High Stakes at Nottingham

Commentary by Robin G. Jordan

From the articles posted on the Internet during the past few days liberal groups in the Anglican Church of Canada, the Church of England, and the Episcopal Church USA appear intent on hijacking the June meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in Nottingham, England, and turning the meeting into a forum for promoting the normalization of homosexuality in the Anglican Communion. Their apparent aim is to undermine the 1998 Lambeth Resolution on Human Sexuality as the official position of the Anglican Communion (and the only true biblical position) upon homosexuality and to block the efforts of the Primates’ Meeting to impose sanctions upon Anglican provinces and dioceses that do not conform to the teaching of the Bible.

At their last meeting the Anglicans Primates requested that the Anglican Consultative Council conduct a hearing at its Nottingham meeting. The North American churches were asked to present at that hearing their theological rationale for the innovations that they have initiated – the blessing of same sex unions in the case of both churches and the consecration of a bishop involved in sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and a woman in the case of the ECUSA. The Episcopal Church has subsequently announced through Bishop Charles Jenkins, the chairperson of the Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice, its intention to focus in its presentation at the hearing upon the experience of the Episcopal Church with gays and lesbians and not upon the theology behind its innovations. This, however, is not what the Primates asked the North American churches to do. The Primates also asked the North American churches to withdraw their representatives from the ACC but both churches are sending their representatives to the meeting as “non-participating observers,” lobbyists on the behalf of their respective churches and the innovations they have initiated.

Doctrine and practice in Anglicanism has been historically based upon the Scripture principle: Anglican beliefs and values like Christian beliefs and values must be fully grounded in Scripture. How the ECUSA is planning to go about its presentation is typically liberal and revisionist. In their dialogue with orthodox Episcopalians liberals in the Episcopal Church have invariably emphasized contemporary experience over the teaching of the Bible, God’s revealed will for humanity. Revisionist is an apt description for their working theology because it seeks to change the basis of Anglican doctrine and practice – to replace the Word of God with contemporary experience.

Liberal groups are treating the hearing at the upcoming Anglican Consultative Council meeting as a hearing upon the Anglican Communion’s official position on homosexuality and not as a hearing on the North American churches’ departure from that position. The amount of attention that liberal groups are giving to the meeting suggests that they hope to persuade the ACC to issue a statement more favorable to their position on homosexuality (and ultimately the authority of the Bible), a statement to which they can appeal in their claims that the 1998 Lambeth Bishop Conference and the more recent Primates Meeting do not express the mind of the Anglican Communion. This is a modification of the strategy that called for an Anglican Consultative Council-sponsored Anglican Lay Assembly to study the issue of human sexuality at the same time as the Anglican Primates Meeting was studying the issue. The proposed Lay Assembly, of course, would have been dominated by liberals and its pronouncements would have countered those made by the Primates Meeting.

The Anglican Communion’s liberal wing is following the lead of the Anglican Church of Canada’s Theological Commission in asserting that the issue of homosexuality is not a Communion-breaking issue. The Anglican Church of Canada’s Theological Commission also saw no difference between the blessing of same sex unions and gay marriage. The views of that body do not have the full support of Canadian Anglicans and have not been officially endorsed by the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod. Their views are certainly not shared by the 22 of the Anglican Communion’s 33 Provinces that have declared a state of broken or impaired communion exists between them and the Episcopal Church as a result of its doctrinal and moral innovations.

The release of the so-called Anglican Global Initiative less than two weeks before the Nottingham meeting has all the appearances of being intended to prejudice Anglican opinion against orthodox groups in the Episcopal Church and against the global South Primates and to bolster liberal allegations of a right-wing conspiracy to replace the liberal Episcopal Church with a more orthodox Anglican body. Even Dr. Jenny Plane Ta Paa, the liberal New Zealand representative on the Lambeth Commission on Communion raised the specter of a right-wing conspiracy in her recent remarks to the General Synod of the Episcopal Church ‘s Province IV, allegations that she, when she was pressed, was unable or unwilling to substantiate.

Since situational ethics have replaced Christian moral values among liberal Anglicans and Episcopalians, none of these actions should really surprise us. They feel justified in using any tactic to achieve their goals. Determining the terms by which a church can be a constituent member of the Anglican Communion is certainly one of those goals. They want to maintain for themselves and their respective churches an illusion of “Anglican-ness” while rejecting and disowning the core of the Anglican Way – something behind which they can conceal their real nature just as cheap particle board furniture hides its true nature behind a walnut veneer. However, cheap particle board furniture with a walnut veneer is not walnut furniture. Revisionism is not Anglicanism even though it may outwardly wear that guise. Those that argue that it is are not only deceiving others but also they are deceiving themselves. Moral values not grounded in the Holy Scriptures have no place in Anglicanism anymore than they do in orthodox Christianity. Neither do beliefs about God, Jesus Christ, and salvation without a clear Scriptural warrant. Despite the walnut veneer cheap particle board furniture is no substitute for real walnut furniture. It cannot withstand the wear and tear of use. The veneer peals and the particle board crumbles. The same is true of revisionism with an Anglican veneer. Sooner or later it loose the veneer and it will fall apart. It will be revealed for what it is – ersatz Christianity – devoid of grace and the Holy Spirit, a pretense of the real thing. By then it may be too late for those who have embraced this imitation faith. They will be faced with a Godless eternity.

The Nottingham meeting is not only likely to be an important meeting in determining the future of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church USA but also the future of the Anglican Communion and Anglicanism. The stakes are quite high. They involve not just the status of the two North American churches in the Anglican Communion but also the salvation of those who are members of the two churches and those who are within their sphere of influence. At stake are also the effective witness of the Anglican Church around the world and the salvation of the millions of people whom the Anglican Church is seeking to reach.