divine light, who teach the divine truth.” In a later interview, McQueen said, ―Perhaps there are enough Christians in the world. What we need to see is more Christians really living like disciples of Jesus and practicing love towards others.” As to the first statement, taken from my sermon at the Indian Rite Mass, I plead guilty. My sermon was focused on the theme… Read more »

Robert Ian Williams
Robert Ian Williams
15 years ago

Tis is my verdict on ACNA as published in the Cof E newspaper last week….. Dear sir, Canon Chris Sugden is always there to give advice ( Differences, Diversity and Division ), but he never answers the real question. Of all persons he has been more responsible for the ” conservative rebellion ” within Anglicanism. He is forever affirming Biblical standards and obedience to truth. However careful examination of what he is advocating reveals an alarming black hole. For instance the denomination he has helped pioneer in North America, and is now clambering for recognition within the Anglican Communion is… Read more »

Cynthia Gilliatt
Cynthia Gilliatt
15 years ago

“So much for Christian standards in “reporting” and “journalism”.”

I would certainly not count Mr. Virtue as a legitimate journalist, despite his being credentialed [I guess] because of his blog.

I know someone whose dog has a blog. That doesn’t make the pooch a journalist, although I suppose his owner could see if she could credential him. Hmmm.

I’m not in the business of judging other peoples’ Christianity, but I would observe that Mr. Virtue seems to often lack charity towards glbt people and their friends.

Pat O'Neill
Pat O'Neill
15 years ago

Karen:

Didn’t you know that the Spirit speaks only to the “orthodox” and then only through the extant Scriptures? All others are hearing something else.

drdanfee
drdanfee
15 years ago

This whole affair was skewed and tainted from the get-go. Asking one extreme conservative USA group to report back to another, international conservative group about the alleged status of goings on in USA and Canada – well this is a neocon preacher reporting back to a neocon choir, if you ask me. Any time you notice that the starting presuppositions are all wrong, and then ask if some framework for dialogue can be used that does not exclusively cater to conservative presuppositions – you will be accused of bad faith. But the real bad faith is the standard hewing to… Read more »

richard lambert
richard lambert
15 years ago

What is this “faith once delivered to the saints” that people seem so insistent on? The words come from “Jude”,also seem implied by the writer to Timothy; and Paul advises his readers to adhere to what they had received from him;and Jn’s gospel is v keen on right “belief”. But,apart from one or two v basic things (such as Jesus is LORD, resurrection, salvation) there is no agreement in NT. No-one can possibly know, for example, what “Jude” had in mind. “Faith” in Paul is an attitude, not a set of rules or “beliefs”, more like”faithfulness” or “obedience”. In the… Read more »

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