Friday, May 13, 2005

Mutiny?!

Commentary by Robin G. Jordan

Do the so-called liberal leaders of the Episcopal Church with their wild talk of right wing conspiracies and now mutinies and plots going back 30 years believe that any reasonable person in his right mind would entertain such preposterous claims – would believe such nonsense as orthodox Episcopalians are deliberately inflaming their fellow Anglicans around the world in order to bring about the expulsion of the Episcopal Church from the Anglican Communion? Really! The unpleasant truth is that they made a very serious error in judgment and refuse to own up to it. They expected orthodox Episcopalians in the United States and orthodox Anglicans outside it to acquiesce to their theological and moral innovations. They cynically told each other that orthodox Anglicans in Africa and elsewhere in the global South would make loud noises of protest but would not do anything. They were wrong!

The Episcopal Church’s so-called liberal leaders are the ones that have led in the Episcopal Church on its present disastrous course and they should be held accountable for it. They have led the Episcopal Church into apostasy. They have concealed this movement away from the historical Christian faith behind a smoke screen of words like “diversity,” “inclusivism,” and “pluralism.” Ignorant of what the Bible teaches, and having been taught to not question the leadership of their bishops and clergy, many Episcopalians have followed them. Now these leaders are expressing surprise that the leading bishops of the global South Anglican Church – godly men ruled by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit - are taking them to task for their abandonment of the teaching of the Bible and the historic Christian faith. How disingenuous on their part! At the 1998 Lambeth Conference and at subsequent meetings of the Primates the same leaders were called to repent. Did they turn away from their apostasy? No! They hardened their hearts and ignored this call to repentance. They persisted in leading the Episcopal Church away from orthodox Christianity.

In an ongoing campaign of misinformation and lies orthodox Episcopalians struggling to uphold and preserve the historic Christian faith – to which the preamble of the Episcopal Church’s own constitution commits that church – have been labeled “dissidents,” “rebels,” and now mutineers. Yet the real dissidents are the Episcopal Church so-called liberal leaders. They are the actual rebels – those who are mutinying against the Word of God and 2000 years of Christian teaching based upon God’s Word. Indeed to rebel against God’s Word is to rebel against God and to league one’s self with the arch-rebel himself – Satan. They have chosen to declare what God calls sin is not sin, to authorize the blessing of what God does not bless and to bless what he does not bless, and to elevate to the office and order of bishop a notorious sinner, a man who should not be welcomed to the Lord's’ Table, much less consecrated a bishop of the one holy catholic and apostolic church.

If the Episcopal Church is asked to withdraw from the Anglican Communion, the fault will lie with the clerical and lay leaders who have promoted the ordination of non-celibate gay deacons and priests, the blessing of same sex unions, and the consecration of a non-celibate gay bishop. The blame for the Episcopal Church’s expulsion will be theirs.

In the days ahead Episcopalians can expect to hear many appeals to their loyalty to the institutional church from the very same leaders. They will be asked to choose between the Episcopal Church and the Word of God, between the Episcopal Church and the historic Christian faith, and between the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Episcopalians really need to think twice before they listen to such appeals. The institutional church is not the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. Episcopalians have historically held that the visible church of Christ is a congregation of believers in which the pure Word of God is preached and in which the sacraments are rightly administered according to Christ’s command in all those matters that are necessary for proper administration. Only a few of the Episcopal Church’s congregations from this perspective are the visible church of Christ. In many Episcopal parishes and churches the pure Word of God is no longer preached. While those who are believers are known to God alone, it becomes increasingly doubtful in an apostate church that many in a particular congregation have turned from their sins, asked God ‘s forgiveness, and trusted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior – what sets a believer apart from a non-believer. Whether the sacraments are rightly administered according Christ’s command in all those matters that are necessary for proper administration is also doubtful. This will certainly be the case if the Episcopal Church adopts “open communion,” admitting to the Lord’s Table those who are not baptized and who do not believe – Buddhists, Muslims, Wiccans and other non-Christians. When our Lord spoke to the disciples, saying “Do this in remembrance of me,” he was speaking to believers, with the exception of the one who betrayed him. He was not speaking to the multitude but to his closest followers.

Episcopalians have also historically held that those who lack a living faith, although they physically and visibly “press with their teeth,” in the words of St. Augustine, the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ are in no way partakers of Christ. Rather, by eating and drinking “the sign or sacrament of so great a thing,” they bring condemnation upon themselves. Judas Iscariot ate the Last Supper with our Lord but received no grace thereby. Rather the devil entered him. Only to those who receive the sacrament of Holy Communion “rightly, worthily, and with faith” is the bread that we break a partaking of the body of Christ and similarly the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ. Only in those who worthily receive the sacrament, does the sacrament have a beneficial effect or operation.

Our first loyalty as Christians is not to a particular institutional church. It is to the Lord Jesus Christ – to the Lord of the Church – that invisible body of those who have believed in Christ through the message of the apostles and who are united to Christ and each other by the Holy Spirit. Through its present apostasy the Episcopal Church has broken with the faith once delivered to the apostles. It no longer heeds the apostles’ message. Its schism with apostolic teaching grows wider every day. With its consecration of a non-celibate gay bishop it has severed itself from the one holy, catholic and apostolic church. It is a “church,” a legal corporation classified under Federal and State law as such an entity. However, except for a few orthodox congregations, it is no longer the Church. The ultimate choice that Episcopalians will be facing – indeed they are now facing – is between a religious organization, the Episcopal Church, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

No comments: