You can find the documentation here. When I saw this Monday night I tried to find it on all sorts of Episcopal Church websites but could not. When I mentioned this at a committee meeting on Tuesday the only person in the room other than myself who knew of it was Bishop Lawrence. Read it carefully and read it all–KSH.
Gosh, I didn’t know 815 was so close to Madison Avenue. This is slick to be sure but seems fairly close to the newspaper ad TEC has been running in USA Today and elsewhere. Nice to know too that we can never lose our salvation no matter how we act or what we preach. I am sure that is what Paul meant.
Pay no attention to the person behind the curtain. I am the great Wizard of Oz!
Ms Schori will be travelling to England to drive home these talking points to those at the CoE synod that is considering recognizing the ACNA. I hope that those across the pond will view it as heavy handed interference in an autonomous member of the AC. After all, autonomy is the be all end all, right?
This list doesn’t seem to be making the usual blog-rounds, but it is publicly posted on The Episcopal Church’s website. Contra to Stand Firm, it’s not just circulated on a secret bishops-only listserv. It probably won’t make much direct noise on the blogs, but the points will soak in over time.
[url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org/newsline_119039_ENG_HTM.htm]You can find it here.[/url]
I don’t see the problem. What statement(s) containes in the talking points are inaccurate or misleading?
I believe the statement is filled with evasions, half-truths and glosses. A fairer statement might have been the following:
ACNA includes churches that have disassociated from the Episcopal Church and other churches that nonetheless still have bishops in the Apostolic Succession coming from the line of Canterbury and are in accord with the historic creeds and Anglican formularies. They recognize the See of Canterbury.
ACNA is led by a bishop who was manipulated out of The Episcopal Church following a time when he was striving to reform it.
The Episcopal Church believes that every one who calls Jesus Lord, Lord will be saved, in spite of Jesus’ clear teaching against this attitude.
The Episcopal Church forces out people who do not go along with the party line by attempting to seize their property and defrock their clergy.
ACNA leaves room for discernment and conscience for various member ecclesiastical components regarding women clergy. It has no women bishops just as the Church of England has no women bishops.
The marginalized and disenfranchised come primarily from the “political right.”
ACNA has not really exiled anyone from “their own” church buildings
I see no intentional lies in the document, but half-truths and ironies abound:
In the first two points, the famously squishy number of TEC members – what does “membership” really mean? – is contrasted with ACNA’s purpertedly hard-to-arrive-at numbers. Surely the same counting difficulties apply to both organizations.
The third bullet is arguably a flat falsehood, though not intended as such. The problem is that Bishop Duncan never resigned as Bishop of the TEC diocese of Pittsburgh and only the most willful could construe his supposed “deposition” as canonically valid. Therefore, technically, he remains the Bishop of Pittsburgh in TEC. If they are going to use the inflated membership number of 2.2 million – my wife was carried as a member of our congregation for years after she joined the Roman Catholic Church – that number should certainly include the canonical Bishop of Pittsburgh.
Thr fourth and fifth bullets are beside the point. At issue is TEC’s willful rejection of catholicity in insisting on putting a political agenda before Christian unity, not their minimal acceptance of Christian universals. All non-Anglican Christian denominations can make these same claims.
The sixth bullet is likewise beside the point and indeed underscores TEC’s insistence that secular ideologies trump Christian catholicity. Many members of the Anglican Communion maintain the traditional male-only priesthood and episcopate. Good for them.
The seventh bullet is a redundancy. Membership in the Anglican Communion is what ACNA is seeking, so it’s rather obvious that they do not fully have it yet.
The eighth bullet underscores the extent to which secular-style political thinking dominates TEC. The lack of any recognizably catholic ecclesiology in the thinking of TEC’s leadership continues to amaze.
The ninth bullet is petty but revealing. The centerpiece of the TEC leadership’s political agenda is the practice of allowing pain to trump revelation. Presumably, ACNA is asking for recognition based on their supposed suffering – in the manner of homosexual activists. Apparently, this assumes that if the pain levels claimes in our polity is equal to yours, you lose. An odd way of looking at things.
Personally, I carry no brief for ACNA. I’m not impressed with their ecclesiology (though to be fair, theirs beats that of TEC’s General Convention all to smash) and I’d rather see them take up the Pope’s offer than remain in the AC. Still, their ability to bring small estranged groups back into the Anglican fold – something TEC has no hope of doing – is impressive and I hope the English find it compelling. The problem of overlapping jurisdictions pales in comparison to the increase in catholic unity that might be achieved by bringing the REC and others back into the fold. The fact that ACNA might sign the covenant – something TEC as currently led has a positive duty not to do until it repudiates its embrace of the homosexual political agenda – lends further impetus to its acceptance. Hopefully, one day TEC will recover its senses and it and ACNA can be reconciled. Though I suppose we’ll have to wait a while.
#5
If the Episcopal Church were actually as described in these talking points, I would still be an Episcopalian.
The statement “The Episcopal Church laity and clergy believe the Christian faith as stated in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds” should be corrected to read “The Episcopal Church laity and clergy believe that the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds are printed in the Prayer Book, most congregations recite them from time to time (or something like them), and a good many actually believe some of what they say when they recite them (or their slightly modified versions). Whatever it is they believe when they recite the creeds (or something like them) is what they call ‘the Christian faith.’ ”
#6
if the Episcopal Church were willing to talk about salvation in non-political terms, we could talk about whether or not TEC believes that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord” will or will not be saved. If salvation is defined as “inclusiveness,” Jesus has little to do with salvation beyond (perhaps) providing a good example. He was, unfortunately, rather narrow, from time to time. However, he is at least “a way,” if not “the way” of salvation (whatever that means) for those who believe in or profess some kind of allegiance to or admiration for him, or, at least, a good deal of what he said and did, assuming that the actually said or did it, or, at least some of it.
The marginalized and disenfranchised are those who have left TEC because of their adherence to orthodox Christian theology. Politics (rather of the left or right) should have nothing to do with the issue, and to the extent that both sides seem to think this is the crucial issue, they are equally guilty of the sin of idolatry.
RE: “I don’t see the problem.”
I personally positively [i]adore[/i] these talking points. Maybe there will be more such “talking points” along the same relevant lines.
One can only hope.
Daniel Muth at #7,
I come at the issue from a different background to yours, but I have to endorse every point you make.
RE: “This list doesn’t seem to be making the usual blog-rounds, but it is publicly posted on The Episcopal Church’s website.”
Well — on the Episcopal Church’s website without a link to “Newsline” from the home page. I suppose you could call that “publicly posted” just as websites have numerous unlinked pages out there that you have to know the link address in order to access.