Episcopal Church in Open Revolt: Lutherans, Wake Up and Smell the De-Caf Mocha Raspberry Latte

COUNTDOWN FOR ROWAN WILLIAMS

Commentary

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
11/13/2007

It is show and tell time for Dr. Rowan Williams, the putative head of the Anglican Communion.

The Communion is coming unraveled and Dr. Williams faces his moment of truth. The days of prevarication and fudge are over. Pleas for unity have fallen on deaf ears. The lines have hardened and there is no going back for either orthodox or liberal Episcopalians. The days of polite "conversation" are over.

Any hope that a Covenant, drawn up will appease all parties, is a fantasy. The communion might just as well fall back on the Articles of Religion as to try and reinvent the wheel with a covenant that will placate neither side. Any notion that Hermeneutics will save the day is also a fiction. It will just mean that everyone can and will interpret Scripture to suit their own moral tastes.

Orthodox Episcopalians are no longer saying they are going to take action, they are taking action. Whole dioceses are preparing to break ranks with Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori and the Episcopal Church. The wheels are now in motion and cannot be reversed despite threats from the Presiding Bishop of legal and canonical action.

The dioceses of Pittsburgh, San Joaquin, Quincy and Ft. Worth have the commitment of the vast majority of their clergy and laity to leave. Documents are being drawn up to make that possible.

Bishops Bob Duncan (Pittsburgh) and Jack Iker (Ft. Worth) have received threatening letters from the female head of The Episcopal Church saying if they try to leave with their dioceses she will rain legal hell down on them. They are not budging and neither is she.

Bishop Duncan is getting support from a number of Church of England bishops as well, clearly an embarrassment to the Archbishop of Canterbury who is powerless to stop them.

The African Hammer of God, the Most Rev. Peter Akinola has come down with an iron fist declaring that he and his whole province, and probably most of Africa along with Southeast Asia and the Southern Cone, will not attend Lambeth next year unless the spiritually arthritic, sexually compromised American Episcopal Church does an about face on consecrating homosexual priests and bishops. We all know that won't happen.

(Mrs. Jefferts Schori was spared an embarrassing decision this past weekend when lesbian priest Tracy Lind failed to garner enough votes to buy a Bud Light in her run to be the next Bishop of Chicago. It went to a married Affirming Catholic who promises to continue the church's pansexual agenda).

In the meantime, cross boundary "violations" will continue apace. In fact they will only heat up. This week Southern Cone Primate Gregory Venables signaled his intention to provide full Primatial oversight to U.S. Episcopal dioceses that want to leave TEC. AMiA, CANA, Bolivia, Uganda and Kenya-ordained American bishops are ready in the wings to harvest unhappy Episcopal parishes that want to leave notwithstanding the lame, pathetic pleas by American liberal bishops to stop.

In December, a major show of Nigerian force will be seen in northern Virginia when they ordain clergy and bishops right under the nose of Virginia bishop Peter James Lee. This week Lee, the national church, and David Booth Beers went to court in Fairfax County for six days of legal wrangling over some dozen parishes. It is being called the biggest property fight in American religious history.

The parishes want out from under Lee and the national church and would like to keep their properties. No one is blinking. This is a fight for the soul of these parishes...right to the last church pew and bank dollar.

We all knew that it would boil down to this: money, (TEC's Trust Funds), sex (pansexual behavior) and power (ecclesiastical).

Archbishop Williams can no longer ignore the obvious. His repeated cries for tolerance, understanding, and obedience to the local bishop, regardless of where he or she stands on the issues, is dead on arrival.

It must be clear to him by now that the orthodox do care, and the sin of sodomy is the bunker-buster bomb in this war against morality in the Anglican Communion. It will not be defused however hard he tries. No one is prepared to give ground, that much at least must be obvious to him. The war for the soul of the church is reaching new levels. Orthodox Episcopalians are weekly being crushed while he wavers.

Williams can no longer play his Hegelian world-view looking for a synthesis where there is none. He can no longer nuance the situation. The situation is beyond that now. He now has to face the inevitable truth that he must choose sides in this war. If he does not do so, he will continue being shot at by both sides, but more particularly by liberals and homosexuals. To date liberals have been the most vociferous in their condemnation of his wavering on the issues. The orthodox have just gone politely about their business ending their association with their local dioceses and the national church. The Anglican ship is sinking.

Orthodox and liberals are pitted at each other. What is really sad and unforgivable in this ecclesiastical war is that battles are being waged pitching brother against brother. One has only to look at the agonizing situation in the Diocese of Central Florida. An Evangelical bishop is in a face off with evangelical rectors who want out from under the national church. They like their bishop, they believe he is a gospel driven man, but they cannot stay in a church that has no gospel of redemption to proclaim drawing people out of darkness into light. They will no longer live in the spiritual darkness of The Episcopal Church.

It is hard to imagine that Williams does not understand the depth of feeling and the theology behind their stance. His letter to the priests telling them to obey their ecclesiastical authority (Bishop John W. Howe) fell on deaf ears just as a letter to Mrs. Jefferts Schori, telling her to back off litigating against orthodox bishops, also went nowhere.

No one is listening to anybody now. Isn't that clear to the Grand Poobah in Lambeth Palace?

Archbishop Akinola said that he, Nigeria, and most of the rest of Africa are now saying they will not attend Lambeth in 2008 unless the Episcopal Church is disciplined. Based on recent events and statements in New Orleans by Williams, that is extremely unlikely. He has given no indication, either then or now, that he is willing to reverse the invitations to Lambeth, even if the TEC is not obedient to the demands of the Windsor Report. The Episcopal Church has been given a passing grade, while orthodox bishops like Robinson Cavilcanti, Chuck Murphy and his fellow bishops, Martyn Minns and David Bena, John Guernsey (Uganda) and William Murdoch (Kenya) are denied entrance passes into Lambeth.

A number of English bishops have also said they will not attend Lambeth, next year.

With Africa, Asia, and the Southern Cone now calling for a postponement to Lambeth next year, Williams has a wholesale revolt on his hands.

If he doesn't come down on the side of Duncan, Iker, and the other fleeing Episcopal bishops, he faces not just unrest in the US, but outright mutiny at home. He has ignored both the call to postpone Lambeth, and also rejected the call for a new Primates meeting before Lambeth convenes. This seems like the height of foolishness.

Williams is not only facing a revolt amongst his fellow primates, but he is also facing a highly vocal liberal, pansexual crowd who is screaming at him if he dares to upset Affirming Catholics and those bleating for an Inclusive Church.

It is naïve to think that waiting for events to sort themselves out will now work. It won't. Those of us who were in New Orleans saw and heard what happened to Williams when he bent even marginally towards the orthodox. He got ripped apart by Gene Robinson. As one blogger observed, does he know what happens to you if you sit and do nothing when a bull charges you?

Nashotah House President Dr. Robert S. Munday, in an op-ed piece at VOL's website http://tinyurl.com/38kxdd titled "A Church Out Of Control" said this, "The only way to save the Anglican Communion is to discipline the Episcopal Church for its departure from Anglican Communion norms. The Archbishop of Canterbury can accomplish this discipline through his prerogative of invitations to the Lambeth Conference. The Primates can accomplish this discipline by censuring the American Church and limiting TEC's participation in the instruments of unity. If this does not happen, not only the Episcopal Church, but the Anglican Communion will fly apart under the centrifugal forces of the orbit into which the anarchic deviations of the American Church have cast it-and it will happen sooner rather than later. Are you listening, Rowan?"

The end is fast approaching. It is Williams' last chance. Not to act is to see the Anglican Communion crumble with the vast majority of the Anglican Communion not represented by their bishops at Lambeth next year. There is a real possibility that the orthodox might form their own Lambeth Conference on English soil.

To act will mean that someone is going to feel pain, the real pain of exclusion. It is William's moment to decide. The hour is fast approaching with events now overtaking him. He must decide or face the consequences.

Choose ye this day...

END

Luther's Hymn for Fuller Graduates

I am a nice, friendly, cuddy sheep. No, those are not fangs. I am smiling at you. We need love and friendship. No more fighting about dogma. God wants His Church to grow. I can make purpose-driven disciples who are becoming missional, and every one is a minister.
Matthew 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.


O Lord, look down from heaven, behold
And let Thy pity waken;
How few are we within Thy fold,
Thy saints by men forsaken!
True faith seems quenched on every hand,
Men suffer not Thy Word to stand;
Dark times have us overtaken.

(2) With fraud which they themselves invent
Thy truth they have confounded;
Their hearts are not with one consent
On Thy pure doctrine grounded.
While they parade with outward show,
They lead the people to and fro,
In error's maze astounded.

(3) May God root out all heresy
And of false teachers rid us
Who proudly say: "Now, where is he
That shall our speech forbid us?
By right or might we shall prevail;
What we determine cannot fail;
We own no lord and master."

(5) As silver tried by fire is pure
From all adulteration
So through God's Word shall men endure
Each trial and temptation.
Its light beams brighter through the cross,
And purified from human dross,
It shines thru every nation.
Martin Luther, 1523, "O Lord, Look Down from Heaven, Behold," The Lutheran Hymnal, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1941, Hymn #260. Psalm 12.

Yea, As I Live, Jehovah Saith Not a Good UOJ Hymn

God the Father, by Michelangelo


(1) "Yea,as I live," Jehovah saith,
"I would not have the sinner's death,
But that he turn from error's ways,
Repent, and live through endless days."

(2) To us therefore Christ gave command:
"Go forth and preach in every land;
Bestow on all My pardoning grace
Who will repent and mend their ways."

(3) "All those whose sins ye thus remit
I truly pardon and acquit,
And those whose sins ye do retain
Condemned and guilty shall remain."

(4) "What ye shall bind, that bound shall be;
What ye shall loose, that shall be free;
Unto My Church the keys are given
To ope and close the gates of heaven."

(5) The words which absolution give
Are His who died that we might live;
The minister whom Christ has sent
Is but His humble instrument.

(6) When minister lay on their hands,
Absolved by Christ the sinner stands;
He who by grace the Word believes
The purchase of His blood receives."
Nicolaus Herman, 1560, "Yea, As I Live, Jehovah Saith," The Lutheran Hymnal, Trans. Matthias Loy, 1880, alt. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1941, Hymn #331. Ezekiel 33:11.

Thy Strong Word Bespeaks Us Righteous

Lamb of God, Norma Boeckler


(1) Thy strong word did cleave the darkness:
At thy speaking it was done.
For created light we thank thee,
While thine ordered seasons run.
Alleluia, alleluia!
Praise to thee who light dost send!
Alleluia, alleluia!
Alleluia without end!

(v. 3) "Thy strong Word bespeaks us righteous;
Bright with thine own holiness,
Glorious now, we press toward glory,
And our lives our hopes confess.
Alleluia, alleluia!
Praise to thee who light dost send!
Alleluia, alleluia!
Alleluia without end!
Martin H. Franzmann, 1907‑76, "Thy Strong Word," Lutheran Worship, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1982, Hymn #328.

Preach You the Word

The Sower and the Seed, by Norma Boeckler

(1) Preach you the Word and plant it home
To men who like or like it not,
The Word that shall endure and stand
When flowers and men shall be forgot.

(2) We know how hard, O Lord, the task
Your servant bade us undertake:
To preach your Word and never ask
What prideful profit it may make.

(3) The sower sows; his reckless love
Scatters abroad the goodly seed,
Intent alone that men may have
The wholesome loaves that all men need.

(4) Though some be snatched and some be scorched
And some be chocked and matted flat,
The sower sow; his heart cries out,
"Oh, what of that, and what of that?"

(5) Preach you the Word and plant it home
And never faint; the Harvest Lord
Who gave the sower seed to sow
Will watch and tend his planted Word.

Martin H. Franzmann, 1907‑76, "Preach You the Word," Lutheran Worship, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1982, Hymn #259. Mark 4.

But Don't Expect a Position at The Love Shack, Or The Purple Palace

"Now it is the consolation of Christians, and especially of preachers, to be sure and ponder well that when they present and preach Christ, that they must suffer persecution, and nothing can prevent it; and that it is a very good sign of the preaching being truly Christian, when they are thus persecuted, especially by the great, the saintly, the learned and the wise."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, II, p. 97. Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Matthew 8:23‑27.

Christ According to the Efficacious Word

By Norma Boeckler

"Hence everything here depends only upon this, that you rightly learn to look upon Christ according to the Word, and not according to your own thoughts and feelings, for human thoughts are frauds and lies, but His Word is true and cannot lie."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, IV, p. 92. Third Sunday after Trinity, Second Sermon Luke 15:1‑10.