Church of England Follows Episcopal Church in Revisionist Stand on Women Bishops & Homosexuality

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8571

[VirtueOnline] 9 Jul 2008--Church of England traditionalists got their single biggest wake-up call, yesterday, when the Synod decided to consecrate women bishops, rejecting compromise proposals for new "super bishops" that would have offered a safety net for those opposed to women's ascent to the episcopacy.

It was the same "in your face" act as the marriage of two queer priests in St. Bartholomew's Church, London recently, an act as communion breaking as the ordination of women. No discipline has been metered out because there is no discipline left in the CofE, nor is there anyone to exercise it, any more than there is discipline in the Episcopal Church except, of course, if you are orthodox in faith and morals.

These two acts come in the wake earlier this week of the Bishop of Durham's harangue against the GAFCON crowd, now viewed as the ecclesiastical bastard children of Canterbury even though it was he who said, that the Church of England is nothing like the North American churches.

Here is what Dr. N. T. Wright said: "GAFCON proposals are not only not needed in England, but are positively harmful and indeed offensive." Carefully distinguishing between the American and English situations, Wright said, "AS FAR AS ENGLAND IS CONCERNED, it is damaging, arrogant and irrelevant for GAFCON leaders to say, as they are now doing, 'choose you this day whom you will serve', with the implication that there are now only two parties in the church, the orthodox and the liberals, and that to refuse to sign up to GAFCON is to decide for the liberals. Things are just not like that. Certainly not here in England."

Really. The Bishop of Durham must be eating those words today. The Church of England now faces schism over the threat of a mass exodus of some 1300 traditionalist clergy because of the actions of Synod. Furthermore, a year ago a petition was sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury by leading Evangelicals saying they no longer wanted to be under liberal CofE bishops. While the petition went nowhere, it indicated the deep fissures that lie just beneath the surface in the CofE, fissures that will, over time, only widen.

As recently as 2005, studies showed a vast see of unbelief lurking beneath the surface of the tranquil CofE. Peter LeRoy, a layman from the diocese of Bath and Wells, said at that time that the definition of an Anglican was someone "who can believe anything they want, as long as it is not (held) too strongly". He said heresy trials were essential to persuade clergy to endorse "sound teaching". Quoting from a survey carried out in 2002 on what the Church of England believed in, he said just 76 per cent of clergy believed Jesus Christ died to take away the sins of the world, 68 per cent believed Jesus rose physically from the dead and 53 per cent believed faith in Jesus was the only way they could be saved. Among women clergy, the figures came in at about 10 per cent lower in each category. Many of these women will now become bishops.

Perhaps Bishop Wright has clearly forgotten those reports.