Thinking Anglicans

Columbus: more reports and comments

Anglican Communion Institute Initial Observations on General Convention

Jim Naughton Conflicted people in a conflicted Church

Telegraph Jonathan Petre Anglican Church on brink of schism

Associated Press Rachel Zoll Episcopal Delegates to Adopt Resolution

Nick Knisely the center of the Episcopal Church found its voice on Tuesday evening

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Steven
Steven
17 years ago

Let the break-up begin, and thank God for it!

It is said that it’s better to be divided in truth than united in a lie. I’m not sure who said it originally, but the sentiment is correct. My primary concern has always been whether the division can be done with charity and in good order. I hope that it can, but as previously observed, I don’t see a Havel at the helm of either the AC or the TEC that can make it a Czech/Slovak break-up rather than a Yugoslavian style debacle. Keep praying!

Steven

Steven
Steven
17 years ago

BTW-The ACI analysis is excellent and insightful! Thanks for posting this.

Steven

ruidh
ruidh
17 years ago

Begin? It began some time ago. It began when the bishops of the Network stopped having eucharist with their brothers in the House of Bishops. It began when certain Primates could not bring themselves to take communion from the ABC. The only questions left are who gets the silver and who gets to visit the relatives on Christmas and Esater.

Pete
Pete
17 years ago

Steven…you don’t get it. The AAC and Network don’t get to try and destroy the Episcopal Church and then get an amicable divorce. That is, you don’t get to ransack the store and steal property on your way out. If people are unhappy, they need to vote with their feet and leave, period. No property, no pensions…just go. I’d have a lot more respect for the Rebellion if they would stop talking about leaving and just leave. But, I guess Bob Duncan and Jack Iker want to steal what doesn’t belong to them before they will go. Of course they’ll… Read more »

Steven
Steven
17 years ago

Pete:

Hmm. I would, of course, differ in terms of who to blame here as well as in who should vote with their feet. However, this type of dialog leads only to escalation of conflict, “blood baths”, law suits, and a scandal in the eyes of the world. That is why I continue to urge charity amidst an amicable separation and division. We can make this a Czech separation or allow it to degernerate into a Yugoslavian mess. This is the time to choose.

Steven

J. C. Fisher
17 years ago

Pete, be fair: it was +Akinola who said “Forget the property and GO!”

[Will the Network have the integrity to honor +PJA’s exhortation? It’s not like they won’t get to be in communion w/ *him* anyway. At this point, it looks like they may well get ++Rowan, too—Cantuar having so devalued his own “Instrument of Unity”-ship 🙁 ]

***Anglicanism*** will survive: in TEC, and those w/ enough *commitment to CHRIST*, to stay w/ her! 😀

Charlotte
Charlotte
17 years ago

Right, Pete. While we’re thinking of the future shape of the Rebellious Communion, let’s not forget that other Network favorite among the Global South Primates, ++ Bernard Malango, not to mention his friend, the Mugabe crony and accused murderer +Kunungo of Harare.

The Network in the US has a perfect right to leave the Episcopal Church and place themselves under whatsoever authority they choose, but they can’t plunder the Church and deliver its patrimony to that lot.

Robert Christian
Robert Christian
17 years ago

Charlotte points out the ++Malango-+Kunungo situation not to mention all the furror over ++Akinola’s pushing through laws that restrict civil rights. Maybe ++Rowan doesn’t mind playing church with these oppressive people but why does TEC have to or want to play church with them.

Conservative or Liberal The +Harare situation is just wrong as are the Nigeria’s dicriminatory laws. I certainly don’t think Jesus would approve and since thats who we follow we must follow without exception!

Gerry Lynch
17 years ago

Steven, your Czechoslovak vs. Yugoslav suggestion would only work if it really were a matter of the USA vs. the Rest of the World. However, most first world churches take a liberal line on homosexuality in practice even if they don’t do so openly. In England a large number of clergy live openly in same-sex relationships and all but a handful of Bishops turn a blind eye to it at the very least. Any attempt to impose CAPA style orthodoxy from above would lead to a Yugoslav style split here. Of course, it’s not going to happen because everybody knows… Read more »

Steven
Steven
17 years ago

Charlotte: It’s ironic that you should speak in terms of patrimony. The patrimony of the church was built by people like us traditionalists. (That’s part of what it means to be a traditionalist–we’re people that hold onto the good practices and beliefs of our progenitors). The folks that built the good will, reputation, and historic buildings of the church in America were folks who would recognize us as the true Episcopalians. They would turn over in their graves at the ideas and practices that liberals have brought into the American church over the last 50 years or so. C’mon, be… Read more »

Steven
Steven
17 years ago

Gerry: Thanks for a very sensible letter. As you point out, this is not really U.S. against the world. It can only be seen that way in the sense that the U.S. has “rocked the boat” and disturbed the delicate equilibrium that has existed between liberals and traditionalists in the first world, and between first world liberals and third world traditionalists. This is most likely what galls the ABC the most, as he is a lib at heart. The two conjoined twins that the soon-to-be PB of TEC spoke about are not just repreentative of the TEC, but of Anglicanism… Read more »

Joe Hauptmann
Joe Hauptmann
17 years ago

I think a formal split is still a ways off, but it will be interesting times, the Anglo-African Church has been actively recruiting in the USA. It will be interesting to see how they respond when TEC begins to spread to the rest of the world.

David Huff
David Huff
17 years ago

Steven wrote, “The folks that built the good will, reputation, and historic buildings of the church in America were folks who would recognize us as the true Episcopalians.”

A rather, errr… convenient claim on your part. Especially since the people we could double-check this with are comfortably deceased. There’s a real atmosphere of the fallacy of hasty generalization about such a statement.

But regardless, I actually agree with your main idea. It’s time for a divorce – amicable, if possible.

J. C. Fisher
17 years ago

“C’mon, be honest, you know what they would think of G. Robinson, the PB and the soon to be PB. In fact, you can go back in time to the founding of Anglicanism or, if you will, the founding of the apostolic faith. You will find the same thing. They all would be aghast at what TEC is and has become.” Steven, I understand that you “honestly” believe this. Just as honestly, I believe differently. With full integrity, I *BELIEVE* that everyone from “the founding of the apostolic faith”—who has stayed TRUE (i.e., trusting God) to that faith—until today, would… Read more »

Göran Koch-Swahne
17 years ago

Steven,

Tradition and traditionalism is not the same thing.

Tradition is to live in communion with the Saints.

Traditionalism is to live without communion with the living.

Cynthia Gilliatt
Cynthia Gilliatt
17 years ago

“The folks that built the good will, reputation, and historic buildings of the church in America were folks who would recognize us as the true Episcopalians. […]you know what they would think of G. Robinson, the PB and the soon to be PB.” Maybe so: Of course, many of them probably started spinning in their graves when slavery was abolished, when we chose our first African American bishop, when segregation was [oh so slowly] fell apart, when we ordained women, when we produced the ‘new’ Prayer Book [BTW, if you owned an 1979 car, would you refer to it as… Read more »

LurenceRoberts
LurenceRoberts
17 years ago

Steven
you seem to be saying :

” I got the dick
I make the rules.”

(or in the case of AAC, ACNetwork,Akinola, etc : WE got, WE make …

Charlotte
Charlotte
17 years ago

Steven, don’t you think these traditionalists you refer to would be aghast if a bishop were credibly accused of corruption and murder? Or if this bishop were to be protected by his archbishop, who quashed all the charges laid against him while his clergy appealed to the Archbishop of York for protection? Indeed, many of these traditionalists might have even believed murder to be a grave sin. In fact, if I recall correctly, one of the Ten Commandments forbids it. I also think there must have been many traditionalists who believed corruption by Church officials was a grave sin. Wasn’t… Read more »

Steven
Steven
17 years ago

Charlotte: Hmmm. I suspect you’re talking about some story I’m not following. However, if the accusations you make are true, the person involved should be removed from their office. Will you say the same thing about VG? Lurence Roberts: Unbelievably crude and puerile. I’m surprised Simon let you get away with that stuff. Cynthia: Interesting, but no cigar. There is no Biblical mandate for slavery, and appeals to what our spiritual forefathers and foremothers may know in their glorified state can be played by both sides equally. All we have to go on is what history says about their views… Read more »

Charlotte
Charlotte
17 years ago

Well, Steven, in case you are really as unaware as you claim of the moral character of the Network supporters among the members of the Global South, I suggest you read up on the matter in the Church Times. Articles are available in the archives of this blog. You might be interested as well in Andrew Carey’s call for the Archbishop of Canterbury to intervene in the +Kanungo-=+Malango situation.

Charlotte
Charlotte
17 years ago

I might have posted too quickly, Steven. Perhaps it was the story of Ananias and Sapphira you weren’t following. You will find it in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 5. My apologies for citing something from the Bible that isn’t from Leviticus.

Steven
Steven
17 years ago

Charlotte: Tut, tut. My point remains, and I’m not too interested in the particular case involved–a bishop involved in continuing sin should, with due allowance for repentance and restoration by the church if justified, be removed from his office. So, based on what you’ve said my response is that the guy should be removed and his office taken by another–subject to the fact that the final judgment belongs to the appropriate authorities within the church. And, although I’m concerned by rascals in the Network, I’m aware that rogues often “wrap themselves in the flag” as the saying goes. It doesn’t… Read more »

Charlotte
Charlotte
17 years ago

Steven, as you have (quite deliberately, it seems) committed the “fallacy of complex question,” I will have to rephrase your question before I answer it. Normally, of course, one simply disregards a gross fallacy; it has no status as an argument and ought not to be given the courtesy of a reply. But in your case I will make an exception. If +Gene Robinson committed murder or had been found to be grossly corrupt in his administration of diocesan funds, I expect I would call for his removal, yes. With my Presiding Bishop, however, I reject your implicit claim that… Read more »

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