What does articulate doctrine for the Episcopal Church? Quite simply, the Book of Common Prayer. General Convention can approve a prayer book after a lengthy trial period and with two consecutive conventions voting affirmatively. The current Book of Common Prayer, approved in 1979, contains all the historic formularies usually recognized in the Anglican Communion: the three creeds, the Thirty-nine Articles, the Outline of the Faith (called the Catechism), and, of course, the liturgy.
Finally, Anglican Christians have always understood that the real spiritual authority of the Church is Jesus, of course, who is the actual Head of the Church. It is not really St. Peter who will determine who will enter heaven or not but the blood of Jesus Christ. Those congregations who place themselves squarely under the authority of Jesus have nothing ultimately to fear either from powers and principalities nor from unfaithful bishops. Over the centuries, there have unfortunately always been unworthy shepherds; sometimes the Church has been in great suffering because of their unfaithfulness. Yet Jesus the Head always has brought his Church back to the Truth by the power of his Holy Spirit, raising up obedient shepherds and leaders for his people. “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.” (1 Thessalonians 5: 23-24)
The historical documents are not binding. That is why the 39 articles were removed from the main test of the 1928 BCP. But I am disappointed in this statement. TEC ignores the BCP at will. The election of Bishop Robinson underscored this fact and operated to change the official doctrine of TEC through the back door. That is what in fact was the immediate cause of the current crisis in TEC and in the AC.
Methinks Fr. Jeff must not be in a revisionist diocese under a revisionist bishop. It’s easy to talk about how we shouldn’t care about the theology torching of the national church when our little neck of the woods hasn’t started burning yet.
Regardless, this line of reasoning doesn’t come to grips with the reality of the case… because what the presiding bishop believes DOES matter and what is going on in the national church DOES matter whether you are in an orthodox congregation or not.
1. I think the evidence with quite clear that corrupt headship will eventually corrupt the entire church. This has been amply demonstrated in the last Lambeth conference – and I think all of us can point to bishops and priests they have known who were once orthodox, but have been swept into TEC’s ‘system’ and are now just part of it. This eventually will work itself down on the parish level… and has in many places. When we do not stand against evil we will eventually succumb to it.
2. It matters what we are demonstrating to our next generation. Those of us with children understood much more quickly than those who did not that ‘waiting 50 years’ for TEC to right itself was not going to work. Having your children grow up in a church where you could not allow them to do anything with the rest of the churches of their denomination, go to any youth related things (without knowing exactly who was leading it and why), and having to explain what was wrong with the bishop’s ‘talks’ whenever he came (I remember once with he told my kids at church camp “He owned the churches by federal law”) – gets just a little old and sends a dubious message.
When you get to try to explain why the National Church supports abortion, says Jesus is its mother, condones sinful behavior, and thinks that if anyone disagrees with them they should sue them – AND you are supporting it with your time and money – well, children don’t get that for some reason. Neither do most thinking Christians in most other denominations.
3. It is true heresy does exist in every generation. However, the only way heresy is righted is by people standing up against it – not just thinking “Well, it doesn’t affect me where I am so I don’t have to worry about it”. We seldom remember, and often revile those who have not stood for what is right, what is true, what is best in history. We do not remember all those who allowed the oppression of slavery, but those, such as Wilberforce, who stood against it – despite the cost. We do not remember all those who stood by and allowed the oppression of Jews – but those who stood against them. We do not remember the 100’s of priests who allowed things such as indulgences and works as a way of salvation – but Luther who stood against them.
So, we stand and we fight for what is right because we do not want our brothers and sisters to stumble, our children taught dubious Christianity, and because we have the responsibility in THIS generation to do keep the Faith.
I would much rather my children remembering that when faced with heresy – I stood against it and fought it – than sat idly by allowing it to destroy not only the Anglican Christian witness in America but their formative years as well. Then I am just one of the nameless hoards in history who did nothing in the face of injustice.
As Swift said about his insanity, he was dying like a tree – from the top down.
[blockquote]Yet Jesus the Head always has brought his Church back to the Truth by the power of his Holy Spirit, raising up obedient shepherds and leaders for his people. [/blockquote]
This does invite the question what exactly is “his Church”. Will Jesus bring blatantly heretical and apostate bodies back to the faith? He seems to be speaking as a catholic about the catholic church, yet without any sense of irony that he is applying it to a schismatic Protestant body.
I remember Rev. Jeff Murph from my days in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. He is a faithful pastor to his flock, a classical Anglican in the best sense of the word, and one who has held onto the faith once delivered in God’s Word and by his apostles. I have great respect for Jeff.
Nevertheless, I think it is necessary to consider a number of questions he raises in this article, the their problems:
(1) The nature of Spiritual Authority and Spiritual Warfare: Yes, Jesus Chrsit is the head of the church. But we also live in a church whose leaders can be so fallen and reprobate that the Apostle Paul describes then in 2 Timothy 3 as people who are “swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth… who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected.” (2 Tim 3:6-9) Paul has even stronger words than these throughout his epistles for such leaders. They invite spiritual darknes to gain a foothold in the midst of the church– and the history of TEC in recent days bears this out. Anyone who has engaged in spiritual warfare– either here in the states or on farther shores– will know how exhausting the fight can be to prevail over such spiritual darkness… and how discouraging it can be when you are ministering in a context where, at either the individual or group level, the powers of darkness are invited back in, by word or deed, by those with whom you have just been praying. Under the circumstances, many have left TEC precisely because of this frustration, and the desire to do spiritual warfare in support of evangelism and mission rather than fighting a rearguard action against those who are determined to destroy the orthodox.
(2) The PB is not a Primate: The PB may not be a Primate de jure, but she is surely acting as a Primate de facto– by her arrogation of authority beyond the constitution and canons of TEC, by her aggressive instigation in places like the Diocese of VA, where settlements had already been reached, by her public and statements to other Bishops (like +Iker) assuming authority to decide who can and cannot visit the Diocese, and by many other words and deeds. To use a phrase from the VA litigation, “It blinks at reality” to ignore the authority she has assumed, and the utter failure of anyone in the HOB to challenge that Primatial-in-fact authority, though manifestly in defiance of the Constitution and Canons and itself presentable. Her theology, her vision, and her aggression bear the marks of Jezebel’s antagonism to the faithful in Israel. Whether she or others recognize that, or not, it has a spiritual dimension to it that will require the faithful in TEC to adopt the same all consuming spiritual engagement as Elijah.
(3) And is such faithful engagement within TEC a fools errand? No– of course not. But it will be very costly. It will cost time, money, resources and spiritual warfare that might otherwise be diverted to reaching people who are not yet followers of Jesus Christ. We are facing a leadership in TEC that is as passionate as we are in principle– and to them, we represent “the last plantation owners”. Their patience with Biblically orthodox Episcopalians ran out a long time ago, and they have no more willingness to tolerate the orthodox than Jezebel had to tolerate Elijah.
The Rev. Dr. Stepehn Noll probably didn’t know how prophetic his words were back in 1992, when at the second Briarwood Consultation of the AAC he said that the Biblically orthodox would have to fight on two fronts– including a “rear-guard” action against Biblical revisionists in the leadership of TEC. It was a rear guard action he likened to the 300 Spartans who stood in the gap against the Persian Empire.
Those of us who have left TEC honor the spiritual sacrifices of those, like Jeff Murph, who are willing to stay like the Spartans and fight that rear-guard action. We need to support them with our prayers. In turn, they need to know that by leaving, we are not the enemy. We need their prayers and support as we build a new Province of missionally minded, Biblically confessing Anglicans in the Americas. And they need to know that we are always here to partner and provide a truly safe haven that they can come to when the spiritual darkness of TEC’s leadership becomes too much.
Fr. Murph’s inspiring essay comes from another more innocent era in the Episcopal Church. Unfortunately, as Eclipse writes, it doesn’t “come to grips with the reality of the case”.
Fr. Murph’s assertion that “Anglican Christians have always understood that the real spiritual authority of the Church is Jesus, of course, who is the actual Head of the Church” collapses under the weight of history. Some Anglican Christians have always understood that spiritual authority derives from Christ – but Henry VIII declared that he was head of the Church in England. The “Presiding Bishop” and Bishops of the institution formerly known as ECUSA claim they are the spiritual head(s) of the Church (why they can even change the Bible since the Church wrote the Bible. ) Fr. Murph’s remark – directed at the Church of Rome – that it is not really St. Peter who will determine who will enter heaven or not but the blood of Jesus Christ cannot obscure the fact that it is the Church of Rome and the Churches of Eastern Orthodoxy who have most consistently proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus, and even in their most corrupt eras, were able to be reformed. Though the institution formerly known as ECUSA believes that ecclesiastical haberdashery and appeals to episcopacy justify its departure from the orthodox tradition of the church – it is a dying branch on another seriously diseased branch. To assume that it is attached to a strong trunk (Canterbury) which will ultimately provide the strength and energy to stop the disease process is wishful thinking at best and terminally naive at worst.
Sadly, naivete is the most prominent characteristic of the arguments of the Pittsburgh realignment rejectionists.
#2, Eclipse, you are correct. If you follow the link you will see that Murph+ is in DioPittsburgh. But like Chris Hathaway above, this quote stood out to me:
But Jesus the Head also warned the Laodicean church and one other one (IIRC) in Revelation that He would remove their lampstand from its place if they did not repent of that for which He chastised them.
And this is no comfort, either:
A new Prayer Book has been rumored to be in the works for some time now. The dilution of salvation doctrine and Christology of the 1979 edition is certain to become a flood of revisionism washing away entirely any substance of an actual Christian church, leaving only a form of godliness while denying its power. And who says TE”c” will follow its own canons on waiting for the cumbersome, justice-denying wheels of canons and GCs to usher in the brave new Prayer Book to match the brave new religion inspired by the new thing the unHoly Spirit is doing, so undoing the eternal thing the Holy Spirit has done and which He inspired the writers of Scripture to set down and send down through the ages?
No, good Fr. Jeff, the deck chairs on the Titanic are not worth re=arranging, the fine silver and china not worth trying to keep afloat. Follow your good captian Duncan into the lifeboat to a more worthy vessel capable of taking you and future generations safe to the other shore!
In other words, the Prayer Book trumps the Bible for authority in the Episcopal Organization?
As to lenghtly trial period, that’s not how I understood the process for adopting the ’79 Prayer Book. Imposition against the will of the people was more like it, according to friends of mine who were there at the time. (The same way W.O. and H.O were ‘adopted’.)
There is a severe disconnect between the authors appreciation of the PB’s limited “legal” powers and her actual power. The PB has as much power as she can grab, bully, threaten, or coerce from TEC and that the bishops allow her to continue to usurp. I would agree with the author’s characterization of the PB’s power prior to KJS.
libraryjim, that is how history records it – “adopted” by GC. Having completed a Liturgics paper on the subject, the forced nature of the change and the changes within the book of alternatve services now employed, have become startlingly evident. I never knew the 28 book, so I have no axe to grind on that score. Urban T. Holmes’ analysis “Education for Liturgy: A Unfinished Symphony in Four Movements” – see http://johncampoxford.blogspot.com/2006/09/urban-t-holmes-quotes.html –
or
http://theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/32Ang/Epis/HolmsLtrgy.htm for samplings — amply develops the thesis of the changes rung on theology of which he approves. He also outlines the deceptive nature of the work and self-deception involved. Note that he does this from a non-contributory position essentially and thoroughly approves the new book. In the essay (found in WORSHIP POINTS THE WAY) as well as in the largely contemporaneous WHAT IS ANGLICANISM?, Holmes denotes the way he thinks Anglicanism should be. One must wonder were he to see “the chickens (who) must come home to roost” now roosted and destructive would he think the same.
There is no doubt in my mind that I was defrauded by the Episcopal Church. I was sold a faith on the basis of historical documents which the church was busily undermining and rejecting at the time. I suppose Ihey can’t take away my personal faith, but I no longer have that faith in communion with others nearby.
The problem with this essay is that it’s author has not carefully considered the biblical passages concerning apostasy and the disciplines imposed. At some point, Christians should begin to consider passages that speak to the issue rather than simply quoting passages that speak blessings. Remember how God said through Ezekiel, they speak peace where there is none and they say thus says the Lord when he has not spoken.
Mr. Murph’s words sound nice but I think they fail to be biblically faithful to the relevant texts.