The Wind Beneath Their Wings: PREDLUDIUM on the AMiA

Best of the Blogs this morning goes to Mark Harris' PREDLUDIUM:

Bishop Chuck Murphy, Bishop in and Chairman of the Anglican Mission in the Americas, is quoted in a Virtueonline article as saying the following “Bishop Bob Duncan is the St. James of Jerusalem.” He then went on to say, “He has a different kind of work - important but different. Our operating paradigm is that we are breaking into new territory. We are planting new churches. We are "unchanged". We are more Celtic than Roman. We are people on mission. We have BHAG - Big, Holy, Audacious Goals.”

Perhaps they have BHAG - Big Heavy Audacious Gas - but it will pass.

I have no notion what the Moderator of the Anglican Communion Network thinks of this, nor do I care very much. But I think it is a crock.

I suppose that Bishop Murphy is trying to say that he considers himself the leader of the “get out and find the gentiles” sort of Anglicans and Bishop Duncan is here to hold the territory already Anglican. That doesn’t fit very much with what the Anglican Communion Network claims, what with their claim about new church plants and missionary action, but never mind.

Bishop Murphy has smelled the latest passing of gas coming from the evangelical salesmanship school of ecclesiology and is giddy with big, holy, audacious imagery. AMiA is neither Celtic or Roman. AMiA is schismatic and about as un-Anglican as possible.

Read the rest here ... and give thanks for Poet Mark's willingness to "tell it like it is."