Turning Point

Commentary by Robin G. Jordan

The primates are meeting this week in Northern Ireland. They will be considering the report of the Lambeth Comission on Communion appointed by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and chaired by Archbishop of Armagh Robin Eames. From past experience we must be prepared for the worst.

What are the ramifications if the primates adopt the Windsor Report? The Australian Anglican Church League has done an excellent job of pointing out how the language of the report basically supports a revisionist view of the Bible; is overly-sympathetic toward the revisionist position in many areas, avoids condemning the revisionist view of homosexuality; is critical of those defending the faith delivered to the saints in the Episcopal Church USA and the Diocese of New Westminster; does not go far enough in its calling for these two bodies and their leaders to express regret for what they have done and to place a moratorium on the consecration of sexually active homosexuals as bishops and the blessing of homosexual liaisons; and goes too far in its condemning of those orthodox bishops who have intervened in the United States and Canada. The Anglican Church League has furthered pointed out that the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant is unacceptable to Anglican Evangelicals.

Adoption of the Windsor Report would mean that the primates concur with the report’s definition of the problem – failure on the part of the Episcopal Church USA and the Diocese of New Westminster to consult the other provinces before proceeding to consecrate a sexually active homosexual bishop and to sanction the blessing of homosexual liaisons and unwarranted intervention by other provinces in the affairs of an autonomous province. It calls for only a temporary halt to the consecration of practicing homosexuals as bishops and the blessing of homosexual liaisons. It bars any further intervention in the defense of the faith once delivered to the apostles and of persecuted orthodox clergy and congregations in the Episcopal Church USA and the Diocese of New Westminster and leaves orthodox clergy and congregations in those bodies at the mercy of their revisionist bishops. It attempts to impose upon the Anglican Communion’s Evangelical wing a covenant that they will be unable to accept and in doing so creates further division in the Anglican Communion.

Adoption of the Windsor Report and its recommendations will do nothing to resolve the real problem – the unscriptural, heretical beliefs of the Episcopal Church USA and the Diocese of New Westminster, their rejection of the divine inspiration and supreme authority of the Bible, and their apostasy from orthodox Christianity. It will give the Archbishop of Canterbury – himself a leading revisionist in his province and an appointee of the liberal British government - almost papal authority – something totally un-Anglican and quite unacceptable to Anglican Evangelicals and moderate Anglicans.

Adoption of the Windsor Report and its recommendations will contribute to the fragmentation of the Anglican Communion and its eventual dissolution. Despite its calls for moratoriums on sexually active homosexual bishops and the blessing of homosexual liaisons the Windsor Report essentially accommodates the revisionists in the Anglican Communion. The revisionist bishop who observed that the report takes the view that the affirmation of homosexuality as in the process of reception in the Anglican Communion is correct in his observation. The report does not condemn homosexuality as sexual immorality and sin. Nor does it call for a ban on the ordination of practicing homosexuals and the blessing of homosexual liaisons or the removal of bishops who ordain sexually active gays and lesbians or sanction the blessing of gay and lesbian relationships or the inhibiting and deposition of clergy engaging in homosexual activity or blessing homosexual couples.

The outlook for the Anglican Communion and for orthodox Anglicans in the Episcopal Church USA and the Diocese of New Westminster is grim, very grim indeed.