The Anglican Communion has been broken and it is an “illusion” to believe things can ever be the same again, the archbishops of the Gafcon movement said last week following their first organizational meeting in London.
The leaders of the conservative wing of the Anglican Communion, representing more than half of the Church’s active members, on Aug 29 released a statement affirming the aims of the movement — now known as the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) — and restated its commitment to the reform and renewal of the Communion.
However, they disagreed sharply with the course taken by Archbishop Rowan Williams in avoiding a full and frank airing of the issues, with one insider telling The Church of England Newspaper the Anglican Communion’s sex wars had taken on a Dickensian quality, and like “Jarndyce and Jarndyce” was still dragging its “dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.”
Nice to have such clear plain talk about the current and continue crisis in the AC.
As encouraged as I try to be when I hear the statements by the GAFCON primates, I am fearful that it will be for naught. The leadership is not present within the conservative bishops in TEC. They speak words that agree with GAFCON, but will not commit to working with them to establish a new province in NA.
We’ll wait for the next meeting of the AC Primates, and then GC2009. After that there will be a time to determine just how many SSBs and ordinations will take place. It won’t take long for these bishops to be left behind by the rest of the AC. That will leave the orthodox clergy and laity in communion with TEC alone.
Our “Windsor” and “Communion Partner” bishops need to suck it up and affiliate with the FCA. If they cannot take an entire diocese, they need to do so individually and allow individual parishes to do the same. It is clear that TEC is no longer part of the Anglican Communion. As long as our bishops fail to act, they are stifling the faith efforts GAFCON to preserve a genuine orthodox Anglican presence in North America.
Cool comment and very pertinent! Should we now refer to TEC as “Bleak Church?”
“The FCA “isn’t a new church, nor is it an alternative power [bloc]†within the Anglican Communion Bishop Venables told CEN. “It is about the survival of Biblical values within the communion.â€
“What is being worked out†in the formation of the FCA “is the Gospel. Gafcon [FCA] is a proclamation of the ‘truth’,†he said.”
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If a person cannot accept the fact that Christ died, Christ arose from the dead and lives, that Christ ascended into God’s realm and now is with God, that Christ will return, and that the Holy Spirit is at work in the ‘true parts’ of the the Church Catholic; then that person cannot call himself a Christian.
He may be a person seeking Truth, but he is not a Christian.
And by their very comments, writings and sermons, many of ECUSA’s clergy fall into the ‘non-Christian’ category or into the category of Christians who do not bear ‘true witness’ to “the Faith once given.”
Those bishops in ECUSA who tolerate bishops and priests who have made it understood that they cannot wholeheartedly bear ‘true witness’ to “the Faith once given” should be ashamed of themselves.
If a bishop fails to give give such witness through his toleration of non-Christian beliefs of other ECUSAn clergy, then he should consider resigning from his office.
[i]the course taken by Archbishop Rowan Williams in avoiding a full and frank airing of the issues,[/i]
But they [i]don’t[/i] want a full and frank airing of the issues. They just want discussion about parts of the Bible that OTHER people don’t believe in. They certainly don’t want any discussion about parts of the Bible THEY don’t believe in.
Care to unpack that a bit Sidney?
Really, when was the last time a conservative evangelist ever went through ALL of Leviticus and Deuteronomy with a potential convert? That never happens. Those books are kept in the dark in hopes nobody actually reads all the stuff in them.
Full and frank airing of the issues my foot. Every successful evangelist knows that the key to conversion is avoidance of full disclosure.
#6
I am sure you do not believe Deut 23:19 or Ex 22:25 to be the Word of God. Nor does any Christian, conservative or liberal. Most don’t even know these exist, and those who do don’t want to talk about them.
Two observations:
1) I learned a long time ago never to engage in battle of wits with an unarmed opponent. Your response will get no further comments from me.
2) Red Herring is never fit for consumption.
frreed,
Sorry, you’re neither intimidating me by calling me ignorant nor fooling me by your bluffing. I know I’m talking about grounds where your position is terribly weak. I suspect you do too.
Sidney. I affirm that they are the Word of God. I also affirm that usury is wrong and sinful. But that is not what the Gafcon discussion is about. No one is calling for the blessing of blanks or credit cards either. If you would care to research the issue, you would find that the Church has come to the conclusion that capitalism is not, by itself, sinful or not any more sinful that other economic systems. So, if you would like to discuss how to repair the rend that exists in the Anglican fabric, then please help us. But that rend will not be repaired with non-sequitors.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Thanks Philip.
You are indeed a good and gracious man.
Sidney, IIRC, the term is not actually “interest”, i.e., a reasonable and payable percentage for the use of money, as one would expect to pay for the use of any other resource, in hopes of making a productive investment. The term used for what was being forbidden, ruinously high interest rates, say 50%, 100%, 200% (think Pharisees profiting from the money-changers in the Temple), is “usury” termed correctly by Phil above. An example in our time would be paycheck loans taking advantage of desparate low-wage workers. That kind of moral law did not pass away even with Jesus’ sacrifice bringing blood-bought and washed Christians under grace instead of the Law that could only rightly condemn. Neither did certain other moral aspects of the Law pass away, which, given your previous comments on other threads here, I suspect you are using interest as a red herring to dismiss.
In Acts, the new Gentile converts were only given 4 points of the Law that it seemed good to the Apostles and to the Holy Spirit (not whatever other “spirit” denies more of Scripture at each succeeding TEC GenCon) to keep as essentials:
Acts 15: 28-29 “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials:
that you abstain from (eating) things sacrificed to idols and from (eating) blood and from (eating) things strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves free from such things, you do well. Farewell.”
Fornication (porneiea) is ANY sexual relationship other than a male-female marriage, as Jesus affirmed to the Pharisees when they asked Him whether divorce was lawful for any reason. He didn’t have to forbid by name a laundry list of specific sexual sins or of many other kinds of sins – He affirmed the narrow standard of the Law was good by fulfilling it rather than abolishing it.
As for evangelists trying to keep any part of the Old Testament a deep, dark secret a la The DaVinci Code, they sure do a poor cover-up when they exposit the whole Bible when you listen to them over a long enough period of time. If you yourself do not want to practice the kind of hypocrisy of which you accuse evangelicals and us by implication, read and listen to what evangelicals actually teach on the whole OT. A good, quick place to start might be the archived 5-year study of the complete Bible by J. Vernon McGee, archived for convenience as free downloads as a whole or by book of the Bible. Go to:
http://www.thruthebible.org/site/c.irLMKXPGLsF/b.4104151/
and click on Notes and Outlines and on MP3 Download of 5-Year Series. Come back when you know what evangelicals and conservatives REALLY believe about the Bible!
Milton,
As you would expect, I believe your position regarding the ‘excessive’ connotation is not correct. If true, the wording of the RSV and a lot of modern translations in these passages are simply lies. If there is evidence for your position, I’d certainly like to see it – but everything I’ve ever read is that there is no ‘excessive’ connotation at all. If there really is a controversy on this question, I’d like to see the debate – but I don’t see one.
So, you turn me to a five year study. How come one needs a five year study to understand the deep theology behind biblical teaching on interest, but on homosexual behavior the teaching is ‘plain’? (which, btw, I agree that it is.) Look, one can avoid and obfuscate issues by burying their discussion in massive treatises that most Christians, evangelicals most certainly included, never read. We can choose to make certain issues prominent by discussing them prominently. And when we don’t want to discuss them, we bury them in 5 year studies. There’s a very simple reason most people know what the Bible teaches about gays, but have no clue what it teaches about interest – the former is made prominent.
Phil, the discussion at GAFCON and everywhere else has allegedly been about the authority of scripture, and if that’s the case, then let’s talk about it all. I might add that we have quite a few bishops practicing interest collection.
I am more angry about the current situation in Anglicanism than you fellows think. I find a lot of what those on the left are promoting very irritating – looseness in sexuality among them. I would not be at T19 if I were satisfied with the information I get from my bishop or pro-ECUSA sources. But I’m equally tired of arguments from the right that clearly don’t work.
Deuteronomy 23:19You shall not charge interest on loans to another Israelite, interest on money, interest on provisions, interest on anything that is lent. Exodus 23:25 If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not exact interest from them.
From Article VII of the Articles of Religion: “. . . Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the Civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral.”
Sidney regards the prohibition of iterest as moral; others regard it as a “Civil precept.” I trust Sidney is not a hypocrite and has no financial dealings with those who charge interest. I’d like to know how he does it.
Sidney, do you want to learn or do you want to argue? Serious Bbible study is more than flipping open Scripture and reading the english translation and then offering one’s opinion of it. I assume that you agree with the Summary of the Law, yet that is a quote from Deut 6:5 and Lev. 19:18.
You say: “As you would expect, I believe your position regarding the ‘excessive’ connotation is not correct. If true, the wording of the RSV and a lot of modern translations in these passages are simply lies.” This statement indicates to me that you do not understand the problem of translation. No translation can ever do full justice to the language being translated. That is why many seminaries require student’s to learn the original language, in this case Hebrew.
There are books that will help you in reading scripture. [i] Grasping God’s Word[/i] by Scott Duvall and Daniel Hays is one. Another good place to start is [i] How to Read the Bible Book by Book[/i] by Fee and Stuart.
We have had these sort of dicsussions on this blog before.
The Hebrew word is “nashak” and one lexicon gives the following definition: “Meaning: 1) to bite 1a) (Qal) to bite 1b) (Piel) to bite 2) to pay, give interest, lend for interest or usury 2a) (Qal) to give interest 2b) (Hiphil) to make to give interest
Origin: a primitive root; TWOT – 1430,1430b; v
Usage: AV – bite 14, lend upon usury 2; 16” We also note that the prohibition on charging interest or usery applies only to the Jewish community. Foreigners may be charged.
Now do do a proper word study of “nashak” we would need to locate all instances of that word in the OT or NT and derive a meaning from the Biblical context in which that word is used. The lexicon is only suggestive and not determinative. Is there something in the word that causes us to distinguish between interest or usery (excess interest) I don’t know myself at this point. You may be correct or Milton may be. We need to determine how this law operated in it’s original context. Even if we were 5th Century Jews it might not apply to us so more study is needed.
Finally as Christians we need to read it through the lens of the NT.
It is interesting to me that the author of this article seems to not want to refer to the GAFCON movement but to the “Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans” [FCA]. He goes so far as to insert FCA into a quote from a GAFCON leader as if what was said was not adequate:
[blockquote] “What is being worked out†in the formation of the FCA “is the Gospel. Gafcon [FCA] is a proclamation of the ‘truth’,†he said. [/blockquote]
I seem to remember reading an explanation from a GAFCON leader that “fellowship of confessing anglicans” was intentionally left without capital letters because this was not the name of the group but a description of what they were about. This author, and others I have read, nevertheless seem moved to call it FCA even when its own leaders specifically do not. It makes me wonder why.
The GAFCON primates very clearly capitalized it in their statement last week. Most read this as a move in the direction of a new province in North America.
Sidney, I do assert, with every reliable Bible teacher I have ever heard or read, that many passages do not reveal their full meaning until one has become familiar with the whole Bible, as Scripture teaches Scripture, being many books inspired by one author, the Holy Spirit. But you are trying to get off the hook that you put yourself on by saying that the meaning is buried in a 5-year study. Read my comment more carefully:
Just go to the links I mentioned and download only the Notes and Outlines and zipped MP3 files for Exodus and Deuteronomy and stop falsely representing what evangelicals believe. Disagree if you will, but stop please putting words in our mouths.
No, my response was to a blatant exercise in isogesis expressed in a trollish attempt to demean evangelicals and sound catholic teaching. It was indeed witless and not worthy of further comment.
Well, if interests is the problem, then how do we read the parable of the Talents. – you know where the master entrusts 5 talents to one slave, 2 talents to another and one talent to a third. When the third slave returns and only gives back the talent, the master upbraids the slothful servant and says: “Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.” (Matt 25:27 RSV). Note that Jesus does not excoriate the master for earning interest or for wanting his money invested.
Given that the Hebrew word for “interest” (“usury in the KJV) is “nehshek.” (All the verses that use this noun can be found [url=http://cf.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H05392&t=kjv]here at blueletterbible.org[/url].) The root of this word is to “bite” and I think we can conclude that excessive interest (at times any interest at all can be excessive) is what is being considered. For example, credit card interest of 18% is nehshek. Payday loans are nehshek. Charging a poor person any interest would probably be nehshek.
Now, if people were calling for (and performing) blessings of credit card companies or payday loan operators or loan sharks and were for elevating those that ran these businesses to positions of church leadership, I could see Sidney’s point and doing so would cause just as big a stink in the Communion (I would hope). But that is not what is happening.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
#16 Br. Michael, thx for your comments. Obviously I am depending on the translations and commentaries I own and the renderings of the scholars who wrote them. I appreciate the additional resources.
#19 Milton, I grant I was a bit careless in what I wrote – yes, I see I can download book by book. Sorry.
#22 Phil, I don’t know why you (and others) think that the use of interest as an analogy in the Parable of the Talents bears on interest itself. But, suppose it does. Why assume these people are all Hebrews? Maybe the slaves are foreigners. Maybe they’re all foreigners. In which case the interest is ‘legit.’ And Jesus didn’t comment on the fact that slaves were being owned either – does that mean Jesus approved of slavery?
Another thought for those of you confident in the ‘excessive’ connotation. If this connotation was intended, why didn’t scripture define the meaning of excessive? It’s the very first question anybody planning to enforce the law would ask. How could this possibly be overlooked? Surely in all those thousands of words detailing the 10% tithe, the sacrifice rituals, cleanliness, somebody could have spared ten words to state what was meant.
Sidney, no offense taken, and I hope you will read and listen to McGee’s exegesis as one valid one among others. I’m sure you will enjoy it even if you disagree.
You raise a couple of interesting points in your #23 that I can’t resist mentioning.
No more than it means He approved of homosexual activity! 🙂
There goes up in smoke one of the favorite reappraiser chestnuts used to line Jesus up as a gay and lesbian supporter! The take on slavery in the Bible as a whole (there I go again! :)) seems to be that if you can gain your freedom, rather do that (quoting Paul) but that both slaves and masters could and should serve God in their earthly role produced by, in the eternal perspective, temporary circumstances. Masters were to treat their slaves fairly and kindly and slaves were to serve masters as serving and giving glory to God. Also keep in mind that 1st century and earlier slavery in Israel was nothing like the slavery of blacks in the U. S. and Britain, which often more closely resembled the Israelites’ slavery under Pharoh. The slavery tolerated and regulated in the Mosaic Law was more an indentured servitude, intended to be a temporary working off of a debt or a way to keep from starvation and destitution by presenting oneself as a slave for room and board.
Your other point that illustrates the need for exegesis by one who can read the Hebrew and Greek of the original texts and has researched the cultural contexts with all the assumptions of word connotations and idioms taken for granted in the intended audience but otherwise lost to a literal reading today:
Assumed knowledge of cultural context and idioms by the writers explain much of the omissions. Even the Jews down to the Pharisees added volumes of interpretations and applications of the Law many times the size of the Law itself. For that matter, think of the KJV translation of the Commandment “Thou shalt do no murder” contrasted with “Thou shalt not kill”. Not quite the same meaning, are they? St. Paul himself provides a rare but telling example of clarifying a misunderstanding of one of his earlier letters when he tells the Corinthians that when he said not to associate with immoral people, he meant with so-called Christians (believers) who committed immorality without repentance and amendment of life, for, of course, unbelievers could be expected to act so, and “they would have to go out of the world” to avoid them, also leaving no opportunity to evangelize them. The deeper one digs in the Bible, the more treasure one finds!