Faithfulness

Commentary by Robin G. Jordan

Jerry Bower has no leg to stand on when he criticizes an orthodox bishop like Bob Duncan of violating his oath of loyalty to the Episcopal Church (Sunday Forum: The Pittsburgh Schism, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/11/07, http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07315/832649-35.stm ), as the Episcopal Church has set such a poor example of faithfulness itself. The Episcopal Church committed a serious breach of faith with the other provinces of the Anglican Communion and did not consult with them before confirming the election of a non-celibate homosexual man as the Bishop of New Hampshire.

The liberal leaders of the Episcopal Church have shown themselves especially prone to perfidy. Former Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold broke faith with his fellow Primates on so many occasions that he lost all credibility in their eyes. They ceased to trust him. For example, Bishop Griswold signed the Primates’ Communiqué from the October 2003 meeting of the Primates, warning the Episcopal Church that the consecration of Gene Robinson would tear the fabric of the Communion. He then presided at Robinson’s consecration himself a couple of months later.

Presiding Bishop Schori has followed in the footsteps of her predecessor. At the Dar es Salaam Primates’ meeting she agreed to a communiqué that called upon the Episcopal Church to halt the consecration of practicing homosexual bishops and blessing of same sex unions, to cease litigation against departing orthodox congregations, and to provide a pastoral scheme of alternative primatial oversight for disaffected orthodox dioceses and congregations in the Episcopal Church. One after another Presiding Bishop Schori has failed to comply with each particular to which she agreed.

At last month’s Executive Council meeting the Presiding Bishop’s Chancellor presented Schori’s plans to depose bishops who attempt to take their dioceses out of the Episcopal Church and to sue the deposed bishop and a “representative sampling” of departing congregations with the intention of discouraging other disaffected orthodox dioceses from placing themselves under the jurisdiction of another province. These plans included revisiting property settlements that had been already been made with departing congregations. The Presiding Bishop was insistent that no diocese should make any property settlement with a departing congregation that were asking another province to assume jurisdiction over them. Her Chancellor reported that the litigation would be costly and would take several years.

In its prevarications and half-measures the House of Bishops has not shown good faith in its dealings with the Primates. It has been contemptuous of the Primates and has not dealt forthrightly with them.

In the midst of all this unfaithfulness Bishop Duncan has taken a courageous stand in support of “the Faith once delivered to the saints” and of authentic, biblical Christianity. He has been true to the apostolic teaching that the founding fathers of the Episcopal Church committed the denomination to upholding and propagating. In this sense he has shown greater loyalty to the Episcopal Church than the denomination’s liberal leadership.

The Episcopal Church can neither expect nor demand faithfulness from orthodox clergy when a large segment of the denomination, including most of its leaders, is unfaithful to the teaching of the apostles and has adopted heretical beliefs in its place. Presiding Bishop Schori denies that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God and the universal Savior and holds that there are other ways to salvation than through faith in Christ. Indeed she might be viewed as a heresiarch except that she is not the originator of this heresy, which she apparently acquired in an Episcopal seminary, and reflects the influence of our post-Christian, post-modern culture upon the Episcopal Church. Her views are a blatant rejection of the teaching of the New Testament. The early Church declared such views to be heretical; the Church of England at the time of the Elizabethan Settlement in the 16th century reaffirmed them as being heretical. The Thirty Nine Articles of Religion of 1562, the Anglican confession of faith, affirms that no one may be saved except through faith in Christ. The Articles declare anathema, accursed by God and the Church, anyone who teaches what Presiding Bishop Schori has been propounding in her sermons and other public statements.

The 2003 General Convention failed to affirm core beliefs of the Christian Faith; the 2003 General Convention also broke with the teaching of the Bible and the Christian Church and confirmed the election of Gene Robinson as a bishop, precipitating a Communion-wide crisis. The 2006 General Convention refused to even consider a resolution that averred the New Testament doctrine of no salvation except through faith in Christ and proceeded to elect a Presiding Bishop who disavows the particularity of Christ and the Christian Faith. Despite the clearly heretical opinions expressed in the Presiding Bishop’s public statements the Episcopal House of Bishops, the members of which have a duty “to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God’s Word,” has been silent.

When apostasy and heresy is rampant in an ecclesiastical body, as it is in the Episcopal Church, orthodox clergy are dispensed from any obligation of loyalty to that body. Indeed, they have a new obligation—to lead their flock to the safety of an orthodox province.

Let us not deceive ourselves. The Episcopal Church is no longer a true church, as Anglicans have understood what comprises a true church. Due to the influence of the 19th century Oxford High Church Movement many Episcopalians think of apostolic succession in terms of an uninterrupted line of bishops going back to the apostles. No apostolic succession, no true church. The Elizabethan Settlement, however, endorsed the position articulated by Bishop John Jewel in Apology for the Church of England, which lays greater stress upon succession of doctrine. In this view an ecclesiastical body must preserve apostolic doctrine in order to be regarded a true church. Its bishops are successors to the apostles in so far as they teach what the apostles taught. The bishops of an ecclesiastical body might have an ancient pedigree, as the Pope claimed for the bishops of the Church of Rome and for himself as pontiff. However, if the ecclesiastical body had departed from the teaching of the apostles and had introduced innovations in doctrine and worship, as the Church of Rome had done, it had not retained the apostolic succession and therefore could not be regarded as a true church. It was no longer a part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Despite its claims in regards to the lineage of its bishops, it had lost its apostolicity. As Bishop Jewel drew to the attention of the Romanist critics of the Church of England, the Church of Rome’s abandonment of apostolic teaching and its adoption of doctrinal and worship innovations nullified its claims upon the loyalty and obedience of English clergy and laypersons. They were not bound by the claims of a heretical church.

Although Episcopal congregations may recite the Apostolic Creed and the Nicene Creed on Sundays and feast days and the Thirty-Nine Articles have not yet been dropped from the Episcopal Prayer Book, the actions of 2003 and 2006 General Conventions and the public statements of the Presiding Bishop and her liberal colleagues clearly show that the Episcopal Church has abandoned the teaching of the apostles. The Episcopal Church’s liberal bishops and the 2003 and 2006 General Conventions have sanctioned a number of theological and moral innovations. It is evident from the “working theology” heard and practiced in many Episcopal churches across the United States that the abandonment of apostolic teaching and adoption of such innovations is becoming increasingly wide spread at the local level. The Episcopal Church can no longer be regarded as a part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. It can no longer be considered a true church. No orthodox clergyperson or layperson need feel that he must remain or encourage others to remain a part of the Episcopal Church out of an obligation of loyalty to the denomination. He is under no such obligation. An obligation of loyalty to the Episcopal Church is not one of the considerations that he must weigh in deciding what he will do.

In the days ahead we are likely to hear more accusations of disloyalty to the Episcopal Church. Followers of Jesus Christ, however, have only one to whom they must be true in their allegiance above all else, that is their Lord himself. We must never let the Episcopal Church or any other organization or group take the place of the Lord in our hearts. This unfortunately has been a shortcoming to which Episcopalians are vulnerable due to the tendency of the Episcopal Church as a denomination to emphasize conversion to the church over conversion to Christ. There has also been a tendency to equate the church with Christ, and to see loyalty to the church as loyalty to Christ. However, the church is not Christ. When a church departs from the teaching of Christ, as has the Episcopal Church, our loyalty must be to Christ. As our Lord pointed to the attention of his disciples, a servant cannot serve two masters. The Episcopal Church has become so closely identified with our post-Christian, post-modern culture that the church is almost indistinguishable from the culture. Christ’s teaching, however, is counter-cultural. To serve the Episcopal Church, as Mr. Booker and others like him would have us do is to serve the culture. We would not be serving Christ. Bishop Duncan recognizes this truth. He has chosen to serve Christ.