Keith Ackerman, bishop of Quincy, Illinois, came because, as he put it: “An empty chair can’t speak”: he thought it important that the conservative view was represented.
He voiced the unease of many traditionalists when he accused liberals, in effect, of trying to rewrite the Bible.
“Why is it that people are determined to change the faith delivered to the saints?”
The conservatives feel the ground shifting beneath them and they find it deeply unsettling.
“The faithful of yesterday have become the dissidents of today,” in the words of Archbishop Greg Venables.
He was one of the 200 Anglican bishops and primates who met in Jerusalem a few weeks ago and founded what is, in effect, a breakaway organisation – the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.
Though he came to Canterbury and participated in the service, he was one of several bishops who did not take communion, arguing that he is no longer in communion with many of his colleagues.
Actually, for a liberal venue like the BBC, this isn’t a bad report. I’ll just venture two comments here. First, I hope that the reporter is wrong and that more than just “several” bishops refused to participate in the communion part of the service, along with ++Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone. Hundreds of bishops ought to do so. The “broken” or “impaired” communion between TEC and much of the rest of the AC needs to be publicly displayed.
And that leads into my other comment. Bp. O’Neill, the scandalous bully of Colorado, is quoted at the end (and thus given the favored position of having the final word) as saying that if “we” in the AC can’t “bridge our differences” among ourselves, then we have little to offer the world. Well, in one sense that’s true, of course. As bearers of the message of reconciliation between God and humanity, as Paul declares in 2 Cor. 5, we aren’t very credible if we who are authentic Christians aren’t reconciled to one another.
But that misses the point completely in this case, since we aren’t dealing with adiaphora, or matters on which a difference of opinion is permissible. A more apt biblical allusion would be to Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount. “You are the salt of the earth,” and if the salt loses its saltiness, it’s not good for anything. The problem is that it’s illegitimate for Bp. O’Neill to speak of “we” Anglicans, since he in fact has abandoned the Anglican faith and way of life by adopting a blatantly unbiblical and unChristian viewpoint. It is sadly a case of “us” orthodox versus “them” heretics. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” That’s the bottom line.
David Handy+
“Though he came to Canterbury and participated in the service, he was one of several bishops who did not take communion, arguing that he is no longer in communion with many of his colleagues. ”
Actions speak…..
At the risk of being a nag, I do think the most serious problem facing the Episcopal Church is its public support for abortion-on-demand. If it is true that the PResiding Bishop speaks for the American Church, then the most recent I know of is Presiding Bishop Browning’s signature on the Interfaith Letter to Congress to retain the partial-birth abortion procedure.
Of course, PResiding Bishop Schori has the moral obligation to reveal this to the attendees at Lambeth – or, as she would put it, make the American Church’s position “incarnate.” In this regard, the presence at Lambeth of any of the traditionalist bishops is not
so important, it seems to me.
Those of us who have tried to follow developments in the Church over the years have learned some hard lessons, and as much as the Episcopal Church has meant to me, I have lost confidence in its ability to speak honestly. It would be very easy to postpone such full disclosure about abortion or else to promise a period of self-examination and penance on the part of the American Church until a more congenial administration is in place in Washington. If this were to happen, I fear the Episcopal Church will be reduced to a perpetual state of penance or stripped of its moral voice altogether.
Will the Conference bring communion?
Only God brings communion.
But with all this ‘indaba’, are they really going to hear Him?