Thursday, July 03, 2008

Thus Spake the Bishop of Durham

OK, OK, OK ... I'll blog about it, already!

Geeze ... The BBC News story has only been UP there about a minute and a half and I've already gotten three emails and a phone call wanting to know why I'm not "on" the N.T. Wright "take down" of the Gafconite Schismatics.

Silly me ... I was getting liturgies organized for Sunday and getting ready to go make a hospital visit as soon as I preside at Noon Eucharist. (See also: The Gay Priest Lifestyle)

ANYWAY, here's the deal ... hot off the BBC presses:

The Bishop of Durham has attacked the Anglican traditionalists

Dr Tom Wright, a traditionalist himself, said Gafcon's plans to let parishes break from liberal bishops were ridiculous and "deeply offensive."

"The idea they have a monopoly on Biblical truth won't do," he said.

[And let the people say: AMEN!]

DO read it all here ... but here's a closing quote from the Bishop of Durham:

I spend 90 to 100 hours a week doing the work of the gospel and the kingdom of God in my diocese and around the place. "And to be told that I now need to be authorised or validated by a group of primates somewhere else who come in and tell me which doctrines I should sign up to is not only ridiculous It's deeply offensive. "The idea that they have a monopoly on Biblical truth simply won't do and we must stand up to this, it's a kind of bullying.


And again I say: AMEN! (And now off to set the table in the chapel ... more later!)

4 comments:

JimB said...

Hmmm....

The good bishop is still hostile to our very good bishop of New Hampshire, and actually not far from the doctrines of the Gaffe on a number of points. He has put his finger on something. GafCon over reached -- badly.

By announcing it had spawned a 'primate's council' that will be self selecting on an ongoing basis, and that it unilaterally had determined there will be a "new North American province" the conference passed from debate to polity. It effected the precise schism its document earlier said it would not create.

So, even those such as +Wright who may agree with some of the ideas are put off. Now the primate's council will decide if York or Canterbury are 'orthodox' and by whose authority, why their own. And if they decide no, on their own authority they over ride 2000 years of Nicene precedent and declare they can poach not only layity, clergy or parish, but entire diocese!

Really, the over reach and arrogance are breathtaking. For some reason, I think an absolute and absolutely unfounded confidence in their own rectitude, the perpetrators do not get it. After all if one knows what God should do, how can one be considered wrong?

FWIW
jimB

SUSAN RUSSELL said...

which is precisely why I thought the strength of his umbrage at the Gafconites was striking ... if they've gone too far for HIM then they're really off the edge!

Happy Almost 4th of July!

Elizabeth Kaeton said...

Yeah, I get your point, Susan, but this was the same guy who was jumping up and down with great glee predicting, "The ABC's gonna break open a big can of whuppass on all the progressives."

I really can't get excited about anything this evangelical prince of the church says, even when I agree with him.

Lapinbizarre said...

"Now, perhaps he will understand how North Americans feel when he has done precisely what the GaffeConsters have done. Indeed, he could be decribing his own actions and words with respect to the North American Church over the past few years."

"Nom de Plume" at Thinking Anglicans on Tom Wright's statement.