Bishop-elect David Anderson: When a father betrays the family, all suffer

This cannot be said in a few words. What is really going on in the Anglican Communion? Is there more going on than meets the eye? The answer is shocking and disappointing. A number of events are coming together to change the fundamental character of the Communion and re-establish the hegemony of the spiritually revisionist West.

Why has Rowan Williams overlooked the facts given him and welcomed the Episcopal Church to Lambeth anyway? The AAC provided Archbishop Williams with comprehensive documentation of the Episcopal Church’s words and actions relating to compliance with Dar es Salaam, usually in their own words, in direct quotes, with sources footnoted and internet weblinks. Did he bother to read it? Some pundits and commentators expected the Archbishop of Canterbury to actually review the facts, weigh the facts fairly and accurately, and properly discipline the current official branch of American Anglicanism, TEC.

Williams not only came to New Orleans with a closed mind to the provable facts, he came with a plan to swiftly undercut the orthodox Global South and those orthodox Americans whom they have supported. Within days, the optimistic pundits and commentators who thought that Dr. Williams cared about the morality and integrity of the Communion, cared about the Windsor Report, cared about the Dromantine and Dar es Salaam Communiques, were shown to be mistaken. What Dr. Williams cares about is holding onto American financial support, holding onto the revisionist provinces of England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, and allowing the pantheistic and homosexual agendas to continue their unfolding and flourishing.

Dr. Williams took two important actions upon leaving New Orleans: launching the Joint Standing Committee Report (very likely written before New Orleans by the Rev. Canon Dr. Gregory Cameron of the Anglican Communion Office); and immediately commencing a telephone campaign, phoning Anglican Primates to ask (read convince or coerce) their agreement that the Episcopal Church had substantially met the standards of the Dar es Salaam Communique.


The rest at Anglican Mainstream

Bishop Nazir-Ali may boycott Lambeth

Church of England gay clergy row intensifies
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent

A senior Church of England conservative has intensified the storm over homosexuals in the clergy by warning he will boycott next summer's Lambeth Conference if liberal American bishops are invited.

Bishop Nazir-Ali said profound differences needed to be resolved.

The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, said he would find it difficult to attend a Church council alongside those who consecrated or approved the appointment of Anglicanism's first openly gay bishop.

His comments are fresh evidence of the divisions within the Church of England over the issues and will exacerbate the difficulties facing the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, in maintaining unity.

Bishop Nazir-Ali's conservative views are thought to be shared by as many as one in four of his colleagues.

Another conservative, the Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, has claimed more than half of English bishops are considering whether to attend the Lambeth Conference, the ten-yearly gathering of all Anglican bishops, in Canterbury.

Bishop Nazir-Ali's remarks come at a hugely sensitive time for Dr Williams, who is fighting to keep the liberal American bishops in the worldwide Church despite pressure from conservatives to expel them for consecrating Gene Robinson in 2003.

Bishop Nazir-Ali said profound differences needed to be resolved because the American Church had now drifted apart from traditional Christianity in a number of fundamental areas.

He claimed that American clergy were increasingly weaving other faiths such as Buddhism and Hinduism into their worship and many regarded the Bible as a man-made book that could be rewritten rather than a revelation from God.


Thanks to TitusOneNine

Leander Harding responds to the Anglican Standing Committee

From TitusOneNine...

Response to the Report of the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Primates On The Reply of the American House of Bishops

The JSC has determined that the American HOB has responded adequately to requests from the Anglican Primates for clarification of their response to the Windsor Report both in terms of the approval of additional bishops in committed same-sex relationships and the approval of same-sex blessings.

At this point the statement becomes really an exercise in subterfuge....
The JSC accepts the undertaking made by the HOB in terms that the HOB never set and which are contradicted by numerous facts on the ground and the explicit statements of many bishops. By saying that such blessings when they take place are “without the bishop’s authority” the JSC is replaying on the communion wide stage the comical picture of LA bishop Bruno denying that the same-sex blessing described in the New York Times announcement page was going forward with his knowledge or authority. This is an attempt to finesse an issue that even the secular press will find duplicitous. It is inconceivable the HOB would discipline any of its members for allowing public same-sex blessings. A real undertaking not to authorize would mean to discipline those who take unauthorized action. This seems an attempt to generate a legal fiction for the purpose of giving TEC a pass by virtue of living into a legal fiction that it did not in its deliberations agree to. Meanwhile the spirit of Windsor cooperation which is what is really needed has been simply repudiated. The JSC is trying to give the HOB a way of playing the character Sargent Schultz from the sitcom Hogan’s Heroes. Schultz the German guard turned a blind eye to the shenanigans of the prisoners and when asked by his superiors about transgressions said famously, “I know nothing, I know nothing.” By its finesse and fine parsing of language the JSC is helpfully feeding the HOB this line. They are saying in effect, “we are going to say we take it in this way, you don’t protest and you will be able to say, ‘we know nothing.’”

There is a willful distortion of reality in this report that raises the most serious questions about whether the Primates can themselves be an instrument of unity and exercise meaningful authority in the communion. This report will not help the communion stay together. It is in every way a clever and artful (in the sinister sense of that word) document designed to deceive and cry peace where there is no peace. It can only seem odious to plain speaking people looking for plain talk about the really somber prospect of the break up of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. The ABC and the Primates have been badly let down by this report. I look with anticipation for a minority report from Bishop Mouneer Anis.

Why does this verse come to mind?

There Is Weeping in the Cathedral

Thanks to BabyBlue for this link:

From Charisma magazine:

It is a sad day for the Episcopal Church, which has officially traded the truth for a lie.

I don’t particularly enjoy writing obituaries. But today I hear the solemn sound of a tolling bell—deep, somber and depressing. For whom does the bell toll? It tolls for a denomination that has died.

I am speaking of the Episcopal Church, the American branch of the worldwide Anglican communion. Its grand cathedrals still stand in many of our major cities, even though membership is plummeting as its graying congregants pass away and its Bible-honoring members jump ship as fast as they can. Our own National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., is a part of the Episcopal Church USA. But it, like most other Episcopal churches, is just an ornate, hollow shell of what it once was.

There was a time when the Episcopal Church thrived. Decades ago it carried the good news of Christ throughout the world. In the 1960s and 1970s it experienced a miraculous charismatic renewal that was accompanied by conversions and healings. But today it preaches another gospel and its leaders have embraced a blasphemous delusion.

“It’s clear that the Episcopal Church achieved total desertion from biblical faith in 2003 when they voted to thumb their nose at God.”

No one really knows when the church actually breathed its last. Some say it was on a dark day in November 2003, when the denomination consecrated a practicing homosexual, Gene Robinson, as the bishop of New Hampshire. Others suggest that the church might still have a faint pulse—but they compare it to the vital signs of a terminally-ill patient on life-support.

When Episcopal bishops convened this past week in New Orleans for yet another anguished round of discussions about how to keep their church from splintering, they tiptoed around the issues as usual. They seem to love to talk an issue to death without taking decisive action. Any moral backbone in the denomination apparently turned to jelly a long time ago.

These people have deliberated, negotiated, compromised, debated and backpedaled for four years about whether homosexual practice is compatible with Scripture. They claimed to be “studying” whether it’s acceptable to perform gay marriages in front of God’s holy altar. Yet in all their talking and studying they never arrived at the truth. They exchanged it for a lie. They chose perversion rather than purity. They rejected the true God and fashioned idols that are politically correct and culturally relevant.

As predicted, the Episcopal House of Bishops chose to be cowards when they met in New Orleans. They did not reconsider the mistake of ordaining Robinson. They didn’t repent of their rebellion toward Scripture. They didn’t renounce their apostasy.

Yes, I said apostasy. That’s an old-fashioned word that should be reintroduced into our American vocabulary. Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines it as “an abandonment of what one has professed; a total desertion, or departure from one's faith or religion.”

It’s clear that the Episcopal Church achieved total desertion from biblical faith in 2003 when they voted to thumb their nose at God. After the church affirmed Robinson, a divorced father of two who left his wife for a gay lover, he told reporters that he was part of a sweeping movement that would one day introduce acceptance of homosexuality into America’s churches. And when describing his unorthodox views, he dared to suggest that gay Christianity is the “new thing” that was prophesied by Isaiah centuries ago.

Robinson’s arrogant words should have triggered an outcry. That any leader in the Episcopal Church would listen to such insidious sacrilege and not demand instant retraction—and Robinson’s dismissal—is proof that these people have gone completely off the deep end.

Thankfully there is a ray of hope on this sad day. Amid this chaos, God has raised up some brave leaders who not only have challenged the Episcopal Church’s heresy but who have set up alternative churches for those in their flocks who still honor Scripture. Three of these leaders, Chuck Murphy, Martyn Minns and John Guernsey, were featured last week in a front-page report in The Wall Street Journal.

What caught the attention of the mainstream media is that these men left the Episcopal Church and have been ordained as missionary bishops to the United States by Anglican leaders in Africa—where spiritual zeal is still hot, prayer meetings are well-attended and Anglican bishops still honor the authority of the Bible.

Murphy, based in South Carolina, is the leader of the Anglican Mission in America, a newly formed group of former Episcopal churches that adheres to solid biblical faith and plans to establish new churches here and abroad. Murphy answers to the Anglican bishop of Rwanda. The bishop of Nigeria ordained Minns when he bolted from the Episcopal Church. And the bishop of Uganda ordained Guernsey.

“There’s a big realignment happening,” Murphy told the newspaper. “We sent missionaries to Africa 150 years ago, and now Africa is returning the favor.”

The Nigerians, Ugandans and Rwandans cannot fathom the idea of betraying Jesus Christ. The tragic demise of the Episcopal Church USA certainly has challenged them—and hopefully all of us—to be trustworthy stewards of the gospel at a time when many are falling away from the faith.


J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma. He encourages you to pray for the Muslim world during the Islamic season of Ramadan. You can access a prayer guide here.

And your little dog, too....

In an amazing show of mean-spiritedness, the Presiding Bishop announces her rules for leaving TEC:

The Episcopal Church will make sure that any property it sells is not intended for use by parishes that plan to affiliate with other Anglican provinces, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said Sept. 30 on a visit to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.

”If a building is sold to a congregation, The Episcopal Church as a whole is not so concerned if it’s going to be a community church,” she said, although there must be assurances that stewardship was addressed and that the building was sold at fair market value. “But if a congregation purports to set up as another part of the Anglican Communion, we are concerned about that.”

D-Day ...or not....

Here we are, at September 30th. Will this be the day a decision is made or will this be yet another "let's wait until the next meeting" moment? I'm just too tired to stress at this point.

I shall take my family and we will go to church this morning and worship God. Let the heretics and pagans go their way this morning and may God have mercy on us all.

Day 40


Scripture

“See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone's work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
“It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book; if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away that person's share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.

Revelation 22:12-21 (NRSV)


Prayer
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

“First Sunday of Advent,” The Book of Common Prayer (1979, USA; traditional)



Reflection
“And after this, what can be supposed wanting in order to salvation? We have the Word of God, the Faith of the Apostles, the Creeds of the Primitive Church, the Articles of the four first general Councils, a holy Liturgy, excellent Prayers, perfect Sacraments, Faith and Repentance, the Ten Commandments, and the Sermons of Christ, and all the precepts and counsels of the Gospel; We teach the necessity of good works, and require and strictly exact the severity of a holy life; We live in obedience to God, and are ready to die for him, and do so when he requires us so to do; We speak honourably of his most holy Name, we worship him at the mention of his Name, we confess his Attributes, we love his Servants, we pray for all Men, we love all Christians, even our most erring Brethren, we confess our sins to God and to our Brethren whom we have offended, and to God's Ministers in cases of Scandal, or of a troubled Conscience.”


Bishop Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667)