Assessing the Impact of the Sacred Assembly in Raleigh, January 2012
In the midst of crisis, we turn to what we know. And what we know, as Anglicans, is order.
When the Archbishop of Rwanda, Onesiphore Rwaje, called for a Sacred Assembly to be held in Raleigh, North Carolina this past January, we had just over three weeks to organize and plan. What could possibly be more cathartic in our grieving over the relational heartache of AMIA’s recent decisions than to organize and plan?
And we did just that. We put together a working team, slotted speakers, pressed down every detail imaginable, and held up three fundamental themes. First, to honor Archbishop Rwaje who was hosting the Assembly. Second, to have significant time set aside before the Lord in confession and repentance. And third, to hope that we left Raleigh with a sense of vision, structure, and leadership. Keep reading
Robin, this story is discouraging to say the least. The minister in question refers to the Archbishop of Rwanda, Onesiphore Rwaje as "our Father in God." Such a title is nothing short of Tractarian heresy and is in fact blasphemous. The only Father in God I have is God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ.
ReplyDeleteEven more disturbing is the confusion of church politics with the Gospel. So the minister in your story was more concerned about hurting the feelings of the Tractarians in the ACNA than about how true to the Gospel the new province is. That is another indication of what I call "playing church." The church is more important than the Gospel?
Since there is only one Gospel to place loyalty to any church or any man above our loyalty to Jesus Christ and the message He preached is to preach another gospel and another Christ. (Galatians 1:6-9; 2 Corinthians 11:3-4).
Apparently the same sort of thing is going on with the so-called Prayer Book Anglicans led by Phil Veitch. He seems to be more loyal to high church Arminian pretenders and high church Lutherans than to the doctrines of grace and Reformed/Calvinist nature of the Anglican Formularies.
It really is too bad when confessional Anglicanism gets diluted by heretical gospels that are no gospels at all.
Sincerely in Christ,
Charlie
Charlie,
ReplyDeleteYour accusation that Phil is more loyal to Arminian pretenders and the high church Lutherans pretenders than to the doctrines of grace and and the Reformed/Calvinism seems to fly in the face of his life work. He has always held himself as a strict Calvinist and I have seen no high church tendencies in him. Where has he changed? How has he changed? To me these are serious accusations. Unfortunately the Lutherans do no seem to put much stock in Luther's "Freedom of the Will." But Phil does. The high church party is a snake in the grass. It is from them that has sprung "Laudism" and ango-catholicism. No, I don't think Phil is Arminian. I hope he isn't. Please let me know why you make these accusations. There are too few of of Reformed Anglicans to get into a mud fight with each other. We also cannot afford to give way on essentials. We cannot be blind to the mishaps of history which is the proof of our philosophies, the example of both bad and good doctrine in action.
Charlie,
ReplyDeleteThe phrase "most reverend Father in God" is found in the Form of Ordaining or Consecrating of an Archbishop or Bishop in the 1661 Ordinal, which is appended to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. It is also found in the same form in the 1550, 1552, and 1559 Ordinals. Its use antedates the seventeenth century Catholic Reaction, the seventeenth century Restoration, and the nineteenth century Catholic Revival.
I do not find any objection to this phrase among the "Exceptions" that the Puritans presented at the Savoy Conference. This does not necessarily mean that they did not object to it but rather works listing the "Exceptions" available on the Internet do not include their objection to it if they did object to it.
The phrase "most reverend brother in Christ" is substituted for this phrase in the Form of Consecrating a Bishop in the Ordinal appended to 1874 Book of Common Prayer of the Reformed Episcopal Church. It is also substituted for the same phrase in the Form of Consecrating a Bishop in the Ordinal appended to the 1956 Book of Common Prayer of the Free Church of England (otherwise called the Reformed Episcopal Church in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland). This points to one group of evangelicals at least from the nineteenth century on not being comfortable with the phrase. Franklin Rising in his 1868 pamphlet, "Are There Romanizing Germs in the Prayer Book?" makes no mention of the phrase as evidence of "Romanizing germs" in the 1789 Prayer Book but it may be concluded from what else he wrote, this group of evangelicals would have regarded the phrase as evidence of such "germs." They unfortunately had permitted the Tractarian and Ritualist reinterpretation of the Prayer Book to influence their thinking and could not shake themselves of its influence. They broke with the received interpretation of the Prayer Book passed down from the time of the English Reformation, and bought into the Anglo-Catholic reinterpretation of the book.
At the same time the use of the phrase may be objected to on Scriptural grounds. The New Testament records Jesus as teaching that we should refer to no man as father, master, or teacher ,a reference to the Jewish rabbinical practice of the disciples of a rabbi addressing him as father, master, or teacher.