Talking of satire: in Gordon’s old thread on this topic I compared the Anglican Communion to Monty Python’s dead parrot sketch (with Peter Akinola as the aggrieved customer “Its bleeding demised” and Rowan Williams as the shop keeper. And maybe gafcon as a new parrot.)
But this morning I read in an old issue of the Economist (Feb 14, 2008) that someone had got there first.
“ANGLICANISM, it seems, is coming apart. It is ceasing to be, it is disintegrating...” Those cheery words, uttered two weeks ago by an American bishop, Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, drew cries of approval from traditionalists across the world who have little sympathy with the efforts of Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to hold together the 80m-strong worldwide Anglican Communion.
The American prelate went on to predict that out of the fall of the “Elizabethan settlement” (the 16th-century bargain between the Tudor monarchs and England’s national church) something truer to Christianity’s roots would emerge, presumably based on an alliance between America’s conservative minority, the Africans and evangelicals in other places like Australia.
Duncan is an evangelical who may be on the verge of leading his diocese out of TEC and he will be at gafcon. With the exception of the word “traditionalist” in this story (but not others) The Economist gets it right.
t seems to me the people who will feel the most tension and pain through this process are the genuine Anglo-Catholics. For evangelicals, the Bible makes matters clear. For liberal Anglo-Catholics, they are pushing as hard as they can in the other direction. But I feel sorry for those Anglo-Catholics who still hold to orthodoxy and biblical ethics, and are trying to work out what to do.
Peter,The Anglo Catholics who left TEC after the 1976 General Convention voted for the ordination of women, might regard Evangelicals as stayng with false teachers far too long. Some 600 parishes have been formed, which would sem to indicate most have left.
I came across a great interview with a Nigerian bishop here, including this gem:
Bishop Nwosu received his theological training first at Trinity College in Umuahia where many of his teachers came from the UK, USA and Australia. He later attended Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and returned to his country. He then returned in 1992 for his doctoral dissertation at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. He also took the London University BD and Oxford University certificate in theology.
“I want to give the lie to Western liberal Anglicans who say we are uneducated and backward blacks who don’t know what we are talking about. We know exactly what we are talking about and the gospel we got from you is what we proclaim today.”
[My bold]
In context, the “you” that he refers to is the Western Christian teachers and missionaries they had, not the current-day liberals.
That’s great stuff, Terry. It reminds me of 2 Tim 2:2!
It’s good to see that the GAFCON blog is getting regular updates. Here’s an entry from yesterday where Peter Jensen speaks of how contemporary Christianity has lost sight of the wrath of God.
This was a good quote:
Many false teachings (or lack of true teaching) begin with an inadequate idea of human sin. In the twentieth century, there were significant advances made in psychology. We learned more clearly than ever before the effect of the brain on human behaviour, the shaping we experience through our parents, and the sort of things which motivate and explain the way we operate. Much of this has been for the real betterment of people.
One of the ways this is currently seen is in the tendency to minimize homosexuality by calling it an inclination or a tendency, rather than speaking of it as sin. I am sure this adds to the confusion about how to respond rightly to the endorsement by TEC and others of homosexual behaviour.
NT Wright has an extraordinary ability to pour forth words. If you look long and hard enough (towards the end of this recent document) you will discover him inviting a comparison between Rowan Williams and the apostle Paul, and the false teachers at Corinth (’super-apostles’) with the evangelicals who are not attending Lambeth.
From time to time NT Wright becomes intemperate and reveals what he is really thinking. This is one example. It has the useful if unintended effect of showing that NT Wright draws a clear distinction between his own position and that of reformed evangelicals.
NT Wright has an extraordinary ability to pour forth words. If you look long and hard enough (towards the end of this recent document) you will discover him inviting a comparison between Rowan Williams and the apostle Paul, and the false teachers at Corinth (’super-apostles’) with the evangelicals who are not attending Lambeth.
I actually think it is worse than this
What NT Wright has done in the speech that Gordon has drawn our attention to is to link the leaders of Gafcon to the Super Apostles of 2 Cor. Clearly from 2 Cor 11 the super apostles are false prophets, ie apostates, in other words Jensen and Akinola are false prophets/apostates.
Now Wright might say he doesn’t mean that, but that, without naming names is what he has done.
There can be no question we are witnessing the unraveling of the Anglican Communion and it is going to be messy.
(I notice that OA and LS have taken exception to my post on Sydney Anglicans and homosexuality - I will respond tomorrow, today has been a fabulous day of worship and fellowship at South Yarra PC and lunch with our son and daughter in law, so why get cantankerous?)
It would be easy to see how supporters of Packer and Short would view attendance at Lambeth 2008, by those claiming to be evangelicals, as a form of betrayal of the stand that Packer and Short have taken.
Fair enough too. As the issues become clearer, the unhealthy compromise involved in evangelicals attending the Lambeth get-together likewise becomes clearer.
The conservative evangelical Bishop with whom Packer and Short have allied themselves, Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone has told the Vancouver Sun that he is going to Lambeth.
This may make some of Gordon’s rhetoric appear a little overheated. Venables is obviously a key supporter of Packer and Short as the bishop with whom they have sought refuge. I doubt whether they would regard him as a betrayer.
(I am not addressing the wisdom or otherwise of going to Lambeth at this point - but I do question the wisdom of some of the rhetoric aimed at evangelicals who are going there. Some of them such as Venables and Anis are Gafcon allies.)
Here is quote from the Sun:
“However, Venables (who is a second cousin to the famous retired British soccer star and manager, Terry Venables) said he will go to this summer’s once-every-decade Lambeth conference in England to declare that choosing one’s religion is not the same as picking a favourite soccer team.
There is, Venables said, only one true faith, Christianity, and the exclusive way to salvation is through Jesus Christ.
Even though powerful Anglican archbishops from Africa and elsewhere have been lending their support to conservative Anglicans in the U.S. and Canada who oppose same-sex blessings, Venables made it clear he did not agree with Nigerian Primate Peter Akinola’s efforts to make it a criminal offence in that country to be in a homosexual relationship or group.
....the archbishop argued, the blessing of homosexual relationships is a “doctrinal” issue and the practice contradicts teachings of the Bible, which he believes has absolute authority. “
Here is what Packer thinks of Venables: “Despite the fact that in Acts 27 the ship was wrecked, everyone was saved and got safe to land, and we have got safe to land in the same way through the generous offer of jurisdiction from AB Venables which we have settled for most gratefully. I want to celebrate the goodness and graciousness of AB Venables. “
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8130
The conservative evangelical Bishop with whom Packer and Short have allied themselves, Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone has told the Vancouver Sun that he is going to Lambeth.
This may make some of Gordon’s rhetoric appear a little overheated.
Well, I haven’t said that it would be a betrayal, so much that it would be hard not to be perceived that way by Packer-Short supporters. As a general statement, that remains true.
The case of Venables is clearly different, in that he is going with the express and publicly stated intention of delivering a protest.
I doubt his message will be welcome, but lots will be done to make it appear that he is being welcomed.
Gordon, I am sure you speak for many, particularly in Sydney. And I am a lambeth skeptic like yourself. But with both Venables and Packer quoted (in my earlier post) in the context of a rally of the conservative evangelicals leaving the Anglican Church of Canada, I can’t see those supporters of Packer and Short seeing Venables as a betrayer. Why attack people who are coming to Gafcon? I can’t see the point. It gives those who would disparage Gafcon a free kick.
Gordon, didn’t your thinly-veiled attacks-by-inference get you into hot water recently?
Your behaviour of baiting people here (though I notice no one has been biting, thankfully) and attacking others might be seen by some reasonable people as unwise, and somewhat troll-like.
Of course I’m not saying it is or isn’t unwise or troll-like, but as a general statement it remains true.
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