“an important test of our faithfulness to the Scriptural standard must therefore be upholding historic Anglican doctrine and teaching on marriage and sexuality as affirmed by the whole of the Lambeth 1998 Resolution I.10, including ”˜rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture’ and the Conference’s rejection of the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions and the ordination of those involved in such unions.
TEC, the Anglican Church of Canada, and a number of other provinces which are following their example, have rejected these standards yet we are expected to walk together with them. If they can disregard Scripture and the collegial mind of the Communion with impunity, I wonder what meaning there can be to what you refer to as ”˜the acceptable limits of diversity’?
In these circumstances, some of us have been forced to the conclusion that the best way to make our voices heard is by absence rather than presence. We have no wish to interfere in the juridical authority of other provinces, but we do have a responsibility to ensure that our recognition of one another in the Anglican family is based on a common submission to the authority of God’s Word, not simply a shared history.”
Full text follows below and see also statements of non attendance by the Church of Nigeria, the Church of Uganda, the Church of Rwanda and Archbishop Mouneer Anis
——————————————————————————-
The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Justin Welby
Archbishop of Canterbury
Lambeth Palace
London SE1 7JU
18th March 2016
Your Grace,
Greetings in the precious name of our Lord Jesus!
Thank you for your letter of 16th March and your good wishes. We do indeed rejoice in the Saviour who by his death has overcome death and it is my prayer that we may all count ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in the Risen Christ.
I note the urgency of your appeal for representation at the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Lusaka next month and, as one of those Primates who have decided that I cannot authorise attendance, I feel I must respond.
It was my hope that our decision taken in Canterbury to limit the participation of the Episcopal Church of the United States (TEC) would be the first step in recovering godly order and that ”˜enhanced responsibility’ of the Primates Meeting, as affirmed in Lambeth 1998 Resolution III.6, to which you refer.
But now there has been a strong rejection of our moral authority by the Chairman of the ACC, Bishop Tengatenga, who has said that the ”˜primates think they are more important than anyone else’ and has affirmed in clear terms that TEC will participate fully and without restriction.
This is a symptom of the problem set out so clearly by Archbishop Okoh in his statement of 15th March explaining why Nigeria also would not be participating in the Lusaka meeting. The Communion ”˜Instruments’ are not being used so much as instruments of unity but as instruments to cajole orthodox Global South provinces of the Communion into acquiescence with the secular sexual culture which has made such inroads into the Anglican Churches of the West.
You rightly refer to the need for repentance and confession, which was such a feature of the East African Revival, but there does not seem to be any recognition that homosexual activity is a matter for repentance by those speaking on behalf of the London based Anglican Communion authorities. Instead there are only calls to repent of ”˜homophobia’, a term which is seriously compromised by the way homosexual activists have used it to include any opposition to their agenda.
This inability to recognise that the acceptance of homosexual practice calls for repentance is now entrenched by the ”˜Continuing Indaba’ programme being promoted by the Anglican Communion Office. Because it is based on the assumption that the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality and marriage is not clear, despite two thousand years of Christian teaching and tradition that it is, it becomes impossible to talk about repentance.
Instead we have to focus on processes which respect different interpretations and cultural sensibilities. I can only assume it is for this reason that you were so anxious to speak of our resolution agreed in Canterbury in terms of consequences rather than discipline or sanction.
If we are truly to walk together, we must walk in the light of God’s Word. May I urge that we return to the clear standard of Scripture as affirmed by Lambeth 1998 Resolution III.5 which ”˜in agreement with the Lambeth Quadrilateral, and in solidarity with the Lambeth Conference of 1888’ affirmed that the ”˜Holy Scriptures contain ‘all things necessary to salvation’ and are for us the ‘rule and ultimate standard’ of faith and practice’.
In a time of widespread confusion on issues of sexuality and gender, an important test of our faithfulness to the Scriptural standard must therefore be upholding historic Anglican doctrine and teaching on marriage and sexuality as affirmed by the whole of the Lambeth 1998 Resolution I.10, including ”˜rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture’ and the Conference’s rejection of the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions and the ordination of those involved in such unions.
TEC, the Anglican Church of Canada, and a number of other provinces which are following their example, have rejected these standards yet we are expected to walk together with them. If they can disregard Scripture and the collegial mind of the Communion with impunity, I wonder what meaning there can be to what you refer to as ”˜the acceptable limits of diversity’?
In these circumstances, some of us have been forced to the conclusion that the best way to make our voices heard is by absence rather than presence. We have no wish to interfere in the juridical authority of other provinces, but we do have a responsibility to ensure that our recognition of one another in the Anglican family is based on a common submission to the authority of God’s Word, not simply a shared history.
I am grieved to be writing to you in such terms, but this letter comes with my best wishes for a blessed Holy Week and Easter and let me assure you of my continued prayers and affection, believing that as we are steadfast in the work of the Risen Lord, our labour will not be in vain.
+Eliud Wabukala
The Most Reverend Dr Eliud Wabukala,
Archbishop of Kenya and Bishop, All Saints Cathedral Diocese, Nairobi.
CC The Primates of the Anglican Communion
Thank God for faithful leaders like this Archbishop!
Welby tried the escape clause in his letter, “Since that time, as I undertook to you, I have followed through by changing the representation of those bodies where I have the ability to make a decision, so as to put into effect the agreement we reached amongst ourselves.â€
“TEC, the Anglican Church of Canada, and a number of other provinces which are following their example, have rejected these standards yet we are expected to walk together with them. If they can disregard Scripture and the collegial mind of the Communion with impunity, I wonder what meaning there can be to what you refer to as ‘the acceptable limits of diversity’?” +Eliud Wabukala
Whom would you rather follow? The duplicitous or the direct?
God bless Archbishop Wabukala.
If Welby truly wants to hold the Communion together, he must undo Rowan’s work, by being as openly direct as Rowan was evasive.
As long as he claims his hands are tied, he will remain ineffective.
All he has to do is declare that the ABoC is no longer in Communion with X, whether X is an individual, or a province.
I agree with everyone above, as I usually do with Katherine, Dr. Stroud, and Marie. I gave up blogging for Lent again this year, but now that Lent is over, I’ll add my two cents worth here.
Put briefly, the Archbishops of Kampala, Abuja, and Nairobi are right, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is wrong. It all comes down to this, when the turth of the gospel is at stake (rather than matters of adiaphora), then theological unity trumps mere institutional unity, not vice versa. And this whole wretched crisis in Anglicanism does indeed involve a matter of “core doctrine,” il.e., the supreme authority of Holy Scripture as God’s Word written. That is most certainly a central doctrine in classic Anglicanism, as in all other forms of biblical, historic, orthodox Christianity.
Our foes on the left vainly imagine, and try to persuade the rest of us, that this whole battle is merely over the proper interpretation of the Scriptures, instead of it being a clear case of either accepting or rejecting the plain and consistent teaching of God’s Word (as refreshingly honest Liberals like Walter Wink, Dan Via, and Bernadette Brooten freely admit). But our foes (and the mainstream Western culture) are wrong. Absolutely and patently wrong, and this is provable beyond a reasonable doubt. (Not that our heretical foes won’t continue to doubt and dispute that fact, but it remains a fact).
As the late, brilliant Democratic NY Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan so often said to the lesser minds that argued with him on the Senate floor: “[i]You are entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitl4ed to your facts.[/i]”
Alas, it was inevitable that the supposed agreement by the Primates in January to “walk together” in Canterbury would very quickly unravel and break down. After all, to paraphrase Amos 3:3, “[i]Two cannot walk together unless they are agreed[/i]” on where they are going..
We are virtually on the eve of the New Wineskins Global Mission Conference in Ridgecrest, NC. Let that be a reminder to us that the old institutional wineskins of the once impressive Anglican Communion are now brittle with age and will have to be replaced. There is absolutely no hope of patching those rigid, worn-out wineskins. The Anglican Communion as we have known it heretofore is as dead as the parrot in the Monty Python skit. Those who are stuck in denial about the sad and tragic demise of the former global Communion (including many conservative, godly bishops as well as our arrogant foes on the left) are simply not facing reality yet.
If it doesn’t seem irreverent, I’ll echo Lwewis Carroll here: Anglican unity has always been precarious and almost as fragile as an egg. Well, Humbty Dumpty has had a great fall. And all ++Welby’s horses and all ++Welby’s men can’t put poor Humpty Dumpty bsack together again.
But if there is no future for the old Anglican Communion that we’ve known and loved for so long, that’s OK. The future of orthodox Anglicanism is brighter than ever. Liberal Anglicanism is doomed. It is rapidly declining and will eventually fade into insignificance and virtual oblivion, and deservedly so because it tolerates everything except orthodoxy. Because old Bishop (of Delaware) Joseph Kinsman was right way back in 1919, “[i]A Church that tolerates everything teaches nothing.[/i] Nothing that is except toleration of all forms of heresy and immorality and intolerance of doctrinal orthodoxy and moral orthopraxis.
A pox on the Liberals! We’re better off without them anyway.
As we begin this 50 day season of the Christian Passover, let us keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, unmixed with the false teaching and ouright heresy being taught by the pseudo-Christians and ex-Christians on our left. And I mean that literally.
Feisty as ever,
David Handy+