“My predecessors met some thirty years ago in St. Louis in the hope of organizing a home for faithful Anglicanism in this country. That project split into the many fragments of the Continuing Churches, rendering us unable to stop or even slow the march to control of the Episcopal Church by revisionists. The revisionists make the secular fads of the moment their supreme authority, and Scripture a historical curiosity. As a bishop in one of the churches of the Continuum, I must confess that we have sinned and pray God not only to forgive us but also to redeem the work we have attempted so ineptly.”
–The Rt. Rev. Louis Chopin Cusachs, in response to Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi’s “What is Anglicanism?”, First Things 180 (February 2008): page 5.
As a reappraiser, I admit, I would be more convinced that the reasserters had the abilities to challenge TEC if they didn’t have so many organizations themselves.
Kendall – and others – have challenged +Gene about his humility: and this has seemed, at times, an apt critique. What if he had decided NOT to be consecrated? He would have been a martyr for gay rights, but the communion might have been humbled by his self- sacrifice.
But on the other hand, seeing all the different denominations with bishops demonstrates how universal that pride is. Perhaps a few of those mitres might give up their authority for the sake of communion.
As a bishop in one of the churches of the Continuum, I must confess that we have sinned and pray God not only to forgive us but also to redeem the work we have attempted so ineptly.”
Since we don’t have the context, I don’t quite understand what he is saying here. Is the ‘sin’ the original schism (St. Louis), or the schism of conservatives that occurred after that? In other words, is his message to work for change without leaving the main body of TEC, or simply to stay united as conservatives?
#2: He continues (and concludes) as follows:[blockquote]The large majority of us who would be faithful need somehow to find a structure in which evangelicals [like Orombi] do not have to give up their allegiance to Scripture, and Anglo-Catholics [like me] do not need to join in what we see as the errors of the Reformers. Scripture, the creeds, the coundils of the undivided Church–not the Reformation polemical Articles of Religion–are our core.[/blockquote] The article to which he is responding is of course here: http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/4311.
councils, not coundils. Sorry.
Bp. Cusach’s lament is the best advertisement I’ve seen for conservatives to stay in TEC and work to reform it from within, instead of writing it off as hopeless and bailing out. The “Spirit of St. Louis” in 1977 (those many who left ECUSA to form their continuing Anglican church met there) dispirited many after the body fragmented. That is a lesson for the many conservatives who have different and sometimes competing agendas, and who have yet to demonstrate historically that they can hold themselves together. Common Cause may be the next casualty.
As one who is left of center (but not too far), I applaud and support every conservative who stays in TEC.
BfB, you seem to be ignoring the frgamentation of the AC due to ECUSA/TEC’s actions. You think ECUSA/TEC any less culpable than those in St Louis? Or, is there fragmentation and then there is fragmentation?