And this is emphatically not about forcing others to conform ; it is an agreement to identify those elements in each other’s lives that build trust and allow us to see each other as standing in the same Way and the same Truth, moving together in one direction and so able to enrich and support each other as fully as we can. What I am saying, in effect, is that every association of Christian individuals and groups makes some sort of ”˜covenant’ for the sake of mutual recognition, mutual gratitude and mutual learning.
Does this mean that we are all restricted by each other’s views and preferences, incapable of arguing or changing? It was a problem familiar to St Paul, and you have already, in this Conference, heard something of how he dealt with it. But let me try to say how this affects our current difficulties. A fellow-Christian may believe they have a profound fresh insight. They seek to persuade others about it. A healthy church gives space for such exchanges. But the Christian with the new insight can’t claim straight away that this is now what the Church of God believes or intends; and it quite rightly takes a long time before any novelty can begin to find a way into the public liturgy, even if it has been widely agreed. Confusion arises when what is claimed as a new discernment presents itself as carrying the Church’s authority.
And that’s why the pleas for continuing moratoria regarding certain new policies and practices have been uttered. Such pleas have found wide support across the range of views represented in the indaba groups. The Church in its wider life can’t be committed definitively by the judgment of some; but when a new thing is enshrined, in whatever way, in public order and ministry, it will look like a definitive commitment. The theological ground for a plea for moratoria is the need to avoid this confusion so that discernment continues together. The Resolution of Lambeth ’98 was an attempt to say both ”˜We need understanding and shared discernment on a hugely complex topic,’ and ”˜We as the bishops in council together are not persuaded that the new thoughts offered to us can be reconciled with our shared loyalty to Scripture.’ Perhaps we should read that Resolution – forgetting for a moment the bitterness and confusion around the debate and acknowledging that it remains where our Communion as a global community stands – as an attempt to define what a healthy Church might need – space for study and free discussion without pressure, pastoral patience and respect, unwillingness to change what has been received in faith from Scripture and tradition. And this is not by any means to say that a traditional understanding and a new one are just two equal options, like items on the supermarket shelf : the practice and public language of the Church act always as a reminder that the onus of proof is on those who seek a new understanding. To say that the would-be innovator must be heard gratefully and respectfully is simply to acknowledge the debt we always owe to those who ask unfamiliar questions, because they prompt us to explore our tradition more deeply.
It’s worth adding, too, that the call for a moratorium on interventions across provinces belongs in the same theological framework. Such interventions often imply that nothing within a province, no provision made or pastoral care offered, can be recognizably and adequately Christian; and this is a claim not lightly to be made by any Christian community regarding any other without grave breach of charity. And it seems to be widely agreed in this Conference that internal pastoral and liturgical care, strengthened by arrangements like the suggested Communion Partners initiative in the USA and the proposed Pastoral Forum we have been discussing, are the way we should go if we want to avoid further ecclesial confusion.
So I hope that, if part of the message of Lambeth ’08 is that we need to develop covenantal commitments, and that one aspect of this may be what you could call covenanted restraint, this will be seen in the context of a unity not enforced but given in Christ.
[blockquote]It’s worth adding, too, that the call for a moratorium on interventions across provinces belongs in the same theological framework.[/blockquote]
Wrong. The unanimous voice of the primates at Dar es Salaam was that there is NOT equivalence between border crossings (which scripture says nothing about) and church blessing of homosexual relations.
The Windsor Bishops put Don Wimberly in charge of their work because they knew that nothing would happen under his leadership…and I believe Rowan has blessed the Communion Partners because in them the same will happen…nothing…so we kick the can down the road…on one level that could be faithfulness that the Lord will provide…but on the other hand it could be to give time for the resistance to die of old age…
The ball is clearly in God’s court.
Rowen is hopeless as a leader, I think he sould be be considered as only a figurehead in any future activities of the communion. Provided, of course, there are any future activities or even a communion.
Alas, the fourth instrument of unity, (Lambeth) has failed.
++Williams once agains calls, pleas, for “moritoria.” After the HOB meeting in New Orleans, he said that he had received agreement from TEC that it would abide with previous decisions. Will he continue to make such claims in future?
I think more importantly, when will he realize he needs to personally answer the cries of Anglican’s asking for rescue from innovation? His office may be in the CoE, but it is more than that. It may be true that he lacks ecclesiastical authority, but the archbishop now needs to exercise his moral authority in ways he’s so far avoided.
“On its own, it (DOES)* mean that nothing matters enough to us to understand why some conflicts are unavoidable and very costly – why some feel we put unity before truth, and so feel we have no very deep sense of truth itself.”
_____________
* word substitution for “could” in the original since this is the clear intent of the inadabadavida process designed by the ABC to prevent those who cared from actually achieving anything………..
NOT TO DECIDE, is to decide. And that’s been done by Rowan’s incapacity to take a decision or allow a decision or even get remotely close to the possibility of an actual moment of choice.
The personal, individual freedom that is the cornerstone of liberty in Anglo culture just may not be compatible with traditional Christianity.
The civil rights movement of the 1960s in the U.S. has had some unintended consequences to be sure. At that time, there was a consensus in the nation that the denial of basic civil freedoms was not moral. Regrettably, the legal and moral standards that applied to how we analyze civil rights — and wrongs — have deteriorated significantly, which is how, in my view, the justices in California were able to reach their recent decision without a great guffaw.
The French exercised a different kind of reasoning in 2006 when they rejected gay marriage. “In late January, a 30 member parliamentary commission of the French National Assembly published a 453 page Report on the Family and the rights of Children, which rejected same-sex marriage. In the report, the commission says that ‘the child represents the future of society.’ The commission asks legislators to make sure that ‘children, confronted with mutations in family models, be fully taken into account and not suffer from situations imposed upon them by adults.’ It adds: ‘The interest of the child must take precedence over adults’ exercise of their freedom (…) including with regards to parents’ lifestyle choices.’ The report also stresses that marriage; adoption and medically assisted reproduction are inseparable. The report thus, rules out homosexual adoption, and medically assisted reproduction for homosexual couples.†http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/mar/06032004.html
Our Anglo culture does not permit us to reason or be reasonable as these terms were once understood. Identity politics has undermined reason in the area of civil rights. Shall the Church take up every secular call for secular justice? The U.S. Constitution guarantees life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Here our right to achieve happiness — physical and material pleasures – is enshrined. The Constitution does not speak to the pursuit of joy. Joy is another matter – it is the thing received from one greater than the State.
I recall the address by Cardinal Kasper on July 30, 2008, linked on this blog, wherein the Cardinal speaks of an unexpected question from Rowan at a meeting a few months prior: What kind of Anglicanism do you want?
I for one, would like – and pray daily for – an Anglicanism that understands that we are defined by Christ, not the other way around; that lives and acts on the premise that the Triune God is Divine — not the plaything of liberals or conservatives or the spirit of the age; that teaches that faith and love demand sacrifice, self-reflection, and repentance; that believes that He promises joy that is about surrendering to Him who is our strength; and that knows that He is the only true source of hope.
Anglicanism has reached a crisis in her maturity. The principal for tolerance in secular matters just to maintain stability may have run its course. This is not the 16th century. It may indeed be a time for the Church to make a window into men’s souls,
The proposed moratorium is not a good idea, and not just because the GAFCON crowd almost certainly won’t honor it.
Whenever the subject is an uncomfortable one like WO or sexuality, “discernment” in the Communion happens only because troublemakers force the issue, e.g., by ordaining women and consecrating partnered gay bishops. Without that kind of sand-grain-in-the-oyster irritant, the people who are capable of moving the ball forward seldom have any real incentive to do so. Quite the contrary: their incentives are usually to avoid controversy.
As a practical matter, that means partnered gays and lesbians would continue to be in limbo for another 10 or 20 or 30 years about whether they will ever be fully accepted in in the U.S. and Canadian churches. For those of us on the reappraiser side, that is not an acceptable outcome. It’s tragic that some Muslims attack African Christians because of what we do, but that’s the attackers’ sin, not ours.
[blockquote] For those of us on the reappraiser side, that is not an acceptable outcome. It’s tragic that some Muslims attack African Christians because of what we do, but that’s the attackers’ sin, not ours.[/blockquote]
Rose: Half the people on this ship are going to die.
Cal: Not the better half.
Rose:
[blockquote] The proposed moratorium is not a good idea, and not just because the GAFCON crowd almost certainly won’t honor it. [/blockquote]
If TEC repented and swore to obey Scripture, DC, it would not lose another parish to CANA, AMiA or any other GS body. Remember, these groups only intervene when parishes invite them to…their involvment is passive and directly a consequence of TEC’s heresies.
However, I do appreciate your inadvertant honesty about the “listening process” and “conversation” so cynically brayed by KJS and her gaggle. Anyone with any sense knows there is precisely zero listening going on at 815 and that pleas for such are only tactical.
Whenever the subject is an uncomfortable one like WO or sexuality, “discernment†in the Communion happens only because troublemakers force the issue, e.g., by ordaining women and consecrating partnered gay bishops.
So, “discernment” for you means that we agree with you. Just like “dialogue”, right?
Chris Hathaway, one thing discernment does not mean is indefinitely preserving the status quo in the hope that the controversy will eventually go away, without regard to the harm inflicted on others as a result. Yet trying to avoid controversy is the natural tendency of organizations staffed and run by humans, especially those with many other competing demands on their time and resources.
I would use women’s ordination as an example of this kind of institutional inertia that had to be overcome by troublemakers. But I know that’s still a sore subject to a lot of Kendall’s bitter-ender readers. So let me use another example: Virginia’s prohibition against interracial marriage would probably still be on the books if no one had risked prison to defy the law and take the case to the Supreme Court of the United States, the way Mildred and Richard Loving did.
We’ve spent long enough with moratoria, and in the ceaseless debate of the issue. The church has a lot of other business to tend to, either together or after separation. It’s time to call the question, and then everyone needs to get on with doing what they need to do.
D. C. Toedt, et al,
Why don’t you all go live your prophetic faith and proclaim your rights to the Muslims in Africa? Perhaps, one way or another, you could relieve the suffering of your brothers and sisters in Christ who are being murdered there. Surely, a faith as strong as the reappraisers can stand in the face of Islam. Show the whole world your commitment to the down trodden and oppressed. Show them all what marvelous and unselfish Christians you really are…the kind we have all heard so much about from the reappraiser’s side. After all, the reappraisers keep going on and on about how this little tiff over sexuality is taking us away from the real work.
Go for it. Inspire us.
[blockquote]We’ve spent long enough with moratoria, and in the ceaseless debate of the issue. The church has a lot of other business to tend to, either together or after separation. It’s time to call the question, and then everyone needs to get on with doing what they need to do. [/blockquote]
Which, in my case, is doing what I am able to rescue souls from your trendy cult for upscale Western sodomites (hat tip: Mark Steyn) and then to see it supplanted with a faithful, Scriptural Province in the Anglican Communion.
It might take a while, but I’m confident in success for a host of reasons.
#13: I hope you won’t mind, but a little clarification is in order.
Human rights are those possessed simply in virtue of being human. They may or may not be recognized in law. Civil rights are those possessed in virtue of membership in a group and are recognized and protected in law. In a more rational age in the United States, the community – through the legislature – granted new rights to citizens. The obvious distinction is that men and women possessed the right to marry in June 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Loving v. Virginia that the law was unconstitutional. It’s unfortunate that this distinction has been purposely obscured for the sake of the homosexual agenda.
Let me offer you one about slavery that a gay friend offered to me several years ago. Slavery is not the natural state of any human being. All are born into freedom, absent some law imposed by the state, which is itself a man-created institution. And, I might add, men and women have bonded together for the purpose of creating family and community well before the modern state. If there is a meritorious argument, it should be strong enough to stand on its own.
Although homosexuals have misused the civil rights model, they have done so rather successfully.
Sick & Tired [#14]: … and the horse you rode in on.
Let me rephrase my #17 a bit more cordially:
Sick & Tired of Nuance [#14]: Your attempt at biting sarcasm would have had more credibility, big boy, if you had posted it from Gaza or Lebanon or Nigeria or Iran, and under your own name instead of a pseudonym.
That’s the spirit. No sense winding yourself with lengthy assurances of the reappraiser’s selfless commitment to the suffering and down trodden…
I can just feel us “moving together in one direction and so able to enrich and support each other as fully as we can.” I am already enlightened by the selflessness of the reappraisers and their unbelievable concern for their Christian brothers and sisters suffering around the globe.
It feels as if we have had our own little indaba.
I am inspired. I just want to say how very impressed I am with the reappraisers and renew my call for them to bring their new prophetic vision around the Globe; especially to those regions where there is conflict with Muslims over the issue of homosexuality. This new prophetic vision simply must be shared with the world of Islam and who better to spread the new good news than those who are living into their faith. Show them the way to the truth! Reappraisers should be bold with Islam…just as bold as they have been with the Christian Church. Onward Christian soldiers!
CatBraganca [#16] writes: “Slavery is not the natural state of any human being. All are born into freedom, absent some law imposed by the state, which is itself a man-created institution.”
A) I wasn’t talking about slavery, but about bans on interracial marriage (which are seen in the OT, by the way). And I wasn’t trying to argue that Loving v. Virginia supports same-sex marriage; I was using the case to illustrate that endless discussion (often accompanied by hand-wringing) tends to perpetuate the status quo until someone takes action, and is branded a troublemaker for his/her pains. On the same-sex marriage issue, I submit, the time for action is now.
B) It’s a bit off-topic, but I would certainly challenge your assertion that “[a]ll are born into freedom, absent some law imposed by the state ….” All are born into utter dependence on others, and freedom lasts pretty much only for as long as one can successfully defend it. Ask Iraqis, or Afghanis living in Taliban-threatened regions, whether freedom is their natural condition. For that matter, ask the inmates of any men’s prison (from what I’ve read, one reason gangs are so prevalent in prisons is that they’re needed for mutual protection against other, predatory inmates). The state has proved to be an imperfect but still reasonably-effective vehicle for “provid[ing] for the common defense” and “secur[ing] the blessings of liberty,” in the words of the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution.
D.C. You justify so-called prophetic action as “discernment” only by assuming bad faith on the part of those with whom you disagree. There is no charity in this approach, much less ground for honest converstaion.
Rowan said: “And this is emphatically not about forcing others to conform ; it is an agreement to identify those elements in each other’s lives that build trust and allow us to see each other as standing in the same Way and the same Truth, moving together in one direction and so able to enrich and support each other as fully as we can.”
Whaaa??
I do [b]NOT[/b] see the phrase “Jesus [b][i]IS[/i][/b] THE Way, THE Truth and THE Life” here as had been reported on some other threads.
I am beyond coherence at this point, as is this whole situation.
Mr Toedt = are you mister or Ms.? – and I disagree on practically every issue except the arguments he makes here. We agree on this: Endless talk defeats change because it is a substitute for it. Talk, being virtual, permits the notion of virtual change as sufficient. We obviously differ on what sort of action, but, as I said above, action is the only language that can override the inertia of bootless talk. The knot is there. Will talk cut it? Indeed not; we need the sword.
Moreoever, he is correct in this, that no one is born into freedom.
The state can certify it, and institutionalize it, but our history tells us a simple truth: Freedom is bought with blood, (and the Iraqis are at last beginning to understand this). Nor is there any such thing as inalienable rights; this is standard liberal outgassing. The phrase is undefinable and beyond assessment.
Does the AC want its freedom back? We are now not free; we have become pawns played by skillful political powers. Do we want the breathe freely again? Then it must fight for it. Are we ready for this? In the recent past, I would have said no. But there is a level of anger here now I have not seen before, a sense of having been set up, an strong impatience with the pervasive sense of impotence that has marked the past, all this by men and women who have not spoken so strongly before, and all this suggests that, GAFCON being alive and well, the Anglican liberals may have caught a wolf by the ears. Larry
Incidentally, Mr. Toedt is right about one other thing. Hiding behind pseudonyms is a bad practice and all should of their own will give it over. We should expect the real nym or none at all.
Larry Morse, I’m pleased that for once you and I agree.
Incidentally, I’m a Mr.; you can see more about me at my blog and my LinkedIn page.
By the way, my family and friends call me D. C. because there’s a Roman numeral III after my name. (Once in a great while someone will loutishly joke, “AC/DC, haw haw haw”; my typical response is, “yup, direct current goes one way.”)
Good for you, D.C., good for you. I’ve seen from your own blog postings in the past that you deny the divinity of Jesus and the plain meaning of Holy Scripture. May God have mercy on your soul… and on mine.
Elves,
Please return this thread to its original intent, as instead we have gone down yet another path of personal attacks. It would be helpful for commenters to actually comment on the text of His Grace’s message.
[i] The easiest thing for me to do is to close this thread. I would prefer to not do that. Please discuss ONLY the current thread.[/i]
-Elf Lady