(ENS) Episcopal Church House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson has asked diocesan General Convention deputations to find ways to comment to their bishops about the second draft of the proposed Anglican covenant.
Anderson made her request in an April 21 letter emailed to all deputies and first alternate deputies. The full text of the letter is below.
“We are told that the bishops at the Lambeth Conference will not be making a decision on the Anglican covenant, nor will they be ratifying any draft of the covenant,” Anderson wrote, reminding deputies that “the only body with authority to commit the Episcopal Church to an Anglican covenant is the General Convention in which bishops, priests and deacons and lay persons share authority.”
Thus, she wrote, “the input of the clergy and laity of the Episcopal Church is especially important as the Anglican Communion considers the development of a covenant.”
“In the Episcopal Church the belief that God speaks uniquely through bishops, laity, priests and deacons, enables our participatory structure and allows a fullness of revelation and insight that must not be lost in this important time of discernment,” Anderson wrote. “The joint work of the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops is the highest institutional expression of this belief. It is thus crucially important that our bishops go to Lambeth with a sense of where their General Convention deputations (and their diocese) are with respect to the current state of the Anglican covenant.”
Perhaps Bonnie Anderson believes that something significant will actually happen at the Lambeth Conference. Ya think?
[size=1][color=red][url=http://resurrectioncommunitypersonal.blogspot.com/]The Rabbit[/url][/color][color=gray].[/color][/size]
I encourage the reading of [b]The Anglican Formularies Are Not Enough[/b] by R.J. Sanders on [url=http://]www.virtueonline.org[/url].
One quote from Sanders’ article is particularly interesting.
“…because revisionists accept, affirm, and endorse the founding documents of Anglicanism, but they interpret them from an alien perspective that amounts to a distortion of Christian truth.”
To me, this means that in any Anglican Covenant process, that the revisionists will play a duplicitious ‘shell game’ regarding the the foundations of the Church Catholic.
In addition, I disagree with Ms Anderson’s statement
“In the Episcopal Church the belief that God speaks uniquely through bishops, laity, priests and deacons, enables our participatory structure and allows a fullness of revelation and insight that must not be lost in this important time of discernment,”
The laity and most pastoral clergy are not competent to decide major issues regarding Scripture and doctrine. If we accept Anderson’s statement, then we accept ever-changing, ever-mutating, theological chaos.
ECUSA’s acceptance this role for laity and clergy, has transformed ECUSA into ‘Billy Bob’s Church of Whatever.’
In addition is says that there is continuing revelation. Jesus was not God’s final revelation. What is the means of discerning God’s revelation? General Convention. If God is forever doing a new thing then we cannot rely on the new thing now because it may be later be found to be in error or changed.
Hmm, when WE do it it’s participatory. When the Anglican Communion does it, it’s not. RIGGHHTTT, Bonnie! Consistency is such a hard thing to bear.
By the by, how are those incursions into dioceses that don’t fit the AGENDA, going?
The voice of the General Convention is the voice of God? I’ll grant that is an interesting idea, but where on earth did she pull that one from?
I agree with #2 and #3 and really don’t like what that implies: namely that TEC is a house built on theolgically shifting sand. [i] Les croyances du jour [/i] which ever way the wind blows… I am glad I left. M
The Anglican Communion cannot force the Episcopal Church to do anything. The Anglican Communion can tell the Episcopal Church what it needs to do (or not do) to be part of the Anglican Communion. But I doubt the Anglican Communion will even do that. The Anglican Communion was based on trust or bonds of affection. When the Episcopal Church ordained a practicing homosexual, after being told it would “tear the fabric” of the communion they broke those bonds of affection, the is no more trust. Since the very thing the Anglican Communion was based on has been broken, there is no Anglican Communion until this trust can be reestablished.
Since TEC will not take the steps necessary to reestablish the trust, the only question is who will be on what side of the split.
[blockquote]Anderson wrote, reminding deputies that “the only body with authority to commit the Episcopal Church to an Anglican covenant is the General Convention in which bishops, priests and deacons and lay persons share authority.[/blockquote]
And here I thought TEc was a heirarchical structure. Maybe that only applies to property disputes. Perhaps they should just change the name again to TEcC (the episcopal church of convenience).
So the General Convention takes precedence over the Ecumenical Councils? The error of democracy is that it is rule by lowest common denominator. The problem with TEC is that we believe the Holy Spirit speaks through a 51% majority of those who can afford to take time off and attend a General Convention (otherwise known as the tyranny of those who can show up).
And, under this enlightened polity – devised by CHRISTIANS some time ago – there was the assumption that some key elements of doctrine and practice would not get on the chopping block just because the sin-proud want it so. So, what DO you do with this polity now that there are clearly unmistakable Unitarian and Universalist tendencies among segments of delegates? What DO you do when the most important agenda is how to retain control rather than how to take Christ (unashamedly) to those who Jesus called “lost” (not just in a mistaken mindset – but LOST)? What DO you do when this polity can no longer assume that people care about Christ, but instead the Good News of the Episcopal Church is often couched in terms such as “inclusion”, “welcome”, etc., rather than offering Christ’s life to the world?
Silence from Bonnie. Silence from Katie. Silence from those who will damn this Church’s soul for a mess of stew.
[blockquote]“In the Episcopal Church the belief that [b]God speaks uniquely[/b] through bishops, laity, priests and deacons, enables our participatory structure and allows a [b]fullness of revelation[/b] and insight that must not be lost in this important time of discernment.â€[/blockquote]
This is a breathtaking claim, especially when, nowhere else in her words does she make a place for Scripture. The majority votes of GC are taken, [i]prima facie[/i], to be the revealed Will of God.
General Convention = The New Magisterium
Note that the equation in #12 logically and necessarily follows from the quotation in #11. No other conclusion may be drawn from that “breathtaking claim”.
The Bishops can commit to stop blessing same sex relationships and stop ordaining homosexuals. There is nothing that prevents them from doing this if they had the desire to.
From New York: “House of Deputies President Asks Deputies to Discuss Covenant Draft”
From Beijing: “Central Committee Invites Pan-National Congress of People’s Representatives to Discuss Enhanced Wellness Program”
See11:Where does this notion come from that God speaks uniquely through the hierarchy? Uniquely? And what does it mean that, the above being so, “enables our participatory structure.” She seems to suggest that the democratic structure of TEC is somehow “enabled” by the hierarchy. And “fullness of revelation.” Am I to understand that God’s intent is ONLY clear when it is transmitted through the hierarchy, and that others means of transmittal are all partial and therefore faulty? There is a dog’s dinner of democratic egalitariianism and vertical authoritarianism that is at least baffling.
LM