Three recent items from Fulcrum
Further Thoughts on GAFCON and related matters by the Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright
The GAFCON Movement and The Anglican Communion by Andrew Goddard
A briefing paper for PCCs. It is “against the resolution suggested on the Anglican Mainstream site: ‘We stand in solidarity with the Jerusalem Declaration and Statement on the Global Anglican Future’”
An interview on ABC Sydney with Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, the primate of Australia
This is reported in The Sydney Morning Herald as Aspinall warns Jensen.
Tom Wright’s article is very peculiar. He is very insulting to TEC, evidently writing off the whole Episcopal Church as beyond hope of salvation. It seems to me that the Episcopalians I know are in many ways the truest to traditional Anglicanism as it used to be in England: urbane, moderate, socially-committed people secure enough in their own tradition to not need to continually scream out “string ’em up”, contrary to the tabloid rhetoric of some of the current English Church leaders. The other oddity of My Lord of Durham’s article is that he keeps insisting that the C of… Read more »
@Fr Mark:
I suspect a lot of +Tom’s criticism of TEC and the ACC is tactical in nature — by re-establishing his credentials as an “orthodox” (viz.) bishop, it inoculates him against the inevitable charge of treason or surrender that GAFCONites will level against him in their typically black-and-white way of thinking.
“When I hear Peter Jensen say that ‘we are not self-selected; we are God-selected, because we are based on the word of God’; when I hear beloved and respected Jim Packer say that the ‘Jerusalem Declaration’ should be the basis of a new covenant to which all English bishops will be required to sign up; when I hear Vinay Samuel, one of the sharpest minds in the whole GAFCON movement, saying (unless he was misreported) that ‘we are not breaking away from the Anglican Communion – we ARE the Anglican Communion’; and when I see Bishop John Rodgers of AMiA… Read more »
Sauce for the goose! When GAFCon bashes the Episcopal Church, +Wright hollers “Bully!” When they turn on the C of E, it’s “Foul!” There are no hobgoblins of consistency in Durham!
Keep digging, +Tom. You’ll reach Sydney yet.
Your broad brush dismissal of TEC and Canada is as offensive to us as GAFCON’s assault on England is to you. If you want to understand us, you will need to spend more time with us than with Stephen Colbert.
Tom Wright is supposed to be a bright fellow. Unfortunately, he isn’t bright enough to move away from the ridiculous caricature of North American Anglicanism spread around by the wilfully dishonest GAFCON crowd. Just one example: Jim Packer was NEVER sanctioned for holding to his conservative convictios. To suggest otherwise is a baldfaced lie. Jim Packer was NEVER sanctioned for his active and determined opposition to the policies of the Bishop and the Diocese of New Westminster. To suggest otherwise is a baldfaced lie. Jim Packer was ONLY sanctioned AFTER he had effectively declared himself out of communion with the… Read more »
Why has no one exposed GAFCON on its duplicity over allowing Anglo-Catholics to sign the Declaration and subsequently ignore the force of the articles?
Why has no one demanded that they come clean on divorce and re-marriage?
Why has no one demanded that they state whether female ordination is unorthodox ,( particularly the women bishops) or not?
Why is it alalowing the Church of England in South AfRICA TO SIGN , WHEN IT ALLOWS LAY PRESIDENCY?
Tom Wright’s comments about TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada are more than offensive. They reflect some real emotionalism that is undermining his ability to think in a theologically objective manner. Wright seems unable to understand, or,perhaps, to accept the ecclesiology of TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada. The “orthodox” clergy that he regards as being wickely persecuted are simply acting in violation of the canons of TEC and Church of Canada. Instead of resigning their orders in their respective churches, or seeking a transfer to another province, they are declaring themselves under the jurisdiction of a foreign… Read more »
Dr. Wright states that the Ordination of gay clergy and the blessing of gay unions have not been authorized by any Council of the Church of England. Like many others, he refers to the different situation in the U.S. and Canada. Why are the U.S. and Canada targeted? Such blessings and ordinations are common in England. PLEASE NOTE: THE CANADIAN CHURCH’S GENERAL SYNOD HAS NOT AUTHORIZED THE ORDINATION OF GAY CLERGY AND DECLINED TO AUTHORIZE THE BLESSING OF SAME-SEX UNIONS. In the debate surrounding the St. Bart’s event, this forum presented the rules concerning such things in England, so they… Read more »
@Robert Ian Williams:
I don’t know why you mean “no one has exposed”. I thought that GAFCON’s blatant inconsistency and hypocrisy was pretty obvious.
Time for another lightning strike.
Thank you Fr. Mark for your kind comments about TEC.
Malcolm+ you have said everything I was thinking. Apart from adding that Bishop Tom ought to apologize immediately to Bishop Michael for such insultingly worded and ludicrously inaccurate accusations.
Richard, perhaps it is simply that the Father of Lies uses false witness to enact his plan to destroy the Church of God.
If the GAFCON / FOCA episcopi vigilanti had any case at all, they would not find it necessary to root all of their arguments i lies and slanders.
Tom Wright has descended into the gutter in calling another bishop “wicked”.
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/07/tom-wright-calls-another-bishop-wicked.html
Re: THE CANADIAN CHURCH’S GENERAL SYNOD HAS NOT AUTHORIZED THE ORDINATION OF GAY CLERGY…. I wrote to Bishop Tom (my bishop) over a year ago, reminding him of the Canadian Church’s stand on such issues, and yet he continues to condemn the Anglican Church of Canada again and again. I don’t think he’s stupid or dishonest, so I can only presume that he thinks that they are deserving of his condemnation. If the Canadian Church has not authorised the ordinaton of practising gay clergy or approved of same-sex blessings, then he is condemning them for something else. I can only… Read more »
When I read Wright saying–
“And now to discover that our great Jim Packer is being persecuted by a wicked liberal bishop in Canada”
–I actually thought he was being ironic, and there wd. be a payoff later on. (I even thought it might be clever)
But then I read the whole piece, and I guess he’s serious.
I find it off the wall. Packer disavowed the Bp of New Westminster. What Ingram supposed to do? Applaud?
Watching the deliberations of the Canadian General Synod last year on the internet one couldn’t (especially an expat Canadian like myself) help but be proud of the degree to which the Canadian Church had wrestled with the issues of sexuality. Whether you’re somebody who thought the Canadians went too far or somebody who believes that they didn’t go far enough, the deliberations themselves were ‘satisfactory’ in the sense that matters were fully discussed with a high degree of mutual responsibility. Many of the folks who spoke were known to me a decade or so ago and what was evident was… Read more »
“WHY ARE THERE LIES AND MISREPRESENTATIONS CONCERNING THE CANADIAN CHURCH?” Because the myth is that the good holy “orthodox” remnant is being systematically persecuted by evil faithless world adoring heathens whose goal is to destroy the Church and supplant the Gospel. If they were to acknowledge that aside from a very few, like Don Harvey, who have bought into the myth, the Canadian Church has actually proceeded with caution and respect for all concerned, this myth would be called into question. It is attractive to be persecuted and fighting against an evil power, many on both sides fall prey to… Read more »
The Canadian Primate has issued a statement vigorously denying and repudiating the “false gospel” rhetoric of Gafcon et al. I have never understood what this means. The Gospels themselves have no references on the part of Our Lord to homosexuality. Perhaps they just consider homosexuality to be part of general immorality. But if one considers for a nanosecond that being gay is not a choice, this falls apart. Even if the “conservatives” (an inaccurate appelation if there ever was one) say that gay persons should just “resist temptation”, it would assume that their God-given sexuality is really God’s mistake or… Read more »
In trying to do a sermon on the impasse in the Anglican Communion I have read many of the comments with interest. I am really thankful for Jensen and his ilk clearing up one thing for me. I didn’t realise I was preaching a false gospel to my congregations, I had always assumed I was preaching the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. Take heart people, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall is a gaint with a faith and committment to the Gospel and Jesus that rests on the firm foundation of sound scholarly knowledge, a knowledge that has clearly and deeply been thought… Read more »
“I didn’t realise I was preaching a false gospel to my congregations, I had always assumed I was preaching the Gospel of our Lord Jesus.” But that’s what Evangelicals have always believed. They were content to let it continue as long as they were in the minority and we didn’t actually put our beliefs in practice. Well, things have changed. We now feel called to enact the Gosepl we have always believed. It is essentially what the Church has always believed, though we do have our particular interpretation of it, and may be wrong on some or many of those… Read more »