Western Protestants Need to Remember their African Heritage

Mouneer H. Anis (Anglican Primate of Egypt and North Africa) has written a good article on Anglicans and Global Mission. He writes:

"The main focus of our reformed churches was directed towards the study of the Scriptures, mission and evangelism. As a result many generations emerged that are grounded and rooted in the apostolic teaching as written in the Scripture, but that are disassociated from the apostolic traditions which form the context in which the Scriptures were written and lived out."

It's a good read about how having a faith rooted in the apostolic and catholic tradition will naturally lend itself to seeking deeper communion with the more traditional (i.e., older) churches.

The genius of Anglicanism is striving to uphold the Reformation principles while remaining faithful to the Great Tradition of the Church.

COS recognizes ACNA

The Church of England Synod gave a tacit recognition to the Anglican Communion in North America. David Virtue has the details and see also the report in Reuters. The motion to be in "communion" was defeated in favor of an amended motion recognizing the desire of ACNA to "remain within the Anglican family". Both liberals and evangelicals can take away something positive from this. ACNA was not granted communion status, but they are at least on the board so to speak as a recognized Anglican entity. In the end, the COS approach to the issue will probably be a typical "fudge" of trying to look as if they are doing something about ACNA, but making sure that nothing actually changes. Maybe I'm just being cynical, but the journey to ACNA being a fully recognized province is still a long way off!

Anglican News

The program Compass has a doco on the Sydney Anglicans and in the interview Peter Jensen shows why he is one of the premier Christian statesman in his answer to some very freighted questions that were designed to catch him out. In other news, the British Telegraph reports that Rome may soon be announcing a provision for Anglicans who want to convert to Catholicism while retaining an Anglican liturgy. This will include mostly dissident Anglo-Catholics drawn from the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAG). Incidentally, TAG is headed by a former Australian Army Chaplain.

A Tale of Two Gospels in Two Provinces

Read Archbishop Duncan's open letter to the world Anglican communion entitled, "Two Cities: One Choice". I liked this part in particular:

The Anglican Church in North America, whose leaders met at Bedford, Texas, from June 20th to June 25th, embraced the values and behaviors familiar to Christians in every age: daily repenting of human sin in disobeying the one Lord, embracing the need (both personal and corporate) of a divine Savior, and recommitting to the proclamation in word and deed of the gospel of transforming love. The unity at Bedford, despite very real differences, was palpable.

The Episcopal Church, whose leaders met at Anaheim, California, from July 8th to 17th, blessed the values and behaviors of a re-defined Christianity: enabling a revisionist anthropology, budgeting litigation rather than evangelism, and confusing received understandings of Scriptural truth, not least concerning the necessity of individual salvation in Christ Jesus. At Anaheim, there were those who valiantly stood against the revolutionary majority, and their pain and grief at what was happening was heartbreaking for all who saw it, not least for their brothers and sisters in the Anglican Church in North America.

Tom Wright on recent TECs schismatic actions

Over at the Times Online, Bishop Tom Wright of Durham pull no punches in his piece The Americans know this will end in schism. The last paragraph was a bit of a double-edged sword, "Contrary to some who have recently adopted the phrase, there is already a “fellowship of confessing Anglicans”. It is called the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church is now distancing itself from that fellowship. Ways must be found for all in America who want to be loyal to it, and to scripture, tradition and Jesus, to have that loyalty recognised and affirmed at the highest level." I hope that many of my American Anglican friends in the USA get the recognition that they deserve for keeping the faith.

OCA Metropolitan Bishop at ACNA

According to Virtueonline, Metropolitan Jonah, Head of the Orthodox Church of America, called for full intercommunion with the Anglican Church in North America. He stated his desire to resume Orthodox/Anglican dialogue with ACNA rather than with TEC (which is a big slap in the face for TEC any way ya look at it). Of course, before anyone gets too excited about Anglicans and Orthodox shacking up together in an ecumenical big tent, Jonah said the basis of intercommunion would have to be: Full affirmation of the orthodox Faith of the Apostles and Church Fathers, the seven Ecumenical Councils, the Nicene Creed in its original form (without the filioque clause inserted at the Council of Toledo, 589 A.D.), all seven Sacraments and a rejection of the heresies of the Reformation. To that he added several "isms" that would have to go including: Calvinism, anti-sacramentalism, iconoclasm, and Gnosticism. Also, the ordination of women to the Presbyterate and their consecration as Bishops would have to end if full intercommunion was to occur. Good to see Orthodox and Anglicans talking together again, but don't hold ya breath waiting for intercommunion!

Washington Times on New American Anglican Province

The WT has a good article on what the New American Anglican Province means for the American Episcopal Church.

Rod Liddle on the COE

I confess that I've never much liked British journalist Rod Liddle as his brand of bolshie british liberalism is not my cup of tea. It was all the more amazing to see him singing the praises of traditional Anglicanism in the COE over and against its religious pluralist leaders who have capitulated to political correctness. Read the article here.

The blurb reads: "Rod Liddle offers an Easter message to the leaders of the Church, who have ditched its traditions and reduced it to a sort of superannuated ad-hoc branch of social services. It has lost all sense of mission and direction. Whatever happened to muscular Christianity?"

I liked this quote from Liddle in particular: "I should come clean, here: the Church of England’s historic commitment to tradition mediated by a rational appraisal of modernity is what attracts me to its rapidly evolving catechism. But in the last few years it seems to have chucked out the tradition bit — the rock upon which it is based — entirely. Under Rowan Williams particularly, it seems to have swallowed whole every convenient shibboleth of modern liberalism, every transient political fashion — just as have, by the way, our judiciary, our social services, our education departments. It has become an institution which is more politically correct even than our government; you look to it for moral leadership and it offers none whatsoever."

HT: Jason Hood

Michael Bird meets Rowan Williams

Apparently Michael Bird visited the Archbishop of Canterbury to explain why he had consented to bless same sex unions. I actually wrote to the good bish' of Niagra and asked if he'd be interested in a debate on the subject, "Are same sex blessings good for the Anglican communion?" I was after an honest and sincere debate with my name sake (imagine a theological debate that runs Michael Bird vs. Michael Bird). Sadly, no reply was forthcoming. A well-known Anglican journalist of great virtue told me not to waste my time with him. Perhaps he was right.

New Anglican Websites

The GAFCON and Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans websites have been redeveloped and look swish.

CoE Priest Disciplined

According to The Living Church News Service:

A Church of England priest who appeared drunk at three church services and told fellow clergy at a Christmas party that she and her husband were “swingers” has been banned for scandalous behavior. The Rev. Teresa Davies, formerly a team vicar serving St. Martin Church, Welton, Northamptonshire, was found guilty by a church tribunal and may not serve in any clergy role for at least 12 years. She officially resigned in August. “Throughout this process we have offered Teresa Davies appropriate pastoral support,” the Diocese of Peterborough said in a press statement. “We hope that she and her family will be able to move on in their lives.”

I don't think I've heard of such a morally reprobate person serving in the ministry in the UK before. I could imagine this in the USA (in TEC they would probably make her a bishop!), but this is the kind of devious lechery that one would think was confined to pre-Reformation England! Whatever happened to the good ol' pious liberals who, though liberal theologically, were at least pious in their prayer, Bible reading, and pursuit of holiness? Undoubtedly this is an extreme and isolated case, but gosh, you have to wonder what kind of ministerial selection board lets these people through? Read more at The Daily Mail (with pictures!).

What future for women in ministry?

Over at the Sydney Anglicans website Narelle Jarrett has a good article on what future for women in ministry? This shows that you can have a religious body that is thoroughly complementarian but also genuinely concerned with seeing women's ministerial potential recognized and utilized. On the same site is the news that Moore College has officially gone co-ed. No doubt some will think that these moves do not go far enough (Sydney Anglicans can debate that among themselves), but it is certainly a step in the right direction. On another note, I should point out the interesting news that the Australian Diocese of Canberra and Goulbern has elected Stuart Robinson to be it's bishop (interesting because he's a Sydney Anglican and Canberra is Anglo-Catholic last time I checked).

Letters to Bishop Duncan

The TEC House of Bishops has voted to depose Bishop Robert Duncan Anglican Bishop of Pittsuburgh for breaking communion. News of the event is easily found on the regular Anglican websites. I found particularly helpful the letters to Bob Duncan from Archbishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt/North Africa and Archbishop Peter Jensen of Sydney. It seems that in TEC orthodoxy is the new heresy.

Mark Discoll in Sydney

Mark Driscoll was in Sydney and gave a talk to Anglican clergy including an 18 point critique of what is hindering evangelistic ministry in that city. Particularly stinging was # 8: "Many of you are afraid of the Holy Spirit. You don’t know what to do with Him, so the trinity is Father, Son and Holy Bible. You are so reactionary to pentecostalism that you do not have a robust theology of the Holy Spirit." Ouch, but point taken! But on his # 2 ("Your culture struggles with a lack of entrepreneurialism, due to the influence of Socialism and Great Britain") my response is, "You stupid yank, some of us get our economic ethics from the Bible and not from Charles Darwin, so the 'pull yourself up by the bootstraps - every man for himself - survival of the fittest' model of economics is neither appealing nor biblical".

An "orderly separation" for Anglicanism?

The Rt. Rev. Michael Scott-Joynt, bishop of Winchester, offers some interesting thoughts about the 2008 Lambeth conference and about the future of Anglicanism. On the former, while he lauds Rowan Williams' third plenary address (which I have to say is quite encouraging including an olive branch to GAFCON), he laments that: "By the second full week of the Conference I and many other bishops had come to the view that the programme as a whole was designed to ensure that the Conference should not seek to offer any clear guidance or teaching on any issue, because of the potentially divisive effects of our starting upon the plenary debates, and the voting, which alone would enable the Conference to articulate a particular view comparable to that of 'Lambeth [1998]'". This confirms what has been my suspicion for some time, namely, that Williams' strategy to hold the communion together is, in desperation I suspect, to filibuster the communion by stifling any democratic process leading to a definitive resolution precisely because it would lead to a dissolution of the communion as it stands. This might not be as bad as it sounds if Williams is trying to buy time in order to (1) let all sides cool down, re-think their actions, meet face to face, and get an alternative perspective on what is going and where, and also (2) create some space for an Anglican covenant that can hopefully provide a way forward where all parties can agree on a new rule book for the communion and force TEC to swap "unilateral" for "mutally accountable". Sadly, the problem I have with such a strategy, noble as it sounds, is that in order to do that Williiams must brazenly defy the will of the majority of the communion who, as far as I can tell, would very much have liked a democratic resolution to the current crisis at Lambeth: vote to reaffirm LR 1.10 and then vote that those who do not agree to live-by LR 1.10 (note: [1] "live-by" and "agree with" are different things, no one's asking for the latter; [2] "live-by" means moratoria on same-sex blessing and ordination of active homosexuals to the episcopate) are invited to remain in the communion, but only in a second tier position. I'm sure someone can show me a problem with that scenario somewhere, but I understand the annoyance of the global south who claim that the voice of the majority is being quashed by an elite few. On the future of Anglicanism, Scott-Joynt states: "I described this apparently likely outcomes 'living down' to the concerns about “Lambeth 2008” that motivated the Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON) in Jerusalem in July, and that led more than 200 bishops to refuse the Archbishop of Canterbury’s invitation to the Conference. I expressed my concern that if this were to be the outcome of the Conference, more Provinces might well be drawn away from the See of Canterbury to the new structures that GAFCON had committed itself to bringing into being; and I suggested that the wisest future for the Communion could be some kind of negotiated 'orderly separation' that would free both 'sides' from more years of necessarily inconclusive debate and from the damage that each perceived itself receiving from the other." This call for separation is not that of some ultra conservative licking his fingers waiting for the fabric of the communion to finally tear apart so he can say, "Ha, see, I told you so!". Rather, I think that Scott-Joynt's words are the recommendations of a realist who wants all sides to embrace the inevitable on terms that are, hopefully, acceptable to all parites.

Interview with Greg Venables

Watch this excellent interview with Greg Venables Anglican Primate of the Southern Cone. Venables is irenic, passionate, and zealous evangelistic in his beliefs. Pray for such a man!

N.T. Wright on Scripture at Lambeth

Now on-line is NTW's Lambeth lecture on, The Bible and Tomorrow’s World, delivered on the 30th of July 2008.

How Wide the Anglican Divide?

On my addictive Lambeth-watching, the severity of the Anglican rift has become more evident by two things in recent net activity. First, an on-line video juxtaposes the views of Rt Rev Stacey Sauls, Bishop of Lexington, USA and the Most Rev Benjamin Nzimbi, Archbishop of Kenya on the topic of homosexuality. I have to say that Stacey is simply wrong that the ancient world did not know of life-long committted homosexual relationships (he should visit the Trajan exhibit in London). What is more, in terms of a future direction to resolve the crisis/challenges, he rejects the notion of the will of the majority being imposed, in other words, he is against democracy in the communion. Second, the hot-off-the-press Times article by Henry Luke Orombi of Uganda alledges a number of consecutive betrayals that the global south have had to suffer committed by the Americans Episcopalians and even by Rowan Williams!

Lambeth Conference on the Colbert Report

Drop the Dead Donkey, this was darn funny on the Colbert report.

GAFCON the evil dragon?

I never cease to be amazed as to how one can hold to 2000 years of Christian teaching and yet suddenly be demonized as a narrow right-wing fanatic. Watch this video by Gay and Lesbian leaders at the Lambeth conference which depicts a mock battle between the evil Dragon (GAFCON) and sir David (Rowan Williams) over the fair maiden ecclesia anglica. Words come to mind, mainly 2 Tim. 4.1-5.