1 July 2006FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Integrity receives the Archbishop of Canterbury's reflection titled "The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today" as part of an ongoing conversation. Integrity President Susan Russell said, "Within Archbishop Williams' suggestions of possible ways forward, there is the hope that in loosening some of the ties that
bind us, we can as a Communion find a way to strengthen rather than
institutionalize the bonds of affection that have historically united us as Anglicans."
Integrity is committed to being part of that discernment process and committed to continuing to call the Anglican Communion to account for 30 years of failure to implement an authentic listening process. In Archbishop Williams' words, "It is true that, in spite of resolutions and declarations of intent, the process of 'listening to the experience' of homosexual people hasn't advanced very far in most of our churches..."
Integrity rejects the premise that the Episcopal Church-having engaged in the hard work of dialogue, debate, and discernment during the past three decades-has now acted precipitously
in opening the episcopacy to qualified lesbian and gay persons.
Responding to Archbishop William's statement that "we now face some choices about what kind of Church we as Anglicans are or want to be," Russell said, "The most important choice we face now is whether we will spend the next three years focusing on Mother Church or-in the words of our Presiding Bishop-elect-on Mother Jesus. We cannot live up to our call to be the Body of Christ in the world if we're spending all our time, energy, and resources arguing about how to be the Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion."
(The Reverend) Susan Russell, President
president@integrityusa.org
714-356-5718 (mobile)
626-583-2741 (office)
Doug Ball, Executive Secretary
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19 comments:
"The most important choice we face now is whether we will spend the next three years focusing on Mother Church or-in the words of our Presiding Bishop-elect-on Mother Jesus."
Nice.
Excellent.
Would have been really cool if the release date had been "4 July 2006".
;-)
We can stick our head in the stand and call it "getting on with mission," (or make rather interesting comments that it's a struggle between "Mother Church" and "Mother Jesus") but here's a very interesting story in today's London Telegraph.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/07/02/ngay02.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/07/02/ixuknews.html
Why not seperate?
Good response.
I liked when KJS+ mentioned that, historically, we know that women had leaderhip positions in the early church, so, in a sense, we are just "getting back to our roots" when we move forward with ordaining women at all levels.
On a related note, one of those ubiquitous church marquis signs inspired some patriotic ponderings in me yesterday. Time for America to be "born again"?
I have asked this question several times on different blogs and no one has ever answered. I ask it sincerely, with a real desire to know what people think. Please help me out here.
What is this listening process? What will it look like and how will it be done? Who will talk and who will listen? At what level will it happen, the local parish or the Diocese, or what? What goals need to be met to declare the listening process finished?
Lots of questions, I know. But I have never seen these questions addressed. Any takers?
Thanks,
another anonymous
Jeff Martinhauk stated:
"We have to keep everybody at the table; that is what the Gospel requires of us."
I would need to see citations for that assertion. There's just as much of the gospel - if not more - that says run away from unbelievers, yoke not yoursef to them, and shake the dust of their city from your feet; especially when there is nothing more to discuss. So why should the members of two completely different religions sit and talk? The conservative Episcopalians are moving in with the Romans and the Orthodox, and the liberals are sidling up to the UCC and the Unitarian Universalists. There is no common ground.
Jeff, a plain reading of the Gospels reveals that in Jesus' own words, He did not die to bind us all in community. He died to be the one sufficient sacrifice to pay for our sins. It was our sin, from Adam on, that estranged us from the Father, with whom Adam and Eve walked in the cool of the day before their sin and rebellion corrupted their nature, and hence our nature as their descendants. Their sin "broke the mold" as it were, and we are all born mishapen in some way, spiritually and sometimes also physically, since the Fall. We did not individually choose our brokeness, and in our brokeness (original sin) we cannot but choose to sin until God's grace intervenes and we receive it by confessing our choosing our own self-will over God's will and then surrendering our will to God.
Throughout OT, Gospels and NT the idea is reaffirmed, "the soul that sins must die", "there is no remission of sin without shedding of blood". Simply to bind us in community would only require a good counselor or mediator between human beings. But our sin estranged us from God and so necessarily also from each other. There could have been no community with each other unless we were first made right with God by the sacrifice that only Jesus could offer, Himself, at one and the same time true God and true man in one and the same person.
What part of no is hard? The "n" or the "o"?
There has not been a failure of listening for 30 years. There is an answer. It is "no".
There is no conversation or listening process to continue on the issue. The answer is "no".
No, even to postmodernists, is a negative, nay, THE negative. The opposite of yes.
Walk apart as you have chosen or take the "no" and respond to it with obedience.
I commend to you this press release from the House of Bishops of the Church of Nigeria to +Rowan's reflections. TEC, it appears, is a cancer that needs to be "excised."
http://www.anglican-nig.org/response_abc_june06.htm
Although I heed both PB and PB-elects' call to remain in conversation (and communion), I shudder at the use of this metaphor. It is this very term that is often used to justify, among other things, genocide (physical and otherwise).
I do not know where God is at this moment. Psalm 40 comes to mind.
I do not know how to respond to the mean-spiritedness that Church of Nigeria clearly has for TEC. +Gene's injunction to "love them anyway" comes to mind. I'm just having a hard time. It's hard when Lambeth Palace seems unable or unwilling to speak truth to power, or at least truth to abuse.
jkl,
I just read the statement. It left me almost utterly speechless - a rare thing.
I reckon it one thing for this to come from an individual. Quite another from a whole community of bishops.
I am praying with you.
r stated . . . .
"I just read the statement. It left me almost utterly speechless - a rare thing.
I reckon it one thing for this to come from an individual. Quite another from a whole community of bishops."
That's probably what Arius said, when he read the final verdict from Nicea.
So, Pilgrim, let me make sure I understand you:
You believe that ++Akinola and his group of conservative Bishops in Africa and the "global South," are the equivalent of the Nicean Council? And all the other Bishops of the Church, including the majority of Bishops in North America, are... what? Non-existent? Worthless? Unimportant? Disregardable?
In a previous post, Lorian asked...
You believe that ++Akinola and his group of conservative Bishops in Africa and the "global South," are the equivalent of the Nicean Council? And all the other Bishops of the Church, including the majority of Bishops in North America, are... what? Non-existent? Worthless? Unimportant? Disregardable?
No, but I do believe that the Anglican Bishops have met in toto at Lambeth, and the majority of them voted against the current movement in the ECUSA. In terms of the Church, the Episcopal Bishops are a distinct minority.
I also believe that the current agenda of the ECUSA is every bit as insidious an heresy as Arianism ever was.
Jeff, in your reply to Pilgrim, you talked only of Jesus' death and the reason for it, which is why I commented as I did. But to miss or be silent on what Jesus Himself said several times was the reason for His death is to distort and misstate the Gospel, whether unwittingly or intentionally.
Jesus' earthly life before the crucifixion teaches us how to live. His crucifixion and death teaches us the utter revulsion the holy, holy, holy God has for sin and the terrbile cost of washing it away in His righteousness. His resurrection gives us the hope of eternal life when we are raised with Him.
So, like you, and like St. Paul ("if Jesus is not raised then your faith is in vain"), I also focus on Jesus' life, both His earthly life as a model of obedience and submission to the Father and His eternal life to which He will raise those who put their trust in Him.
I also believe that the current agenda of the ECUSA is every bit as insidious an heresy as Arianism ever was.
Talk about an ironic accusation: Arianism reduced Christ from (fully man/fully) God to man . . . but at least he was the best man, EVER.
Whereas the so-called Anglican "orthodox" (with the so-called "plain reading" of the Bible---just another way of saying "See it My Way/OBEY it My Way, or Else!") reduces Christ to the very worst man: a man who justifies every hateful prejudice of his worshippers (i.e. those who invented him in their own image---and then call their invention their god*).
Lord have mercy!
* I'm prepared for the accusation that TEC "invented Christ in our own image" hurled back at us. But *IF* the choice were between which human-invented Jesus (let's concede that we both CLAIM a Jesus springing directly from Scripture, Tradition and Reason)? Then it's really no contest, is it? I'll take All-Welcoming, All-Loving, All-Saving Jesus (the Real One, the True One, the One proclaimed by the Faith once delivered to the saints) EVERY time! Alleluia! :-D
In the previous post, John Gibson said:
"I know this much Basil. I don't want to worship with bigots."
And therein lies a great deal of the problem. I read and reread Basil's post, and there is not a single word of homophobic gay-bashing in the entire eight paragraphs. he never resorts to epithets such as queer or fag, and he keeps his post centered on solid theological point of modern life: the sad reality that all of us are quick to elevate something in our lives over our love of God. And how is his post responded to? He is immediately labelled a bigot.
If someone on the right expresses the slightest reservations about gay bishops, they are homophobic. If they express any doubts about women priests they are a misogynistic oppressive white male. If a reasserter upholds a literal interpretation of scripture they are a knuckle dragging, mouth breathing "fundie."
Earlier in this thread, a conservative reiterated that there was no any point of conversation. He was immediately labelled a "creep." It is the only other pejorative in this thread, and it too was posted by a liberal.
And then you wonder why most of the conservatives have given up on dialogue.
This makes me so very sad...Come, Lord Jesus, Come.
Thanks to basil and pilgram et al for their thoughtful posts- regardless of the nastiness in which they were recieved.
To use the words of our Savior at His most difficult hour- "It is finished". The talking/listening has stopped. You will never concede on your end, and the conservatives will not concede on theirs. It is two different religions. Let us hope and pray that the split can be done in the kindest way possible. Maybe we should take a look at our own devorce counseling guidelines, and do our best for the sake of the others.
Pilgrim says: "If someone on the right expresses the slightest reservations about gay bishops, they are homophobic. If they express any doubts about women priests they are a misogynistic oppressive white male. If a reasserter upholds a literal interpretation of scripture they are a knuckle dragging, mouth breathing "fundie."
Pilgrim, if someone on the right expresses the slightest reservations about the propriety of the church allowing blacks to marry whites, are they automatically considered a racist? I would hope so.
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