a paper delivered by the Rev. Professor Christopher Seitz at the recent conference in Toronto, Canada, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1963 Pan-Anglican Congress
As I have prayed about this talk and reflected on God’s time in scripture my mind has returned again and again to Isaiah and his words in chapter 8. “Bind up the testimony, seal the teaching among my disciples. I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face from the House of Jacob, and in him will I hope.” The prophet was not exempt from this season. The LORD’s face was hidden from the House of Jacob, not individual rooms within it. So it was. So the waiting and hoping were sharpened on just this stone. This is where I believe we now are, and this is what encouragement for parishes and dioceses in North America now looks like. Waiting and trusting, as God hides his face for a season, for his own eternal and final purposes. As he remakes us all.
Read it all and the Statement from the Conference was published here
I like his analogy of divergent paths in the snow. I don’t believe that the liberal faction that now controls the church will allow conservatives to remain on the traditional path. They have shown by their actions that all must subscribe to their “theology”. They have wandered badly and their paths lead to destruction. There is no place in TEC for traditional Christians.
A typically thoughtful, stimulating, and careful analysis and proposal by Dr. Seitz. I’m sure many of those who still struggle to remain within TEC or the ACoC will appreciate it.
Maybe those who are so fortunate as to live in a healthy diocese with an orthodox bishop and orthodox majority of clergy may find this sort of talk encouraging and bracing, allowing them to hang in there a little longer.. Maybe these irenic words will comfort those in Dallas, Albany, Springfield, Central Florida, etc. But for the dwindling and beleagured orthodox minority everywhere else, these sorts of hopes for a protected and valued space within a national church now totally dominated by crusading heretics like +KJS probably seem hopelessly unrealistic. We’ve already seen how much tolerance will be extended to energetic dissenters from “the New Thing” (new maps, new trails, new gospel) that enthralls the national leadership in both the US and Canada.
The scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners tactics followed by TEC’s “progressive” zealots have been evident time and again. Just look at what happened to +Duncan, or +Lawrence. Just consider the over $22 million spent on unjust and punitive lawsuits in trying to seize (not recoverf, but steal) the properties of departing conservative congregations and dioceses.
Maybe +Love in Albany, or +Little in Northern IN, or +Bauerschmidt in TN, etc. will be allowed to serve out their tenure, if they don’t make any overly aggressive protests against the new all-holy agenda the way that +Lawrence did. Maybe. Our liberal foes know that they can afford to be patient as no new bishops of the Dan Martins or Gregory Brewer type will be given the majority of consents necessary in the future.
I mean, just look at what happened with WO. The assurance back in the 1970s that there would ALWAYS be a safe place in TEC for diehard opponents of women’s ordination turned out to have a crucial codicil in fine print indicating that this promise was good for only a limited time. Just look at how the same dynamic is playing out across the Pond in the CoE.
No, Richard John Neuhaus had it right all along. Where orthodoxy is optional, sooner or later it will be proscribed. Write ICHABOD over TEC and the ACoC. They are hopelessly corrupted. Finis. Kaput.
David Handy+
Irenic? You should have seen the response of the Bishops of Toronto who were present!
OK, Dr. Seitz.
Point well taken. Indeed I applaud your courage and your persistence in the fight, which you and the rest of the ACI team have long demonstrated admirably. I also heartily applaud the whole idea of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the famous 1963 Toronto Anglican Congress and using the occasion to take stock of how the inspiring vision of Anglicanism back then has gone so terribly wrong since those optimistic days.
Moreover, I take this opportunity once again to salute the fine work that ACI did in arranging the amicus briefs that have played a key role in the recent court victoires for departing dioceses in Ft. Worth and Quincy. For all of this and more, all orthodox Anglicans in North America owe you and your team a deep debt.
My modest point was simply that your address is relevant to an ever shrinking remnant within TEC and the ACoC. Nonetheless, I’m grateful to people like you who feel called to stay within the structures of the old provinces as long as possible. Like a captain or crew who are the last to leave a sinking ship, that is an admirable and noble role.
My point, of course, was simply that I believe that both TEC and the ACoC are the eccleasial equivalent of the Titanic, and their doom is sealed (humanly speaking, I don’t claim any prophetic inspiration about that). Their hulls have been pierced in too many places, and too many compartments have already been flooded. The ships ought to have been as unsinkable as they seemed. But the extreme hubris of the shipline owners and the folly and spiritual blindness of the bishops at the helm, who arrogantly ignored all warnings of icebergs in their path, have brought about this catastrophe.
In the midst of the ensuing chaos and confusion after the lifeboats have started to be launched, it’s commendable that some of the brave and faithful crew have hung around and are valiantly trying to save as many lives as possible. But the ships themselves are beyond saving. The Titanic is inexorably going down to Davy Jones’ Locker.
David Handy+
TEC progressives believe in the pro-Gay agenda and held the conviction that all enlightened people only needed time to get on board. Other people would probably not accept this new progressive insight, it was conceded. Still, it would be the case that they would leave and form their own split-off groups, and so would exit the field of play and leave progressives to inhabit TEC. What they did not anticipate is a species of conservative which would refuse to leave, and would insist they be able to retain the faith and practice all had shared heretofore, forcing progressives to enshrine the necessary changes themselves. Progressives wanted their agenda to come to force naturally over time, and for others to leave. They did not anticipate having to drive conservatives out and acknowledging their doing that. They still have the hard and necessary business ahead of them to integrate the new faith and practice. They need formally to ‘leave’ the former TEC that conservatives have inhabited and continue to inhabit without change. Recent court rulings also support this fact.
My remarks were aimed at an audience of progressive leaders in Canada who have a large percentage of non-leaving conservative clergy and parishes. The Diocese of Toronto has not been a growth market for “conservative leavers-for-ACNA.†The largest parish in Canada is an evangelical-conservative parish in the Diocese of Toronto, where the conference was in fact held. Conservatives are a sizeable force in the Diocese and the episcopal leadership knows that. This includes Wycliffe College, the largest evangelical seminary and Anglican PhD training site in North America.
Gafcon was ably represented at the conference by +Eliud Wabukala who is its President. He is a Wycliffe College graduate. He was part of a multi-faceted leadership group, representing the GS (GS Anglican; CAPA; Gafcon). My talk was part of a wider series, which included talks by these GS leaders. It was not my remit to speak about areas they would be addressing in their own talks. That is the way the conference was organized. Apparently this wider context is not obvious to some commentators, especially in the US.