Chicken Little Is At It Again

"The Sky is Falling" -- again. Or will be as soon as the Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion issues its report (rumored to be coming sooner rather than later.) THEN the line in the sand will be drawn, ECUSA will have to "repent or else" and the communion will at last be made safe for "biblical orthodoxy."

The same sky that was falling when the Primates met at Dromantine.

The same sky that was really going to fall when the Windsor Report was issued.

The same sky that was TOTALLY coming right at us as soon as the Anglican Consultative Council met and voted us off the Anglican Island.

But this time they really mean it -- the great "U-Turn" on the inclusion of all the baptized into the Body of Christ will commence momentarily ... stay tuned with your crash helmets at the ready. The sky is falling really soon.

Did I miss any benchmarks along the way??? Probably -- but the point is hard to miss: The sky is not falling The world is not ending. And the vast majority of faithful Anglicans are much more interested in finding a way forward than they are in tearing the communion apart. That would be "faithful" Anglicans -- not the polarized partisans pushing the Chicken Little manifesto on the rest of us.

So as we prepare to receive the report from the "Special Commission" let's commit to read the text in context -- the context of an ongoing conversation about important questions of faith and order, of polity and ecclesiology. And let's remember -- particularly as we begin to walk the way of the cross this Holy Week -- that none of these are what we call "salvation issues."

Toward that end, I commend this wonderful piece by Mark Harris, "Reports as Serpents Lifted in the Wilderness" as a great reflection-in-preparation for the soon-to-be-released report from the "Special Commission" summed up in this quote:

"The Windsor Report and the Report of the Special Commission are aids, resources, helpful or not, useful or not. But they are not our recourse, they are not in the end our help. Our help is in the Lord God, known in the Son of Man lifted up and inviting us all."

And let the people say, Amen!