The Anglican Bishop of Durham:
In the slow-moving train crash of international Anglicanism, a decision taken in California has finally brought a large coach off the rails altogether. The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States has voted decisively to allow in principle the appointment, to all orders of ministry, of persons in active same-sex relationships. This marks a clear break with the rest of the Anglican Communion.
Both the bishops and deputies (lay and clergy) of TEC knew exactly what they were doing. They were telling the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other “instruments of communion” that they were ignoring their plea for a moratorium on consecrating practising homosexuals as bishops. They were rejecting the two things the Archbishop of Canterbury has named as the pathway to the future — the Windsor Report (2004) and the proposed Covenant (whose aim is to provide a modus operandi for the Anglican Communion). They were formalising the schism they initiated six years ago when they consecrated as bishop a divorced man in an active same-sex relationship, against the Primates’ unanimous statement that this would “tear the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level”. In Windsor’s language, they have chosen to “walk apart”. . . .
The appeal to justice as a way of cutting the ethical knot in favour of including active homosexuals in Christian ministry simply begs the question. Nobody has a right to be ordained: it is always a gift of sheer and unmerited grace. The appeal also seriously misrepresents the notion of justice itself, not just in the Christian tradition of Augustine, Aquinas and others, but in the wider philosophical discussion from Aristotle to John Rawls. Justice never means “treating everybody the same way”, but “treating people appropriately”, which involves making distinctions between different people and situations. Justice has never meant “the right to give active expression to any and every sexual desire”.
July 15th, 2009 | 6:06 pm
One way to solve the thorny problem of restoring Christian unity is for some of the denominations to work themselves into irrelevancy, ultimately oblivion.
The Anglican Communion is making good progress toward Christian unity!
July 19th, 2009 | 10:16 am
I am a Protestant pretty much in the reformed tradition. However, I am not overly sectarian. I have seen the issues in the Anglican or Episcapalian Church before in other Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist groups etc.
It is an issue over truth spelled with a capital “T” or accomodation with the culture around us.
Here is what it boils down to. Once a group leaves the historic Christian truth in the Bible, and abandons the truthful historic proclamations and creeds that express that truth, (I think of the Apostles creed and similar things) then what is the basis for fellowship and communion?
I used to love Jon Guest, the Anglican English guy who later on pastored I think in Pennsylvania somewhere. I learned about him first in Virginia Beach, Va.
He rightly earned the respect of every Bible believing Christian leader in Norfolk, Va and Virginia Beach because he preached truth, he preached the necessity of conversion. He presented the demands of Jesus. After a couple of years, most of his pagan band were converted…amazing story. The message he preached converted souls and transformed lives.
(He was converted at a Billy Graham crusade in London. He is an evangelist, foremost.
Any “orthodox” American non denominational church, any “orthodox” presbyterian church, (fill in the name of your group) And I use orthodox in the dictionary sense of the meaning. Any of us could welcome somebody like Jon Guest in warm fellowship and communion in any of our churches or fellowships. Why? because in the essentials we share the same beliefs. I am impressed that some of the American Episcapalians are placing themselves under AFRICAN Anglican authority. Good things can come from this.
As for the others, let the dead bury their dead.
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