Last Thursday I sent letters to members of the Inter Anglican ecumenical dialogues who are from the Episcopal Church informing them that their membership of these dialogues has been discontinued. In doing so I want to emphasise again as I did in those letters the exceptional service of each and every person to that important work and to acknowledge without exception the enormous contribution each person has made.
I have also written to the person from the Episcopal Church who is a member of the Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Unity Faith and Order (IASCUFO), withdrawing that person’s membership and inviting her to serve as a Consultant to that body.
I have written to the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada to ask whether its General Synod or House of Bishops has formally adopted policies that breach the second moratorium in the Windsor Report, authorising public rites of same-sex blessing.
At the same time I have written to the Primate of the Southern Cone, whose interventions in other provinces are referred to in the Windsor Continuation Group Report asking him for clarification as to the current state of his interventions into other provinces.
These are the actions which flow immediately from the Archbishop’s Pentecost Letter.
Are these the real consequence of which Radner wrote … or the [i] real [/i] — wink, wink — actions it has been agreed the ABoC can take with the hope that conservatives will see him as being decisive.
It appears that Something Is Being Done.
Too little, and too late, but something.
I await reading the PB’s response, and I await round 2 from Lambeth. This could get interesting.
I don’t think this will go any further. If one reads the two questions Kearon raises at the end, they seem designed to let TEC as a provinvr off the hook for something one diocese does, but indict fully as interlopers any province that has a bishop in its HOB that is located in the US. The tone of his letter looks like heel marks all the way from Lambeth to his computer in Wales.
As a member of TEC I am pleased that the ABC has done this. Maybe it will stir up the quiet middle of the church to hold the fanatics in certain power positions accountable for what they have done to the church. Praise God that it is never too late for change.
I am also glad that those who aided and abetted those folk who deserted the church and went to the Southern Cone (or elsewhere) will be held accountable for their actions.
Both sides of the issue have their fanatics and this action deals with them. Good job ABC!
Glad to read your comments, #4. In times like these, with storms clouds on either horizon, as part of the “quiet middle” , I remember the words my mother passed along from her grandmother, “Put your faith in the Lord, and full speed ahead!” We need to listen to that still small voice within each of us first, of course!
#4. Eugene,
[blockquote]I am also glad that those who aided and abetted those folk who deserted the church and went to the Southern Cone (or elsewhere) will be held accountable for their actions.[/blockquote]
Nice to hear from you quiet middle of the church folks. Maybe if you folks hadn’t been so quiet, we might have stuck around.
Fr. Dale:
From my experience with those that left TEC, nothing could keep them from leaving. They made up their minds in late 2003 that they would leave and made all their plans accordingly. They did not care that they were leaving behind far more folk of their persuasion than were leaving.
I hope that the strong personalities of those leaders who left will not be a hinderance to their new denominations. However, we do not need more denominations: just more faithful parishes where the Word of God is preached and the sacraments faithfullly administered
RE: “Maybe if you folks hadn’t been so quiet, we might have stuck around.”
Nah — because if you *had* heard from those in the “quiet middle” it would have been pleas for you to please be quiet and not cause trouble and please just let’s focus on “mission and ministry” at our local parish where “all is well.”
RE: “They did not care that they were leaving behind far more folk of their persuasion than were leaving.”
Not really — for many of the “folk of their persuasion” didn’t think it was a communion dividing issue and weren’t going to think it all that important anyway. Therefore the “folk of their persuasion” wouldn’t have made good allies for those of us who remain within TEC anyway — and certainly not for those who eventually left TEC.
Eugene, I suppose you also have a grudge against those who are “aiding and abetting” people trying to escape alive from a house afire, or a sinking ship? Especially when the motive for escape is loyalty to the true Builder of the house, who is far greater and more deserving of loyalty and self-sacrifice than the house itself.
[blockquote][b]Hebrews 3:2-4[/b] (New American Standard Bible)
He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.[/blockquote]