Monday, May 16, 2005
Dear Ms. Reynolds:
I am writing this open letter in response to your article,”Fight for the faith: Two Anglican parishes form opposing camps,” published in the Laurel Leader on May 12, 2005. The article offers an inaccurate and unbalanced picture of orthodox Anglicanism in the United States. Based upon the space given in the article to the opinions and views of the proponents of the Episcopal Church’s liberal political and social agenda, one is given the distinct impression that you sympathize with these opinions and views and wrote the article in order to provide a platform from which they could be presented.
Orthodox Anglicans in the United States are a diverse group, including evangelicals, charismatic, and Anglo-Catholics both in and outside the Episcopal Church. The Anglican Catholic Church organized by a group of Anglo-Catholic traditionalists who left the Episcopal Church back in the 1970s over prayer book revision and women’s ordination is hardly representative of Anglican orthodoxy in this country. Some orthodox Anglicans have not embraced prayer book revision and women’s ordination; others have. As an Anglican entity the Anglican Catholic Church is more representative of the alphabet soup of Continuing Churches that were organized in the 1970s largely by Anglo-Catholic traditionalists.
Unlike the Church of England the Episcopal Church made no provision for those who for reasons of conscience were unable to accept the changes in the prayer book or the ordination of women. This led to the exodus of a number of Anglo-Catholic groups from the Episcopal Church. The Church of England, on the other hand, gave parishes and churches the option of continuing to use the 1662 Book of Common Prayer when it introduced the Alternative Service Book of 1980. They retained this option with the introduction of the Church of England’s new service book Common Worship in 2000. They were also given the option of requesting alternative episcopal oversight from a bishop who shared their theological views if they disagreed with their bishop over women’s ordination. The Episcopal Church, however, chose not to take such an enlightened approach. Rather it adopted the Dennis Canon that enables a diocese to seize the church property of any group that for reasons of conscience believe that it can no longer remain in the Episcopal Church.
A more accurate and balanced picture of orthodox Anglicanism in America would have included interviews with the leaders of the three leading orthodox Anglican organizations in the Episcopal Church – the American Anglican Council, the Anglican Communion Network, and Forward in Faith North America - and profiles of a number of Episcopal parishes and churches affiliated with these organizations. You would have found churches and parishes that use contemporary language rites and free-flowing forms of worship, drama and skits, multimedia projectors, and praise and worship and contemporary Christian songs as well as those which are more traditional in their approach to worship, churches and parishes that have woman priests on staff and those which do not. A more accurate and balanced picture would have also included interviews with the leaders of the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) and the newly organized Convocation of Nigerian Anglican Churches in America (CNACiA), leading orthodox Anglican organizations outside of the Episcopal Church. The AMIA was organized in 2005 in response to the continuing drift of the Episcopal Church away from orthodox Christianity. It is a missionary outreach to North America and is connected to the Anglican Communion through its sponsors - the Anglican Province of Rwanda and the Anglican Archbishop of South East Asia. It enjoys the support of a number of leading orthodox Anglican bishops around the world. The Archbishop of Nigeria Peter Akinola announced the formation of the CNACiA in April of this year (See "A Word to Nigerian Anglicans in North America" at http://www.anglican-nig.org/prlttr_northamerica.htm). It is to provide a safe haven for Nigerian Anglicans in the United States who cannot for reasons of conscience worship in Episcopal Church due to its departure from the spiritual and doctrinal direction of orthodox Anglicanism.. A more accurate and balanced picture of orthodox Anglicanism in America would have also included profiles of the churches affiliated with the AMiA and the CNACiA, profiles of the Episcopal churches that have sought the oversight of orthodox bishops or archbishops in other Anglican provinces, and interviews with their leaders and members.
At the heart of Anglicanism is the belief that the Bible is the written Word of God. While the Bible may have had human writers, its author is the Holy Spirit. God’s will for humankind is revealed in its pages. It is this belief that spurred Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and the other English Reformers to reform the English Church in the 16th century. They sought to restore “the faith of Christ as professed by the Primitive Church.” To that end they disowned and rejected all the innovations in doctrine and worship by which the “Primitive Faith” had over the centuries been defaced or overlaid. What is going on today in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion is not a dispute over human sexuality or different interpretations of Scripture although it is often presented as one or the other or both. It is a dispute over the inspiration and authority of the Bible. Since the 19th century skepticism, rationalism, Liberalism, Bible criticism, humanism, and more recently relativism and post-modernism have chipped away at this basic tenet of Anglicanism in the Episcopal Church. In many parts of the United States Episcopalians no longer believe that the Bible is the written Word of God. They have not only abandoned this basic tenet of Anglicanism but argue for a redefinition of Anglicanism which includes a wide latitude of belief on the place of the Bible in the Christian faith. They have placed themselves at odds with the mainstream of Anglican thought. One could say that they have adopted a decidedly un-Anglican view of the Bible although they would argue otherwise. It is also a dispute about the Episcopal Church’s abandonment of 2000 years of Christian teaching. As well as abandoning belief in the inspiration and authority of the Bible and promoting a new definition of Anglicanism, American Episcopalians have also discarded a number of fundamental Christian beliefs. Many Episcopalians no longer belief in the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ and have embraced pluralism, which is mistakenly referred to as “inclusivism.” They reject the Biblical concept of sin and therefore our need for a Savior. Thom Rainer, Dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has observed that inclusivism has all the earmarks of being the major heresy of the 21st century and already infects a number of mainline denominations.
The 1998 Lambeth Bishops Conference affirmed that the Bible teaches that sexual activity belongs solely in marriage between a man and a woman. Homosexual practice is not consistent with the teaching of the Bible. This is the official position of the Anglican Communion. It is also the view of the overwhelming majority of Christians in history and in the world today. It was the stated position of the Episcopal Church until the 2003 General Convention. However, in the years preceding that General Convention a number of Episcopal bishops had begun to ordain non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy in contradiction to the Episcopal Church’s stated position, emboldened by the failure of the Episcopal Church to discipline Bishop Richter for ordaining a practicing homosexual . Among these bishops was Frank Griswold who eventually became the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. The 1998 Lambeth Bishops Conference called upon these bishops to desist from this un-Scriptural innovation and repent of their apostasy. After the Diocesan Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire elected a non-celibate gay man as bishop of the diocese, the Primates of the Anglican Communion warned the Episcopal Church that his confirmation and consecration could harm ecumenical and interfaith relations as well as relations between the Episcopal Church and the larger Anglican Communion. Despite repeated warnings the Episcopal Church confirmed and consecrated Gene Robinson. The Episcopal Church also sanctioned the blessing of same sex unions and experimentation with rites for the blessing of such unions at the diocesan and local level. A number of bishops had already been allowing these blessings in their dioceses. In doing so, the Episcopal Church violated its own constitution which committed the church to upholding and preserving the historical Christian faith. This led to almost two-thirds of the Provinces of the Anglican Communion declaring a state of broken or impaired communion exists between the Episcopal Church and themselves. It led to the appointment of the Lambeth Commission on Communion and the issuance of the Windsor Report with its recommendations of moratoriums on the blessing of same sex unions and the consecration of bishops involved in sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman. More recently, it has led to the Primates of the Anglican Communion requesting that the Episcopal Church withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council for a period of three years, the closest thing that a voluntary organization like the Anglican Communion can come to suspending the Episcopal Church from that body. The Episcopal Church has not properly complied with their request. It has announced that it will withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council but will nonetheless send its representatives to the next meeting of the Council in Nottingham, England in June. It has also refused to adopt a binding moratorium on the blessing of same sex unions as it was asked to do. This does not portend well for relations between the Episcopal Church and the more orthodox global South Anglican provinces. The Episcopal Church may at some date in the not too distant future be asked to withdraw from the Anglican Communion altogether.
I noticed that your article did not address how a number of Episcopal bishops have been persecuting orthodox clergy and congregations in their dioceses, how the Episcopal Church was asked to make provision for adequate alternative episcopal oversight for these clergy and congregations, and how the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishop responded to this request with “Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight,” and how this scheme has failed to meet the need for adequate alternative episcopal oversight. Congregations have been told to leave the Episcopal Church; clergy have been inhibited and disposed or stripped of their licenses. In a letter to Presiding Bishop Griswold, the Most Reverend Gregory J. Venables, Primate of the Southern Cone of the Americas, recently wrote:
“You tell us that ‘Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight’ is moving toward solving the problem in your province. It is not so. First of all it leaves the decisions in the hands of the offending bishops and does not give any substantive protection to parishes that maintain Anglican teaching and practice. In addition, we are aware of ECUSA clergy and parishes who have been ordered by their revisionist bishops not to ask for alternative oversight, threatened if they do, or who live in areas where bishops have publicly stated that they will not allow it. The fact that ‘some’ bishops will arrange for Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight does not mean at all that it can be put in place where it is really needed.”
I also noticed that you did not ask if Bishop Chane had sent any postulants for the priesthood from his diocese to Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry and if not, why. In the Episcopal Church the diocesan bishop has a lot to say as to what seminary a postulant attends. If no one from Chane’s diocese is attending TESM, he has something to do with it. You seem only too willing to let Chane call Dean Zahl a liar and to characterize orthodox Anglicans in the Episcopal Church as liars.
It is remarkable that Bishop Chane can claim that schism is worse than heresy. The Episcopal Church is involved in a serious division – schism – with the Anglican Communion over the inspiration and authority of the Bible and Chane is one of the leaders of those who have caused this division – a schismatic. Obviously he willing to point out the tiny fleck of sawdust in the eye of his brother while ignoring the great wooden beam in his own eye. Like Presiding Bishop Griswold he is only too eager to minimize the seriousness of this division and to claim that the preoccupation of mainstream Anglicans with the un-Scriptural innovations of the Episcopal Church is distracting Anglicans from the common task of mission. How he and Griswold would like the Anglican Communion to overlook these innovations. However, the Anglican Primates cannot do so and remain faithful to their vow “with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God’s Word; and both privately and openly call upon and encourage others to the same.”
Sincerely,
Robin G. Jordan
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